CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING WILLIAM BYRON FORBUSH ..^■:vy'>><.-r>^'.- :.."<.''.\>y •..• ' :<^-i:-i^^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES ■'v. ■ ^ This book is DUE on the last date stamped below lOOHOS nVWi^ON 31V1S saiaoNv SOI t v« CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING BY WILLIAM BYRON FORBUSH President of the American Institute of Child Life Author of "The Boy Problem," "The Life of Jesus," etc NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS JAN f9|y Copyright, 1915 By Charles Scribner's Sons HO. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Child Study Domesticated .... 1 II. Why Parents and Homes are Needed . 11 III. What Complete Parenthood Involves . 19. IV. The Main Periods of Childhood 28 V. The Principal Types of Children . 34 VI. What the Body Has to Do with Character 40 VII. Forces that Make a Man . 47 VIII. Training Children to Observe and Dis criminate 55 IX. Habit-Forming 61 X. The Problems of Obedience 68 XI. Sex Instruction and Discipline 75 XII. The Imagination 85 XIII. Some Problems of the Instincts 93 XIV. Dealing with the Emotions 99 XV. Interest 108 XVI. Will Training . 116 XVII. Play . 123 XVIII. Work . 131 XIX. The Story . 137 XX. Reading .... 145 m IV CHAPTER XXI. XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. CONTENTS PAGE How TO Teach a Child to Pray . . 152 The Bible and the Child .... 158 Sunday 166 Parents' Problems Connected with the Day School 172 Home and School 183 Certain Common Faults of Children . 190 The Home Training of School Children 199 Companionship 208 Amusements and Social Life . . . 214 Money 219 When the Children Become "Young People" 228 Vocational Opportunities .... 235 Vocational Education .... 242 Vocational Guidance 249 The Church and Her Children . . 258 The Goal: Service for the Kingdom . 266 LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS: I. Instances of Misunderstanding and of Being Misunderstood .... 279 II. The Hidden Longings of Childhood . 281 III. The Interests of an Individual Child . 282 IV. School and the Interests of Life . . 282 V. Around the Clock with a Child at Play 284 CONTENTS LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS — Cowimzi^cf VI. A Child's Reading .... VII. Practical Story-Telling VIII. Children's Ideas of Prayer IX. Children's Interest in the Bible X. Persons Who Have Influenced Me XL Crises in a Child's Life Xll. Helping Children in Home Study XIII. Home Discipline as Suggested in the Bible 301 XrV. Religion in the Home XV. The Traces of the Gang XVI. The Vacation Problem XVII. A Survey of a Single School XVIII. The Social Situation in Our High School 309 XIX. The Street Life of Boys XX. What was Going on in Our Town Last Week for Young People? XXL The Motion-Picture Shows in Our Town 312 XXII. Obscene Literature .... XXIII. The S.ocial Evil . . . XXIV. The Saloon and Young People . XXV. Our Playgrounds XXVI. The Public Library and the Children XXVII. The Influence of Civic Beauty upon Young People PAGE 286 287 292 293 295 297 298 302 303 305 306 310 312 314 314 315 316 317 318 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this course of study is to furnish a basis of work for classes interested in child study. The subject of human development from infancy to maturity is being recognized in colleges and among in- telligent people elsewhere as one of the very greatest importance. It is the crown of biology and one of the bases of ethics. With such study is naturally associated investigation into those changes in human development which may be wrought by environment and training. These are of the deepest interest to all who care for the physical, mental, social and moral betterment of mankind. Child study and child training are, therefore, two closely related subjects of study. The methods of study are these. The text gives a few of the commonly accepted facts, with page references to authorities for further reading. Interchange of experience and observation in the class will add to the knowledge of all. The " laboratory " method of directed observation is particularly emphasized during the latter part of the course, when the student has become prepared to do such work wisely. The course is directed definitely toward a wiser parent- hood. Young people today are coming to realize that they are not seriously facing the chief probability of ma- ture life imless they do so with intelligence. Those who are already parents know that they need all the wisdom that is available. Not only students in normal schools, but those outside such institutions who intend to be teach- ers in secular or religious schools are demanding instruc- tion in child study and child training. vu Child Study and Child Training CHAPTER I CHILD STUDY DOMESTICATED What is a Child? A very natural and common answer to this question is, A little adult. It is an easy supposition that a child is like a grown-up human being except that he is less. He is evidently smaller in body, he knows less, he can do less. But we shall discover in this course that the child is not so much less as he is different. The body of a little child, for example, is not only smaller than that of an adult, but its proportions are very different. He not only knows less, but he thinks differently. Tracy compares a child's intellect to that of an adult by comparing a pane of glass to a prism. He has psychical as well as physical traits that are so different from those that he will possess when mature that they resemble those possessed by the lower animals. " Intellectually and morally," as Bolton points out, " he lives in a realm long ago passed over by his parents and teachers," and not only so, but they, in turn, have so completely moulted their childish traits that they would not recognize themselves as they were if an exact reproduction of their own child life could be furnished them. It is this theory that the child is simply a small adult, coupled with the inability of adults to recollect, that ex- plains many established misunderstandings of children. This it was that suggested the theological definition of a child as " a little sinner." This it is that explains the conduct of an ignorant parent who thumps a child into docility, on the ground that he knows as much as the parent does, but is merely obstinate. I 2 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING On the other hand, a child has been defined as "a member of another race who will sometime become a member of oiirs." This is an error in the opposite di- rection. If a child is not wholly a manikin, neither is he wholly an animal. He will, it is true, experience some very remarkable changes before he becomes an adult, but not all of these changes are from the animal to the human. A child of six, for instance, has just as quick insight as a man. The memory powers of eight will never be more extraordinary. One other fact must be mentioned in beginning the investigation which we are about to make concerning child nature. We speak of " the original nature " of a child, by which we mean certain specific reactions which the child would make to specific situations, certain more general tendencies, and certain complex groupings of these tendencies and reactions. These apparently con- stitute the original nature of the child, but in the absence of a human environment no individual child would be- come human as distinguished from " animal." An indi- vidual who has always lived by himself is imbecile. Since we cannot think of the intelligent child apart from his environment, it is evident that we cannot understand the so-called '* original nature " or the disposition of the child apart from what children do in particular environ- ments. " The great illusion of child study," says Coe, " is that inside Billy and Sally there is the child, a thing in itself which, if we could once get at it, would explain Billy and Sally. There prevails a tendency to attribute to original child nature the effects of the child's experience in a particular environment." For example, we have gotten the impression that the nervousness of some ado- lescents, under our high-pressure life, is a universal diffi- culty of adolescence as such. We shall not get a correct understanding of nervousness on the part of the adoles- cent until we learn something about the environment which stimulates it. We must go even further and recog- nize that a child not only cannot be intelligent without an environment, but that it cannot be good without an CHILD STUDY DOMESTICATED 3 environment. His religion is not an individual matter. We are dealing with a religion of social idealism. Child nature, then, is to be defined not by what we can discover about a child momentarily, separate from the world around him, but by the social reactions which children freely make in their environment. Child study, there- fore, involves at least some little study of society. We are evidently not prepared at this stage of our study to define childhood. Any definition now would be deductive and tentative. But we have been warned by our ignorance to consider the next point: The IMPORTA^xE of Child Study When men believed that children were small adults the interest of educators was in perfecting the art of im- parting knowledge rather than in understanding, nour- ishing or unfolding the child. We see already that we shall be very clumsy in imparting any subject of knowl- edge, if we do not understand how a child apprehends it. In the old legend of the missionary society in England that " imparted " warming pans to the Bermudas we are told not only that the natives had no use for them for their designed purpose, but that they did utilize them for their own purpose — namely, as dippers for cane sugar. So when an adult " imparts " what is to him knowledge for a given purpose to a child whom he does not under- stand the child may either not receive it at all or he may quite misuse it. Further, it is quite as likely to turn out that what we teach with the greatest difficulty at one age may be so weU adapted to a later or an earlier stage of development that it would at its proper time be appre- hended with the greatest ease. For example, we have learned through child study that by postponing mathe- matics for several years be^^ond our earlier custom a child will do two or three years' work in the subject in one, while to postpone a speaking acquaintance with foreign languages immensely increases the difficulty in mastering them. We may expect to learn that moral training has also its own laws and seasons. 4 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING The name " Child Study " need not be alarming. It is often associated, it is true, with psycho-physiological laboratories, with pretentious questionnaires and with delicate scientific experiments. But some of the most valuable studies of children have been made by ordinary- parents and teachers. Mrs. W. S. Hall's " One Hun- dred Days in a Baby's Life " was little more than a faith- ful diary kept by a mother of all the activities of her child during his first three months. Dr. James Sulty's " Studies in Childhood " is a volume of considerable scientific value, but the informal " Extracts from a Father's Diary " in the appendix, of fully as much interest, involve no records that might not have been kept by any alert father. Du Bois' " Fireside Child Study " has flashes of keenest insight. There are really four methods of child study, and they are all accessible to the earnest student. One of them, suggested above, is Observation There are a number of great advantages in fireside child study. Not only is the child always natural, because he is unconscious that he is being specially observed, but the opportunity for patient, consecutive, comparative investigation is unparalleled. It is bound to have an intimacy and a human quality that are often lacking in more ambitious but distant efforts. The fact that the observer is inexperienced need not defeat him if he is instructed as to certain precautions which he should take in his study. For instance, his sympathy is not a barrier to knowledge, but rather a help thereto, if it does not de- generate into sentimentality. Candor of observation and accuracy of record are, of course, presupposed. But per- haps the most important single requirement is a definite understanding as to what is being sought. Miscellaneous entries, such as are provided for in the usual " Baby's Book, ' ' are hardly novel or extensive enough to yield any- thing more than souvenirs for pleasant review by the child when he is old enough to read them. Such an CHILD STUDY DOMESTICATED 5 inquiry as the one proposed in the later part of this course, "Around the Clock with a Child at Play," would certainly be of interest even to special students, if the child's sex and exact age were noted, and the essential conditions, and if the observations were measurably com- plete. Two studies in this very field, one recorded by Major and the other by Tracy, have already been of considerable value in letting us know at about what age veritable imaginative play begins in a child's life. There is need for many more such records in this field by a number of observers and at a greater number of ages than those which have so far been studied. The whole realm of life between the years of eight and twelve, with its interests of play, experiment and work, its ideas and ideals and its ruling motives, is largely an unfilled field. Infancy and adolescence have occupied attention to such a degree that these important years have remained com- paratively unstudied. They are years during which we very much need testimony, and they are years, too, when the child, stiU much of his time in and about the home, may be easily and thoughtfully observed. At every age, and especially during adolescence, we are in want of wisdom as to what is going on in the lives of young people of the so-called choleric temperament. We find that those of the sanguine and sentimental types are fond of self-expression, and we suspect that we have tried to interpret the whole of childhood by their partial witness. These illustrations indicate just a few places where the home student would not be merely tolerated but heartily welcomed by the professional student of childhood. Observations b}^ a group of students focussed upon a single topic of inquir^^ are also of considerable value. Their value of course depends upon how representative they are and how abundant upon an}^ one topic or period. But any group of persons using this textbook might easily concentrate its observations for a time upon an age or a problem that would yield comparative results. Such a group could, with the co-operation of a teacher, make a united study of the interests in a single public schoolroom. 6 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING They could get a kind of moral census of the attitude of boys and of girls of the same grade of development in the community upon some given matter. Observations that have already been made are on rec- ord, and are useful to confirm or compare with original studies that may be made by an individual or a group. It is best not to refer to such records until one's own study is well under way, and then to be certain of accuracy of method rather than of the character of the result, for any study to be worth while should be independent and uninfluenced by supposed probabilities. Kirkpatrick's "The Individual in the Making" contains many such records upon the very subjects likely to be interesting to the beginning student. Earl Barnes' " Studies in Education " would be suggestive in helping one to tmdertake study in fields parallel to but not identical with one's own. A second method of study is by Reminiscence Memory is, of course, not so accurate as present ob- servation, but it is a help in confirming what one sees, and it is perhaps the most useful of all methods for getting the large view of things. The father who has not for- gotten what he was like when he was a boy is most ad- mirably fitted to interpret the on-coming traits in his own son. The mother who has retained the diary of her girlhood has an unexpected use for it when she brings up her daughter. It is most wholesome for the parent who is certain that his child is an unexampled problem to visit his own father or mother and be assured that he himself exemplified as a boy the most undesirable traits now noticeable in his child. The conjunct memory of a group is even more service- able. If the subject of discussion in a group be, for example, the social amusements of the young, what they all remember of their youthful desires, of the attitudes assumed by their own parents, of the position of the church, of the resources of a generation ago, would • CHILD STUDY DOMESTICATED 7 make a splendid background for realizing the present-day vSituation. The endeavor to study childhood by means of reminis- cence of states of mind or of conduct, by collecting large masses of memor^^-records through questionnaires, was carried to great lengths some years ago at Clark University and elsewhere. The value of the results of this census method must evidently depend upon the ability of the questioner so to shape his questions and to analyze his answers as not to communicate his own predilections to the study, upon both the temperament, the candor and the intelligence of the answerers, and upon certain limita- tions of the method itself as a way of getting at facts. Memories that have made their record in literature give confirmatory aid. Old diaries and bundles of old letters, the printed diaries of people of the past, the autobiogra- phies of such persons as Marie Bashkirtseff, Leo Tolstoi and Richard Jefferies, and the half-veiled memories in such fiction as " David Copperfield," " Little Women " and " The One I Knew the Best of All " are all useful. Many a parent has happened in such literature upon the explanation of a phenomenon in his child's life that other- wise would not have been made plain to him. A third method, treacherous but tempting, is that of literary rather than scholastic interpretation. Literary Interpretation The poets and the artists have blessed us here. From them we have some of the most exquisite and suggestive interpretations of child life. Among the best in poetry are those of Stevenson, Riley, Field and Whittier; among those in story are the ones by Kenneth Grahame, William Canton, Myra Kelly, Booth Tarkington and James Hopper; in imaginative prose we have those of Walter Pater and Mrs. Alice Meynell; in art there are Israels, de Hooch, Le Brun, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Jessie Willcox Smith. Many of us have children whose char- acters, wistful, dumbly affectionate, solitary or exuberant, have already been painted to the life in literature. Cer- 8 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING tainly no one could fail to be more gentle with a lad if his prototype had been recognized in " The Child in the House." Real boys have had an easier time everywhere since " Penrod " was published. Worthy to be classed with the interpretations in htera- ture is the vision vouchsafed to parental love. It is poetic, for it sees the deeper meanings of the commonplace and ugly ; it is prophetic, for it beHeves in the unfolded blossom when it sees only the enfolded bud. Above, such interpretation was said to be treacherous. Pure insight is not treacherous, only the clouded vision. "If thine eye be single it shall be full of Hght." It helps the power of literary interpretation if it be absolutely true to memory and experience. IMark Twain's " Tom Sawyer " is marred by its dime-novel sensationalism of adventure. Ik Marvel's " Reveries of a Bachelor " is defective because of its adult sentimentalit}' imputed to wholesome child life. In the home, too, an indolent will- ingness to see only the pleasant is a different thing from an active trust in the inherent tendency of a boy to good. Family pride, unaided by an honest desire to know, is blindness itself. The best mother is the one who can be grieved but cannot be fooled. Some typical literary interpretations are these: Stevenson: "A Child's Garden of Verse." Riley: " Af ten\'hiles. " Field: "With Trumpet and Drum." Whittier: "Snow Bound." Grahame :" Dream Days. " Can- ton: " The Invisible Pla\Tnate," and " W. V., Her Book." Kelly: " Little Citizens." Tarkington:" " Penrod." Hopper: " A Thief in the Night, and Other Stories." Pater: " The Child in the House." Aleynell: " The Children." Hunt: "Una Mary." We still have left what we call Scholarly Study All child study should be scientific as far as it goes, but scholars have the privilege of collating observations, of sifting reminiscences, of analyzing literary interpretations, and further of applying scientific methods and engaging in long-continued and far-reaching investigations that are beyond the reach of the amateur. Baldwin, for example, has devised ingenious tests to measure the distance and CHILD STUDY DOMESTICATED 9 color perception of infants, Binet-Simon and others have worked out methods of measuring what is called psycho- logical as distinct from physiological age, and Thomson has told the world more of the limits of heredity. Child study became an educational fad so soon that hasty sum- maries and statements were put forth in fields where thorough research has revised supposed facts and upset early inferences. In no department of study are scientific methods more needed, and of these especially the open mind, the analytic comparison and the suspended judg- ment. What is here said should encourage the beginning stu- dent in his work. Many things in life and in literature have already been equipping us for our task. Material for observation and experiment is more abundant than in almost any other line of scientific research. What we ourselves, together or separately, see and remember about children is child study, and may be made child study of serious value. The student who throughout this course will retain at least one habit, that of observing freshly, is bound to do good w^ork. No task in child study has yet been so thoroughly or accurately done that something new may not be learned. And in the case of the individual child he is so seldom in last month's state of mind that he may ever be regarded as a fresh subject of investigation. The modem student of this fascinating theme is one of a company of eager and expectant investigators. The re- ward of investigation may be addition to the sum of human knowledge ; it is sure to be an added personal knowledge of human nature in its sweetest and most impressible years and an added power to help work desirable changes in plastic human material. Reading References An excellent outline of cluld development, with suggestions for methods of observation, will be found in Baldwin: " Story of the Mind," IV. The true spirit of the student of childhood is suggested in the introduction of Sully: " Studies of Childhood." Methods of observation are carefully outlined in Kirkpatrick: " Fundamentals of Child Study," XVIII; also in a chapter of Drummond's outline on child study: " How to Study a Baby." A classical chapter upon the use of sympathetic observation in the 10 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING training of children is in Dubois: " Beckonings from Little Hands," under the title " The Fire Builders." A charming approach to childhood through literature is in the first two chapters of Mrs. MeyneU's " The Children," under the title " Fellow Travelers with a Bird." An excellent way to note the contrast of the sentimental and the realistic attitude would be to read at random any chapter in Williarn Canton's " W. V., Her Book," and Booth Tarkington's " Penrod." CHAPTER II WHY PARENTS AND HOMES ARE NEEDED The Meaning of Infancy It seems strange that human children, the only infant beings capable of being really educated and of attaining such an individuality that they are the sole living creatures whose actions are not predictable, should nevertheless be bom the most helpless of all creatures. A baby cannot seek food, cannot feed himself, does not know food from poison, cannot keep clean, cannot change his position in any voluntary direction, and would certainly perish if, from the start, he were not fed, cleansed and exercised by other hands. The lengthening of infancy in human children is im- portant in at least three wa^^s: First, these years when the brain is plastic and the child is meeting and mastering a multitude of preliminary experiences give the opportunity for the child to develop individuality. Animals have little, if any, individuality. Given the circumstances and the naturalist can predict what the animal will do tmder the influence of those circumstances. The animal has had no plastic period. He has entered at once upon his race heritage and does just what his instincts impel him to do. But the child has a long period of plasticity, dur- ing which he reacts to his environment as well as to his race heritage, and as his environment is different from that of any other child he develops a different nature from any other child. His mind is not merely passive either; it is alert, eager and accretive. Out of pretty much the same environment which another child has he will shape something different, for he is already potentially indi- vidual. Second, during his lengthened and protected infancy his present environment prepares him for adjustment to 11 12 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TR.\INING a larger environment which is to come. In play, for example, he meets many of the situations and utilizes most of the faculties which he will meet and use in his work, when he is mature. So infancy is the " school of the soldier " which gives the hardihood, practice and initiative needed in life's more earnest conflicts. Marvel- lous as are the instinctive adaptations in the animal world, they are not measurably greater when the animal is large than when he is small, and he has no power of making any adaptations that are not instinctive. Kinnaman's mon- keys in the Clark University laboratory learned by practice the manipulation of door-latches which for a moment baffled G. Stanley Hall, but they had soon reached their limit, while President Hall not only traversed in a few minutes a gamut of skill as great as that which they had acquired in several days, but was able to do what none of the monkeys could do, — invent new combinations. Then he still had initiative left for further solutions and invention, if desired. Third, prolonged human infancy gives the opportunity not only for meeting new environments with abundant powers of adjustment, but for extra-instinctive (i.e., educated) methods of dealing with further experience. President Hall would probably explain his rather remark- able agility with the door-latches as the result of his boy- hood experiences on a Berkshire farm, where he had, as he has recorded in an interesting paper, some elementary practice in at least a score of manual arts. No animal would profit by such a tutelage. In spite of all claims that have been made as to the ability of educated horses and dogs to reason, there is no clear evidence that any of them perform what is beyond the capability of others of their kind except as they tread the pathways of induced habits, under the dominance of the will and reason of their masters. And none of them ever uses any trick that he has learned in solving any very new situation. But the child is educable. Even a baby a year old per- forms experiments when he is alone. He stretches after the ball that is beyond his reach and so learns to creep. WHY PARENTS AND HOMES ARE NEEDED 13 After he has learned to stand he reaches for something else^that is outside his radius, and so learns to walk. He not 'only learns words, but he performs the miracle of composing simple sentences. Children still too young to master their parents' language have been known to invent a language of their own for their mutual and exclusive use. Many illustrations of this sort will suggest them- selves to the reader. But the essential thing to remember here is that it is because the child is granted time and is capable of taking advantage of time, to imitate, to learn and to experiment, that his infancy is a most significant fact. One of our unanswerable colloquialisms is, " What is time to a hen? " But time, added to capacity, and assisted by an educative environment, is everything to a child. The Need of Parents We can see at once, therefore, at least two uses for parents and homes: the ver>^ existence and the training of a human child to any measure of its possibilities de- pend upon such shelter and niu-ture. Two somewhat well-known facts illustrate these two points. One is that, even in the best conducted orphanages an enormous pro- portion of the babies under one year old die, and for no other reason than that there seems to be no substitute for the assiduous attention, nestling and cradling of a baby by its mother. The other is that when orphans are a little older and remain in custody they show little human intelligence, lacking the very tools of learning. It would seem impossible to exaggerate the importance of home education during the years between one and four. " The importance of what is learned in the ordi- nary home," says Kirkpatrick, " is suggested by the fol- lowing notes taken from Miss Munro's account of a child taken from an institution at three years of age. She could talk very little, but could understand a number of words. The attendant had no time to talk with her, but only to tell her what to do. She had no idea of family relations, ' mamma ' meaning any of the nurses. Little 14 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING . had happened to her, except to be fed, washed and dressed, and she had no idea of the individual ownership of any- thing, not even of clothes. The most she knew was how to care for babies, learned by seeing and imitating the nurses. She had no idea of a doll, dog, cat or pictures and did not know she could not walk on water. She knew nothing of colors and could not learn to discriminate and match them for a long time. She used the sense of touch a great deal. She distinguished very imperfectly between imaginings and real experiences. She was a bright child, but knew so little that the family concluded that children in a home must learn more in the first three years than in any other period of the same length. This is, therefore, pre-eminently the period in which the mould- ing influences of the home have most complete sway." And only second in importance to the need of intelligent and loving nurture is the need of adequate privacy, shelter and a stimulating environment. A child could not be brought up wisely in the ward of an institution even if there were a mother present for every child. Quietness, leisure and a chance for meditation and review are essen- tial to the child, so easily over-excited and over-stimu- lated. A modem child could not be trained to good advantage, no matter how attentive were his parents, if he had no shelter for sleep, warmth and the comfortable taking of food. An environment means " things," things to touch and handle, things to see and hear, things to pull apart, put together and make changes with. A cave-home was almost bare of things. The most modest modem equipment for housekeeping includes, in the tools for cooking and cleaning, in the very, scraps and fragments that are about, educative materials whose value every young child appreciates, even if his mother does not. Infancy the Unifier of the Family It sometimes is claimed that woman's right to political government is certified by the fact that human tribes were once governed by mother chiefs (matriarchates). WHY PARENTS AND HOMES ARE NEEDED 15 Others oppose this argument. What we know of early human history convinces us that neither is right, since even before the era of tribal governments, human homes were organized and virtually governed by the babies! It was their demand for quiet that caused their nomad fathers and mothers to seek permanent abiding-places, and it was their wish to sleep that caused the first curtains to be hung in cave-mouths and thus provided that privacy which not only, as we have said, was needful for the child's recuperation, but which turned a mere sleeping- place into a home sanctuary. The birth of a baby has always reacted strongly upon the relations of a father and mother to each other. It has tended to make per- manent a bond which may have been thought of as casual or temporary. As the child by his demands upon either parent forced him perhaps for the first time to a large unselfishness, so the mutual bearing of sacrifices and serv- ice tended to endear the parents to each other. In all times, too, the agony of child-bearing and the utter devotion of motherhood have given man a different view- point of woman; he has come to see that not only her hiimanity but also his own enfolds spiritual as well as fleshly possibilities. We see, then, that not only are homes needful for babies, but that the baby in a very true historic sense has been the maker of the home. Babies, too, were the builders of society. Their exis- tence, helplessness and needs became a strong argument for clan and tribal confederacies, for truces and treaties of peace, for a quiet and ordered community life. And even when battles were fought men engaged in them not for rapine, but to defend their own fireplaces and to furnish larger resources for their children. The so-called economic causes of war are not wholly avarice and ma- terialism; they are partly the struggle for domestic pros- perity for the sake of the rising generation. Wasteful though we now know wars to be, we do not deny them every element of idealism or refuse to confess that the 16 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING slogan " For our Fatherland " has had in some cases a real concern for the fireside and children. It is interesting to note how closely reHgion, the great- est unifier of men, has been related to the home. Among all peoples we find the gods of hearth-fire and threshold. Trumbull even argued that the threshold was the first altar. We are familiar with the Lares and Penates of the Romans, and in modem China the paper divinities who watch each year the doings of those who dwell within the walls of the house. Some form of family worship is one of earth's oldest institutions, and the early covenants and oaths of the young were sealed in the presence of their parents before the household altar. Those who come to us from the ancient rcHgious cults of the Far East are more amazed than by anything else in our so-called Christian house- holds to learn that we have no shrines, no family acts of reverence, no family unison of parents and children m recognition of the divine. The Family in the Scriptures It is interesting to find traces of all the facts that have been noted above in the Scriptures. There is in both Testaments a recognition of the physical, intellectual and reUgious solidarity of the family that is so absolute as to indicate that the Hebrews were a race among which such recognition had been of the greatest antiquity. The transcriptions which have come down of the national code speak of such a dependence of children upon parents that parents may properly be punished for the disorders of their offspring, while the death penalty is mentioned as fitting to a child who dishonors his parents. What- ever may have been the dominant sex in early Syrian political life, it is singular to note how much is said m the Old Testament about the parental duty of fathers and how Httle about the parental duty of mothers. Even m the eulogy upon the capable woman m the last chapter ot the Book of Proverbs, her function as a provider and conserver is emphasized and Httle is said about her duty WHY PARENTS AND HOMES ARE NEEDED 17 as the governor of her children. Apparently it was understood that this had been attended to by their father. The Biblical teachings about the Fatherhood of God are not appreciated in their full significance until we enter freely into the Scriptural conception of the full functions of human fatherhood. There is not room here to enter upon the vexed subject of divorce, but we may at least say this, that the atti- tude of Jesus, based upon the principles of his race, shows in its very austerity the belief that the welfare of children was the chief thing to consider in the separation of parents and the consequent breaking up of homes. We cannot understand completely Jesus' idea of the Kingdom of God unless we know clearly the idea of the divine family out of which it sprung. Scholars are agreed that the family relation with God, which the Hebrews held as both a patriotism and a religion and which began in the prophets to be described by the figure of the Kingdom, was taken over by Jesus and illuminated. Indeed, the Sonship idea is preferred to that of the King- dom in the writings that bear the name of John. So when Jesus said that " of such " as children is the King- dom of Heaven, He must have meant not only that the citizens of that Kingdom must be childlike, but that the Kingdom actually consists in part of children, and His attitude in blessing them implies an essential care that they be regarded as the particular concern of all men who are really loyal to that Kingdom. It would not be too much to say that Jesus, in that startling way in which he so often forecasts what we think of as our best modem scholarship and wisdom, put an evolutionary emphasis upon childhood and would have been willing to grant that in a true sense mature humanity still exists on sufferance, its way or aim being the safety and nurture of those who constitute the Kingdom-to-be, Reading References For a full mastery of Fiske's contribution to our conception of the value of infancy, read his " Destiny of Alan," IV and VI. The same material is reprinted in the Riverside Educational Monographs as " The Meaning of 18 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Infancy." Fiske's theory is also summarized in Butler: " The Meaning of Education," 3-34, and Kirkpatrick's " Fundamentals of Child Study," 3-7. For a more thorough study of the functions of the family, see Thwing: " The Family," VI-X. For an even more extended study, turn to Wester- marck: " The History of Human Marriage." To make a study of the Scriptural view of marriage, search the refer- ences in the larger Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible under the word " Family." CHAPTER III WHAT COMPLETE PARENTHOOD INVOLVES The Abiding Functions of the Home It has been frequently customary among Christian people of New England ancestry to compare the family status in the good old days of the Puritans with that which commonly exists at present. Such comparisons are dangerous, because they usually tend to idealize the methods and results of the olden time and to depreciate the average situation of the present. In the primitive conditions in the colonies the father was no doubt forced to be both priest and teacher in his own household, as he has not the time nor the ability nor, it must be confessed, the need to be today. We may acknowledge, too, that there is an over-readiness now to relegate the priestly function of parenthood to the church and the teaching function to the school. Nevertheless there remain certain fixed values, which circumstances and even such relega- tions have not materially changed. The home remains the place where most of the personal habits are formed. A school teacher not only learns to judge a given home by the kind of child who comes from that home, but she recognizes the limitations of the possi- bility of either neutralizing or lessening the influence of that home. Consequently the ideals, which in childhood are formed almost entirely through imitation, must be created largely in the home. The limitations here are not so absolute, since we think of the idealistic period as coming in adolesr cence, when the youth has to some extent become emanci- pated from constant companionship with and subservience to his parents. A lad may meet a teacher or a friend during these impressionable years who represents a level of Hfe which inspires him to step out entirely from the low 19 20 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING content of his own household. But this is unusual, and where the home ideals are of the highest it is undesirable. What brings back the prodigal seems to be both the lengthening chain of habit and the conquering power of the home ideals. These avail especially when in the far country he begins to be in want. The home, then, cannot delegate its task. It must not expect the school to alter materially the child's personal habits, and it must not expect the church to revolutionize his ideals. The impressionable child will accept these from the persons with whom he is most frequently placed In the home these may be the servants rather than the parents, if the parents leave the child to the servants. In such a case he will have the servants' habits and ideals. The Joys of Parenthood Particular joys of parenthood have been sung, but they have not often been seen together. There is first the general and constant joy, after chil- dren have come to a home, that they furnish completeness to the home life. Childless persons dimly know that they live too much with their own generation, that they tend to perpetuate the arid ways of spinsterhood and bachelor- hood, that they impinge too roughly upon each other's personalities without any soft buffers or distractions between, and that they grow selfish and self-indulgent. Children restore the home to its ancient function. It becomes at once child-concentric and not adult-concentric. Other-regarding acts become constantly obligatory as well as delightful. Anxiety and necessity combine to keep the parents busy in mutual service of the third, small and helpless individual. That which was the quiet shelter of two self-contained persons now becomes a community, newly related to its members, calling forth talents never before occupied and developing others that were dormant, and related to the outer world, as never before, of physicians, nurses, other parents, neighbors, and at length of teachers, playmates and chums. The scratched furniture, the cradle, the porch hammock, the WHAT COMPLETE PARENTHOOD INVOLVES 21 sand-pile in the back yard are not so ornamental as was the well-kept house of two, but all these are simply the parable of lives to whom material things are no longer worshipped as fetishes, but are being used as the tools of life. There was a still joy in quiet, sober pleasures, intel- lectual repose, but the child brings the larger and more exuberant joys of play, fellowship, avidness of life and strenuous and even stormy living. Each period of childhood brings its own special joys to parental life. The hour of the annunciation has been to many a young man and woman the first sacred con- tact with reality. The months of waiting are the first experience in meeting a situation which one's own will and efficiency are powerless to control. They represent a veri- table waiting upon the fates. The day of birth is the most poignant single experience which man or woman ever faces. Its happy culmination is life's most solemn joy. The pathway of growi;h along which a yoimg child passes is even to the most imobservant an unbelievable path of light. Adolescence, which has become almost a cant word, is, in fact, the Golden Age. It is followed by a few years, too few, of real companionship with the maturing man. Then comes the excitement of parting, for college, for new fields of work, for a new home, and then the living of life over again in our children's children. The loveliness of children themselves, even more than the miracle of their unfoldment, is a parental joy. They are in babyhood, as Airs. Alice Me3'nell has reminded us, the only living creatures that can literally be compared to flowers. " Those small school-going people of the dawn " with their awakening intelligence and powers of speech are at once God's greatest miracle and his choicest piece of humor. The long-legged, loud-lunged years are not apparently so lovable, and have therefore escaped study and appreciation, yet one must grant that their irresponsible happiness makes them enviable. The gusty years of youth often exasperate, but never does a parent pierce to the heart of some idealism which underlay what seemed a foolish deed of vanity or a crazy one of adventixre 22 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING without recognizing that he is dealing with a fairy queen or a young troubadour, feeling himself immeasurably old. So that it would be hard to say which age is most fascinat- ing, since all are so lovely. There is also the joy of spiritual parenthood, possible to those who never have " children of their own," the sense of sharing the universal parenthood and of knowing one's office to be a public trust. The Duties and Responsibilities Did all the duties and responsibilities of parents come at once, the situation would no doubt be insupportable. The specific duties of parents are suggested in each chapter of this study which names a fresh problem. A summary of these duties may be helpful here. There are the duties which have to do with the physical life of the children. Those which have to do with the physical dependence and the hygiene of childhood are mentioned in Chapter VI. Those which pertain to the sex life are considered in Chapter XL There are the duties which concern the mental life. These are not merely the problems of formal and school education (considered in certain later chapters) but those relating to sense perception, the training of the imagina- tion and the training of the will, which will be discussed in Chapters VIII, XII and XVI. The home in a true sense makes intellectually the child with whom later the school has to do. The social life of the child takes its form in his first social group, the family. Not merely his manners, but his attitude, his generosity or selfishness, his out-looking or in-looking disposition are largely fixed before he goes into outer society. While we shall study in special chapters the moral and religious training of children, and especially consider the relation of the church to such training, we must realize early in our study that all training is moral training, and that each week's study has some special moral implication in the life of growing children. WHAT COAIPLETE PARENTHOOD INVOLVES 23 Behind this fourfold task there is a still deeper re- sponsibility. If our work were only that of physical care, mother-love assisted by some general knowledge of hy- giene and nursing might be enough. If it were only that of intellectual training, mere knowledge might suffice. But an all-round task requires all-round qualities in the doer of it. To love we must add knowledge and to knowl- edge wisdom and to wisdom patience. All that we want our child to become * ' must in our own hearts first keep school." The present topic of study is mightily essential, but the study of it must be a study involving feeling and will as well as intelligence. The Function of Motherhood We cannot, of course, dismiss in a sentence the mani- fold work of a mother. It is helpful, however, to think that she is, not only physically but mentally and morally, the life-bearer. That is, she is the conserv^er. Being for a number of years, and those the most impressible years of life, the child's constant companion and almost his only teacher, it is she who trains his earliest sense perceptions, who tutors his first attempts at expression through speech, who arranges the materials for his successive appercep- tions, who exercises his memory and who furnishes him with the first tools of learning. From her he learns the technique of living, his personal habits, human legends and the human story. She interprets his first fears and wonders and mediates his first religious feeHngs. The mother's most noticeable gifts are given early, since she is the almost sole personal influence during the nursery days and the predominant influence until at least the twelfth year. Because of the enduring character of early impressions, her contribution increases with com- pound interest. After her physical authority diminishes, her intellectual and moral influence should be more strongly felt. From this point the service of an individual mother depends upon herself. When the child matures to the friendship-making years her contact and power 24 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING depend very much upon her ability to be the companion of her children. There is nothing magical about mother- hood per se that enables a mother who is not intelligent to be an intellectual influence, although even her unsatis- fied strivings often communicate the zest for learning to her offspring. Her moral influence, too, must ultimately rest in what she is and not in what she adjures her children to be. The Function of Fatherhood The world is just beginning to discover fatherhood. We are commencing to see that a clean inheritance does not exhaust the possibilities of paternal bestowing. The father is the life-giver. He particularly expresses the masculine standpoint to his children, and from the wider sphere in which he usually moves he should be able to do much to interpret to them the human world while the mother is interpreting to them their personal relations. If not absolutely exhausted by his day's work he should be able to bring a certain breeziness into the nursery and there to supplement (to " spell," as we say in New England) his wife in her daily task of play and work. He ought to be a practicing as well as a consulting parent. In many homes — but this may depend upon the indi- vidual characters of the father and mother — the father is the court of appeals. In him inheres a certain authority, perhaps because of his masculine strength, and a certain heroic quality with which the mother enhaloes him to the children. It does not imply that women are intellectually inferior when we find a special potency in fatherhood during adolescence. To the daughter, father is her first lover; to the son, he should be the first hero. The possible wholesomeness of a close and anxious watch-care of girls during these years by their fathers is obvious. The duty of fathers to step in with redoubled earnestness when it becomes time to interpret to growing boys passions and experiences which their mothers cannot so well understand is even more urgent. WHAT COMPLETE PARENTHOOD INVOLVES 25 When children come to maturity it is hard to say if there is any essential difference between the influence of either parent in their lives. No doubt we are judged as well as loved by our grown-up sons and daughters and maintain our helpfulness by real winsomeness and worth. No doubt, too, where a marriage is characterized by tender and ripened affection, the spectacle is wholesomely influential to youth and the intertwined lives speak as one. Preparation for Parenthood Even the little that has been said impresses us that parenthood should be distinctly a skilled profession. The material with which parents work is complex, plastic and full of imforeseen potentialities. If children are to be wisely trained, they will not happen so, but parents need to see clearly what they want their children to be- come and to know how^ to work clearly and wisely to the desired end. And this art, like all other great ones, has its spirit as well as its technique. There is the need of physical fitness. Some persons have no right to beget or conceive children. We will not go into the infections and diseases which make this true. It is more generally important to impress upon young peo- ple that their malang the most of the physical life and the avoidance of overstrain or debilitating habits or excesses is not to be so much for the sake of athletic prowess or enhanced joy in living as for the sake of the next genera- tion. There is the need of intellectual preparation. It yet seems strange that this business with which three-fourths of all men and women are to concern themselves for the majority of their years should almost nowhere be a topic of study in the schoolroom. Experiments that are being made show that it is possible both in the public schools "and in college to teach without embarrassment and with enthusiastic response the art of home-making and the elements of the care of children. There is also the need of spiritual preparation. The 26 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING world must be taught to desire children. Even poetry is comparatively silent, though it sings of flowers and women, in the praise of those who are more lovely than either. Somehow into our religious education there must be brought the viewpoint that shall communicate to young people the sweet and chaste anticipation of parenthood. The Rights of a Child The whole function of parenthood is not seen unless we know what are the rights of a child. They are briefly three : to be loved, to be understood, to be educated. An unloving intelligence will tend to make a child an automaton. A non-understanding love will tend to make him a selfish brute. An uneducated child has been robbed of his rightful inheritance. Summary What then does complete parenthood involve ? It involves preparation. All who ever become parents should have sound bodies and good constitutions and nervous vitality siiiflcient to guarantee reasonable poise and self-mastery; they should have some knowledge of childhood and of the arts of home-making and child- training; they should be ready reverently and joyfully to accept their task. It involves responsibility. The home still has the abiding function of shaping largely the child's habits and ideals. Mothers and fathers have particular and reciprocal duties. It involves great joys. Children give parents more than they take from them. Only in some sort of parent- hood, natural or spiritual, does man attain his highest social and spiritual experiences. Reading References Read further in Thwing: " The Family," XI. For pleasant and helpful discussions of the separate functions of moth- ers and fathers, sec Hodge: " The Happy Family," 17-40; Martin: " The Luxury of Children," 55-71, and Lyman Abbott's " The Home Builder," WHAT COMPLETE PARENTHOOD INVOLVES 27 43-58. A more scientific discussion of the functions of parenthood is found in Drummond's ' The Ascent of Man," VIII, IX. For an introduction to eugenics, read Davenport's smaller work, " Eu- genics," hardly more than a pamphlet. For a fuller discussion, turn to " Eugenics: Twelve University Lectures," written by as many university professors, published by Dodd, Mead & Co. A helpful book on the prac- tical side of home-making is Bruere's " Increasing Home Efficiency." CHAPTER IV THE MAIN PERIODS OF CHILDHOOD Childhood has been divided by students into from seven to ten short periods, but such fine and detailed distinctions may tend to obscure the large, main currents of development. We will, therefore, name but three: infancy and childhood, birth to eight years inclusive ; boy- hood and girlhood, nine to twelve years inclusive; adoles- cence, thirteen to maturity (with boys, fourteen or over to maturity). Infancy and Childhood The child is a bundle of instincts. These instincts impel him to the greatest physical activity. Through his activities he first gets control of his own bodily move- ments and then annexes the exterior world. The instinct of curiosity especially enables him to question by word and experiment, to find out the causes and secrets of everything around him. His senses become the means of search and his muscles the agents for finding out. By the fourth year, curiosity expresses itself in running away and in gathering collections, mostly of trivial objects. Imitation leads him still further to discover, as by confi- dently following the examples of others he attains the certainty of their own experiences. The play instinct, which occupies most of a young child's waking hours, draws him strongly into imitation as he plays out adult activities. He first imitates acts, then ideas, and at length learns how to adapt the acts of adults to play ideas of his own. The young child's disorderly and unorganized ^impulses would lead him into peril were it not for his trust and docility. In response to loving firmness he makes obedience his law and this habit leads him into many other wholesome personal habits which are suggested by parental 28 THE MAIN PERIODS OF CHILDHOOD 29 authority. Self-assertion is prominent in the third year, but a real detachment of his personality from that of his parents, with the manifestation of conscious selfishness and genuine rebellion, is common between five and six. As to the specific attainments of the child, his first year is spent chiefly in controlling his limbs and his posture and in beginning the exercise of locomotion. During the second year there is some command of speech, the begin- ning of a vocabulary and transitory memor}^ The child recognizes pictures and colors and shows a sense of rhythm and tune. During the third year, sentence-making is possible, voluntary recollection appears and there is distinct power of inhibition. The fourth to the sixth years find the child able to read a little and to write and to pick up some foreign phrases. The third year had been characterized by fears due to the quickening of the imagination. Interest in fairy stories began. During the fourth to the sixth years, imagination is even more active, but now takes the creative turn, and the child engages constantly in dramatic imitation in his play. He can now, to a considerable extent, separate truth from make-believe, and is capable of real truth-telling. Socially, there is a development also. During the first year the child is stimulated by what people do but does not care what they say or think. In the third 3^ear a distinct desire for approval is manifest. Before he is six he likes companions, but, unless he is already used to them in his own home, he plays with them somewhat stormily. Before the fourth year the child gets his knowledge of right and wrong solely by imitation. To him, what brings approval is right; what does not, is wrong. Before he is six he is capable of some moral judgment, but his virtues consist chiefly in such routine ones as tidiness, politeness, patience, doing things at command, with some measure of genuine kindliness. Joy is a specially vital power during the last two years of this period. 30 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TR.\INING Boyhood and Girlhood The instincts are still centrally active, and their physi- cal expression is still constant, though not quite as lively as before. The child's increased power of locomotion now leads him farther afield and he plays out of doors more and has a much wider range of experience. Toward the close of this period he seeks companions constantly and begins to play more or less steadily and peaceably with a selected group, but in general his play continues to be strongly individualistic. Games involving an in- creasing element of skill, handicraft and organization gradually supplant free play. These follow imitative, dramatic and constructive lines until the boy begins the great field games of baseball and football, which are really highly educative, though he does not know it. During these years, children who live in communities generally pass through most of the common infections. There is also a frequent physical setback between eight and nine, but toward the last of the period children usually manifest a sturdy, solid physical gro\^i:h. By the tenth year girls become a year more mature physically than boys. Their play never becomes as strenuous as that of boys, and soon, largely because of adult influence, they become spectators rather than actors. The memory develops and becomes extraordinarily tenacious, the senses are alert and their perceptions are still sensitive to training, the emotions are free and un- controlled and the imagination revels first in the realms of fairy stories and wonder tales and later in stories of human adventure. The child lives in the present, is frank and confidential and talkative, and should by this time have the habit of obedience. As to specific attainments, a child is usually capable of learning a language by eight and can often sing and read at sight at about the same age. He is interested by this time in collections, pets, exploring and the functions of his own body. The growing interest in handicraft may bring him by the last of this period to considerable proficiency THE MAIN PERIODS OF CHILDHOOD 31 in such activities as drawing, printing and embroidery. Practical interests are characteristic between ten and twelve. After a period of discouragement during the physical setback, he develops a keen love of fun and usually before the close of the period is living life with the deepest intensity, quite self -regarding, often with a delight in teasing and bullying, beginning to be suscep- tible to evil, yet having an encouraging increase of respect for law and authority. If we have trained his preferences wisely in the first part of this era they should become protective to him against moral and social offences during the latter part. He is credulous as to religious matters and takes them as a matter of course into his consciousness. He is not capable of certain adult types of sorrow for sin, but he is developing in self -consciousness and toward the end of the period he may show a greatly increased sense of personal responsibility. Adolescence Into this interesting and critical stage girls come at least a year before boys. Its approach is heralded by unmistakable ph^^sical signs — very rapid growi;h, awk- wardness, increase of heart, lungs and large arteries, groTN^th of muscles, need for more sleep and food; later there is a general broadenmg out, and the coming of the changes which constitute masculine and feminine matur- ity. Gro'\Ai:h is fitful as well as rapid and tends to be followed by seasons of languor before another influx of Hfe. There is now a series of avid and undiscriminating enthusiasms, partly for new subjects of learning, partly for new kinds of experience. The senses become much more acute and the physical world takes on a new beauty, the emotions are easily stirred and the youth enjoys their intoxication. The imagination turns inward more and the youth idealizes himself, dreams of what he can do and adventure, and loves to see himself in heroic situations with many admirers in the audience. Personal ambition 32 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING awakens, and while it meets some disillusions as the yoimg person finds he is still not yet equal to his en- deavors, it grows stronger and soberer as he draws near the choice of a vocation. The social consciousness strongly awakens and social organizations of young people with those of their own sex become almost universal. Real team play succeeds individualism and athletic games take the place of free play. A sentiment for the other sex is felt by girls earlier than by boys, but until it arouses in boys there is a certain repulsion between the sexes. The shy and romantic interest of boys is succeeded by active seeking and finally by a hearty social life between the sexes. Interest in personal adornment is keen. At this stage the boy or girl is likely to forsake the gang to some extent in favor of the chum. Groups of boys' and girls' gangs — " our crowd," as it is called — are common. Team play in games is now complete. Group games are character- istic. Individualism is now rampant. Affectations appear. The mind, restless and full of energy, begins to be inde- pendent. Often there is a revulsion against the home, stubbornness and reticence and unwillingness to be commanded. Secretiveness is common and a consequent feeling of loneliness. There are varying moods, a sense of misunderstanding and of being misunderstood, and crav- ing for sympathy. The wanderlust may drive the boy in his search for fresh experiences even to forsake his home and become a vagabond traveller or worker. Inter- est in vocation sometimes comes as early as fifteen. A period of genuine intellectual doubt, if it comes, appears late, perhaps at about eighteen. The enhanced feeling-life, the sense of having something to settle and the consciousness of complete personal re- sponsibility constitute a definite crisis-element not uni- versal but very common somewhere between thirteen and sixteen. Religious conversions most commonly occur at this time. The acme of juvenile crime is at the same period. Occasions of failure and shame are now especially THE MAIN PERIODS OF CHILDHOOD 33 epoch-making. New light upon nature, duty, vocation is now particularly effective in character-forming. In the later years there is a reconstructive tendency. The life settles down into its groove, reason becomes dominant, enthusiasm is harnessed, love seeks its own mate, judgment of self is fairer. The vocation is deter- mined upon. There is a reconstruction of faith. The youth swings back into domestic ways as he begins to plan for a home of his own. Enthusiasm for work is generally very strong. Even in making this very brief summary we have tried to indicate only the most familiar manifestations. They do not appear in all or in children at exactly the same time or in the same order. There are, as we shall see in the next chapter, many types of children, and each type has to a degree its own history. Reading References An excellent outline of the periods of child life is foiind in Kirkpatrick's " Individual in the Making." III. A summary of Stanley Hall's divisions of these periods is in Partridge: " Genetic Education," VIII. Tyler: " Growth and Education " has summarized these periods, 104-114. and discoursed upon their physical basis, 115-197. Bolton: "Principles of Education," 63-188, discusses at length the culture-epoch theory and gives a fuller statement of the relation between the growth of the indi- vidual and the development of the race. CHAPTER V THE PRINCIPAL TYPES OF CHILDREN A close classification would reveal as many types of children as there are children, but there are certain broad resemblances and differences which are helpful be- cause they enable us to compare our own with other chil- dren and to forecast certain tendencies and devise certain treatment for the children in our own households. The following distinctions, based chiefly upon Edith E. Read Mumford's " The Dawn of Character," will be found reasonably useful in the study of children. These are as follows : 1. Children in whom strength of will and determination are the most marked characteristics. 2. Children characterized by the strength of their emotions. 3. Children marked by the keenness of their reasoning faculties. 4. Children of exceptional responsiveness. 5. " Average " children, those who do not exhibit any one quality in excess. 6. Those who are weak in some definite direction. Children of Strong Will These seem to be of two sorts. There are those who show their strength of will by masterfulness, in the in- stinctive desire to lead and to be in authority. There are others who show their strength of will chiefly in the tenacity with which they hold to one purpose. Their aim is not mastery over their fellows, but rather the conquest of some definite obstacle. Of the former type the Duke of Wellington, Gladstone and Roosevelt would be examples; of the latter, David Livingstone. These children are not so difficult to train if only we 34 THE PRINCIPAL TYPES OF CHILDREN 35 understand them. A little girl is cited who always in- sists upon acting upon her own initiative. " I don't want to be good," she is in the habit of saying when told to be good. She adds, however, " I will want to be good presently, but not yet. I'll teU you when." It wouldn't seem to be unreasonable, in such a case, to give her time to come to self-mastery and choose goodness of her own accord. Similarly a child says, '' I hate to be told to do things; I like to do them myself." Sometimes there are two such children in one family. Miss Mumford cites an amusing incident of this sort. Robert and Margaret were the children. One morning at breakfast Robert was asked if he would take his milk hot or cold. Hfe answered, " What is Margaret having? I will have the opposite." But Margaret refused to say first. Things were at a standstill. At last she said to her brother, " If I promise to have something different from you, will you say first? " To that he agreed and chose cold milk and she took hot. She had not yielded to his desire that she should say first, but he was also satisfied because he had not been copied. There is one comfort, — such a child is usually a lad of parts and something strong may be hoped for from him. Children of Strong Emotions These children are of at least two sorts. There are those who are sulky. Being more sensitive, they are more easily hurt. They draw back into themselves when they are reproved or disappointed. In contrast to these, the joyous, expansive natures stand out. They, too, feel strongly, but being gifted with self-expression, they are never depressed and seldom unhappy. The former is, on the whole, an unwholesome type. If such characters are to develop as they are capable of developing, we must help their natures to expand. In the joy of expression they will lose their tendency to dwell within themselves. Children of Keen Reasoning Faculties If the last type was that of the poet, this is that of the scientist. Huxley was of this type. " What have I done 36 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING in the way of acquired knowledge since January? " wrote this sober-minded youth in his diary when he was sixteen years old. Accordingly, he made a list of projects com- pleted. Then he adds: " I must get on faster than this. I must adopt fixed times for study, for unless it is done I find it slips away without knowing it. And let me re- member this, that it is better to read a little and thor- oughly than to cram crude, undigested matter into my head, though it be great in quantity." Such a child will shine in mathematics and in patient experimentation. He is likely, however, unless brought in youth into close con- tact with humanity and with fine arts, to become, as Herbert Spencer confesses of himself, blind and undevel- oped upon certain sides of his nature. Children of Exceptional Responsiveness If such children are " wax to receive," they are usually emotional; if " marble to retain," intellectual, in type. They are, however, seldom characterized by strength of will, self-determination. Neither leadership nor mastery is their characteristic. Such children are easy to train but hard to make strong. They need to develop a sense of right and wrong, moral judgment. Otherwise, when they leave the nursery for a larger world, their future cannot be predicted. They are likely to break down when facing difficulties and limitations. Such children must be forced to rely upon themselves, to hold fast to their own ideas and not to be carried away by others. Average Children It would be better to speak of them as children of even development. The will, with such, does not run away with the judgment; neither does their emotional nature overwhelm their reason. Their responsiveness is not so extreme as to make them helpless. Such children do not lead classes in school, do not become captains of ath- letic teams, do not shine on public occasions. They are, however, comforting to live with, and their evenness of nature forms the very best foundation for special develop- THE PRINCIPAL TYPES OF CHILDREN 37 ment in some exceptional direction which may come with adolescence. Children Weak in Some Definite Direction We have in mind in this present category not children who are mentally defective, but those who deviate from the average types by being exceptionally nervous, wanting in the power of self-control, lacking in the power of concen- tration, or obstinate because lacking in reasoning power. The child who falls in any of these categories is the con- verse of some type which has been mentioned above. Let us dwell, in this general summary, upon only two of these special varieties of deficiency. We will take first the nervous child. On the physical side, as Terman tells us, the nervous child is likely to be restless, easily startled or shocked and to suffer from muscular twitches. The most significant symptoms, however, are not physical, but emotional and volitional. The nervous child turns easily from laughter to tears, is quick to anger, peevish, irritable, etc. There may be a constant hunger for excite- ment and distraction, as such, in a variety of amusements. Such a child is not happy without an array of occupations and playthings. He may develop a number of eccen- tricities or crude personal habits. Usually sleep is de- fective. The life of such a child is often made wretched by haunting fears. There may be a feeling of weakness and self-distrust. The moral life is also involved, for, as Terman informs us: " Morality is nothing but the appro- priate issue of thought and emotion in conduct." The moral feelings of a nervous child are those that go with a feeling of weakness and incapacity. His dependence is not so much due to the overpowering strength of his impulses as to the weakness of his control. Such a child may, especially during adolescence, develop hysteria, dementia precox or St. Vitus' dance. Let us suppose, however, that the case is by no means so serious. The child is deficient in self-control but not so alarmingly so that he may not be dealt with successfully by kindliness and patience at home. It may be that he is suffering 38 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING from suppressed feeling due to some inordinate fear, anxiety or desire, the discovery of which will itself bring relief. Social experience is indispensable and usually a quick corrective for the tendency of such children to dwell upon themselves. The egoism which makes them wish to withdraw will vanish as soon as they have come into happy contact and hearty relations with other children. Such children require careful and patient training. They need what Terman calls " the sanifying effects of work," and especially of successful work. Their desires are often incident to certain stages of their develop- ment and their finer sensibilities are frequently a prophecy of pure taste and artistic achievement. One variety of children who are deficient is character- ized by lack of self-control. When such children engage in passionate outbreaks, some persons suppose they are the result of a strong will. The contrary is probably the case. Miss Mumford makes several successful sugges- tions as to understanding and training such children. In the first place, we must see that self-control is impossible unless there is a kind but even discipline. Therefore, we must enter sympathetically into the child's difficulties, yet make laws governing the child's life to be as unvarying, impartial and impersonal as the laws of nature. Next, we must ourselves be luihesitating. Take as much time as necessary to make up your mind, but do not allow such a child to know that the decision is difficult, and when it is reached, calmly maintain it. Third, we should never directly oppose such a child unless it is necessary. We should avoid provocation and controversy, and, on the other hand, when postponement is impossible, give the child himself time to think and choose, but place the exercise of reason and choice in the child's own mind rather than in the field of contest or within our own authority. The purpose in this chapter has been not to furnish a code of laws for the government of children, or even a thorough analysis of their types of character, but rather to name a few of the outstanding phenomena and situa- THE PRINCIPAL TYPES OF CHILDREN 39 tions which are likely to occur. We are doing something to train a child wisely when we can locate him, if we can discover his strong factors, if we can understand him in contrast with children of other types. In chapters which follow we shall take up more definitely some of the special problems of discipline and control. Reading References The references to ISIumford: " Dawn of Character," upon which this chapter is based, are 178-195. Home: " Idealism in Education," also has a brief discussion of the subject, and Chamberlain, in " The Child," catalogs the various lists that have been made of the different types as well as periods of childhood, 51-105. CHAPTER VI WHAT THE BODY HAS TO DO WITH CHARACTER Food " The fundamental basis of religion is nutrition," some- what startlingly says Dr. Theodore G. Soares. But it is true. One can still conceive a starveling saint, if he is a mature man, who has not starved too long, but one can hardly conceive of a saintly child who has been starved. Instead, we would find a whimpering, peevish animal. The physician does not regard life as safely begun physi- cally until the absorption of plenty of nutriment by the system has become well established. The moralist finds nothing to begin upon morally until this is a fact. When a yoimg child is cross, ill-tempered, disobedient, outrageous, we do not blame him for depravity, we examine him for indigestion or other bodily disorder. Backwardness in school, inability to attend, headaches, loss of interest in play, lack of affectionateness, all suggest malnutrition. Among adolescents, nutritive disorders are common, caused by hurried lunches, improper food, neglect of the excretory processes or loss of appetite through worry, overwork or overplay. The human boiler must be properly stoked and have clear drafts if it is going to generate its quota of physical, mental or moral power. Sleep The benediction of a nightly restoration is such that the child who loses it, whether because of neglect or dissi- pation, is rapidly spending his none-too-abundant life- surplus. Some studies that have been undertaken show that there is still an extraordinary number of American children who sleep in beds with others, in rooms with 40 BODY AND CHARACTER 41 closed windows, or in the midst of conditions of noise, interruption or tainted air that deprive them of normal rest. Some adults regret that sleep habits formed in childhood still send them to bed untimely early at night and appear to rob them of their proportion of the wakeful hours of life, but much more is lost to the children who are inured to short nights, who are kept awake till late hours when very young and who are permitted to attend many parties and theatres during their school days. A recent investigation in Iowa shows that fifty-nine per cent of the high school pupils studied in certain towns spent four evenings a week or less at home. The pupils who were reported as spending four to seven entire evenings at home average fifty-eight failures in specific subjects per hundred pupils, while those who reported spending from none to three evenings a week at home averaged one himdred thirty-five such failiu-es per hundred pupils. Clothing Whatever may be the origin of clothing, its purpose, as far as a young child is concerned, is simply protection, with the least possible hampering of bodily control and movement. Simplicity in design, simpleness of material and texture, cleanliness and attractiveness of color may be demanded, but ornament and elaborateness of design and delicacy of fabric or color are unsuitable. It is not desirable that the child should be prevented by the nature of his garments from free play, dirt and water, or that he should be conscious of his clothes or of himself. The custom of putting " rompers " on little girls and boys alike is most sensible. Physicians and moralists agree that it is wholesome for girls to pass through an un- hampered tom-boy period, but since it is necessary to catch a girl early before older people try to make her sophisticated, there is no better way to bring this to pass than to dress her for lively play as early and as long as possible. Gradually the child may be taught useful lessons as to neatness and cleanliness in the care of clothes, but they are taught most effectively if the periods of con- 42 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING straint are made very short at first. To clean up a child and expect him to keep clean with half a day of play engagements before him is to do him an injustice. Long before a child ought to be conscious of his clothes, other children, prematurely instructed, take notice if his apparel seems to them unsuitable. Among little girls especially, clothes-snobbery is very vigorous, and the child who is dressed shabbily, out of fashion or in bad taste is well-nigh ostracized. The mother who has bad taste seldom is aware of it, but the mother who wants her children clothed quietly and modestly sometimes needs to instruct her children very patiently and even organize with other sensible women in order to resist the modem tendency to over- dress growing girls. There finally comes a time to the most slovenly boy or girl when clothes become a concern and when the desire of choice and the sense of personal possession of them are keen. Since, as we have been told, the consciousness of being well dressed gives a peace not surpassed even by the consolations of religion, it is desirable that young people should be clothed in a way that shall so satisfy them that they may so far as possible forget how they look and thus be neither vain nor self-conscious. To give youths a larger measure of choice in their garments and to teach boys by their allowances and girls through the technique of dressmaking about w;eaves, colors, styles and costs is to do a service to their comfort, reasonable pride and moral satisfaction. Other Bodily Phases These need hardly be more than mentioned. Eye- strain, adenoids, spinal curvature, improper sex habits of act or thought, tell of a deadened spirit. These are often present when parents have no suspicion of the fact Therefore, physical examinations should be had of all children, whether they appear to be sick or not. A thoughtful student of childhood is bound to support the medical supervision of schools and to advocate general BODY AND CHARACTER 43 medical supervision of homes. We must stand in line with those who recognize that perhaps the great future of medicine is in the field of prevention. It is beautiful to note how even the young victim of disease, vexed by these rebel powers that him array, will develop the Christian virtues of patience and resignation, but a miserly body cannot any more than a miserly soul enter into the fulness of a human experience. Temptations of Our Age But the right regulation of the body is apt to be per- verted in other ways. We are in the midst of a new renaissance of taste and beauty. Our hitherto austere civilization has taken possession of the material means for making them the property of all. We have the tempta- tion to develop magnificent physiques as tools for sensual or esthetic pleasure, to stimulate the passions through art and dress and social pleasures, to use our wealth in uncreative and time-wasting sports and games. It all becomes a refined way of saying, " Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." This renaissance of bodily pleasures is peculiarly danger- ous to the young. The glories awarded by the newspaper press even to high school athletes would turn the heads of anchorites. A life set to the pace of the automobile, to the time of the dance and the exhilaration of football and the hunt does not easily plod on the ways of duty, sanity and service. It is hard for warm-blooded, virile and passionate youth to live chastely in a perfumed, sensual and even degenerate atmosphere. A social at- mosphere in which men of middle age can play with comparative safety is maddening or deadening to high school boys and girls, To young people who leave school in order to go to work there are today peculiar physical temptations. Early apprenticeship brings the yoimg into direct contact with the vices of older employees. The saloon and other com- mercialized places of pleasure are the only places for social resort when homes are cramped and cheerless. 44 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING The blind-alley occupations give those who follow them opportunity only for indulgences that are deadening to Wety aZd discouragement. These errors the young who have drifted into such occupations because of lack of capacity or initiative, possess smaller P7e^J;^^^^!^^;^l Fortunately, we have antidotes at hand. Ou^ ^^^^ athletics, when thoroughly supervised^ develop the hardier virtues. The Boy Scouts, the Campfire Girls, the Y M A., pubUc and private summer camps, work- schools like Abbotsholme and Interlaken, the disciphne of serious and worth-while business trainmg, the adventure- callings such as that of engineering or the national con- servation service, whatever makes life ^J^^ly difficult and brave works toward self-controlled and virtuous living. Even among the less fortunate the public playgrounds, The wen-conducted trolley parks, ^mat-r athletic lea^^^^^ the social settlements, etc., are broadenmg their whole- some influence. There is a notable increase throughout ouTwhole social life of a spirit which, in formal and in- formal education alike, tends toward the Greek idea of the sound mind in the sound body. Temperance The recent rapid spread of prohibition of the public sale of intoxicants in America has no doubt done a great w/eTo the young, especially in ^^^^^-^^^^^^^ and in making the acquisition of ^^e habit ess ea^. Since real temperance is an inner and not an outer state, ?re taSng cor^and by the spirit of the bod^y pass.ons and emotions, we are by no means at the end ot our necessity to plead for the development of this virtue Many people believe that the temperate man is a finer SDectacle than the abstinent one, as he who can use wisely alUhe tools and means of life is greater than he who dares not try to command them. There may also be some truth in Dr. Hugo MUnsterberg's argument that human nature feels both the desire and the need for exalted mo- ments and that there is not an essential difference between STe nature of the person who follows up rehgious revivals, BODY AND CHARACTER 45 the college student who yells at a football game, the woman who cries at a sentimental play and the iceman who gets drunk. They all desire to break loose, to feel strongly, to be ecstatic, and they all do so for the sake of personal sensations. How shall we meet and govern these tendencies to emotional overflow which drive the man deprived of drink to drugs and the godly woman who will not drink wine to her tea-caddy and her patent-medicine chest ? The answer seems to be, especially in the case of young people, to displace the self-indulgent emotions by great, unselfish interests; strong, humanitarian motives; noble physical, mental and spiritual ideals. Occasionally, the high school athlete breaks training after the football season, but on the whole, the tendency of the influence of school sports and school gymnastics is overwhelmingly in the direction of a bodily ideal that precludes drunken- ness. The young person who has formed his life purpose with enthusiasm has in these strenuous days little time for self-indulgence. Especially will ideals of the sacredness of the body, the recognition of it as the temple of the spirit, solve the problem of self-master}^ We have no hesitation either in asserting strongly that the doctrine of total abstinence is the only one which we can wisely preach to the young. The psycho-physiological laboratories have told us that the margin between the harmless and the harmful use of alcohol is so narrow and undetermined in the case of the individual and its influ- ence in breaking down the power of inhibition is so insidi- ous that the use of stimulants ought never to be advised except by a specialist who knows the individual's char- acter and needs thoroughly, and even then must be largely a matter of personal responsibility. Daily life in our invigorating climate is itself, as Josiah Strong pointed out a number of years ago, so stimulating that our nation seems to be wise in moving toward the position of an abstinent people. We are far beyond the position that total abstinence is merely a moral safeguard to the weak. The researches of 46 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Kraepelin and others have convinced us that alcohol has no place in the daily life of the normal individual. Before the Great War broke out in Europe, the authoritative German attitude was rapidly coming to assume this posi- tion. Nothing was more impressive during the early months of that war than to see how one nation after an- other fell into line behind Germany in the elimination of alcohol from the life of the people. The challenge which that terrible contest made of the mental and physical efficiency of men w^as only to be met by total abstinence. Reading References There are many excellent books upon the physical care of children. Perhaps the two most useful are Griffith: " Care of the Baby," and Oppenheim: " Care of tlie Child in Health." Tvler: " Growth and Education/' 242-260, and GeseU: " The Normal Child and Primary Edu- cation," 273-288, discuss thoroughly the relation between physical health and development in school. Kirkpatrick: " Fundamentals in Child Study," II and XVII, mentions the most common abnormalities in the development of childhood. A summarv' of the latest word upon medical inspection and supen-ision of children is' in Mangold: " Problems of Child Wehare," 119-150. KraepeUn's study of the influence of alcohol upon the human system is found in his " Clinical Psychiatry-," passim. CHAPTER VII THE FORCES THAT MAKE A MAN It goes without sa^dng that no one is likely to be a very- efficient parent or teacher unless he has a definite aim in the training of children. To do the conventional things with them will constitute the work and the results of an artisan, but to be an artist in life-making and to win results commensurate with the finest of arts, w^e must have the artist's vision. Neither is a partial view of the purposes of education enough. To wish that a child should keep his health, make a respectable appearance, have pre- sentable manners, make a good living and keep the laws is to mistake results for motives. Even to visualize the ideal by wishing that a boy might turn out to be like his father or some other good and successful man is to frame a pattern which may not at all fit this individual child's nature or possibilities. But what more can we do ? Is it safe to shape an ideal for a child of unknown capacities and possibilities? We talk about bringing up a child the way he should go, but who knows what way he should go? Each child is an experiment, " a fresh attempt to produce the just man made perfect." Bernard Shaw may not be an infallible guide in child training, but we can see some justice in his statement that " if you begin with the child's own holiest aspirations and suborn them for your own purposes, there is hardly any limit to the mischief you may do." There are limits to such mischief, for even if you insist on your ideal and force it stubbornly and con- stantly with a child, the man who results will be decidedly different from the one you planned. The child is a de- veloping personality, and your task is that of helping a free, full and generous unfoldment. The author believes that a very helpful approach to 47 48 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING this subject is that of Prof. H. H. Home in his " Idealism in Education," where he names three universal forces that make men, — heredity, environment and will. If through education in the home and elsewhere we can bring these forces to their highest, then we are making the man we would have to be. As Home says: " Heredity bestows capacity. Environment provides opportunity. Will, by effort, realizes the inherited capacity and utilizes the environing opportunity." " The child is bom in part, he is made in part, in part he makes himself." W,e would do well to try to find what forces are native in the child, and ask ourselves, not how to push a set of buttons that will bring the responses we desire, but how to play chords that will bring out all the music that is latent in the nature of the child. The analogy is inade- quate, for if the child from the viewpoint of environment is an instrument to be played upon, from the viewpoint of will he is the player himself who is to bring out his own music. Heredity By heredity we mean the characteristics which are transmitted at birth from parents to offspring. This includes what comes from distant as well as immediate ancestors. We do not know as much as we could wish about racial heredity. We do know that the material furnished to education in the shape of negro children is not the same as that furnished by the Filipinos. We realize that the material fumished by brown and by white children is not the same, but we do not yet know what all the differences and capacities are. We know a little more about immediate heredity. " Children," as Thomdike tells us, " ' take after ' their parents in energy, ability to learn, and other original mental traits to approximately the same extent as they do in form, features or other original physical traits." If we take two brothers, who have, of course, the same heredity, " one can apparently prophesy about as much FORCES THAT MAKE A ^lAN 49 concerning a pupil's rank in college from the rank his elder brother had in college as from his own rank in en- trance examinations." But here we come to the unexpected and perhaps at first discouraging fact that the improvements made in intellect, character and skill by one generation are not, so far as we have evidence, transmissible to the next generation by heredity. On the other hand, " the evi- dence is all against the theory that the special knowledge, interests, habits, skill, or morals which a human being acquires during life will alter his germs so that the children developing therefrom will be any the more likely to possess or acquire that special knowledge, interest, habit or skill." Further, the same inability to transmit through heredity probably holds of the more general elements of human nature, such as acquired courage, persistence, accuracy, truthfulness or kindness. (For hereditary racial, but not immediate personal, improvement by education in general health and vigor there is some hope.) But if Nature is not friendly, she is at least impartial. If a satyr cannot breed a saint, neither can a drunkard repro- duce his kind by heredity. Except for certain racial physical poisons, which are transmissible by infection, the child starts with the same kinds of capital that his parents started with. Long before they made their individual mistakes, indeed long before they were born, the germ- cells that later were to produce their children were set off apart. If this be true, if such bounds be set to a child at the start, then what is the use of hopes and endeavors in his behalf? There is much. In the first place, we can predetermine to a great extent the variety and richness of a child's inheritance by wise choices in marriage. If at least half of a child's inherited characteristics, as is believed, come from his father and mother rather than from his remoter ancestors, then these two have much to say about what their child shall be. The marriage of two persons of large capacity tends to produce children of varied capacity, of versatile talents. 50 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING There is no doubt that a marriage of two weaknesses, particularly of two similar weaknesses, is likely to pro- duce an accentuated weakness in the children. This fate- ful and beneficent law of heredity but emphasizes the Christian duty of wise and reasonable choice of life part- ners. We are not responsible for all that we have received from our ancestry, but we are responsible for what we hand down through the gates of birth. We can fulfil many of our hopes for children who shall come after us by marriages in which mutual health, clean blood, re- ciprocal talents, shall make a strong, wise and good progeny possible. But after children are bom they are by no means fated as to character, for they have many possibilities, within the limits of their capacity. They inherit tendencies, not character. But these tendencies are general, not specific. There is no adequate evidence that a tendency toward an appetite for strong drink is hereditary. But a child may inherit a constitutional weakness that makes him easy-going, a follower of the crowd, one who becomes easily discouraged. In unfavorable circumstances any of these tendencies might lead to the use of and an acquired appetite for drink. A child who inherits a dangerous tendency frorh one parent may inherit a compensating tendency from the other. He inherits, too, from the distant past, and a surprisingly encouraging tendency may crop out from a remote ancestor, jumping the generations. A revealed capacity, nevertheless, does not alone guarantee an achievement. The capacity for music does not itself, without lessons, make a musician. Some parents in their desire to develop well-rounded children may actually neglect signs of genius while rubbing away at some place where the child can never by any possibility take on a polish. The impression that there must be virtue in a study simply because a child hates it has no other basis than that obstacles overcome give strength, but are there not obstacles enough in the way of full mastery of a pre- ferred subject without leading the child to waste his time FORCES THAT MAKE A MAN 51 in conquering those in a field where he cannot possibly excel? We can never take for granted a child's inherit- ance — we must set out to discover it. While he has limitations, we do not know yet what they are. He may develop slowly and not show all that is in him until very late. An educator w^ho had started to train the boy Abraham Lincoln on the basis of his near and obvious heredity might easily have lost heart long before his concealed capacity appeared. Each child must be studied by himself until the life- plan of his soul in some measure appears to view. As fast as his instincts develop, his temperament manifests itself, and the strength of his constitution is measured, we may draw out to the fullest his nascent abilities. Adolescence is particularly the time when a full heredity displays itself. A youth who has hitherto resembled his mother may now reveal that he has " taken after " his father or his father's kindred. So that the latest days are often those of greatest opportunity. Environment Give almost any neglected child a good home and he will become a good man. He has opportunity for his capacity. Environment, like heredity, is something of which the child is the recipient. He is helpless to choose either. But environment is unlike heredity in that the parents may choose and furnish it for the child. We may not enlarge his capacity, but we can enlarge his opportunity. The child of genius may rise above his environment, but we more often see the average child raised by his environment above the average. This factor which we may ourselves effect affords the greatest hope to humanity, A good environment is like a nest in which otherwise dor- mant heredities come to life and activity. It has so great a place in the shaping of character that Home tells us that the supreme duty is, " Put into the environment what you want in the man." Is it not inspiring to think that by enriching the home 52 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING atmosphere, not by great expenditures, but through many homely but inspiring stimuH, a parent may bring out hereditary powers that would otherwise never awaken? So when you ask what you want your child to become you ought in the same breath to ask, Have I in myself and in my home what I want my child to become? You can send your child out to take music lessons, but he is not likely to become a musical child unless you have music in your home. You can let him go into society, but he will not have the social graces unless he has learned them at home. If he is to have good taste, he must see it at home. And he cannot easily become religious unless he learns religion in the home. Will vSo far we have left out the child himself. We have thought of him as being acted upon, now we must think of him as actor. A special chapter is to be given to the subject of will training. Here we simply wish to empha- size the importance of the will as a force in making the child the man we would have him be. We have seen already that our own wills have a very large place in the making of our child. Our will in the choice of a mate set the seal of a special heredity upon the child. Our will in making his environment determines what opportunity he shall have for his capacity. But the child's own will affects both heredity and environment. In a sense, a child chooses his heredity, for while he may not choose any other than his own, he may choose to neglect or improve any part of his own. He may select his noblest capacities and let his ignoble ones lie dormant, thus turning capacity into character. So one chooses his environment by making the largest use of his opportuni- ties and ignoring those that would degrade him. Within the limit of his capacity a man may become what he will, and he never can know what his full capacity is. So far as he selects his environment he may tend to become what he will, and every struggle betters his environment. So when we are asked what we want our child to FORCES THAT MAKE A MAN 53 become, we can at any given time only say that we want him to be all that his capacities and opportunities and will permit and that we are trying to find out what his limits are in these three directions and to help him to reach them. This answer leads us back among the common- places. The instincts must have play, because they are the expression of his race inheritance, and the feelings because they are his response to his environment and the motive power of his conduct. The sense perceptions should be trained because they are the child's doors of access to his environment, and the muscles, because they are his means of self -training and of mastering his environ- ment. Memory must be exercised since it fills the mind's treasure house from his social environment, but the ability to think must equally be exercised because otherwise the child cannot use what he remembers and cannot add to his knowledge. The conscience must be awakened to know what is right, and the will, to do what is right. After we have done all we can to enlarge and modify the growing child, we shall find that he has a resisting power to much of our endeavor. Here he has no capacity to answer our training; there he is deaf to the environ- ment that we offer; yonder his will does not respond to our encouragement. But this may mean that he is not yet ready, and may yet come to his own after we have ceased our endeavors, or that he is to remain weak here only to develop his great strength elsewhere, or that some treas- ures are forever to remain unsought, some music forever unsung. His thwarting of our effort may even work to his own good. Partly we may shape him, partly he must make himself. During childhood the former is more noticeably true; during youth the latter becomes the fateful fact. And it is in the home that the three man-making forces that may make the child what we wish must chiefly operate, for the home, as Home reminds us, is the only institution that has legitimate control of the element of heredity, it furnishes the environment during the most 54 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING susceptible years, and the habits fashioned in youth in the home make the materials out of which the will shapes its enduring choices. Reading References There is a brief but helpful discussion of human heredity in Thomdike: " Education," 69, 205-212. A practical article in Monroe: " Cyclopedia of Education " is under the word. " Heredity," and our most authoritative discussion is in Thompson: " Heredity." Bolton: " Principles of Education," 183-230, is most helpful in sug- gesting what education may do to modify heredity. Kirkpatrick: " Fun- damentals of Child Training," XV, covers much the same ground. Hender- son: " What Is It to be Educated? " 373-420, has a special chapter upon the relation of the will to the development of the individual. Home: " Ideal- ism in Education," takes much the same standpoint throughout his discussion as is maintained in this chapter. CHAPTER VIII TRAINING CHILDREN TO OBSERVE AND DISCRIMINATE Note the double suggestion in the title of this chapter. It is not enough to teach children to observe. In such training we should start from the worth-whileness of objects. We do not wish to make children more keen in the observation of that which is not worth while. Note also that the title is not Sense Training. That fre- quently used phrase is a misnomer. The senses them- selves are treated by the oculist, the aurist and other specialists. We who are parents train their use as organs of the mind. Our function is, as Home says, " to open the windows of consciousness." Why There are several reasons why we should attempt this. One is their importance. " Sensations are the stuff out of which knowledge of the external world grows," says Home. AVe really know nothing of the external world which our senses have not brought to us. The world admires so keenly the achievements of Helen Keller that the writer was recently surprised to hear a well- known psychologist speak of her as a " defective." Then he went on to prove the point by showing that much of her apparent knowledge of our world of sounds, colors and speech is evidently hearsay and pointed out the lack of intelligent reference other than conventional, in her writings, to many of the phases of nature most obvious to all who can see and hear. Miss Keller's world is chiefly the world of touch, since this sense is the only one that has brought her actual knowledge. Another reason for training in observation is the richer knowledge and intelligence that are thereby made possi- 55 56 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING ble. Miss Edgeworth's old story of " Eyes and No Eyes " is the classic often cited to show how it is possible for two persons to traverse the same landscape together, one ab- sorbing practically nothing, the other returning enthusi- astic because of an enriched experience. The writings of some of our popular naturalists who have confined their essays to their sense-impressions encourage us to find in the wildwoods near us and even in the grass beneath our feet unseen marvels. Children are by nature sensitive only to a few bright colors, to general outlines and to the more striking phenomena. While a new sensitiveness to these awakens in adolescence, amounting to the recognition of an actual deepening in the colors of nature and a vivify- ing of its forces, this poetic spirit, which is evanescent, is best reinforced by the habit from early childhood of calling to the attention of children the softer color effects of sky, leaves and shadows, graceful outlines of plants and trees, and the smaller doings in the natural world. This leads to a certain expectancy and wide-awakeness which are beautiful life-habits. These are indispensable to creators in all the arts, but they are also a blessing to those whom Robert Haven Schauffler calls " geniuses by proxy," appreciative Hsteners and lookers-on. For it is only the people who observe this world who really possess it. In certain objective sciences, a trained observation is absolutely necessary, and early training of this sort may not only develop a broader taste including these sciences, but is also a great assistance in mastering them. Perhaps the " genius " who is such because he is a rare interpreter of the facts of earth is sometimes made so by parents who have early helped him to the seeing eye. At least, we know that from parents with such trained powers, the leaders in natural science have often sprung. But in what way is a person who does not use his senses more fortunate than Helen Keller? If he be not actually in possession of all his powers is he, too, not a defective ? TRAINING CHILDREN TO OBSERVE 57 How First, it is necessary, from time to time, to be assured that the child's sense-organs are in normal condition. The specialist can correct some defects and prevent others. Near-sightedness is very common. Color blindness, which cannot be cured in one generation, is a defect that ought at least to be recognized. Adenoids deaden sight and hearing, and catarrh threatens hearing, smell and taste. Some of the early infectious diseases threaten the hearing. Deafness isolates socially as truly as blindness does personally. Some of these defects appear suddenly and some late. They are becoming so common that it seems almost as necessary to have periodical examinations made by the oci.ilist as by the dentist. In utilizing the important aid afforded by motion pictures toward per- ception by the eyes, we must avoid eye-strain. Second, training in sense perception ought to begin very early. Mothers are finding it wise to show children bright colors and play them soft melodies almost in the cradle. Madame Montessori has caught the world's at- tention by her ingenious devices for such training. Work- ing upon foundations laid by others, she has arranged a series of objects by which children not only exercise eye and hand to discriminate color and shape, size and smooth- ness, but test the thermal sense (of heat and cold), train themselves in handling and carrying, and enjoy the muscu- lar sense in arranging and constructing. Doing this in an atmosphere of unusual freedom and of social friendli- ness, they work in the spirit of play and reach some surprising results. A mother can not only use the Montes- sori method in the nursery, but she can devise materials of her own, inexpensively and fully as effective because made out of homely objects and attached to household duties. The child, for example, will enjoy learning to button the baby's dress more than to use Montessori 's famous buttoning frame. Our best kindergartens have by no means neglected sensory methods. They are less confident than is Montes- sori that skill in handling formal apparatus can be trans- 58 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING ferred over into skill in handling tools or materials of work and play. With gratitude, however, our most broad-minded kindergartners are recognizing the stimu- lation which Montessori has given to this important matter of seeing not only that materials do exist which will train the child's sense perception, but that they are sought out and constantly used. The kindergarten is equipped to do this and to do more. For emphasis upon activity rather than upon sensation should furnish us opportunity to send the child, both at home and in the kindergarten, in search of larger sense expression. Third, the home should be provided with considerable sense-apparatus. We have already spoken of materials which an ingenious mother can gather, imitative of the Montessori apparatus. Of course, everything in the house makes some sensory appeal. The thing to do is to plan that they make an effective appeal to children. Wall papers, for example, should either be cheerful in tone or else neutral so as to display bright pictures, which, in the nursery particularly, should be hung low where the chil- dren can see and study them, and which should be fre- quently changed. Toys should be few and large and largely home-made. " The best toy," as Sisson states, " is the one that gives the child the most work to do," that is, that exercises his senses most in putting together, building and using. Nature's own playthings, sand and water and clay, sticks and blocks, caves and tent-like shelters, constitute the most educative implements possible. Fourth, we should, whenever possible, use sensory methods. Some one has said that there is too much " book and talk " in the schools. So is there in our homes. We describe objects or send our children to books to read about them when we might better show them the objects themselves. When you note the keen delight that chil- dren take in grasping, looking over, listening to or taking apart a new object of interest, you can appreciate how much more vivid, accurate and lasting are the impressions made through the senses than through second-hand TRAINING CHILDREN TO OBSERVE 59 accounts of them. The benefit of curio-shelves, stamp collections, nature collections, boys' pockets and treasuries is that they enlarge the number of objective opportunities to sharpen the sense perceptions. It is interesting to watch a child who has had many chances to perceive, experiment and reflect go up, like a soldier in the ranks, from drill to mastery, until he lives in a world of " a nimi- ber of things," which Stevenson says should make us as happy as kings. Let us also defend in our schools the enlarged use of laboratories, manual training, stereopticons and motion pictures. They mean the fuller possession of life both by our children and those of other people. Fifth, let us remember to try to exercise all the senses. We are likely to favor the eyes and the ears and neglect the touch and muscle senses. No one knows yet how much larger life might be if we paid more attention to the senses of smell and taste. To go through the verses of a favorite poet for references to odor might reveal how fully or how poorly his soul had responded to the symphonic odors of nature. There are some poets whose lines fairly riot in color, and others, like Whitman and Swinburne, who show a delighted consciousness of the tactile sense as it is affected by water, sun and air. These indicate some of our possibilities in training our children to multiply their contacts with the world they live in. Finally, let us try to appreciate the moral relations of sense training. To train to artistic performance is to give a feeling of liberation and leisure for strong, effective living. To give contact enough through the senses with earth's wonders is to inspire thoughtfulness. Thus the observant soul becomes the reverent and thankful soul. A Limitation After all, it is not indiscriminate training of sense per- ception that we are after, but rather the habit of perceiv- ing and enjoying certain classes of things. Some sense training is useless to many persons. The delicate palate of the professional tea-taster is needless for most. Some 60 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING sense training is even unfortunate. A child trained to be an epicure will as a man frequently be uncomfortable. We may train a child to enjoy a fine day, without training him to be miserable on rainy days. In general, the mas- teries rather than the repulsions are to be encouraged. We can at once think of classes of things whose perception and enjoyment may be and should be encouraged — for the taste, a variety of wholesome foods and drinks; for the smell, a sensitive appreciation of flowers and perfumes; for the hearing, noble harmonies; for the sight, harmonies of color, landscapes, painting and sculpture ; for the touch, fineness of apprehension and exquisiteness of manipula- tion. Reading References The Montessori system is most helpfully described for the average mother in Canfield's " A Montessori Mother." The sanest critiques of the system are found in a little book of Kirkpatrick's, " Montessori System Examined," and in Gesell: " The Normal Child and Primary Education," 323-340. In the same book, 106-124, is a very strong chapter upon sense training. The difference between Montessori and the kindergarten sys- tem in respect to sense training is impartially studied by Elizabeth Harri- son in a government document on the Montessori system. Forbush: " Manual of Play," V and XV, gives a fresh discussion of play for the home involving sense training. CHAPTER IX HABIT-FORMING The value of forming good habits in early childhood is evident. Good habits are the accepted ways of doing things. In any good habit we have some happy race- experience, of which the child is permitted to avail himself without waiting for generations to acquire it. Good habits include the most facile ways of doing, the most pleasant ways of getting along with other people. Once absorbed, they are executed involuntarily and leave the mind free for more important matters. They may be extended to include not only agreeable, but considerate and even generous behavior. If honestly adopted, they create moral traditions which are not easy to disavow. The limitations of habits are equally obvious. Bad habits are just as enchaining as good ones, and persist even after the will is aroused against them. Bring a reformed man back into the scenes of his debaucheries and he is quite likely to go slipping down the easy channels of self- indulgence. A habit that has been the agency of unselfish living may, if released from its original motive, become just as ugly as a sin. A recent novel tells the story of a mother and sister whose thrift had been a means in re- claiming a prodigal son and brother, but after the yoimg man came back his home was soon unendurable to him because, the habit of thrift having become fixed, his mother and sister were now mere misers. Habit, then, has its important place in enabling the child to do routine and mechanical tasks easily, it has a large place in making a certain pre-emption for right Hving, but it must not be allowed to crush the initiative or to take the place of original judgment and fresh choices. There is no one period of habit-forming. Our personal habits of bodily control, carriage and manner are largely 61 62 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING formed before the age of twenty. Business habits and intellectual habits are usually formed before thirty or thirty-five. Habits that are the result of a religious decision, such as the habit of prayer, of Bible reading, of Christian observances and service, have been known to be made at every period of life, but they are usually made before maturity, and if they are made later they contend perpetually against a mob of contrary habits, some of which persist until the end of life. Formation is, therefore, infinitely easier than reformation. Essentials to Habit-Forming Simply to perform a given act many times regularly does not create a habit. Dr. E. O. Sisson cites by way of contrast a boy who goes to school and who also goes to a Y. M. C. A. gymnasium. The boy goes to school every day in the week but two, but he does not find himself in front of the schoolhouse door on Saturdays, although it has been his " habit " to go all the week; yet he never forgets to attend the gymnasium, though he be there not oftener than once a fortnight. In the former case the habit was enforced by outer authority; in the latter, by inner impulse. The one he accepted, the other he adopted. So, as Sisson says, a real habit is not the tendency to re- peat a certain act, but " a fixed tendency to respond in a certain way to a given stimulus." Habit-making, then, has two factors, the stimulus and the response. The most successful habit-making will evidently consist of a stimulus that is in harmony with the child's instincts and the consequent natural spontaneous tendency to answer and gladly comply. So many are the young child's instincts that we have considerable to choose from when we start habit-forming. Suggestibility will carry a child a good way in several directions ; the instinct of activity supported by his imagi- nation helps him to many tasks in the spirit of play. Love woos him to conformity, and fear has its place as a reminder and a control. No doubt we must try to form certain habits long before the instinct that favors them HABIT-FORMING 63 appears. Cleanliness has to be imposed by authority until the instinct of pride develops to demand it. Neat- ness has to be inculcated long before the sex-instinct for adornments insists upon an exquisiteness that seems ab- normal. We have to do many things to enable children whose preferences resemble those of people of the thir- teenth century to live in a twentieth century society without shocking that society. Mrs. Annie Winsor Allen has named some of the desir- able habits, with the approximate years when they should be acquired — attending to personal toilet, undressing, using a pencil, using a gentle voice, before three years; dressing, picking up toys, use of simple tools, before six years; using hammer and nails, doing some chore regu- larly, having purposeful outings, before twelve years. Preparations for a New Habit There are several stages in training a child in a habit. First, we should start with a strong initiative. If we can make an effective appeal to begin with, whether we do it by a story, a bit of humor, an earnest suggestion or through the force of love or pride, we are more likely to enlist the feelings and the will upon its side. The second thing is, to suffer no exceptions. Some may occur, but they should be as few as possible. Rip van Winkle's " just this once," his swearing-off drink, was his undoing. Here we have to apply sometimes that mixture of love, reason and determination which makes up a truly artistic parenthood. Third, if possible let us not force habit-allegiance. This rule seems to contradict the last, for if we are not to suffer an exception, we sometimes have to use force. This is true only with young children. But if we can keep up fidelity by positive rather than coercive methods, if we can still have the co-operation of the child's love and will, we are evidently more nearly in the way of building up a habit that will last than if we excite stubbornness and rebellion, or even induce a disliked act. A fourth rule, one of mercy, is to keep the child from 64 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING temptation. We appreciate the wisdom of this precau- tion in helping an adult dnmkard to reform. The rule is equally needful in the case of the yoimg, whose inclina- tions are fully as treacherous and whose wiUs are less strong. Finally, we may well aim to help the child to follow William James' rule, to " give the will a little gratuitous exercise every day." If we keep a child forever battling an old habit, there is danger that he will not only become hidebound and priggish over his victor}^ but that his tired and mischievous spirit wiU relapse to the old just out of revenge. Here comes that fine idea about the expulsive power of a new affection. If one had been laboring for a while to habituate a child to get dciATi to breakfast promptly every morning, it might be a pleas- ing variation if he were tried for a while on combing his hair successfully or, if this seemed to add insult to injury, to allow him to take his father's place at table and serve occasionally. The thing is to have always some new, challenging and interesting stimulus to the will. For, as Sisson tells us, a habit, well absorbed, is " regent for the future, independent will." It rules until the will is ready to reign. Let us, to make this matter more clear, trace through these various stages one good example of how to form a habit. We select the one already referred to, the habit of noting and practising personal cleanliness. To start it by a strong initiative, we might tell the story of " Dirty Jack," the young boy who went around among the animals of the field and farmyard to find out which one was his kinsman. After they all had inspected his hands and face each in turn rejected him, until he came to the J pigs, who hailed him as their brother! Another way to start would be, with a yoimg child of pride, to arrange a chart or calendar, upon which in gold stars his cleanest days should be publicly recorded. Then we would suffer no exception. The child would not be given his break- fast until he had come clean to the table. He might even be allowed to be late at school, if he used his imminent HABIT-FORAIING 65 tardiness as the reason for not doing the washing-up that he had neglected. Third, we would not use force. To withhold breakfast until a child has washed his face is not the use of force, it is the offering of an alternative; his getting breakfast is a matter of his own volition. We would use positive and encouraging methods. We would praise his unblemished days, we would allow him to handle lovely picture-books because his hands were clean, we would invite him to attractive tasks of which only clean hands are worthy. Next, we would keep him from temptation. Some uncleanliness is legitimate. The young child has a right to get dirty playing in the dirt. But we would not put a white suit on him after lunch and send him out to the dirt-pile. Finally, w^e would forget cleanliness once in a while and get him interested in some other habit. We would find some habits, such as putting in scrap-pictures, for instance, which themselves require, as he would notice, clean hands. The interesting way in which children take a well-made habit as a matter of course is illustrated by a story which Mrs. T. W. Bimey tells. " Two little girls were visiting a Southern town during the cotton season. The town was a cotton market, and at the particular time of which I write presented an exceedingly untidy appearance; not only were detached samples and other pieces of cotton scattered about the dusty streets, but new^spapers and other trash made the town unsightly. In the midst of such a scene these two little girls held up a diminutive paper bag from which they had just extracted the last animal cracker and with very earnest faces and genuine anxiety in their tones inquired, ' Oh, Mamma, where shall we put this empty paper bag ? ' With some difficulty their mother restrained a smile, and taking them into one of the shops near by she said to the amazement of the young clerk, ' Will you kindly put this paper bag in your trash- basket ? These little girls are not accustomed to throwing paper in the street.' The clerk told a friend afterward it was the best lesson in neatness he had ever had." 66 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING How TO Cure Bad Habits A word about bad habits. The parent is to regard them as contrary to nature and is to beHeve that if he plants enough good seed it will crowd them out. Young children who come home with shocking expressions on their lips are not to be greeted with horror. The things they say may be stigmatized at once as not nice and thereafter generally ignored, while the child is put in the way of hearing only refined speech for a while, including such expletives as polite society uses. The result will be that the unfortunate phrases will be forgotten. In general, we are to overcome evil with good, endeavoring always to discover the good motive, the wholesome activity, the diversion that may displace what is undesirable. Deterrent methods come as a last resort, but even these can usually be s^^mbolic. The soapy water cure for pro- fanity is such. A writer in Harper's Bazar used this, which was fair as well as symbolic, and involved an oppor- tunity for choice: One of the most aggravating faults of two impulsive boys proved to be a disposition to interrupt when some one else was speaking, in order to interpolate their own views. The disagreeable habit did not yield to explana- tions of the rudeness of the practice nor to reprimands upon the numerous slips in this line. Each boy was the recipient of a small allowance of pocket-money weeldy to supply small personal and school needs, and the distressed mother noticed how eagerly plans were made ahead for its use. She determined to use this fact as a leverage of control. Quietly she announced that at the least sign of a break in the way of interruption of another's conversation she should unostentatiously raise one forefinger. If this warn- ing were not heeded she would raise two fingers, which signal would mean a fine of five cents. At the end of the first week both boys had not only lost their whole allowance, but were in debt besides; this, too, without a word of fault-finding or scolding. The second week saw a decided improvement, and the HABIT-FORMING 67 end of the month proved the objectionable habit to be a bit of ancient history. A child should come up to the days of youth with all the common courtesies a matter of course, religious ob- servances so much a custom that they stand ready to become natural expressions for his awakening religious nature, and kindly and generous attitudes of thought so long established that when he gets ready to take himself in hand he shall have so many Christian presumptions in his experience that it will be difficult to disown them. Reading References A great chapter on habit is in WilHam James' " Larger Psychology." It has been reprinted in a small book, under the title " Habit." Sisson: " The Essentials of Character," has one good chapter on the subject, IV, and there are helpful references in Thorndike's " Education," 95-116, 170-175. CHAPTER X THE PROBLEMS OF OBEDIENCE It is to be understood that this is one of three chapters devoted to the home training and government of children and young people. The present chapter discusses the problem in the first six years of life, the years from six to twelve are covered in Chapter XXVII, and the adolescent years in Chapter XXXI. As is suggested by the title of this chapter, the special problem at the start of life is that of obedience. This is true not, as some seem to suppose, because demanding obedience is a divine right of parents, but rather because it is such a necessary protection to young children. We are obliged to use our good sense in behalf of little ones, who haven't any. Since our sole excuse for exercising authority is the child's welfare, that authority ceases when the child no longer needs it. Obedience even to wise parents is a virtue only until the child is old enough to be trained by more advanced methods. But since it must, for the child's own safety, be abso- lute for a time, how essential it is that obedience be grounded in impartial wisdom and goodness! " The es- sential of good government," says John W. Dinsmore, " is a good governor." It is usually agreed that the earliest days of dawning intelligence are not too soon to impress upon the child the necessity of docility to command. Mothers find that they need to resist the tyranny of babies jrom the start. They must never be allowed to get their own way by cries of temper or of entreaty. While the wise and loving mother watches every symptom and learns to interpret every mood and outcry, she and not the child must take the direction of his ways if he is to become 68 THE PROBLEMS OF OBEDIENCE 69 a happy little blessing and not a burden both to himself and to others. Some maxims that may be helpful in maintaining the right attitude in the face of unforeseen emergencies are these : 1. Make up your mind beforehand as clearly as you can what you will and what you cannot allow. 2. Express clearly, after gaining the child's full atten- tion, what you want him to do or to refrain from doing. 3. Let there be always a cheerful expectancy that what you want done will be done. 4. Change your mind only when you are wrong, not because you are entreated, and not because the wise way proves to be more difficult than you at first supposed. 5. Try to make your will and the expressions of it always the reflection of the everlasting right. 6. Habitually connect some sort of pleasure with obedi- ence and some sort of pain with disobedience. Collisions A little child is bound to collide occasionally with the will of his parents. He is not naughty, but he is lively. In a moral sense he is neither obedient nor disobedient, but he is full of various impulses, some of which are dis- orderly, some dangerous. He is naturally dirty, and careless of perils of whose extent he is not aware. Since the child seeks near rather than remote ends, knowing no other, he appears to be selfish. It is perhaps intended that he should find himself before he has the happiest relations with his neighbors. He can, of course, however, love himself and his neighbor both if he has the capacity to love at all. While he is affectionate, and so can be sorry, he generally seeks these nearer ends, his own pleas- ures, regardless of any one ; he feels little sense of shame or penitence; he knows no self-condemnation; he regards opposition as hostility; and he does not care what people think of him. He yields to suggestion, force and reward, but often quibbles and " eases off " perfect compliance, and sometimes puts up an intelligent,* vigorous and per- 70 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING sistent resistance which ought to be gratifying to us as evidence that he is a person of parts. Yet he has a curious love of regularity and after he has done a thing right often enough he likes better to do it that way. He likes the same commands for the same duties, he objects to exceptions and whatever he has been made to do himself he likes to insist on from his juniors. If we are patient in getting him to like his right habits, they become his allies as well as his friends. Methods of Securing Obedience The necessity of securing a child's full attention when obedience is desired has been mentioned. Children are often punished for disobeying commands which they did not really hear, or which they did not understand, or which they have forgotten. A good rule is, never to give an order to a child until he is looking you squarely in the face. The faculty of attention is a moral as well as an intellectual support, and parents who ruthlessly interrupt it by calling children needlessly from absorption in their games are themselves breaking down a force which should work later for mental application and moral devotion. Government by words, then, has a large place in a young child's experience, words clear, timely, decisive, kindly and not domineering or querulous, challenging to obstinacy or irritating to wrath. Some little children respond well to homilies; that is, if the homilies be sprightly, affectionate and in story form. But sermonics are often futile and the child may look fascinated at the facile maternal jaw without absorbing a single idea she utters. Suggestion is better. An expectant, happy manner accompanied by a co-operating spirit will win almost any child to pick up his blocks even when he is very tired and feels it a bore to do so. Especially does a suggestive appeal to the imagination help. To be under drill, to play one is a soldier, will get many hard things done. To co-operate in one's own THE PROBLEMS OF OBEDIENCE 71 punishment by playing one is in prison gives a chance for some needed thoughtful solitude which itself corrects many a bad habit. Rewards may be used with caution, so long -as they seem the natural accompaniments of virtue. The child, for instance, who does his work will have more time left to play. The one who is gentle with a pet animal shows that he deserves to have one of his own. But bribes are dangerous. Small payments for unusual patience or industry may be regarded as legitimate, since they are symbols of what those virtues will earn in later life. Emulation is generally bad. To strive to equal a superexcellent sister or outdo a plodding brother is likely to nurture long-enduring envy and hatred. Punishment The most perplexing questions are those related to punishment. Punishment is necessary. It may be de- fined as negative reward. When the child does right we try to see that he gains what right-doing gives, as an encouragement. When he does wrong we think he ought to have enough of the results of wrong-doing to act as a deterrent. If this be our theory, then there is no room for punishment as revenge or as an act for the sake of relieving the parent's mind. Some deny any place to fear as a motive power, yet it does seem necessary for the young child's self-protection that he should at times pause, appreciate the danger of his course and avoid it. The chief purpose of any punishment, of course, is to correct the harm. When we say that punishment is deterrent, we do not necessarily mean that the child is benumbed ; he may even be made by it mentally and physically more alert. And since his fear should be not fear of his parents but fear of the consequences, he may learn by it to shun the evil and to choose the good. His best strength in his fear is that his parents are his friends, whatever happens, and so in conquering himself or in meeting the consequences of 72 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING ignorance or folly, he may depend that they are upon his side. We have been implying that punishments should be " natural " ; that is, they should be imitative of the result which the offence, if unchecked, would be likely to pro- duce. Such evidently are just, certain, salutary, and involve less rancor against their promoters than those produced by whim or arbitrariness. They result in a real learning from experience. Deprivation is one of the most common forms of natural punishment. The child soon learns that if he misuses a toy or a pet he cannot have it, that if he dis- turbs the family peace he loses the family society. But the method gradually loses its validity, as it grows more difficult to arrange results naturally and promptly. The limitations are obvious, too. The natural punishment for a child's leaning out of the window would be that he would break his neck, but we cannot allow that. The natural result of a child's lying is that nobody believes what he says, yet such a child usually most needs his parents' confidence. The severest limitation is that the discipline of consequences by-and-by ignores the element of personality. There is something that is hurt inside a child when he does wrong, whether he hurts anybody else or not, or whether he is found out or goes unpunished. Gradually that sense of ought appears, and after it has appeared " natural " punishment is not wholly effective. Corporal Punishment The question whether corporal punishment is ever ad- visable is best answered pragmatically. No doubt most children are harmed by it, and most parents are made worse by administering it, but there seems little doubt, too, that a few children accept it with curious satisfaction. When trouble has been a long time brewing and has finally come to a climax it seems just to jolt the child into the right mind. Such children will sometimes accept punishment as a help to being good, as a help to remember, a help to keep out of danger. Punishment should always THE PROBLEMS OF OBEDIENCE 73 help; it should always look to the future. It should never be an effort to get even or straighten out the irrevocable past. So far as it is possible to generalize about this very- delicate remedy when only experience with the individual, thoughtfully considered, can determine its propriety in a given instance, it appears that corporal punishment should be reserved for deliberate disobedience and be intended to determine the question of leadership ; it is effective only with quite small children; it should be applied always privately, moderately and in a manner as little humiliat- ing as possible ; it should be dealt by the parent as a dutiful ceremony without excitement or anger; it should come as promptly as possible after the offence but never at bed- time, and when it is over the parent should be completely forgiving and forgetful. The parent needs to avoid the casual smack given alike for every offence and the cruel ordeal which is clearly the expression of his own passion. The fact that some blows given in anger to exasperating infants have done them good seems to show that righteous indignation is occasionally recognized as such by the budding mind. This fact, while it is satisfying at the moment, does not guarantee the safety or wisdom of a repetition. Blows are always dangerous to the parent, even if we' have reason to suppose that now and then they may be safe for the child. Choice and Activity To give a child some measure of choice, even in his pun- ishments, is desirable. It is usually better to tell a child that if he doesn't stop bawling within two minutes he must go to his room than to drag him to his room at once, for the former method gives him a chance to do two ver}- laudable and valuable things, — ^to make up his mind and to use his will. Even to give a child his choice between two pun- ishments is not a bad idea, for even if he chooses the less painful it will still be a punishment, but the one that seems to him the more just. Choice involves activity, and government by activity 74 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING is the best of all methods of home training. With babies we do not remove the dangerous plaything without giving at the same instant a safe one. We foref end an undesirable plan when the child has begun to get about by planning a diversion. We dare not say " don't " very often in the nursery, particularly " don't touch," because we have come to know that the touch-instinct and the touch hunger are the most valuable motive powers in self- education, but instead, we plan to fill the whole day with safe, happy, eager doing, and a child who is safely busy is always good. Reading References There is a golden chapter in Allen: " Home, School and Vacation," upon obedience, under the title " Maxims of Home Discipline." Mrs. Wood- Allen in her " Making the Best of Our Children," first series, has a helpful chapter. Mrs. Chenery: "As the Twig is Bent," takes up the problem as it relates to children between four and eight. Jacob Abbott's fine old book, " Gentle Measures in the Training of the Young," discusses the question of punishment wisely. His grandson, Ernest Hamlin Abbott: " On the Training of Parents," follow^s in the same line. CHAPTER XI SEX INSTRUCTION AND DISCIPLINE There seems to be general agreement today as to the necessity of sex instruction in the home. There are differences of opinion as to its desirabiHty in the schools. The only prominent opponent of sex instruction generally is Dr. Hugo Miinsterberg. His arguments should in fair- ness be weighed. His principal objection to such teaching is that it stimulates the passions and so weakens rather than strengthens the defences of the will against immoral- ity. This is probably true to some extent during adoles- cence, although such stimulation is reduced to a minimum if the instruction be oral, given by a parent and stated in terms of moral ideal and self-mastery. Such an influence is quite obviated if the instruction is given before the years when the sex nature awakens and if it is followed by a wise physical and moral discipline of the sex life. Dr. Miinsterberg argues that if the child is left ignorant his fears and his natural shame will be his protection. (The word " his " should be changed to " her," for he seems more certain that this will be true of girls than of boys.) Unfortunately no child is ever " left ignorant " nowadays. Three-fourths of all boys and girls get a nearly complete though often distorted and unwholesome equipment of information by the time they are ten years old. It is hard to see how fear can protect if one does not know what to be afraid of, or how ignorant shame can carry a boy or girl safely through the insidious temptations of our modem social life. Our better course seems to be to give instruction, but to see that it is done by the right persons in the right way and at the right times. We may agree with Dr. Miinster- berg, Dr. Cabot and others, however, that mere instruc- tion is not enough. To know what sin is and what are 75 76 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING . its wages has not made the world good, though it has taught those who wanted to be good where trouble lies. Our more important duty is so to reinforce the will and strengthen the ideals that the informed youth shall choose to live purely. This is not a matter of merely conveying some facts; it means a course of moral gymnastics. Sex discipline is as necessary as sex instruction. Who Is to Do This? Evidently the parents, the mother first and later, with boys, the father. For the present, at least, it seems un- likely that these matters will be taught in the schools. If they should be, there will at first probably be little more than an indirect approach through nature study in the lower grades that represent the age when first instruc- tion should begin. The physician may, especially during adolescence, prove a valued assistant to the parent, but he is not in a position to give that consecutive training and watchfulness which constitute adequate help. Gen- erally physicians are poor teachers. The minister may prove an ally, too, but he has neither the preparation nor the opportunity to take this work from parental shoul- ders. The so-called " expert " is to be distrusted, for those who specialize in this theme are quite likely to be morbid about it, and a lecture from a platform is a poor substitute for the careful explanations and answers to questions which alone give satisfactory knowledge. Any audience of boys or girls old enough to listen intelligently necessarily numbers young persons of various physio- logical and psychological ages. Each has his own special inquiry or anxiety. No blanket information can suffice. The conversation that ensues among these half -instructed young folks is hardly informative or wholesome. Books are useful for giving parents scientific knowledge and suggesting the language of presentation, but they should not be put into the hands of children. They are ready-made, they do not answer the difficulty of the moment. Most of them are vague, and so do not give concrete knowledge. Many of them are sentimental, and SEX INSTRUCTION AND DISCIPLINE 77 so are unwholesome. A few of them tell too much, and so are too stimulating. The timid parent may possibly find it necessary to put what he thinks the most suitable book in his child's hands, but he should do this chiefly as an excuse for starting a conversation in which he should discover whether the child really got what the book had for him, and what more the child wants to know. Such books would better be taken away after reading, so that they will not be brooded over or loaned about among the children of the neighborhood. Just What the Problem Is Two situations of childhood and youth are involved in sex instruction and discipline. One is that before and the other that after the sex nature awakens. In the earlier period we are busy with general preparation ; in the later we are helping the youth meet a personal problem. At first our work is simple and easy. We ourselves should feel little if any self-consciousness in communicating the facts during the years when all acts and facts have equal rank, and the discipline of those years is that of general self-control. But later, when our own shyness is met by the self -consciousness of youth, the problem is one which he himself feels poignantly and the discipline must be specific and urgent. The more we can do in the way of early instruction and training, the easier and the better it will be. Instruction and Discipline of Pre-Adolescents The first item in the long program is instruction as to the personal toilet. Assured that the child's private parts are in normal condition, the parent must teach the child to cleanse them regularly and that he is otherwise to leave them alone. These, like the rest of the bodily temple, are to be treated reverentially. Modesty is to be taught, but even in doing so the child is to learn that some parts of the body are withheld from exhibition, not because they are shameful, but because they deserve and 78 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING require special protection. And the child is to be taught that whatever is told him about these organs is a secret between his parent and himself, kept not because it is shameful, as it is not, but just as we do not tell our neigh- bors about our prayers or our family affairs. The habit of self-abuse, which sometimes sets parents into panic and causes them to think their children de- generate, is often acquired innocently through the acci- dental discovery that it is pleasurable, and is occasioned more often than by any other one cause by the neglect of the parent to instruct the child how, by proper cleanliness and care, to avoid a local condition of irrita- bility. The most serious meaning of such a habit is not physical but the fact that it is a selfish indulgence, likely to lead into sensuality hereafter. Both among boys and girls, the method of prevention and cure is the positive one. Im- mediate rising on waking, the cold morning splash and rub, the athletic ideal, the broadest conception of what manhood or womanhood means, getting " good and tired " and going to bed ready for calm, dreamless sleep — these are the best ways to help the child to master his body. The child who is softly nurtured, overfed, greedy and indulged is being actually trained for sensuality. But to go into training for wholesome bodily living is to make ready for moral living later. Whatever makes a child self -controlled, ready for hardship and full of abounding life now is the best kind of sex discipline for this period of life. For no other reason than this is it so important that confidential relations should be maintained between parent and child. There is almost certain to be some physical state or symptom, some obscure physiological fact, some social or moral situation involving the sex life, concerning which the child knows no person in the world whom he can depend upon for knowledge or wisdom, unless it is his father or mother. It is a pathetic tragedy if he dares not confixde in them. Even the parent who is timid about offering information can keep the door open to his child, so that when he comes and asks for it he may obtain SEX INSTRUCTION AND DISCIPLINE 79 what he needs. No parent need find it hard to talk about this matter, if he is sure his child desires to listen. The child should receive some instruction. The best occasion is in answer to some inevitable question, often stimulated by observations among the animals or birds or in the human family life, or by some attempt at revela- tion by a playmate. The very best opportunity, and one to be taken advantage of, is when a new baby is expected in the home or neighborhood. The evening is a good time, when the light is shaded and the child is in mother's lap, too sleepy to discuss the matter, but in the mood of reception, of content and gratitude. As to our manner in such a conversation, it should be matter-of-fact. There is no excuse for self -consciousness, since to the child all information is of equal rank and interest. There is no reason to suggest that what w^e tell is unusual. His questions are innocent, not serious. If he has shocked us already by some vulgar word or phrase, it has been either through ignorance or bravado. We should above all things be honest, since we cannot exact honesty from him in all realms unless we grant it to him in this one. The mother may sometimes wisely postpone an answer to an especially startling inquiry until a more propitious time and until she has carefully framed her answer, but it should be a short postponement, and not an avoidance. We should be sure the child is attentive. Some children ask questions for the sake of making con- versation, but it is fair to demand that they should listen during this explanation until it is clear and then dismiss the subject from their minds, unless additional informa- tion is wanted. There is no reason why they should chatter about it daily. What to Tell There are two questions which a child ought to ask, and probably will, before he is ten, perhaps before he is six years old, and both should be answered whenever they are asked. One is: " How do babies come?" or some other 80 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING inquiry that leads to the mother's part in the renewal of life. It is generally agreed that " the stork story " and " the doctor story " are unnecessary. Many, perhaps most, counsellors advise leading up to the explanation by using such incidents as frequently occur in the plant and animal world. This takes some time and requires a number of analogies. The writer is convinced that the method is needlessly devious and that we prefer it because we are shy rather than because the method is helpful. Why not say at once that all life comes from parents; why not tell little children immediately that the child himself was carried in a nest in his mother's body close under her heart and was brought into the world, as all little ones are, through the gates of birth? "The farm -yard method" and the garden story then become useful supports and reminders for the human story. The method of flower- fertilization, the growth of chickens from the egg, the birth of puppies, are easily observed and accessible experi- ences, which require to be interpreted and which, in turn, interpret chastely what takes place in humanity. In some ways it seems better to emphasize the differences rather than the similarities between the animal and the human world. The human life is immeasurabty above that of any of the animals ; human parents love before they mate, and they care for their young throughout their lifetime as none of the animals do. There will come a time, too, when we must show the youth that with the animals a normal sex life is an instinct, but that with man it is an achievement. We do not want him to use his animal nature as an excuse for behaving like an animal. The other question which is quite as likely to be asked is as to the part of fathers in reproduction. There is an unwise reluctance as to revealing this, and children have anguished over the puzzle, with the result that both boys and girls grow up with the feeling that, however beautiful and noble motherhood may be, there is something shame- ful about becoming a father. That this feeling has had SEX INSTRUCTION AND DISCIPLINE 81 its result in degrading fatherhood and in encouraging impurity among boys there can be no question. This question should be answered as soon as it is asked. It is much better to tell it before the child has sex- consciousness. With boys we lose the strongest motive for the protection of the organs of generation when we postpone knowledge of their use. We prepare girls for a sickly, unwholesome land of shame if they grow up in a world where pictures, sculpture, literature and conversa- tion leave them half instructed but needlessly embarrassed. Children of both sexes may safely be told how the seeds of life are nourished and carried and deposited. Quietly revealed, this mystery will impress any child as a beautiful miracle-play, and its satisfying completeness will tend to prevent rather than stimulate further thought and curiosity. In all this early teaching there is the direct opportunit}'- to show how the sex organs are chiefly the sacred instru- ments for the maintenance of family life. A child gets no other conception of their use from his companions than that they are primarily for personal and sensual pleasure. By this method both boys and girls see that they are the means for handing down life, and that therefore they are to be protected as such by those to w^hose stewardship they are given. This frankness sets the child free to continue to be child- like, and not inquisitive, or furtive or baffled. Even during the pre-adolescent years a good father ought to share in this teaching. After a mother has told the story of birth, a father should tell the little son or daughter how hard and how perilous it all was when the child's own life was given, and so win for the mother for- ever after the gratitude and considerateness which she deserves. It is more natural, too, for fathers to tell the father-story to their young sons. Instruction and Discipline of Adolescents It is not to be supposed that all the instruction suggested above can be given in one interview. It is a consequence 82 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING of the method here described, which arouses no sex con- sciousness, that information is more easily forgotten. The parent must occasionally review, or question, and add a few facts as they are needed. For example, it will be necessary to urge the child to resist with scorn and indignation any invasion of his or her physical privacy by another of either sex. At the dawn of adolescence it is necessary for a mother to inform her daughter about the facts and h^^giene of menstruation. Adolescent boys, too, would be more considerate of their mothers, sisters and friends if they knew that they are at times in a condition which requires especially tender care. By this time, too, it is necessary that young people should know that there are unfortunate women who make hire of their bodies, and men who are so debased as to prostitute their own powers. It is also absolutely necessary in early adolescence to say something about the awful filth-diseases that are the wages of sin, at least for the sake of avoiding the public sources of contamination, and later for deterrence. There should be no dark places left in the mind of youth furnish- ing room for sex-worries, or justifying recourse to quacks or contaminated literature. But for both men and maidens the great need now is the positive, not the negative — moral gymnastics rather than mental equipment. Paul's motto, " I go into train- ing for the contests of godliness," must be the motto of every young man and woman. The problem now is no longer one of hearsay. The sexual impulse, coming sud- denly, is in the lives of many young men so masterful that knowledge, ideals, even prayers and strong cr>4ng are hardly effective to stay the compulsion. The erotic tendency, assisted by the instinct to dare and the more ancient instinct to chase, pushes hard at the barriers of self- restraint. With young women, thoroughly protected, the impulse expresses itself more indirectly through charm and beauty and allurement, but unguarded and betrayed by woman's instinct to give, it, too, may press on to moral defeat. The sex-hungers are stimulated today by our sensuous amusements, our lavish living, foolishly unchape- SEX INSTRUCTION AND DISCIPLINE S3 roned opportunity, the freedom of the first departure from home, and the necessary postponement of marriage. We must do all we can now to strengthen the good motives and right attitudes. Every possible motive must be brought to bear to upstay the wiU and to keep the life stainless. With one the personal motives may avail: self-respect, the noblesse oblige that will not hunt down a woman and would not hurt an unborn child, refinement, disgust, what Mr. Roosevelt caUs " truculent integrity," even the fear of personal injury. With another the social passion will be more effective: loyalty to clan, reverence of motherhood, chivalr}^ to sisterhood, the unwillingness to make a thrall of another soul, the sense of responsi- bility to society and the unwillingness to be a social criminal, the sense of outrage at contaminating the springs of birth, fidelity to the wife or the husband or the children that are to be. With still another, the religious motive may prevail : the manly fear of God, old-fashioned horror of sin, a passion for the Kingdom of God on earth. We may strengthen these various motives by the aid of good and wise people. The physician may emphasize the ph3^sical and broaden the scope of information, the Y. M. C. A. physical director, the Campfire Girls guardian, the camp director may help the ambition for clean bodily vigor; the pastor and the church ma}^ appeal to the re- ligious feelings and decisions; busy companionship with noble young men and unselfish women will enlarge the social ideal and caU forth the influence of hero-worship. Frequent and wholesome social meetings of boys and girls in the home will tend to take the place of unrestrained conviviality and clandestine meetings. " No virtue is safe," says Dr. E, O. Sisson, " that is not enthusiastic." We do not expect our young people to become purity crusaders, but we do want a quiet, settled allegiance to the side of honor. In the Knights of King Arthur, a fraternity mth a separate sisterhood found in many of our churches, young folks, in one of the degrees, without saying very much about it, take a compact of chastity, and the knightly ideal and romance has been 84 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING found effective in maintaining it. Still better is it for tempted young people to save themselves by serving others. " For their sakes," said the Master, " I conse- crate myself," and to be an elder brother or sister to younger boys and girls not only potently helps self-mastery at the time, but acts as a guiding motive long after the special connection has ceased. Here again the family ideal, which was helpful in the earliest instruction, continues to be central in adolescent discipline. Carried on into marriage, it is the best guar- antee of a pure and unselfish home life and a wise and loving nurture of children. Reading References Two valuable books upon the importance of sex instruction are Wile: " Sex Education," and Foster: " The Social Emergency." The latter contains separate chapters on different phases of the matter by different writers. The following books will be found helpful to use with children of the ages indicated: To Use With Children Up to Eight Morley's " The Spark of Life." Chapman's " How Shall I Tell My Child? " To Use With Boys and Girls From Nine to Fourteen Hall's " From Youth into Manhood." Lowry's " Truths " (for boys). Howard's " Confidential Chats with Boys." Lowry's "Confidence " (for girls). To Use With Youth Over Fourteen Smith's " The Three Gifts of Life " (for girls). Hood's " For Girls and the Mothers of Girls." Latimer's " The Changing Girl." Hall's " From Youth into Manhood." Willson's " The American Boy and the Social Evil." Hall's " The Strength of Ten." Goddard's " The Kallikak Family " (giving the eugenic motive). CHAPTER XII THE IMAGINATION One important mistake is commonly made as to the na- ture of imagination. Many persons, for example, would state the difference between memory and imagination as this : that in memory we recall things as they were, and in imagination represent things as they might be. By this is usually meant the unordered kind of thinking which we call day-dreaming, which is only one kind and that the less important kind of imagination. It is the passive side. Even in day-dreaming, the things which we think might be are all based upon the things that are. Even the most unreal fancy is composed of fragments of fact. Your witch who rides on a broomstick in your visions and performs all kinds of magic has a human face, carries a real broomstick and in her magic weaves to- gether a number of things that have really happened. But active or constructive imagination is based even more thoroughly upon fact. In a child's play, which is his chief way of expressing his constructive imagination, the larger part of his action consists in imitating what he has seen done by adults, and the unreality is chiefly in his turning things to imaginary uses, as a stick into a horse, or a doll into a child. But he never does anything, even in his most fanciful play, that he has not seen or heard of in its elements at least. Imagination, then, as Bolton says, " is simply a special kind of recall — in the form of images." It differs from memory in that it includes the future and the present as well as the past. You can imagine tomorrow's dinner, you cannot remember it. We begin to see that imagination is not merely a charm of the mind, as poetic fancy is of the mind of a child. It is of very practical import. The child thinks largely imagi- natively, that is, photographically. All that he sees and 85 86 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING hears becomes his collection of films. He develops them b}'' play and they become experience. We may agree that vStanley Hall is right in saying that for a number of years the imagination is the chief means of training, and that the chief additional need of the child is that his mind be provided with rich material to stimulate his imagina- tion, and that he should work this out and express it in free play. Since education aims at all stages to help the child form character, we are glad to utilize the imagina- tion at every stage because it is immensely important for character-formation. Imagination and Initiative Through free play the child gets possession of a great variety of experiences, not only those of his own parents and intimates, but those of the race. In the chasing, hunting, exploring, competitive, home-making and dra- matic plays of childhood, he reproduces much of the race life. He is " studying history " unconsciously but more really than he ever will through books. It is both fortu- nate and valuable that every new generation of children likes to play the old games. The wise parent will supple- ment such play by story-telling that covers a long range of human experience both in past achievements and in present conduct. The unimaginative child is usually the child who has not played widely. Having had but limited experiences, he goes forth into the real world with timidity; he cannot interpret the daily future by his past; having met and conquered few difficulties he is unready and uncourageous for fresh ones, and in emergencies he is helpless. On the other hand, the child who has photographed vividly everything around him has stocked up not only in experi- ence, but in pluck and self-reliance. The farm boy, even the leader of a street gang, has more capacity for under- taking and achieving than the child who has always stayed in a flat or kept close to a nurse or a tutor. THE IMAGINATION 87 Imagination and Invention We may go even further and say that not only the ca- pacity of meeting new situations but that of inventing new combinations is inherent in the imagination. The poet's " fine frenzy " is not baseless. He takes the facts of life and combines them with a fresh vision or insight. He plods to mastery of many facts and then has the vision to make a new combination, to add an untried element, to attach a new adjustment. So when we encourage imagination, particularly constructive imagination, we are not stimulating mere dreamers; we are doing one of the most practical things in the world. The freshest, most effective achievements in science and business come from men of imagination. An Aid to Joy The joy which imagination adds to life is special for each period. In childhood it rejoices in fairies and wonder-stories, rejoices even in its self-created terrors; revels in its own fantastic grotesqueries. It is perhaps the baselessness and ,unreasonableness of childish imagin- ings that make us impatient with them. But the imagination in adolescence is more closely re- lated to fact. It dismisses fairyland, but creates its own, idealizing the events of daily life, glorifying its favorites into heroes, recreating the past of history and prophesying a future heaven on earth. In manhood imagination is more sober but still joyous. It flames in the period of courtship; it glows in the days and nights when the youth is discovering himself and his world and his relationship to it. What the mind has enjoyed weaving in imagination is now wrought out into music and art, into stone and wood, into the actualities of business and commerce. An Aid to Truth At first, imagination seems to be the foe of truth, as the child gets confused in his effort to distinguish what 88 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING he sees from what he dreams, and indeed this confusion may become serious unless he is drilled to see as " stories " the fancies that are distinct from what truly has happened. But later imagination becomes the handmaid of truth. After the child has outgrown his literal belief in Santa Glaus, that myth and its celebration continue to give him, through his imagination, a clearer idea of the Christmas spirit of joyous giving than he could ever get with mere prose. After the scientist has gathered all the facts, it takes the philosopher's constructive imagination, with its broad outlook that sees over all the particulars, to inter- pret it. The poets of " The Charge of the Light Brigade " and " Paul Revere's Ride " have given us more truth about those events than the annalists who collected every detail. As AN Aid to Workmanship How could the artist ever have painted this beautiful picture had not his eye already seen it? Did ever a composer write a piece of music that his inner ear had not already heard? Could a craftsman execute an intricate piece of work over which his fingers had not already imaginatively passed ? Are not fashions forecasted, harvests sown, discoveries made by men not merely of fact, but of imagination? The men who think themselves utterly practical are often most imaginative. As AN Aid to Morals If imagination is an aid to truth-seeing, it is also a help to true living. One must be able to hold an ideal life in his imagination if he is to live ideally. We usually do this by becoming acquainted with some fine real person. The imagination, then, both glorifies this character by visual- izing its many noble deeds and their influence and analyzes it by picturing the splendid purposes which inspired them. Thus it plots out its own life plan and marks the specifica- tions. Imagination and Social Adjustment Imagination is an aid not only to the life of the individ- ual, but also in living the social life. " Put yourself in his THE IMAGINATION 89 place " is one of the finest feats of the imagination and one of the first steps in social morality. Most prejudice, ill feeling and hate are due to the lack of just this quality of imagination. The imaginative child who plays alone is defective here. The child who plays socially is greatly helped in learning this important lesson. It is not too much to say that most of our great social problems will be in the way of solution as soon as the majority of our people have acquired social imagination. Varieties of Imagination Perhaps the reason we have not recognized the scope of the imagination in daily life is because we do not realize through how many of the senses it expresses itself. We think of the imagination as chiefly at work through the sight. " The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling " sees sights that never were on sea or land. Our own fancies are usually day-dreams, of things that we seem to see, based upon that which our physical eyes have seen. But while at least half of us are eye-minded, many are ear- minded, and their imaginations are most sensitive to musical sounds. There is an imagination that is awak- ened through the sense of smell. These are all related, so that, for instance, a familiar odor may stimulate us to see again, as with our own eyes, a familiar scene, whose ap- pearance as well as odor is recalled to mind. But imagi- nation works also through the fingers as well as those senses that center in the head. There are persons who cannot be satisfied when they see a new apparatus or machine until they touch it or make it go. So there is a tactile and a motile, as well as a visual imagination. These work together, also, since the hand reinforces the eye and the artisan who would reconstruct or improve a tool that he has seen and handled needs both senses to make his dream come true. How TO Make Imagination Constructive Psychologists are in the habit of saying that there are two kinds of imagination, passive and active, or repro- 90 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING ductive and constructive. Day-dreaming is an example of passive imagination, any constructive craft of active imagination. Evidently the latter is more valuable, for it gets some- thing done. We perhaps do not realize that it is also more enjoyable. A child likes to hear a story about a brave knight or his adventures, but he enjoys much more to be that brave knight, by playing on his rocking horse or with his stick loose among the daisies. These facts suggest some rules for encouraging con- structive imagination. 1. Encourage action. Tell as many imaginative stories as you will, but try to show the child how to retell them and dramatize them. When he expresses some fanciful idea, encourage him to draw it or to paint it. Especially en- courage the writing out of his fancies when he is old enough to write. These deeds will not only tend to regulate his accidental, garrulous, half -formed images, but to make them more clear and more useful. Among older boys and girls especially, we need not only to endeavor to substi- tute strong, pure, imaginative books for sensational and irrational ones, but to try to get the young people out from books into real doing and achieving. It is pretty hard for the boy who has seen wealth gained as easily as by " Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford " or for a girl who has seen maidenly charms so immediately bewitching as stated by Laura Jane Libbey, to meet the actualities of life. 2. Appeal to all the senses and offer more sensations. Madame Montessori omits stories in her House of Child- hood, since she says she wants imagination based on facts of actual experience, but she is very ingenious about multi- plying sense expressions. We may follow her thus far, for, as we have shown, imagination works through all the sense organs and there arc no doubt possibilities in en- riching the imagination of the child through the nose and taste as well as through the ear and eye that are un- dreamed of. Especially is it possible to develop a race of men who, if they be not artists or craftsmen, may brighten THE IMAGINATION 91 the monotony of modem work through the imaginative use of their fingers. We do not, however, agree with her that imagination is based entirely upon material facts. Surely acts and experiences revealed in stories appeal even more strongly to the child and have even more potent effect upon his own activities. Love of the beautiful seen in pictures or even as imagined through stories is just as essential as sense experiences or the technical training of the hands. In the effort to appeal to the senses and to offer more sensations, we have many simple opportunities in the home. We should learn how much better are home-made than store-bought toys. A child can do more things, for instance, which will train his sense perception and de- velop his imagination with a pile of blocks of different sizes and shapes than with many more elaborate toys. In the purchase of toys, we should select those that pre- suppose inquisitiveness on the part of the child. Simple toys and elementary things rather than complete things are desirable. We should avoid mechanical toys which the child merely looks at and can do nothing with except, perhaps, take apart. Some parents buy inexpensive mechanical toys so that the children may take them apart and thus learn something from them. We should help the child to make toys; that is, we should provide the material and tools, give some initial suggestion through story or illustration, be ready when help is demanded to show how to do the next thing — but do not do anything which the child is able to do himself. We should help the child to invent new plays with common things and with old toys. In all this, we are not to do the inventing but simply start him going. Nothing is more educative to the imagination than dramatic play. Parents do not seem to realize how general and how simple a thing it is. The child him- self, after he is three or four years old, usually engages in this play of his own volition. He draws a cart and sup- poses that he is a horse; he visualizes the life of his dolls. But we can show him how to work out a war game with 92 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING his soldiers; we can, by furnishing some discarded gar- ments, help him and his playmates to perform charades and simple dramas. A lady in Kansas made a set of dolls out of bottles representing the Mother Goose char- acters and the whole village of children immediately started not only to imitate her handicraft, but also to work out dramas in this mimic world of play, and at least three years after her departure from the village, they were still performing her plays and originating ones of their own. 3. Appreciate the imaginativeness of a child. The early ramblings of a child are tiresome, his first efforts at art or construction are inadequate, and it is easy to tell him to keep still and to pass over his masterpieces with scorn. It is possible to look hopefully and with interest upon his productions and, quietly holding him to his best, to encourage him until the time when his work shall become a lifelong joy to him and a satisfaction to us. The world always has enough artisans and drudgers. It needs more men who are artists at least in the conduct of their lives and who sing at their work. Reading References A most rich and useful chapter upon imagination is in Bolton: " Prin- ciples of Education," 464-519. The- importance of the story as a help in training the imagination is suggested in Partridge: " Stories and Story Telling," chapter V, and Forbush: " Manual of Stories," chapters III, X. CHAPTER XIII SOME PROBLEMS OF THE INSTINCTS The writer has just been watching with interest some small chickens which, on account of early hatching, were kept for several days in a pen close to the hen and now have scattered far and wide, while she is still confined in the yard. The earnest and masterly fashion in which they scratch up the earth with their feet is most amusing, and is, since they could have had no instruction on the wooden floor of the pen, trul}'" amazing. We say that this impulse of chickens to scratch is an instinct. We watch a young baby struggle to sit up in his crib and after he has dragged himself to an upright position look eagerly over the side. Nobody has taught him to do this, and his act seems parallel with that of the chickens. It is instinctive. In each case we have an unlearned tendency. In each case there was present a situation which acted as a stimulus. In each case, when we ask ourselves why the child or the chicken acted as he did, we can think of no better explanation than to say he felt like it. In other words, given a certain situation, a child or a chicken feels the impulse to react toward it and does so in a way that involves neither education, foresight nor reasoning. The Classification of the Instincts Many classifications of the instincts have been at- tempted, none of which is perfectly satisfactory. The best basis of classification seems to be that suggested by Thorndike, which groups them according to the situations that evoke them. Situations involving colors, sounds, movements, etc., evoke responses which produce strong effects upon the sense-organs. Objects presented close to a young child, not too large or terrifying, produce 93 94 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING the response of the endeavor to lay hold upon them. We may call this the grasping instinct. If they are not repulsive or terrifying, the child tends to look at them, examine them, feel of them in different ways and go through a variety of experiments with them. This may be called the manipulative instinct, or the constructive and destructive instinct. Add to this a slight measure of experience and a trace of habit, and we have what we may call the instinct of curiosity. If these and other responses are not because of necessity but rather of pleasurable satisfaction, or if they involve some measure of experimental imitation, we have the instinct of play. Then there are instincts that appear not so much as the result of response to material objects as to situations offered by the behavior of other persons. Sociability or gregariousness, mastery and submission, showing off, emulation, imitation, motherly behavior, are all instincts which we may group as social instincts. The Importance of the Instincts It is certainly of importance to know what constitutes " the original stuff of human nature." This stuif, how- ever, is not to be compared to dust, man's traditional constituent, but to something alive. These untaught impulses are the tendrils by which the child reaches out to take hold of the world around him; they are, like tendrils, prophetic of the directions in which the child is trying to grow. The instincts of a child are also his accessibilities, the doors at which we may knock and which we may be sure he will open to us. One of the most important discoveries of education is that each instinct has its especially favorable period for exercise. Educators call these " the nascent periods." " There is," says George E. Johnson, " a happy time for fixing skill in drawing, making boys collectors in natural history and presently dissectors and botanists. There is a time when boys love and must learn to play ball, to swim and skate or be deficient in such sports and the broad training they give all their lives; so there is a time SOME PROBLEMS OF THE INSTINCTS 95 when the habit of activity, that is, the habit of work and the enjoyment of work, may be formed." Bolton tells us that the nascent period for acquiring a speaking mastery of foreign languages is before ten, while the best time to learn to read and write begins only with the tenth year. These and other discoveries concerning nascent periods are bound to have a sweeping influence upon school curricula, which will make great and happy econo- mies in learning. The Importance of the Instincts to the Parent These facts mean a great deal to parents. Those who see the importance of the home education of children will wish to know all that can be laiown about the instincts so that they may take advantage of them in the best way of training their children. All parents need to learn their import so that they may not misunderstand their children. Some of the early manifestations of the in- stincts are annoying to adults, and therefore seem to them to be signs of mischief or peril in their children's lives. The instinct to handle and take apart and destroy, the longing to be in water and dirt, the tendency to fight, are examples of acts which are really expressions of the desirable instincts of curiosity and self-assertion. They are like the tadpole's tail, that is unsightly and bound to disappear, which, however, if amputated, would prevent the evolution of the complete frog, and which, if allowed to attenuate, is destined to be absorbed into the com- pleteness of the frog. If we amputate an instinct, we may prevent to some degree the completeness of the life of a man. What we have to do is to discover, if we may, the instincts that are being expressed by our child's acts, and to take advantage of these expressions at the appropriate time and in the most skilful way. The most skilful way usually is to guide such an expression toward some fine, attractive and useful purpose. For instance, recognizing, in the annoying tendency of a little child to get himself all wet and dirty by making mud pies, an expression of 96 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING the instinct of craftsmanship in the direction of sculpture, we can sometimes eliminate the dirt and water by provid- ing plasticine or modelling clay, and we can, by furnishing models and giving a few suggestions, interest him in- tensely in much more elaborate, skilful and permanent representations of his ideas. Those who hold what is known as the recapitulation theory of human development, the theory that the child in his instincts reproduces the race life, are tempted by an attractive analogy to allow an unnecessary lingering of the child in the lower and uneducated levels. Man's original equipment, as Thomdike reminds us, adapts him, directly, only for such life as might be led by a family group of wild men among the brute forces, animals and other family groups of wild men. But we live in a different world, for which this original stuff of human nature alone is not sufficient and against which it even rebels. The instinct for keeping clean, for example, hardly appears in some boys before adolescence, and we can keep them washed up only against their violent pro- tests and in spite of their frequent neglects. But we commit no sin in anticipating the evidence of this instinct and in establishing a habit which shall become almost as automatic in its action as an original instinct. Indeed we must do with the instincts what we do with the forms of life that show above the soil in our gardens. Some of them we may let grow as they are; a few must be rooted out by withholding the nourishment (the situations) that would call them forth, and we must substitute for others desirable habits that shall grow in their places. Taking Advantage of the Instincts What has already been said suggests three convictions : 1. If the instincts represent original strength, we may help a child greatly if we can let him in some way act out what he is, in the service of knowledge-getting. 2. We shall do this most effectively if we use the highest and not the lowest manifestation of the instinct. SOAIE PROBLEMS OF THE INSTINCTS 97 3. We can supplement the development of the instincts by the development with them of right habits. We may illustrate this by what is probably the most important and the most valuable of the instincts, the instinct of play. (Chapter XVII is given to " Play.") Two children of the same sex and of similar age have the instinct to play and the situations that stimulate them to play are very much alike. But the play instinct is not a simple but a complex one, because the very originality it involves gives rise to new situations which stimulate other instincts. So one child may, if he is not watched and guided, express himself through his play in most undesirable and unworthy fashion, while the other may be protected from such outbreaks and be led to get the best out of his play. One child may give vent to expressions of anger, destructiveness, selfishness, carelessness, culminating in physical exhaustion and misery, while the other may learn gradually to inhibit his anger, build or rearrange instead of destroying, share with his comrades and take care of his playthings, and come to the end of the day comfortably tired and happy. The better result may be obtained, not by constant dictation of the play, but chiefly by a provident arrangement of the situation. For instance, unfinished toys and playthings, such as blocks and boards, that suggest an inexhaustible variety of building operations, themselves lead to peaceable construction, sociable co-operation and proud care of the finished product. • The mother can further make a day's play profitable by arranging some exclusive place where the toys may be stored at the close of the day, by calling the child to put them away, at first with her co-operation, just before he is too tired to be willing to do so, and so build up a habit as to the way to end the play that shall be just as instinctive as the play itself. She can, of course, do this most easily if she begins early. Some Further Suggestions 1. Whenever a new impulse appears in a child's life, 98 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING we should ask earnestly : What does it mean ? Why does the child feel like doing what he does? How can this impulse be made use of for good ? 2. We must remember that an instinct may have worth for the child at his stage which would have no value to us at our stage of development. The boy, says Arthur Holmes, wants " to play exactly the games and to have the toys his wise parent now considers a waste of juvenile time that might be employed in learning something useful, something that would eventually enable the boy to gain a larger place among his future adult fellows. The untutored father cannot for a moment imagine that success in life can be measured in terms of a boy's world; that the boy has a real world of his own; that in that world he has as much moral right to succeed in his way as his father has to succeed in his world in his way." 3. Whenever we must repress an instinct, the best way is not by direct destruction, but by playing a higher instinct against it, or still better, some ideal against it. For instance, the low instinct to avoid physical pain would be conquered not by flogging a child until he was used to it, but by developing the instinct to camp out, in which some physical discomfort would be an incident, or by stimulating the athletic ideal, so that the boy would meet pain in a strenuous game without flinching. To deal with the instincts requires an especially earnest endeavor to see life from the child's standpoint without at the same time losing sight of the high goal toward which the child is to move. Reading References Thorndike: " Education," V. King: "The Psychology of Child Development," 21-2.5. Bolton: " Principles of Education," VIII. Kirk- patrick: " Fundamentals of Child Study," IV. These references include various modern statements and classifications of the instincts, of which Kirkpatrick's is the most full, but Thorndike's the most suggestive. CHAPTER XIV DEALING WITH THE EMOTIONS The child's feehng Hfe is so intense and subject to such variations of pleasure and pain that it presents some very real problems. The close connection of this topic with the last is seen in such a phrase as " the instinctive emotion of fear." Many of the emotions are instinctive. Pleasure and pain are important both as symptoms and as influences. Many physical pains, in the vital organs and special sense-organs, are useful as indicating wrong use or disease. Pains from external objects which the young child handles ignorantly — such as the stove, the cat, the hammer, etc. — are useful as warnings. Whole- some physical delights, on the contrary, are signs of health or evidences of hopeful aptitudes. When a child seizes upon a new toy or device or game with avidity and pa- tience, we ought to regard it as a symptom that he is learning something or is finding himself. Healthy physi- cal pleasures — in food, drink, deep breathing, exercise, in sensations from colors, sounds, perfumes, contacts, pleasing sights and a general sense of well-being — are stimulating to joy in life, to happy, free endeavor, even to gratitude and worship. Though a life completely sensuous and emotional sinks into languor and passiveness, yet the life made keen to beauty and worth, that dwells in a wholesome body and that receives a good balance of mental, volitional and moral stimuli, is not only well rounded but most efficient. Happiness may be made a strong incentive to duty and goodness. Fears Some of the fears of children seem to come by heredity from the age when human experience was full of occasions for fear, and when fear was the universal protective against 99 100 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING danger. Among these are fears of animals, fear of high places and fear of the dark. Some fears which men once shared with the animals may now have ceased because they are associated with certain senses once used as warnings that are not now among men so keenly developed. Bolton cites the paroxysm of fear which a cat shows at the appearance of a dog, which is not shown by a child perhaps because he has not such a sudden sensation of smell. A child's fears often have no other explanation than that sudden sensations of any sort are paralyzing to self-control. Sudden and loud noises, strange sights and unusual experiences of touch are all alarming for this reason. A baby is alarmed by a dis- torted face. At an early period fears are stimulated through the higher mental processes, particularly through imagination, and the telling of stories of goblins, ghosts and bogie men, foolishly done either for amusement or to enforce obedience, produces harmful consequences. A child who is exposed to such imaginative influences soon comes to dread every new situation, and if he is naturally sensitive is easily deprived of initiative and made a coward. E. P. St. John, discussing the relation of the home to a child's fears, divides them into "instinctive fears," "fears based on experience," and "fears due to misunder- standing or imagination." Regarding the first, the child is helpless; we cannot therefore expect to eliminate them entirely but gradually to modify them to such occasions as are really harmless. It is the fears due to experience that are in the main serviceable. Where, however, an unfortunate experience causes a needless fear, the peculiar circumstances should be explained by the parent, who shows no fear himself, and the child should later be led into association with the dreaded object under favorable conditions. Concerning the fears due to imagination or misunderstanding — and the misunderstandings are usually imaginative — St. John urges that the first step to correcting them is to know exactly what the child fears and how the fear first arose. Then an endeavor DEALING WITH THE EMOTIONS 101 may be made toward a clear explanation. Sometimes the child must be allowed to attain self-command gradually through growing knowledge and experience. Fear still has some protective value. If it is intelligent it restrains from perilous courses. The highest form of fear is reverence. A reverence for authority, that is not based entirely upon corporal punishment, insures the necessary obedience which must take the place of entire self-guidance before wise self-guidance is possible. It is for us who train children to endeavor to keep a careful balance between foolish fears and foolish bravado. Bol- ton has a simple chart in which he suggests the results of the use or abuse of fear, as follows : FEAR ciwifdfce 1 (Negative (Positive Bashfulness Ha^ul) Usrful) Self-consciousness J ' Caution Prudence Foresight Fear of wrong A child ought to learn to fear wisely and effectively. He ought also to learn to be brave wisely and effectively. Embarrassment There are certain painful emotions that come to children out of their social relations. In the presence of strangers or of an unusual number of adult acquaintances they become ver>^ uncomfortable. They have limited powers of communication and not much to say. When they are led into a room where strangers are present, they feel trapped. There are some children who suffer under even the most gentle approaches of those with whom they are not famihar. Part of this sh3'ness is a form of self- protection. The child who is shy is in a much more hopeful attitude than the one who wants to show off. The shy child listens and is still and fulfils Emerson's encomium of him who keeps in the midst of a crowd the sweetness of a perfect solitude. If this impulse be ex- treme it may be interpreted as an excess of self-conscious- ness, and such a child should be encouraged to take the viewpoint and share the activities of others. 102 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Children are sensitive to ridicule. Much of the sar- casm of adults is not understood, and is wasted on them, yet often even the atmosphere of sarcasm is wither- ing to a child. It always implies superiority and a willing- ness to inflict pain, both of which are the opposite of a right and loving parental attitude. Because the child. is humiliated, though he does not know how, sarcasm works more than any other folly of parents to incite that blindness of rage w^hich is too common among children. If wit has little place, humor has much in the training of children. That which distinguishes humor from wit is the element of sympathy. Children appear to be discouragingly unappreciative of parental wit; they are invariably responsive to a parent's attempts at humor. If you have failed in bringing a little boy to the table with clean hands, tell him the familiar nursery tale of Dirty Jack (in "My Picture Story Book"); if you have to deal with a small boaster, give him the history of the Emperor Who Had Nothing On (in " Wonder Stories"). Imitate to a sullen youngster the words and acts of one " Mr. Grumpy " or engage him in the merry game of " Poor Pussy." These exercises represent simply the endeavor to expel undesirable feelings by the invasion of happy ones. The sense of humor is a distinct specific for the emotion of embarrassment because it is an out-looking quality. Its possessor is not thinking how others regard him, but is himself an eager spectator of the daily adventure of life. And whatever we may do in the home to show the ridiculous side of certain traits and actions without naming the guilty party, whatever habits of pleasantry we can encourage, tend to help a child see himself as a part of a world that inspires cheerful laughter and not to take himself too seriously. But it is the ridicule of those of their own age that makes the deepest impression. To children the ideals and actions of adults seem somewhat distant, but the judgment of their peers is Public Opinion. It covers every field of life, — ''form" and sports, manlikeness in play, fashion in DEALING WITH THE EMOTIONS 103 clothes, personal mannerisms and conduct and even the validity of home training. What sins it remits are re- mitted and what sins it retains are retained. We who are older cannot perhaps do much to alter the child's viewpoint here. Therefore we all the more clearly are under the necessity of watching the companionships of the children of whom we have the care so that their young friends, if not as sage as adults, may at least be sound and wholesome. Anger The emotion of anger is one that causes parents much distress and frequent misunderstanding. It seems to be inborn. Major says that many children come into this world acting as if they were prepared to be angry at any provocation. The earliest and most familiar type of anger is that against personal aggression, W^hat- ever, animate or inanimate, thwarts a child is likely to start off such ungracious manifestations as uncontrolled yelHng, striking with the fists and calHng names. In special cases sulkiness and the withdrawing of affection are the quieter wa^^s of expressing this emotion. Fight- ing even as an expression of anger has its own code. Vengeance is regarded as just only among physical equals. All fighting does not imply anger as the chief impelling cause. During a considerable portion of school life it appears to be a habit as much as an expression of passion. Quarrelling is a kind of game ; squabbling as an evidence of bravery is a frequent custom, and teasing is often an intellectual exercise that seems to be indulged in not so much as an expression of malice as of enjoying the sense of mastery from witnessing the sudden displays of fear, wrath or shame which it incites in others. Jealousy, that smouldering form of anger which in- volves the comparison of one's self with others, begins largely with measurements of one's physical strength and circumstances with others, develops into the particu- lar type associated with love between the sexes and may grow unto those nobler feelings as to one's reputation for truth, decency and morality. 104 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING In general, there appears to be a steady broadening and deepening and a diffusion of the emotion of anger as the years go on. The child shows temper first at being foiled or checked, then at personal affronts and finally at attacks upon his character. He passes from ex- asperation against persons to indignation against m.oral wrongs. From these statements it is evident that the emotion of anger has a legitimate and somewhat important place in a human life. Unchecked, it produces the bully or the savage; uprooted, it would leave the coward and weakling. Without it, tolerance is silly, liberality is unintelligent, conviction is nerveless and active moral indignation is impossible. Says Dr. George E. Partridge, upon the basis of G. Stanley Hall: " To have strong passion held in check creates the tension under which much of the best work in the world is done. Anger thus becomes a stored energy, useful if properly conserved, but wasteful and harmful if not controlled." How TO Deal with Anger The following suggestions are made concerning some of the common emotional outbreaks of anger in the home. As to Temper: Children should not be nervously excited through the temper of their own parents. They should not have commands or scolding sprung on them. They should be protected from teasing, whether by their brothers or sisters, parents or guests. They should receive unvarying fairness, and be governed by justice and not by whim. Any child has a right to resent discipline that is without principle or reason. They ought not to be nagged or over-punished for minor faults. They should never be allowed, by expressions of temper in crying, to win any desired advantage. The influences of fatigue, health and the weather upon temper being fully recognized by elders, children should DEALING WITH THE EMOTIONS 105 be protected under such circumstances from whatever may disturb them. Per contra, the protection of a child's health, the avoid- ance on the part of parents of teasing, nagging or displays of temper, and careful exercising of the child in reasonable pleasantness should be the means for building up a life of self-control. Sensible devices, on occasion, such as diversion, changing the atmosphere, quiet solitary play, are often helpful. When temper takes the form of raging yelling, reasoning and soothing are in vain. In such cases St. John recommends, with caution, some shock of intense surprise, such as by a dash of cold water, for diversion. To drag the child forth to public exhibition to his mates would be effective with some. Where yelling seems likely to proceed to the point of exhaustion solitude and silence are the best helpers. As to Sulkiness: The pessimistic type of anger needs to be immersed in an atmosphere of sunshine; usually little direct attention need be paid to the special grievance, save to see that the child is treated with absolute fairness ; even disapproval need not be manifest; but the child should be given instant and attractive 'occupation that shall leave no time for self-indulgence. W^e must also appeal to every motive for self-mastery and persuade him that he must win such battles if he ever expects to live happily with others. As to Quarrelling: We have to acknowledge that quar- relling among children, though disagreeable to by-standers, has some merit as a stimulant both for mind and body. It represents their way of trying to get what they want, and sometimes to get justice. Where two children do not quarrel, it is often because one, the stronger, is always getting what he wants. We can ameliorate children's quarrelling somewhat. If they have had enough sleep and rest, they will not feel so quarrelsome. Sometimes we can arbitrate. Occasionally we can divert. Merely to stop a quarrel, when justice is not arrived at, is a poor way to deal with the problem. It sometimes takes more grace not to 106 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING interfere in these youthful experiments with principles. Ernest Abbott thinks that often all we need to deal with is the noise, insisting, " If you can't quarrel quietly, you shall not quarrel at all!" As to Fighting: Where quarrels lead to blows we have a more complex problem. If all fights chiefly involved anger we would deal with them alike. But when one contest is of jealousy and another is a mere matching of strengths and a third is a playground initiation and a fourth is an act of chivalry and still another is a joyous habit we are often dealing with contests that have in them little of the element of anger at all. Each contest must be judged on its own merits. It is evident that to prohibit a boy from fighting is not to prevent him from being angry; it may, on the other hand, encourage him to express his anger in undesirable underhand ways. Neither must a boy be allowed to fight indiscriminately; he can at least be guided to act thus chiefly in defense of his own person or honor or of the cause of the weak or persecuted, and only as a vigorous last resort. If a bo}^ is encouraged to talk over his fights at home it ought to be possible to prevent his becoming either a bully or a quarrelsome nuisance. As to Teasing: Teasing is an idleness disease, and its cure is occupation. Being teased is an infirmity of being unguarded, and the teased child needs to be taught how to guard himself for the attack, by a sense of humor, through well-rehearsed repartee or by " splendid isola- tion " as the need may be. In General 1. The emotions of a child depend largely upon his physical condition. If a child is peevish, sullen, irritable, easily frightened or embarrassed, there is the presumption that he is not feeling well bodily. He is less fearful, less subject to embarrassment or ridicule, less likely to get angry if he is in buoyant health. 2. A child's emotions are intensel}^ subject to sugges- tion. Much fear, embarrassment and wrath are con- DEALING WITH THE EMOTIONS 107 tagious from parents. If we simulate courage we shall lessen the child's fear; if we are ready to comfort and sympathize he will more easily overcome embarrassment; if we are calm he will be less likely to have fits of passion. 3. We can gradually educate the child to conquer instant and total abandonment to emotion, crying, passion, discouragement, by a regimen that involves wholesome hardship, experiences of strenuous endeavor, and certain soldierty ideals. 4. The highest phases of emotion are unknown to children. Their loves, their griefs, their loyalties are transitory. There must be a deeper understanding of worth to make possible the deepest affection. The emotions therefore develop with intelligence. Reading References Bolton: "Principles of Education," XXV. King: "The Psychology of Child Development," XIII, XIV. Hall: "Adolescence," X. HaU gives a wealth of facts, from the genetic standpoint, as to the development of the feelings before and during adolescence; King and Bolton cover the earlier periods. Bolton makes many practical suggestions as to training the feelings. CHAPTER XV INTEREST The applicability of this chapter to teachers is obvious, but it is of equal importance to parents. Parents wish to know how to sustain the interest of children in study, worth-while pursuits and work. Interest is a feeling of the w^orth to one's self of an object which he is contemplating or of an end which he may attain. Behind interest is an impulsion toward the object or end. The mind, for instance, rests upon a thousand objects in a short space of time, but selects only one to regard with favor. There are every hour many possible ends toward which we might work; we choose one as worth while. " My experience," says Bolton, " is what I agree to attend to." We agree to attend usually only to what we are interested in. Our experience is bounded by our interest. The matter of the origin of our interests is a fascinating topic of inquiry. Some of them are no doubt a part of our race-heritage. De Garmo thinks that they arise primarily from the activities put forth by primitive men to secure the requisites for their physical survival. Some of them evidently come from our more immediate an- cestors. But the origin of our interests in our surround- ings is much more evident than their origin in heredity. Our " original satisfiers," as Thomdike calls them, are small in number and potency compared with our per- manent satisfiers. Our interests unfold as our surround- ings unfold. Interest, Irving King reminds us, is a func- tion of the developing, as well as of the primitive, organ- ism. The richer the child's world in objects and ends, the wider become his interests. Interests Classified Students are generally agreed in dividing human interests into two classes, though strangely enough they 108 INTEREST 109 are not agreed upon their names. One authority classes the interests as native and artificial; another as work- interests and play -interests ; a third as the interests that involve self-expression and those which involve conquest. These seem to be only different names for the same thing. Some situations appeal to the mind at once; it recognizes their worth; it reacts to them; the name of this activity, in which the act is its own reward, is play. Other situa- tions do not make the same appeal; the mind does not recognize their inherent worth, but it may be moved by imitation, emulation, the encouragement of another or the recognition of some future reward; it reacts to them. The name of this activity, in which the reward is beyond the act, is work. In the former case there was the joy of self-expression ; in the latter, that of conquest. Interest in self-expression appears earliest. The young child responds to objects and ends within the sphere of sensation, to concrete opportunities, to what people do more than to what they say. Whatever means novelty to him means interest. And, at least for the first six years, the emphasis of his interest is upon the act rather than upon the object. Playful activity is his characteris- tic response as an expression of interest. After this the child begins to find disparities, first between his imagina- tion and actuality, and later between his powers and the possibilities of the case. But now he is impelled by competition with others, by offered rewards, by affection for his teacher, by the mere joy of endeavor and victory, to care for that which has lost the interest of novelty. Later, the life-interests appear. These are, like the interests of his early childhood, native interests ; they have the charm of play, and he pursues them in the play-spirit. But they are not always within the sphere of sensation, they do not always promise immediate pleasure; the ends may be far away and out of sight. In their pursuit the joy of endeavor and conquest still sustains him, and so the work-spirit and the play-spirit, like goodness and mercy in the Twenty-third Psalm, " follow him all the days of his life." no CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING The Importance of Interest We already see the importance of interest in a life. "It is," as G. Stanley Hall says, " like bodily hunger, an expression of need. ' ' Interests are the direct outgrowth of the instincts. Feelings of interest relate themselves on the one side to the intelligence and on the other to the will. They relate to the will, because when one is in- terested he wants to do; they relate to the intelligence, because one must know how to do. So the interests spring out of one's inmost nature and affect all he knows and does. Speaking of certain general differences between the sexes, Thorndike says: " Recognition of the original strength, in boys, of the interest in things and their mechanisms, and of the original strength, in girls, of the interest in the thoughts and feelings of persons, will increase the effectiveness of school management. The first necessity in education ever^^where is to know what man will be and do apart from education." The " original strength of interest " is what has made many a man well- educated apart from school, and this strength, utilized, will characterize the most successful teaching in the school- room and the most successful nurture in the home. " If properly appealed to, curiosity alone," says Kirkpatrick, " is a sufficient motive for the invasion of every fresh field of knowledge." Why Interest Ever Fails Why, if this is so, is interest ever neglected? Because interest is often identified with amusement. The teacher may excite interest in two ways, — she may give new ex- periences to the pupil by showing or describing to him something that he has never seen before, or she may direct his attention to unobserved qualities or relations in familiar objects. The former is the easier and more amusing way. As long as her stock of curios, her lantern slides, her stories, hold out, she can maintain interest. The student is passive, pleased, amused. But the result, as Kirkpatrick tells us, " is that all the sweetness is INTEREST 111 taken out of a subject before anything of value is learned about it, and subsequent teachers find it almost impossible to interest the children in these unpalatable and half -chewed materials. Not only has the delightful flavor of newness been removed from the subject, but the mental habit of taking rich food instead of working for daily bread has been cultivated." Then he states the secret of perpetual interest. " The real test of interest is not how much pleasure do the children get out of the study, but how much ^^or^ do they put forth in pursuing it." Now the measure of a teacher's success in teaching a subject is not whether all the pupils " pass " in it. Too often the subject passes, as well as the pupil. A better measure of success is : Will the student choose this subject later on? And yet this is not always possible. There are some subjects full of drudgery and detail work, in which the interest will not attach to the thing or to the details by which it is mastered. We see here three levels of interest. The teacher who regards interest of any sort whatever as a necessary means uses the amusement method. The teacher who regards interest in the subject as a necessity is unsatisfied unless when he gets to the end of the textbook he is certain that his pupil will continue its study. But there is also the teacher who does not scorn pleasurable interest from the pupil when it comes his way, and who hopes that he is leaving a deposit of permanent interest in the subject, but who is sometimes content if he can merely keep up interest in the effort itself. The last two are not mutually exclusive. We do not wish to have the child do a thing unwillingly, and it is not often necessary that he should do so. But when he does and does it to a finish, there is a rare satisfaction, as in the case of the university student who once said to Bolton: " I would like to take a certain attractive course, but I have started this German; I have had no end of difficulty with it, but I felt that to give it up would be Hke yielding to temptation. To fight it out will be to strengthen my moral nature." What has just been said is of immense importance to 112 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING the parent. The first tendency of the happy mother is to shower her child with playthings. She is disappointed to find that some of these gifts lose their interest, and she cannot think of anything to do but to buy more. But even if she could purchase a new toy each day, or if the resources of the toy world presented a new toy for each day of the year, she would find that interest aroused in this way is never lasting. Then, too, when the child is old enough to work as well as play, to be helpful as well as to be amused, she sees that she has been creating selfish as well as shallow interests. She longs for some sense of obligation, of persistence, of desire to share and to serve, and she knows that her method has produced none of these. She too discovers that the value of a plaything is not the pleasure it gives, but the effort it demands. She too sees that the amusement-interest is not dynamic enough to develop the passion for struggle. She also, when she has come to the end of her play -inducements, wishes she knew how^ to keep up satisfaction in mere effort. Suggestions for Maintaining Interest . A few suggestions may be made as to awaking and maintaining interest. First, it is evident that more than half the .battle is won if the teacher gets a good start with his pupils in a new subject. Starbuck tells of a schoolmistress who, recogniz- ing that geometries are — somewhat appropriately — usually bound in black, spent the first day in a class in plane geometry entirely in stories of great mathematicians. The second day, still without the textbooks, she gave up to fascinating solutions which these mathematicians had found to baffling problems of measurement, that she sketched out on the blackboard. At length, in response to an eager inquiry from some pupil " if there w^asn't some book that would tell us more about all this," with apparent reluctance she produced the textbooks, upon which her whole class fell with avidity. Some days later, when an unusually neat demonstration of an original problem had been made, the class broke out in spontaneous INTEREST 113 applause — the first time perhaps when there had ever been applause in a geometr}^ recitation. That was good teaching. There was an example of a successful appeal to interest. But this is not enough. The attitude of the class must not ever be: "If you entertain me, I'll keep awake. If not, I'll go to sleep or choose some other study." These are the people who never do anything they don't like to, and when they have reached middle life are still looking for something they will hke. The next step is to show the relation between something that the pupils do like and this new thing which they do not know whether they Hke or not. W. A. Baldwin on Cape Cod found that pupils who had no interest in arithmetic discovered such an interest when they took their problems out of their gardens instead of out of their textbooks. Wirt at Gary has largely solved the problem of interest by con- necting all the repairs and some of the construction about the school buildings with the pupils by making them practically apprentices to the workmen. In doing this teachers have learned a good deal themselves. They have foimd that these connections of interests lead to teaching certain subjects in new wa3^s. History, for example, used to be taught in chronological order only. That was the way adults approached it; it was thought to be a good way for approach by children. But it was discovered that the interest of the child began with his own immediate family, not with the prehistoric family ; with current social usages, not with ancient ones. So, as Thomdike says, " perhaps the story of the voyages of the parents of some pupil in the class should precede that of the voyage of Columbus. Perhaps to work back from the PhiHppines to Alaska, to the annexation of Texas, to the Louisiana Purchase, would be more instructive than to begin with the Spanish, EngHsh, French and Dutch settlements." And when we come to subjects that must involve drudgery, we need not neglect to look for and employ interest. We agree with McMurry that the way to 114 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING prepare for drudgery is to develop a strong motive. Motive has its origin in interest. " Hence, the chief preparation for drudgery that a teacher can give is a strong and many-sided interest." Children feel, for instance, an exhilaration which adults do not know in merely going through processes. They like to do ex- amples, to memorize words, to do a task through. This, with their docility and the authority of the teacher, carries a young child through many routine occupations. Later, when the processes are not interesting, the results may be made so. Instead of " exercises," children may write real letters; instead of learning the Constitution they may face real concrete civic problems; instead of laboring over adult textbooks they may write, illustrate and bind small, childlike readers and geographies of their own. Bolton says that once, when he was having diffi- culty in maintaining the interest of his pupils in penman- ship, he told them that it would be a required exercise only until each one could write a plain, legible hand with fair rapidity. The results were amazing. " They now had a desirable aim which excited their deepest interest." They asked for information and help instead of shirking it; they coached themselves and each other. In other subjects it was found that the prospect of a goal instead of an indefinite continuance brought the happiest results. And when there is no possible interest except fidelity, victory or responsibility, the child who has had the joy of conquest is the one who will best respond to the thought : This must be done; this falls to me, and / must do it. Application in the Home We can carry these thoughts right into our homes. Take the special problem of work, which we shall discuss more fully in a later chapter. First, let us get a good beginning. Show the value of the task. It will beautify the home, or it will add to the comfort of all, or it will make more leisure later for play. This task was one that was wrought successfully by a favorite hero, or it had an important part in making some great man's INTEREST ■ 115 character. Second, show how it relates to something that is already known or liked. " It gives you a chance to practice the skill learned in the shop or sewing class at school. This is a task of importance for one who is going to become a trained nurse or a foreman of a shop, as you are." Third, develop a strong motive. " I want to see if you can do this piece of work to a finish; can you master it, or will you let it master you? Let us do it together, and see who will get his share done first. Let us make a time limit, and try to finish it all before five o'clock." Reading References De Garmo: " Interest and Education," particularly VIII. Bolton: " Principles of Education," 666-704. James: " Talks to Teachers," 91- 99. Kirkpatrick: "The Individual in the Making," 11-51. King: " The Psychology of Child Development," 154-221. King discusses thoroughly the origin and development of the interests. Kirkpatrick does so briefly. The first three references bear upon the use of interest in the schoolroom, but are also suggestive for the home. CHAPTER XVI WILL TRAINING The will used to be thought of as a separate faculty of a man, that must give its fiat, like the president's signature to a bill, before any act became possible. But it was long ago noticed that so simple an act as winking did not fall within this definition. We now use the term "will" only in connection with action that is prompted by clearly thought-out motives. Several facts are implied by this way of looking at the matter. In the first place, if we are going to think out our motives, evidently we must possess a certain stock of motives, among which to choose. These past motives that we have used before under similar circum- stances are our memories. But they are more than things recalled ; they are things recalled with favor. They are memories of past desires that became habits. We recall our desires more easily than our repulsions. So this is the way we will: Out of our stock of past choices the mind finds alternatives for present choice; it chooses among these and as soon as it chooses, acts accordingly. Those choices that have been most often favored appear most attractively, to be chosen again. Yet they are not inevitably chosen. The man can still deliberate, he can assort them according to their value. If he will do this, if he will think long enough and im- partially enough to discover the right name for each, he will choose the best and will act for the best. William James illustrated this fact by the man who has been a drunkard. He goes by a saloon, and as he passes memories rush to his attention, predominantly the memo- ries of past desire. But he is not necessarily doomed. He finds himself naming and classifying these impulses. If he thinks of this as an opportunity to test a new brand 116 WILL TRAINING 117 of whiskey, or to be sociable with his friends, or to stimu- late his good resolves by a parting glass, he is lost, but if he sees clearly that a drink involves being a drunkard, then he is on the road to salvation. Every accumulated memory of a victory moves his feet nearer to permanent safety. ' Let us for clearness of thought set down the three most important words in the study of will : Habits, Dehberation, Action. The Relation of Habits to Will We spoke above of the way evil habits bind the will, so that it is difficult to get free after many foolish choices have been made. On the contrary, how hopeful is the situation in the life of the child who, before the time of strong determining has come, has been moulded into so many right and pleasant habits that they form a goodly company of memories, that are motives, from which he may choose. Our task with children is to multiply their presupposi- tions, those experiences of doing things in the right way which will ever after clamor in the field of attention as regular choices. We know what some of these are: the control of the ordinary muscular movements, to stand, walk and govern the body gracefully, to manage and modulate the voice, to marshal one's thoughts readily. All those imply a life of great physical freedom in early youth, accompanied by thorough muscular training. Evidently habit must go even further. It must involve the control of the feelings. The young child is abandoned to his feehngs, of every sort. They are a mob who con- quer him at every turn. If, as we have said, the will is a choice among past desires, then out of that mob rulers should have been appointed and others to serve. Anger, jealousy, curiosity in childhood are impulsive, irrational and quite unrestrained. But they cannot always remain so. To will implies not only the alliance with noble desires, but the inhibiting of ignoble ones. And the best result has come when the aUiance overshadows the 118 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING inhibition. We may, James tells us, repress or substitute. In teaching school you may draw the attention of your pupils from an attractive occurrence outside by bellowing at them, and they will attend; this is inhibition. Or you can put upon the blackboard such an attractive sketch that they will forget what is outside; that is substitution. Since out of the heart are the issues of life, thus to depend' upon the expulsive power of a new affection is a very fine art in child training. There is the greatest room for the training of the senti- ments. We must not merely habituate our children to right doing, but the doing of right must at all times be associated so far as possible with pleasure, with love, with joyous service if we are, as Bushnell so beautifully said, " surely to implant the angel in the man." The Relation of Deliberation to Will We have implied that to deliberate among possible choices is to classify them. Classifying gives an oppor- tunity for a measurement of values. We see, therefore, the need of developing moral thoughtfulness. The moral judgment that results from moral thoughtfulness and trained feelings we call Conscience. We used to think it a separate faculty. We called it " the voice of God in the soul of man." If we conceived the will as a monarch on his throne, then conscience was the good angel who bent over his shoulder and whispered counsel in his ear. But even the theologian -acknowledges that while con- science at its best is the Inner Light, yet practically a man's conscience at any given time is simply the^expression of the best that is known to him. And while such knowl- edge is partly his own responsibility, it is evidently partly the responsibility of those who were his teachers. He was not bom in possession of the Ten Commandments. Real moral thoughtfulness implies that we give the child time and room to do his thinking. We must not be sudden, nor jerky, nor hieratical. Wherever possible we should offer him an alternative, so that he may become familiar with the possibility of choice. We WILL TRAINING 119 should urge him to go apart when he is agitated or about to collide with us or another, and command his feelings and seek the better reason. When he is not likely to do himself or anybody else much damage, he should be allowed the precious experience of learning from his mistakes. Unless he may he never really has free will. It takes time to grow a conscience. The Will in Action We can now see a little more clearly in what a strong will consists. A noisy lad with uncontrolled impulses does not possess a strong will. A child who resists com- mands to the degree that he does not respond when punished is not necessarily strong in will ; since all he does is to resist, his will is purely negative and fruitless. It is evidently a mistake to restrict our idea of will power to the man who can resist great temptation; the man who, because of hereditar>^ tendencies . to temperance and early training in abstinence, can pass a saloon without any desire to go inside, is a better example of a well-trained will, which disposed of that enemy before it raised its head. Let us laud struggle, and praise the man who masters himself in the face of temptation, but let us covet rather to discipline children who, as W^hitman said, " lift that level and pass beyond." Defective Wills Two special abnormal types appear frequently among children. One is the child of explosive will. He acts on instinct or instant impulse and gives little or no time to delibera- tion. Inhibition is practically unknown to such a child. He answers vigorously to the first call that seizes his attention, and since he seldom foresees it is hard to prophesy what he will do next. Evidently such a child must frequently be checked when he is about to embark upon a new activity, and given a chance to anal^^ze and perhaps explain aloud its reasonableness or unreasonable- ness. He must be shown both that he loses much that 120 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING is worth while because he does not give it time to gain his attention and that he can gain much more that is good out of that which he chooses if he will take time to go about it in the best way. It may be necessary sometimes to penalize such a child by obliging him to carry each separate choice to completion before springing to another, and to satisfy him of the benefit of deliberation and perseverance by giving him the privilege of earning the greater reward which comes from such perseverance. The treatment required may be summed up in this word of caution: " My son, you must take plenty of time to decide, and you must stick to your decisions when made." This of course does not apply to decisions to do wrong. The peril of such a will is that it is easily influenced in wrong directions. Our work here is, as G. H. Dix says, " to train the possessor of an explosive will to prudence." The other type is the obstructed will. Its " function is smothered in surmise," as Shakespeare said. Of this type the most trying is the obstinate child. Such a child is not so active as he is " set." The idea of opposi- tion enters his mind and he insists on carrying it to the end. This kind of child is best treated not by counter- opposition. What he usually needs is not to be conquered but to be helped. Often he would like to be willing. But he thinks he has been injured; he believes he has been slighted; or he simply feels out of sorts. His gloom should be met with inconquerable cheeriness, and with pleasant humor. The sulkiness can usually be ignored. A word of approval may put him on good terms with himself as well as with ourself . Sometimes a new line of thought or course of action will carry him along with you. The suggestion of helpfulness to yourself may at once remove his suspiciousness and enable him to express the friend- liness which he feels at heart. A good deal of love will conquer a good deal of stubbornness. How A Child Achieves Freedom The child seems to pass through three stages in his will development. WILL TRAINING 121 First, is the stage of command. The mother, in her proc- ess of training the child in good and safe habits, must give many expHcit directions. She shows him how and patiently helps him to form ideas of useful actions and to carry them out. But she must also, for his protection, restrain him from many harmful practices and she must do this by negative commands. In many ways, then, this is the repressive stage of will. Second, is the stage of co-operation. Just as soon as possible (much sooner than many parents realize) comes the time when the child can work under direction and control, in co-operation with his mother. There are now fewer commands, and more frequent invitations and suggestions. " Let us do " is an admirable phrase to use very often. During this time more freedom may be allowed the child, and the parent is more anxious to find the right spirit than to expect perfection of execution. Then we come to the stage of self -discipline. Control now passes from without within. The youth says, as Jesus said in the temple, " I must." Commands and invitations are now superseded by inner promptings. "It is the highest stage of voluntary action, because in it is expressed the whole personality, self -directed, self- controlled, self-disciplined." The Child's Will and the Parent's Will It requires great wisdom to recognize and help the child through these stages. We are so sure of our own adult wisdom and so fearful of the mistakes that the child may make in his ignorance and his wilfulness, that we forget that oin- wills are only sponsors and proxies for his, until his is established in power. Or, we may make the con- trary mistake, and spoil a child by letting him free before he is wise or worthy to be free, and so let him become a man of mere impulse and wilfulness. Each stage must be experienced and passed through. The right attitude for the parent is to v:ork as a patient craftsman with the child through each period, while at the same time anticipating the next with prophetic and providing mind. 122 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Summary Will training embodies these factors : 1. Furnishing the child with an abundance of good ideas. 2. Building these into a stock of good habits. 3. Training him to select thoughtfully from his past ideas and habits in making his present choices. 4. Associating his right choices so far as is possible with pleasant consequences, by connecting them with his interests, so that they may become the favored choices whenever he makes a new decision. 5. Insisting that the precipitate child shall take time to deliberate and shall not vacillate after he has chosen. 6. Helping the obstinate child through affectionate cheerfulness, sidetracking some of his difficulties by diver- sion and aiding him to conquer others by co-operation. 7. Working first through command, then through suggestion and finally through encouragement, as the child in turn responds to these incentives. 8. Giving the youth room to make choices and to live his own life. Reading References Simple statements about will-training are rare. Chapter IX of Dix's " Child Study with Special Reference to the Teaching of Religion " is such a statement. There is a very good one in Chapter IX of Holmes' " Principles of Character Making." The psychology oE the will is treated at length in Chapter XXVI of James' " Psychology " and much more briefly in his " Talks to Teachers." Mumford's " The Dawn of Charac- ter " has two helpful chapters, the seventh on the development of the will, and the eighth on will-training. CHAPTER XVII PLAY The old idea was that when a child was playing he was " foohng." To outgrow play was regarded as the sign of commendable approach to good sense and maturity. Today we believe that play is the one most valuable activity in which a child can engage, and that to lose out of one's life the spirit of play is a sign of physical, mental and perhaps moral decline. The reason we have so thoroughly changed our minds is because we see that play is one of our very valuable modes of self-expression. It is true that it is self-ex- pression for the sake of expression rather than for any utilitarian end, but for a child at least, utiHty is not so important as self -education through expression, and many of the " ends " of adults would be much more successfully attained if the worker felt that in his work he could express himself. Indeed the best work in the world is being done by men of playful joy who, like Wordsworth's Happy Warrior, are " happy as a lover, and attired with sudden brightness, like a man inspired," or who, like Thomas A. Edison, never carry a watch, because they never wish to know what time it is. " Whatever may be the cause of genius," says Dr. Paul Cams, " it certainly shows itself in the playful ease with which work of great importance is performed." Play, then, both prepares for life and enhances life. The latter is the conscious, the former the unconscious side of play. Let us see here how play prepares for life. The Value of Play Play has great value physically. Dr. John P. Garber says that the characteristic play of each period of child- hood is the result of some physical stimulus peculiar to that period. 123 124 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING " In infancy the head and arm muscles, being strongest, control the type of play. Sensations that come through the glitter of objects, or through movement or noise, stimulate it to activity. So the rattle and the ball, or any other object that rolls, and bright objects and things with which it can make a noise, are its delight. As the brain more nearly reaches its full size and bones and muscles and lungs are taking their turn at rapid growth, the period of running, jumping and hunting games appears. These are followed by contest games, which develop the social instinct of playing in co-operative games. This is the period when the organs of the body are maturing, when the fibres which connect the various centers of the brain and which play such an important part in the as- sociation of ideas are developing most rapidly. As the body stops growing and the intellectual and business occupations begin to absorb the time, the recreations tend to take on form involving emotional life. Hence it would seem safe to say that the impulse to exercise or use the growing parts of the body furnishes the only explanation needed to account for the play activity, and that the type of play is controlled in a large measure by the stage of the bodily development." Play helps develop the physical strength. As Dr. Henry S. Curtis reminds us, the work of the modem city child has practically disappeared, amounting to hardly more than ten or fifteen minutes a day. Practically the only method of physical training left is play. Still more important, play helps develop the vital or organic strength. Organic strength is far more essential to modem life than muscular strength. It develops what we call " a good constitution." Nearly all the games are old and simple co-ordinations of movement and of the fundamental muscles. Nearly all of them involve nmning, and so tend to strengthen the legs and arms and heart. Play is of value in mental development. Almost every instinct of childhood expresses itself by means of play. These instincts work out through the senses and so the young child's play trains his sense perceptions as does no PLAY 125 other method. When the sense perceptions are busy they pick up new associations and responses, and so play, which awakens them, develops more differentiated power in using them. " If you watch a young child play," says Dr. J. M. Tyler, " you are amused by the number, variety and vigor of movements. Many of these give good exercise, but are a complete waste of energy, so far as the result of the game is concerned. Gradually, as he plays more, he learns to suppress these, to economize and to concentrate energy. This is one of the earliest and best lessons in self-control. It is a slow growth. But the poise and repose of the trained athlete are as admirable as his strength. All his life long he saves the energy which others waste in fidgeting and fretting. He is a shrewd investor, not a spendthrift, of his great power." Of course the power of consecutive attention is exer- cised through play. The teacher envies the intentness and consecutiveness of attention which the child exhibits on the playground, and wishes he could awaken its parallel in the schoolroom. Surely the higher mental powers must be developed in such alertness and such vigorous uses of the senses and the muscles. One essential of nearly every game is the overcoming of obstacles. The child's fancy finds expression, his ingenuity is exercised, his judgment rapidly sizes up a situation and his will promptly acts upon it. And so thinking, feeling and doing are all united in conquering difficulties. In play he forgets himself and so the barriers of shyness and self-conscious- ness, which are in his way in other activities, are down. Thus the expressive life becomes sensitive, balanced, assured and serviceable. We may agree with Seashore that " play is the principal instrument of mental growth." Play is of social value. Child play reproduces in turn many of the struggles, experiences and achievements which men have met in their social development. The child, like the race, has his individual, his tribal, his loyal and his republican stages in his play -life. These engagements gradually lead from competition with his 126 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING mates to self-sacrifice and the habit of sharing, and gradually blend into the responsibilities and opportunities of adult life. For a time at least sturdy physical exercise in play mitigates the sexual stress. Stechert thinks that the child even learns civic and patriotic virtues, and so develops the love of liberty, in the mimic world of play. Play has great moral value. Free play is the source of much joy, the joy of absolutely untrammelled expression, and joy, as we have said, is strength. Games limit self- expression by rules, but these rules develop right habits and necessitate the practice of fairness. Later, if play be really " recreation " and not mere " diversion " or " amusement," it means the recreation of our best powers and not a tired pulling off from duty. Play directly transforms energies that easily become vagrant into wholesome channels. Johnson reminds us that the very instinct for being chased which may lead a boy into the juvenile court might, under direction, enable him to carry a football fifty yards down a protected field, amidst the cheers of twenty thousand people. Even this would not mean so much as the sense of loyalty, the consciousness of honor, the life standard of achieve- ment that his athletic discipline involved. The element of sharing in play has already been re- ferred to, and it seems no exaggeration to say that it has a close relation to comradeship, mutual endeavor and the capacity for team work for good causes. Play, within recognizable limits, develops self-control. When a football player, as J. Lewis Paton says, " has, with the ball in his hands, broken through the opposing lines, receiving in the process a whack on the head and a kick on the shins, and then, triumphantly crossing the line and touching down the ball between the enemy's goal posts, is recalled by the referee's whistle and his try is disallowed because the referee had thought he had run on to the touch-line — that not being the case — then, I say, if the boy bears all that without mentioning any towns in Holland, but smiles genially at the referee and the fullback who hacked him, and starts off again to PLAY 127 play up and play the game as hard as ever — then, I say, however ignorant that boy may be of Bucephalus, he has learned in practice the lesson of self-control; and I don't see myself how he could learn it better." Play involves an increasing element of self -direction, than which no moral quality is more needed today in personal and public life. " The moral value of play in this respect arises," says Hoben, " from the instant muscu- lar response to volition. Delay, half-hearted response, inattention, preoccupation, whimsicalness, carelessness, and every sluggish performance of the order of the will, disqualify the player, so that when we take into account the adolescent passion to excel, and the fact that eighty per cent of the games of this period are characterized by intense physical activity, we are forced to place the highest valuation on play as a moral educator; for this enthronement of the will over the body, although having to do with affairs of no permanent importance, has great and abiding value for every future transaction in life." The Utilization of Play The writer has in a recent study (published in a " Man- ual of Play ") been amazed to discover how many ap- parently unused opportunities are in the spontaneous plays of young children. Beginning with the eagerness of the child for sense experiences, which we may satisfy by presenting to him many objects, hard and soft, smooth and rough, regular and irregular in shape, light and heavy, we find him starting to examine, take apart, put together and construct. Then he begins to inquire, and his doll becomes a baby, his blocks a train, his cart a horse and a shawl hung over a table a tent. We meet these manifestations with indifference and often with folly. One form of folly is that of ignoring play and thus leaving the child famished for the ex- periences and expressions which could be so educative to him. Another folly is to debauch the play instinct by submerging the child in a pile of toys so elaborately constructed and equipped with so many mechanical 128 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING devices that they leave nothing for him to do but to look on or to break them by taking them to pieces. It has been found that a simple, inexpensive but varied store of playthings, home-made rather than store-bought, and selected for the variety of experiences to which they lead, will do more for a child than several years' schooling. Wooden toys are usually preferable to cast-iron ones, because the child can alter them with a knife, though certain metal building toys give great interest and are of value to the child who is attracted toward mechanics and engineering. Above all, let the child make his own toys, urging him to supply the inventiveness while you make such technical suggestions as to detail as may be requested. Organized play, in the form of athletics, has many excellencies and needs many reforms. The great field games show a steady improvement, in the humanizing of rules, skill in coaching and care of the players, sports- manlikeness in action and in the accessories, but they deserve criticism yet in that they are spectacles more than games. The extreme publicity which they give to school boys is to a degree unfortunate, though the young hero often learns thereby how fickle is popular applause. They no doubt assume too great a share of the attention, not only of the player, but of the M^hole school. But they have two faults that are more serious. One is that the^^- hold aloft the too-American ideal of playing for the victory rather than for the game itself. " Victory at any price," even of fairness and honor is too often the aim. The other is that they tend too much to develop the few who excel rather than to give pleasure and profit in participa- tion to the many. We are too far yet from the English custom which calls upon any school boy to enter a contest and call it a good game if he has put his best into it, whether he has won or not. Especially have we neglected the play-interests of our girls, who too often after they enter high school retire to the bleachers and exercise only in cheering on the players. A wholesome, attractive play crusade for older girls is very much in order. PLAY 129 A Special Discussion of Dramatic Play The dramatic instinct is an expression of the impulse to make use of the imagination. Passive imagination is kno-^m as day-dreaming. Play and dramatics are ex- amples of active imagination. The very young child expresses the dramatic instinct entirely by imitation. He imitates whatever he sees adults do. At about three years, children begin to imitate the ideas of adults rather than the exact things they do. Now their imita- tion becomes imaginative. It seems to be a hunger to realize life to its fullest. Dramatic play is at first individu- alistic but gradually becomes social. Some of the ex- pressions of it are changing a dog into a child, a broom- stick into a horse and in playing grown up. At about ten years, children begin to take pleasure in expressing dramatic ideas to an audience and this desire, according to the degree to which it finds exercise, lasts more or less throughout life. The values of dramatic play are many. It awakens a child's thinking. He remembers best what he learns dramatically. He understands actions, purposes, traits and customs to which he would otherwise be a stranger. Life becomes larger as he puts himself in the place of another. Dramatic play develops resourcefulness in spontaneous interests and enthusiasm and brings out initiative and ingenuit}^ the power of action in groups and of unselfish co-operation. It relates itself to English, elocution, drawing and craftsmanship. It has an im- portant part in helping the child to decide upon his future. It has moral value because it stimulates a sympathetic philosophy of life and helps the child to understand moral issues by having imitative experiences of them. Because it gives joy it also gives strength. Cabot says that " impersonation is the chief part of morals," by which he means that to play a noble part helps one to become noble. Dramatic opportunities in the home are these, in the order in which they come : . ,.-«.■ — . _ 130 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING 1. Imitative play. 2. Imaginative games and play with toys, costumes and home-made properties. 3. Serial dramatic play, i.e., dramatic games taken up day after day for a considerable period. 4. Dramatic or folk dancing. 5. Dramatic parties with tableaux, " statues," cha- rades, extemporaneous story-telling play. 6. Home theatricals. 7. Dramatized work, i.e., work glorified by the imagina- tion. 8. Clubs based on imaginative play, such as the Boy Scouts. 9. Dramatic self-government; co-operative dramatics in the school or church. 10. Theatre going. Almost any active use of the imagination is more valu- able to the child than such a passive use as is represented in attendance at a theatre or motion-picture show. These forms of entertainment are objectionable for young people on account of the late hours, excitement and the strain upon the eyes and attention. Older children should be taken to the theatre rather than sent, so that the plays seen may be known and interpreted by the parents. The evils of the theatre are: less refined vocabularies, interests undesirable for children, weakness of moral tone, dreaminess and unrest. The advantages are: greater power of expression through beautiful words and actions, better understanding of literature, gain in courtes}^ and the sharpening of the sense of right and wrong. The theatre is discussed more fully in Chapter XXIX. Reading References An excellent arrangement of games by grades is furnished in Johnson's " Education through Play and Games." An endeavor to give a similar grading of free play is furnished in Forbush's " Manual of Play," in which also are discussed dramatic play, constructive play, serial play and other forms of expressive action. " Play as Education," by Joseph Lee, is a charming discussion by our leading playground philanthropist. Curtis' " The Dramatic Instinct in Education " is our most thorough work upon its subject. Miss Bancroft's " Games for Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium," is the best compendium and book of rules for social games. CHAPTER XVIII WORK Work for children has hitherto been chiefly studied from the economic standpoint. We have become so ashamed of and alarmed at the conditions of child labor — and justly — that we forget that work, wisely planned and supervised, is one of childhood's wholesome experiences. In our study we have already learned that, while play gives valuable opportunity for will training, since its end is in itself and not in any finished product, it does not furnish all the drill that the will needs in the conquest of obstacles. If our elaborate group games seem an excep- tion to this statement, yet we can attribute to them the element of conquest in only a limited field and that apart from the ordinary^ life, and we must not overestimate the possibility of transferring this kind of power into the regular channels of action. Certainly the free pla}" of young children gives very little training in persistence and patience. In the newly shaping science of vocational guidance nothing is more clearly emerging into view than the fact that opportunity for a young person to try himself out early by repeated experiments is the most valuable way to self-realization. Such experiments are least expensive if they may be rnade during school days and are least wasteful of time when they involve the smallest degree of wandering from one apprenticeship to another. With industry as at present organized there is little time for feeling one's way, small patience with young workmen who come in for a while " to see how they like it," and 3^et the instinct to play with one's work and to see how one likes it as a steady occupation is entirely wholesome and should have some place in the order of things. 131 132 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING The attitude of respect for work is itself of the greatest social value. A school man has recently pointed out the conscious contrast which exists between the workingman who goes to work in his overalls at seven o'clock and works hard until six and his son who goes to high school in a white collar at nine, gets out at three, plays football or loafs downtown until supper-time and then comes home to meet his tired father. This man thinks our schools are distinctly educating children to hate work, except the kind that may be done while wearing a white collar. One of the first and hardest lessons a boy has to learn in a factory, or a girl in an office, is respect ' for clothes that are suitable for one's task. Work as Fellowship Some parents find it difficult to get close to their children in play, but few, who are patient about it, find fellowship hard when they work together. Still better, they dis- cover that mutual work-experiences are valuable in help- ing a child to right relations in his home. Certain un- pleasant and unfortunate tendencies are soon corrected by the discipline of work. The child, for instance, is likely to be careless about caring for and replacing his things until he is made responsible for them and learns that nobody else will protect them if he fails to do so. He is likely to tyrannize over servants unless he learns, through daily duties of his own, to sympathize with them and treat them with consideration. He is also likely to become somewhat helpless if there are nursemaids or other servants in the home unless he is obliged to wait upon himself. He is certain to become selfish if he has no time-filler but play and is always served by others. He can never enter into the sense of partnership in the home life if he remains always a demander and is not regularly a donor. Self-reliance cannot be his unless he has from early childhood been exposed regularly to situa- tions that are challenging to industry, patience and resourcefulness. In the days when large families, lack of servants and WORK 133 the countless demands of farm work were the rule, the problem of work for children solved itself, but today, especially in households where there are few chores and these are performed by servants, or by persons paid by the hour, real ingenuity and forethought are required to keep children healthily busy. Even the care of little children by the older ones is less necessary — for there is often but one child, or two. A husband and wife of wealth recently became so thoroughly impressed with the unfortimate effect upon their children of the constant presence of servants and nurses, the absolute idleness and indolence of the children and the lack of opportunity on their own part to keep close to them, that they inaugurated a radical and suc- cessful experiment in home, education. They gave up a projected addition to the house vv^hich they did not need, they used the money to equip their home with the latest labor-saving apparatus, including an electric range, a laundry machine and a dish-washing machine, and they discharged all their servants. Then the father as well as the mother actively organized and did the housework, with the aid of their four children, to each of whom was assigned his own share of the work. In the record of their experiment they testify to the improvement in the health and spirits of all their children, their increased resource- fulness, the new comradeship and affection and particularly the natural and fruitful opportunity that unexpectedly came to revive family worship and Bible study at the close of the meal which all had prepared as well as partaken. The great difficulty is to arrange for educative work in a city home. A boy may assume the responsibility of the furnace, a girl (or even a boy) may learn to do the family marketing, but there are few chores available in a home that is part of a block or that is upstairs in a fiat. Many migrations of families into the country have been explained by the parental recognition of the sanifying effects of work in the yard and garden and in the care of animals. Our need in the city is to devise small experimental commercial transactions in the way of salesmanship, 134 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING manufacturing or work after school, which shall, without the abuse of child labor, give the child some taste of commercial life. These are to city children fully as inspiring as chores, and more in line with their probable future vocations. The Educational Value of Home Work Work at home has an educational value for which there is no substitute. Dr. Francis A. Walker and Dr. G. Stanley Hall wrote essays that have become classics showing the varied and practical educational results that came when boys and girls were apprenticed to their fathers and mothers in farm and household tasks. Efforts have been made, in manual training and domestic science courses in the schools, to provide substitutes for such home education. Of late, however, the pendulum is swinging back, and the possibility is being seen of helping the home to reassume tasks which it had abdicated. In many counties of several states, school credits are given for home-helping, and no valid objection appears to have been made save that the way the work is done may not make it worth crediting. Perhaps the -school will go a step further and show parents how to teach their children to work. In Massachusetts they have what they call the " home project plan " of encouraging young people to work out some of their textbook lessons on the farm, in the garden and in the house. The Achievement Club movement, under the auspices of the Federal Depart- ment of Agriculture, is supervising a quantity of en- deavor by Corn-raising Clubs and Home-making Clubs all over the countr\\ So far, these schemes have been applicable chiefly to rural children. There is much more pressing need that the problem of home occupation or work be solved for families that live in flats or in the other restricted quarters in cities, where there are fewer tasks at hand, where the allurement of the street is ever present and where constant contact of parents and children makes alleviation and forbearance and fellowship more essential. It may be that communities that find expensive indus- WORK 135 trial equipment for their schools beyond their reach will learn to get creditable practice work done in home laboratories and shops. In Gary they are already using artisans and workmen about the school buildings as teachers and the repairing and construction work as object lessons. In Crete, Nebraska, a movement began which has already spread to over half a hundred towns in that State for using the kitchens of the community as laboratories and the housewives as teachers for domestic science courses that are supervised by the schools. The remark that was made above about the difficulty of getting home work properly performed has not done justice to the importance of this need. It is not merely that the child who has been taught at home to work directly, swiftly and silently is more valuable to industry, but it is because the habit of doing work in this way eliminates waste and leaves time for other things that are worth while. " Efficiency " methods are getting even into the kitchen nowadays. There are still those who sneer at refinement as weakening and even degrading, but the homely arts of life dispose of clutter, loose ends and perpetual friction and add moral strength to hours set free for intellectual and social uses. To such high results may home work well done attain. Work and Character Still greater is our need to use work to its fullest, as God intended, for character-making. We need not enumerate its moral possibilities. Some cities have begun efforts in this direction. There is a national thrift movement which deserves encouragement. In Canton, Ohio, a record is made of the money earned each summer by the pupils in the high school. Still more worth while would it be to know and supervise the ways in which the money is made. In one middle western community the habits learned by the boys who went away summers to work in hotels and on lake steamers infected the school with vice after their return. A few arrangements have been made in the direction of arranging for and super- 136 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING vising the summer-time work of young people. E. W. Weaver of Brooklyn arranged to have some of the school boys of his city pick up apples in Dutchess County, and later under his stimulus a plan was worked out by which high school boys and girls offered themselves as guides and caretakers of small groups of children to go to the parks, museums and beaches during vacation. William A. McKeever gathered thirty boys for a summer and found that the product of their work, under a skilled leader w^ho taught them to play as well and who camped out with them, paid the leader's salary, and thus pointed the way to a self-supporting method of using the summer- time as a school of wholesome work. So far there seem to be few business men who can find educative work for young people who can give only two or three months of their time. Wholesome and even uplifting as are the camps conducted by private schools and the Y. M. C. A., they are inevitably seasons of uninterrupted play and of spending rather than earning money. A task of sane helpfulness and perhaps of some economic value both present and future would be under- taken by anyone who could devise suitable work-camps for school boys and girls. The Boy Scouts and the Camp- fire Girls would seem to have a peculiar opportunity in such a field. Reading References The author has written a booklet entitled, " How to Do Home Work Right," which seems to be the first literature in its field. A companion pamphlet " Money-Making and Thrift for Boys and Girls " outlines some practicable projects for young people in after-school hours and makes suggestions about accounting and saving. Both are published by the American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia. Davis' " Vocational and A'loral Guidance " shows how (especially in Chapters IV, VI, of Part I, and II, IX of Part II) the school and the public library may establish the haV^it of thinking properly about work. The Department of Education publishes a report on the Gary schools, the Bureau of Plant Industry furnishes information about the Achievement Club movement. Mc- Keever 's plan is described in his pamphlet, " Vacation Employment," obtainable of the author at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. CHAPTER XIX THE STORY The story has, like play, been getting a large valuation lately. Not only so, but we are being told that it is " an art"; persons are telling stories "professionally" and there are even schools where the art is taught. This is a bit alarming to a mother whose children are always clamoring, " Tell me a story! " Yet, after all, what is to be said about the story is very simple. It is an art — perhaps the most ancient of all arts, and therefore the simplest. But it is a luxury as well as an art, and no mother who has learned how — and every mother may learn how without difficulty — will think of it as anything but one of the most joyous privileges of her life. The Interest in Stories Children's interest in stories seems to follow closely the order in which the great types of stories appeared in history. Little children, old enough to understand any- thing, like stories with a strong sense appeal, in which rhymes and phrases are repeated such as the " trip-trop, trip-trop " of goats walking over a bridge, in "The Billy Goats Gruff, ' ' or stories in which colors or touch-sensations or good things to eat are vividly told about, as, "and where is mj^ soup gone?" of the " Three Bears." Finger plays and nursery rhymes come along with these. Then and a little later imaginative stories are liked, fairy stories most of all, fables mildly, myths and legends after a while and parables and allegories with some degree of resignation. The golden age of fairy tales is believed to lie between four and seven. A fable is a sort of desiccated animal story and with the parable and alle- gory is the favorite of the adult who wants to " improve " the child. At about ten comes the first interest in 137 138 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING hero-stories, biography and reahstic stories of everyday life. During adolescence there is a second age of im- aginativeness when stories of romance are loved, but this is beyond the time when a child usually likes to listen to stories. In his eager haste he prefers to read them to himself. The Value of Story-Telling The story has physical value. In the home or in the midst of weariness or commotion in school it calms the perturbed spirit and helps prepare the body either for sleep or for renewed activity. It has intellectual value. Richard M. Hodge goes so far as to call the story " the language of childhood," and says that it is our most direct and satisfactory means of communicating to them our ideas. Stories are pictures of life, and next to real experiences are our best way of interpreting life to the young. They influence especially the higher faculties, for they help the imagination, aid the child as he retells them in his free and picturesque use of language, and are a source of joy, which is to say, a source of strength. The moral value of the story has been attested in all times. Even savage tribes use stories consciously and regularly as the chief means of giving to children not only the tribal traditions, but the tribal morals, and the testi- mony of anthropologists is that in this they are ver^'- successful. Stories help a child to know what is good. In myths and legends at least, the hero is more true to life than life itself, for these heroic characters are the sublimated expression, sharpened with age and conviction, of the virtues they personify. The child can always see goodness in a man when he cannot in a precept. Because they are so interesting, stories incite moral thoughtful- ness. " They reduce the amount of moral illiteracy." They help the child to feel what is good, for they not only show, by making the hero triumph, that goodness is worth while, but they make the child by the magic of their telling want goodness to triumph. They have some THE vSTORY 139 effect on the will, because they force the child at least in imagination to take sides. He usually personalizes him- self as the hero of whom he hears, and he chooses as his hero chooses. The moral value of the story is entwined with its social value. The reason why it is so much better to tell than to read a story is because the story-teller can add his own personality and sympath}^ to the tale. If the child be- lieves in the story-teller, then he believes in the stories, and assumes in hearing them the moral attitude which the teller assumes in telling them. Of course stories have their limitations. No child can do good while he is sitting in a chair listening to a story-teller, but the story-teller, particularly a mother, can exercise the child by having him retell the stories, act them out in play and do something good for which a story has been the stimulation. The Elements of a Story Every good story has four elements ; they always appear and always in the same order. They are these: A good beginning. Action. Suspense. The solution. It is usually a good beginning to introduce the hero in an interesting situation. " Once there was a little Indian boy who took a ride on the cowcatcher of an engine"; this sentence, uttered quietly, once completely subdued a roomful of street boys who had gathered to torment a new story-teller, but who were charmed and expectant at such a promising start. Then something must take place at once. Action is what differentiates the stor}^ from the sermon, the oration or several other forms of literature. The stor^^ is allied to the drama, which moves swiftly on from one exciting scene to another. But the action must not be clear to the end from the beginning. Otherwise the story is all told before it is 140 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING fairly started. There must be uncertainty as to how the characters will behave, what decision the hero will make and just how it will all come out. Of only one thing the child need be sure, that it is not going to be a tragedy, for sad stories have very small place in a child's experience. Finally, the solution, which should usually be short and sudden. How TO Tell Stories The one word is: Visualize. Miss Sarah Cone Bryant put the art in one sentence when she said: " I like to think of the story-teller standing at a great window overlooking a busy street or a picturesque square, and reporting with gusto to the comrade in the rear of the room what of mirth or sadness he sees," as if — let me continue — that comrade could never know what is hap- pening save as he gets it through the story-teller's voice. To see vividly and tell with animation and directness — this is good story-telling. This rules out elocutionism, gesture save as it is unconscious, and unnecessary detail and deviation. The reason the story-teller may not gesture, as does the actor, is because his purpose is different from that of the actor. The actor is the hero, and so he represents him in costume, action and gesture. But the story-teller points to the hero, and so does nothing, by costume, act or gesture, to distract attention to himself. He is dealing with an even finer art than the actor's, for he is trying so to work upon the imagination of the child that he can recreate the hero and the action and see both with his inward eye. Details and digressions tend to weaken attention and cause the child to lose the thread of the story. This does not mean that the teller is careless of his words. He may be very choice with them, so long as they form the pig- ments with which he mixes his colors. One of Hans Andersen's stories begins with such a swift painting of sunlight and bright colors that you know at once how happy the story is to be. One of Edmund Leamy's THE STORY 141 closes with such a cadence of words that it leaves the child's heart satisfied and his mind soothed for slumber. The Plot There are said to be only fifty stories in the worid, so there cannot be many kinds of plots. Children's stories generally follow one of a very few simple lines of construction. Angela M. Keyes names them: "A single line of sequence," as "The Sleeping Beauty" ; " the three-parallel line," as " The Three Bears" ; " two contrasting courses of action," as " Cinderella." Story-Telling Devices Use direct rather than indirect discourse. This gives vivacity to the style and adds movement and lifelikeness to the tale. Children often personalize the hero as themselves, and it helps this identification to hear the exact words which the hero utters. Use repetition for the purposes of memorizing and easy recall by the child. Not only the repetition of phrases and the parallelism of plot are desirable, but the child, as so many of us know, generally prefers an old story to any new one, and wants to hear it in the precise language in which it was first told him. Take your time. This does not mean to digress or ramble, but as Professor St. John reminds us: " The floor is yours, everybody wants to hear you, there is time enough for every point or shade of meaning, and no one will think the story too long." Get the children to help tell or retell the story. This is the most valuable kind of repetition. If a story is being told well, the children will join in the part that repeats, perfectly unconscious that they are doing so. Or if it is a new story, such a suggestion as, " And what do you suppose the fairy godmother said when she came in?" will give the child a chance to exercise his fancy and to let himself inside the tale. The Serial Story To the parent whose ingenuity flags in creating new characters, the device of carrying familiar persons through 142 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING a succession of incidents, night after night, will be helpful, and the plan will be voted a success by the children, whose interest is thus made cumulative. The writer with his own children started once with a small boy who was an orderly for General Washington, saw him safely through a brave career in the Revolution, took him out into the Western Reserve with the emigrants and even met his children's children. This took more thaii a single winter. Again he worked out a plan for co-operative as well as serial story-telling, by purchasing a large-leaf notebook, in which were traced the adventures of a father and his three sons (his own family beneath a thin disguise), who had been cast adrift on a desert island. Each of the children was appealed to for incidents and drawings, and the story was gradually written out by the father and illustrated by the entire group. By either of these plans it is possible for one who is not inventive to retell the great classical stories, whose worth is sometimes unexpectedly tested by the question whether they have vitality enough to interest children. Picture Story-Telling A picture is not only an excellent aid to story-telling, but it aids in an elementary appreciation of art. Children do not care for art history, they have no especial affinity for masterpieces, they are not, in early life, observant of details, but, as their own drawings show, it is the human interest in a picture that attracts them. It is pictures that have such an interest that we should choose for them. We should not expect to inspire them with a photograph of the Roman forum or a reproduction of Corot's Spring- time, and we have no doubt exaggerated their interest in the Sistine (" sixteenth," one boy wearily called it) Madonna or the" Mona Lisa. But, according to their age, Raebum's " Boy and Rabbit," Millet's " Feeding her Birds," Poynter's " The Lion's Cubs," Hunt's " The Child in the Temple " and Leighton's " Wrestling with Death," would draw the keenest attention. The laws for story-telHng with pictures do not differ THE STORY 143 from those for telling stories without them. In general, we point at once to the central figure, and tell something lively about it, and then work toward the minor figures and the details. A good picture, hke a good story, generally begins in the middle and from this point we work back to the beginning. Stories for Moral Ends Purposive story-telling has no different technique from stor^^-telling for mere amusement. But there are a few warnings that need to be observed. 1. Be sure it is a story, and not a sermon. 2. Use tact in the time for telling it. 3. Tell it with enjoyment and sympathy and not with " the high pulpit manner." 4. Treat the moral as an incident. " Pluck it as a wayside flower," says FeHx Adler. Don't make it an appendage; embody it in the story itself. 5. Still, let the moral be visible. When Louise Seymour Houghton's Httle daughter was told the story of the disobedience of Adam and Eve for some particular local purpose, and Hsped, " Oh, if Eve hadn't eaten that apple, what a differenth to uth!" her mother confessed that as a moral the story had been a failure. " Grant, Lord, that I may never tag a moral to a tale, and that I may never tell a tale without a moral," was Henry Van Dyke's prayer. 6. When it has been told, let it alone. Story-Telling in the Home Mothers have in stories a powerful, and, we fear, neglected instrument for every kind of good. Stories give both joy and content. They are better for wounds than kisses and they are a never-failing lure for the restless child who might otherwise forget how happy a home he has. Stories strengthen the love between parent and child. They clear up misunderstandings and enable the two to travel together frequently into that best place for com- radeship, fair>dand. 144 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING They build the child's taste for good books and good pictures. They stimulate his imagination and lead him into constructive and dramatic play. The school teacher can identify the home where there is the habit of story- telling by the superior alertness and resourcefulness of its children. They help the child over hard places and reward faith- ful tasks and make up for many childish disappointments. Stories, w4th play, consecrate the home. The testimony of a Philadelphia police captain was significant: " I never knew children to go wrong in a home where parents and children spent an hour together after supper." Even more significant was the further testimony of this man who had been left with motherless children: " And I've tried it myself." Reading References Books on Story-Telling There are many good books on how to tell stories, of quite equal value. All those, except St. John's and Mrs. Houghton's, include stories to tell to children. Bryant: " How to Tell Stories to Children." St. John: " Stories and Story-Telling in Aloral and Religious Education." Keyes: " Stories and Storv-Telling." Cowles: " The Art of Story-Telling." Bailey: " For the Story-Teller." Forbush: " A Manual of Stories." Houghton: " TelUng Bible Stories." Collections of Stories to Tell The " Manual of Stories " mentioned above lists over four hundred such collections, so the available material is plentiful. Among the best are these : Bryant: " Stories to Tell to Children." Lang: " The Red Fairy Book " (and a dozen others). Wiggin and Smith: " The Fairy Ring." Andersen: " Fairy Talcs." Grimm Brothers: " Fairy Tales." Baldwin: " Fifty Famous Stories Retold." Sly: " World Stories Retold." Lcamy: " The Golden Spears." Lindsay: " Mother Stories." Kipling: " Just-So Stories." Harris: " Nights with Uncle Remus." CHAPTER XX READING The reading interests of children are parallel to their story interests. Indeed the motive that impels a child to learn to read is to be able to get at stories directly and at will. And the story interest remains the dominant one all through childhood and youth and, in the majority of persons, through life. The amount of fiction taken out of any public library is at least equal to all other classes of books combined. The early likings involve rhythm, pictures, nature, wonder stories and stories of home life, a composite whose only centralizing feature seems to be that they all have to do with living things and that they represent the imaginative and the constructive sides of the child's own nature. There is a steadily ascending curve as to the amount of reading, culminating from the twelfth to the fifteenth year. Nearly twice as much is read at the seventh grade in school as at the third. Between the tenth and twelfth years the interests of boys and girls begin to diverge. At all ages girls are more amenable to suggestions, boys are more likely to be prospectors. Boys are more practical, girls are more subjective. Boys read more in the field of action, girls in that of emotion. Boys read twice as much travel and history as do girls, and two-thirds as much poetry and fiction. At the height of adolescence it is stated that ninety -five per cent of the reading of boys is of adventure and seventy-five per cent of the reading of girls is love stories. Girls, however, generally like many books written for boys, while almost no boys like books written for girls. After the fever for reading which culminates at fifteen, there is noticeable a distinct change in reading tastes. The youth begins to find his own and reads more in the field of his own individuality. 145 146 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING The reading habit is by no means universaL The majority of boys and girls read little but what is pre- scribed in school. It is said that ten per cent of young people do forty per cent of the reading. There is a steady and rapid decline in the amount of reading during the last two years of the high school age. This may be accounted for in part by the fact that the youth now reads more thoroughly and thoughtfully, but other less pleasant reasons are given: the pressure of required studies and of home work, or, if the young person has left school, of his daily task, social engagements, athletics, and even a distaste for literature which arises out of the way it has been taught. The most potent of causes is no doubt home influence. In a house where there are no books and no discussion of books, and where the newspaper is the only reading provided, it is easy for the child to accept what is at hand. The reading habit tends to atrophy, and Americans after thirty-five are seldom readers, except of that which is ephemeral, and even of that but inat- tentively. The head of a. concern whose business it is to furnish material for newspapers and magazines told the writer that, aside from the news of the day, the desires of editors of magazines and of the " feature " pages of daily papers in America are but tw^o, for material which shall please but not tax the tired mind (to interest the underinterested) , and for stuff that will buttress the advertising columns. Some allowance should be made for this apparent cynicism when it is remembered that the average American left school at about- the sixth grade, and that therefore simplicity is an essential for that which would be read. It may not be inspiring, but it is at least wholesome that the three or four women's home magazines of astonishing circulations are made up of the current fashions, simple household devices, elementary ideas about child training and love stories, and that a weekly periodical which is apparently read by every man who rides ex- tensively on the train is composed of stories of business experiences and adventure, simple interpretations of current movements and chatter about politics. READING 147 Why Do We Read? De Quincey's classification seems likely to be immortal. There are books of knowledge and books of power. The former are written to give information; they are men's tools. The latter are written to stir men's thoughts, feelings and imaginations; they are men's instruments of music and joy. With one, man does his work; with the other, his mind loves to play. It is to the latter only that we give the name, literature. And it is with the latter only that we need to concern ourselves. Men must use tools, and according to the measure of their ambitions they will use them. They may use instru- ments of play, and it is a matter of great concern that they should use them nobly. Among the many similar definitions of literature perhaps none is better than that by Barrett Wendell: " Literature is the lasting expression in words of the mean- ing of life. ' ' It would seem to be the natural development that, in youth, in the days of feeling, books should en- hance life; and that later, in the days of thought, they should help us to reflect upon life. The amusement, the diversion, the rest and recreation which many find in books, never pass beyond the first stage. The expressive books, the romances, and they are many and great, are for these. The minority, one may suppose, enter the second stage, and read the impressive books, the essayists, the critics of literature and of life. (" The good critic," says Anatole France, " is he who narrates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.") The distinction is not one of schooling, but of temperament and of ripeness of mind. Is IT Worth While to Read? In this age of Carnegie libraries and universally pre- scribed schooling the question seems almost impudent. Yet many men are very frankly asking it. And that the majority of men have actually answered the question in the negative is proven by their o\\ti practice: except for the news of the day and diversion in travel, the average American does not read. 148 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING De Quincey spoke of " books of power," but do books actually give power? C. Hanford Henderson, a facile radical, it is true, but one who has been with boys and done things with them for a number of years, says that books give only a second-hand view of life and that, in order to get a lad into the habit of observing and asking directly, he would rather he should not know how to read until he was fourteen, or at least, twelve. Gerald Stanley Lee, another radical who does seem to believe in reading of a sort, calls reading " hearing life with a li- bretto " and says we are " crowding great classics into " 3^oung folks when we might be " attracting little classics out of them." Others think books are benumbing and call attention to the reading habit as a kind of laziness and self-indulgence. One confesses that he does not often think of a great explorer or engineer with a library, and that he feels an incongruity about Theodore Roosevelt in the African wilderness with his pigskin library. Who, one is tempted to ask, saw life more clearly and complete, Longfellow in his study or Whitman on the Camden ferryboat ? Which is better, w^hen our boy asks questions, to send him to a book or to a man who knows? Does reading make a man say " I can "? Of course this is all a part of that question which seems to be the only one we have the patience to ask in America today, the question of Efficiency. And the surprising thing is that the efficiency experts themselves are begin- ning to speak on the side of books. Not, of course, on the side of dilettantism or bookishness or scholasticism, but they are beginning to find out that the best way to get a great specialist is not to send him to a technical school only, but to train his imagination, and the nursery of the imagination is — books. To sum up many volumes of discussion, the most recent trend of education is to lessen the use of textbooks in reading about things in the schools and to increase habits of direct observation and experi- ment, and at the same time to encourage the love of books of imagination and power. This is fast changing the method of teaching English in the secondary schools. READING 149 We are minimizing what G. Stanley Hall calls " linguistic manicuring," and exposing children more freely to great books, that they may become, as C. Lewis Hind says, " not learned — accretive." We are separating the tech- nique of expression, in the drill of punctuation, spelling and composition, from the books of life. For the one we must still insist upon thoroughness, accuracy and correct- ness; for the other we ask chiefly freedom. We seem to need for each a different type of teacher — for the first that product of the school, the master; for the second, that product of no school yet invented, the joy-maker. (It is hard to get joy -makers to teach school.) What Are Bad Books? When we ask ourselves what children ought to read, we find it easier to make an index expiirgatorius than a golden treasury. What are the bad books ? There are but two kinds of books that are really bad; they are the weak books and the vicious ones. Very few vicious books are in the hands of children under sixteen today. Even nickel novels, while full of color and action and usually sensational, are often almost puritanical in their morals. The vicious books are chiefly the sex novels that sell for one dollar and thirty cents, and which are therefore beyond the reach of children's purses, and would not fall into their hands if they were not put there by their parents. But there are many weak books, books which suggest pessimism, gloom, languor and sentimental- ism. Of these are examples in every form of writing from fairy stories, dovm through fiction, even to the essay. And the weakest of all to an alert youth of any age is the book or periodical which, whatever its theme, is " written down " to him to make it " popular." There are, of course, also books which are bad for a child because they are beyond him. Of these the college entrance requirements used to be full, and it was these that suggested the school man's remark when he was asked how to cure a boy of reading dime novels. " Teach dime-novel reading," he said, "the way we teach the 150- CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING high school classics. They will never want to read them again." How TO Guide a Child to Good Books We speak here from the standpoint of the home. First, start with story-telHng, making it a regular appointment to tell children the best we remember out of the great books of the world. Second, follow this by the equally regular habit of reading aloud in the home. Poetry was intended to be read aloud only, and all other literature is more real to the child when given orally, with such explanation and condensation as is necessary. Third, talk over not only what is read to the child, but what the child reads himself, so that he may get the habit of an active, thoughtful and power-absorbing rela- tion to books. Finally, place within the reach of the child a good home library, including books that are supposedly beyond him. The best part of reading is often what the child discovers for himself while he is seated on the floor leaning against a bookcase. The child with such a background usually becomes a lifelong and independent reader. Reading References Miss Olcott's " Children's Reading " is our best book on the subject. Mrs. Arnold's " A Mother's List of Books for Children " is a choice col- lection of titles. The Boy Scouts of America is doing a needed service in compiling and arranging for the publication at a low price of wholesome books for boys, not classic in value, but certain to be read with interest and profit. A Short List of Books for Boys and Girls Any endeavor to list the " one hundred best " of anything meets the objection that there are a second hundred which to another's taste are better. The following are good books, and they have proved literary value. Books of nature, handicraft, etc., are not included. Picture Books " Mother Goose " (illustrated by Greenaway, Rackham, Cory or Smith). Adelborg: " Clean Peter and the Children of Grubbylea." Brooke: " Children's Books," two volumes. Caldecott: " Picture Books," four volumes. Potter; " Peter Rabbit," " IBcnjamin Bunny," andptherg, READING 151 Books for Little Children Andersen: " Fairy Tales." Grimm: " Household Stories." Brown: " Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts." Carroll: " Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." Craik: " The Little Lame Prince." Harris: " Nights with Uncle Remus." Kipling: " The Jungle Book." Defoe: " The Story of Robinson Crusoe." Lang: " The Blue Fairy Book." Edited by Lang: " Arabian Nights Entertainments." Browne: " Granny's Wonderful Chair." Edited by Scudder: " The Children's Book." Poems edited by Wiggin: " The Fairy Ring." Stevenson: " A Child's Garden of Verses." Stories Alcott: " Little Women " and " Little Men." Baldwin: " Fifty Famous Stories." Bennett: " Master Skylark." Blackmore: " Lorna Doone." Brooks: " Boy Emigrants." Bulwer-Ly tton : " Last Days of Pompeii." Cervantes (retold) : " Don Quixote." Clemens: " The Prince and the Pauper." Cooper: " The Deerslayer." Dickens: " David Copperfield." Dodge: " Hans Brinker." Dumas: " The Three Guardsmen." Hale: " The Man Without a Country." Hawthorne: " House of the Seven Gables." Hughes: " Tom Brown's Schooldays." Hugo, edited bv Wiltse: " Jean Valjean." Irving: " Rip Van Winkle." Johnson: " Stover at Yale." Kipling: " Captains Courageous." Lothrop: " Five Little Peppers." Macleod: " The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights." Pyle: " Men of Iron." Reade: " The Cloister and the Hearth." Scott: " Ivanhoe." Stevenson: " Treasure Island." Wallace: " Ben Hur." Wiggin: " Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." Books of Inspiration Poems edited by Chisholm : ' ' The Golden Staircase. Poems edited by Porter: " Poems of Action." Jordan: " The Call of the Twentieth Century." Briggs: " Girls and Education." »> CHAPTER XXI HOW TO TEACH A CHILD TO PRAY The responsibility of the person who gives a little child his first religious teaching is evident to him as soon as he begins his task. Several astonishing facts at once become clear. In the first place, it is noticed that the child believes whatever is told him This warns the teacher to be very careful about the truth. In the next place, the child is of very limited capacity. A great deal that we teach, particularly whatever the child has no curiosity about, does not reach him at all. This warns the teacher to be very careful about both his matter and his manner. The child very early shows an interest in causes. His crude notions of the way things are brought to pass sub- ject him to many misconceptions at the best, and he finds it easy — and the superstitions and chance remarks of others encourage the tendency — • to people the dark with strange and often terrible powers, to attribute personality to many things in nature, and to imagine extremely mechanical means by which the universe and its details are administered. It seems important to offer the child as early as possible an idea of God so great and yet so near, so lovable and yet so majestic, that it shall both steady and soothe his imagination and have content enough to hold his growing and more reasonable faith. This idea most of us believe we have in the All-Father. It has its familiar, though challenging, interpretation in present parenthood, and it is great enough to hold all that the child may ever learn from nature or experience of providence, wisdom and love. That this idea may come to the child with early awe, it is the conviction of many that the child should be taught 152 HOW TO TEACH A CHILD TO PRAY 153 reverent attitudes and simple phrases of prayer even before he is old enough to be told a great deal about God. He is thus physically prepared for teaching and has already the appropriate demonstration with which to meet the gracious truth. Then, as the child matures and shows the capacity of thoughtfulness and thankful- ness, at the mother's suggestion he is ready for his first spontaneous pra^^er. One or two suggestions as to detail may be helpful. It is better that the mother should kneel with the child than that the child should kneel to the mother. The latter is a pretty act, often commemorated in pictures, but it is apt to make the child literally say his prayers to his mother, and even to think they cannot be said when she is absent. Kneeling is not material, and is, of course, inadvisable if the room is cold. The child should early learn that he may talk with his Father at any time and in any attitude. The child's prayers should, of course, never be said in the presence of company. How sacri- legious thus to tear open the Holy of Holies for the whimsical entertainment of guests! The morning prayer is even more important than that at evening, as it is more desirable that he should open the day with a sense of gratitude and a fresh committal of himself to the Father than that he should give the sleepy hours to prayer. This leads us to say that, in our present safety, there is no reason why the child's prayer at night should contain the suggestion either of peril or death. The old " Now I lay me," with its poignant expectation of night attacks by enemies, may well yield to some sweeter version, like this: Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray Thee, Lord, me safe to keep. And when the morning comes again, Please help me to be good. Amen. The words of the child's prayer, whether original or suggested, should be in harmony with the child's experi- ence and feelings. If we who are older always had to say 154 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING our prayers aloud, they would no doubt often be phrased differently. If we teach the child prayers, they should not only be simple and be thoughtfully explained^ but they should be chosen to express what the child himself would like to express. And we should very early en- courage the child to say directly in prayer just what he feels. He naturally wishes to be guarded from his fears, to be kept happy and well, to be made loving and kind. Most of all he should be encouraged to be grateful. Let him get the habit of recalling and enumerating the gifts of the day that have made him happy and the anticipa- tions of tomorrow. The old custom of enumerating kindred and friends for God to bless is good so far as it is spontaneous. He need not be forced to recite his little genealogical table every night; let him select each evening those who have during the day been especially good to him. We whose own prayers are so tamely trite may well long to keep those of our little ones forever fresh and new. We must do something to awaken the feelings which we would like to have the child express in prayer. The mother who goes about saying frequently, and sincerely, " Bless the Lord for " this or that, is helping her little child to relate the beautiful day, the happy times, the lovely gifts,, directly to the Father. The singing mother helps make the thankful child. Why not teach the kind of prayers that a child can sing ? The child who has had such teaching soon accepts it not only implicitly, but as a source of comfort and strength. He is not so afraid in hard places ; he has greater self-command; he can be trusted. To such a child the mother can come, in times of anger and disobedience, with the suggestion that they together ask the Father to show them how to conquer the present difficulty. The mother will avoid cant, and be tactful in doing this. She need not draw the child to his knees or expect to switch him from a paroxysm of physical unrestraint or temper to a sudden mood of devotion, but she can teach him to forefend such moments by earnest petition and HOW TO TEACH A CHILD TO PRAY 155 sometimes she can close an act of discipline with the suggestion of the divine resource. It is as wholesome to the mother as to the child if the immanence of God is felt when she is about to administer rebuke or punishment. Unless there is sufficiency in God for such emergencies, what is the use of talking about Him as " a present help in trouble "? Some children who are naturally shy about expressing themselves enjoy having their mothers utter prayers for them. The practice is surely a beautiful even though difficult one, and it may well become sometime a sacred memory to a man that he used to fall asleep amid his mother's prayers. We spoke of the ease with which the child identifies God with nature. It has been natural to explain this as a rehearsal of the race experience. But it is needless that the child should pass through the terrors that accompanied nature worship; on the other hand, while there will be much in the universe that is dark and mysterious, which the child cannot explain, anything that fosters the sense of being at home in the universe, that emphasizes its kind and friendly powers, that teaches the sense of the oneness of it, is religious teaching. As the mother reveals the love of God to the child by her own anxiety to satisfy his physical needs, as the sense of his own perpetual comfort makes him feel that God is a person in his im- mediate world, as he relates even his love of fairies, angels and Santa Glaus to the Creative Power, he is increasing the content of his faith; and there is nothing in all this which he may not gently outgrow, as his reason subdues his imagination, without outgrowing the fundamental faith itself. We must speak of Jesus to a child as our Best Brother. It is unfortunate, since it is incomprehensible, to teach a little child about Him in any other terms. The right relation to Him is loyalty, and it is quite legitimate and even helpful to extend the thought, " Father and mother would not like to have you do this," to " Jesus would not like to have you, either." 156 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING The Religion of Duty Even the child's reHgion may have direct relation to conduct. We have said before that the virtue of the child is Obedience. That this is a religious virtue may be made real to him in many ways. He may be taught that it is the virtue of the universe. Let him see the stately march of the stars at night, and be told of their promptness to their orbits. Let him learn to time the sun and the moon on their journeys. Tell him little stories about the obedience of the rabbits and the birdlings and the other animals to their mothers, and show him how these small mothers could never help their little ones to be safe and comfortable unless they should always, always obey. Yet somehow, too, we must convince our children from the start that what they obey is not us, their parents, but Something through and beyond us, to which we too strive always to be obedient. Nothing helps a child more in his daily struggles toward goodness than the conviction that his father and mother too have the same struggle, must obey the same Law and are his fellow-soldiers in the endeavor. This thought takes out of our admoni- tions the chilling " you " and puts in the enheartening " we." It expresses that perpetual incarnation that is going on, of the higher with the lower person, and of God in both. Because the child is so credulous and imitative he needs the best examples if he is to do duty nobly as well as religiously. " The best way for a child to learn to fear God," said the gentle .and sensible Pestalozzi, "is to see and know a real Christian." The reason why some churches withhold the rite of infant baptism from unbe- lieving parents is because they see no possibility of a real " christening " if the child's sponsors are not godly persons. Reverence in Church How essential is it that the child's earliest relations to the institution that stands for God in the community should be such as to prepare him for lifelong attachment HOW TO TEACH A CHILD TO PRAY 157 and loyalty to it! We agree that the church is such an institution, yet we sometimes lead children to think of it as something else: an organism that hears sermons or that conducts revivals or that occasionally has a " Children's Day." It seems important that even the church building should represent to the child a higher thought than these. On his early walks let him pass its doors and be told, simply and perhaps in a story way, why it looks different from any other building in the town, what it has meant in lives of apostles and martyrs to make it possible, how people are comforted who enter its doors. Take the child into somiC church building, a cathedral if possible, when there is no service going on an,d let him kneel there with you as he enters and then walk softly about while you show him the windows and the tablets and the font and the altar. Postpone the habit of church-going until the child is old enough to regard it as a privilege and to appreciate something of what you tell him about the various parts of the service. Teach him a little prayer to say as he devoutly enters and departs. Teach him the church hymns so that he will know them when he goes to church. Mitigate the sermon for him, either by helping to establish a children's service or nursery or by some device that he may use quietly in his seat. The significance, in the writer's judgment, of the marked tendency toward ritual in the non-liturgical churches and the equally marked tendency toward simplicity and freedom in some liturgical churches is the growing recognition of the need of making the service of God's house more childlike and more helpful to those who some day must be depended upon to maintain the courts of the house of our God. Reading References Hodges: " The Training of Children in Religion " is full of reverence and of a sympathetic knowledge of childhood. It contains a treasury of prayers, suggestions for reading to children out of the Bible and a dis- cussion of what is meant by " a good child." Coe: " Education in Religion and Morals " traces the religious development of the child and has a chapter on The Family. CHAPTER XXII THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD The Bible is the greatest story-book in the world. The young parent whose library, probably, is not at first well supplied with children's books, turns almost in- stinctively, when his little child insists, " Tell me a story," to the book which he himself remembers was the favorite story-book of his own earliest childhood. The parent who thinks that, because of certain difficulties, the Bible should be withheld from young children, is often surprised to learn that, when it is laid in the hands of boys and girls who are old enough to read, they peruse it with almost passionate eagerness. Whatever else it is, it is evidently a splendid stor>-book. When we ask ourselves, "What parts of the Bible do we most truly know?" we have to acknowledge that, whether or not they are those which are of the loftiest morality, they are at least those which embody the keenest story -interest. In general, we are much more familiar with the Pentateuch than with the Epistles, with the Old Testament than with the New (except the Gospels), simply because, during childhood, those parts, through stories, were first given to us. The simplicity of the stories of the Bible helps account for their power with children. Professor Jebb explains the fact that Homer is a universal book by stating that Homer possesses two great qualities, — he aims at the lucid expression of primary motives and he refrains from multiplying individual traits, which would interfere with their effect. These two qualities are found in the Bible as well as in Homer. Biblical stories take a few essential traits of human nature and refrain from multiplying traits which might interfere with the great effect. This sim- plicity and directness bring Bible stories within the com- prehension of children. 158 THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 159 The faithfulness and candor of the Bible no doubt account for its power over children. Children love truth and are naturally truth tellers. Our tendency in story- telling is always to eliminate the disagreeable and leave out aU that is bloodthirsty^ and cruel and talk about only the perfect characters. This is not only untrue to life but it is a bloodless and ineffective way of stor}^-telling. The Bible is a book of truth. It is like a roofless city — like Pompeii, down into whose streets and homes we are permitted to look and see the inhabitants feeling, living, loving, conquering, playing, sinning and repenting. The moral strength of the Bible is not only that it tells us that the wages of sin is death but it shows us human persons earning those wages. The richness of material in the Bible makes it an almost inexhaustible story-book. It is a massive collection. In its many pages some children are represented. Per- sons of ever>^ class are described, from the working folk with whom children sympathize to princes and kings of whom children love to hear. Though its stories are somewhat lacking in descriptions of nature, they are full of varied animal life. The various types of stories inter- esting to children are all included as well as parables and biographies. These stories maintain interest because they deal with things children wish to know. These are some of the subjects of Bible stories: The origin of the world and of human beings; how men, women and chil- dren are provided for; what are the varied interests and ambitions about which men have been busy; what are our relations to God, to the world and to men. These are questions that children ask. Unconsciously to the child, yet none the less powerfully, is he affected by those simple contrasts of motive, particularly moral contrasts, which characterize so many of the Bible stories. A deeper reason is that almost every story in the Bible has a religious purpose. " No other hook finds me as the Bible does," said Coleridge. The reason the Bible finds the child is because the child is by nature religious, and because Bible stories, as Louise Seymour Houghton says, 160 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING " give a religious meaning to all the experiences of his eariy life." An important value of the Bible as a story-book is that even the order of the early books, as printed in our English version, is appropriate to the stages of the child's development. It has been pointed out by others that the Bible represents also a very significant genetic order. The stories which are a spiritual history of the race are also stories of the inner development of every individual. The book begins with the story of the Creation, which appeals strongly to the mind of the child. Next comes a period of pastoral life, affecting the child's out-of-door interests. Then is the heroic stage, the story of the God of battles, a narrative full of wonderful tales of which the child never tires. Parents differ as to when the Bible should first be presented to children. Those who take the ground that it should be withheld until " the child is old enough to decide things for himself, ' ' are of course assuming a position which they would never think of taking in regard to any other subject. There may be, however, some rationality about the belief of others who feel that the Bible will too soon become trite if it is handled too freely and too often. The blase and unexpectant attitude of the average Sunday school pupil is a testimony in support of this posi- tion. On the other hand, it would seem better, if the Bible is really to be made a story-book, that the child should possess it early and heartily, even if he seems to tire of it later on, rather than that he should be given a chance to miss its acquisition through delay or neglect. The modem Sunday school is revealing to us such fresh methods of presenting the Bible from grade to grade , that this particular peril is growing less. On the whole, therefore, I believe that the Bible should be presented to children as early as they are capable of understanding and enjoying its stories. They should, of course, receive it at first entirely as a story-book, and then it should be told to them rather than read to them. In- competent as the parent may feef as a story-teller, the THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 161 crudest rendering, so long as it is enthusiastic and thought- ful, is better than the reading of that which cannot pos- sibly be understood fully. The necessity of condensation and adaptation also is so acute, as in the case of the early Hebrew leaders, that the verbal method is rather to be recommended. A few suggestions may be helpful in regard to methods of Bible story-telling. Some people seem to think it is necessary to assume a peculiarly sanctimonious manner when they tell a Bible story. Too often, as Miss Cowles tells us, " Bible stories are told in a truly awful manner, and children, without knowing why, learn to dread them. They oftentimes seem to them something unreal, something which they cannot understand, something which they fear. This is the last result the story-teller has desired but it is the inevitable result of sanctimonious substitutes for love, joy and gentleness. Rightly told, Bible stories arouse in the child keen interest and deep pleasure." It may be that we would be more likely to avoid this danger if we were to begin with the more simple and agreeable narra- tives, such as the beautiful story of Joseph, filled with wonder, with love, with forgiveness and moral stead- fastness, the wonderful story of the 'Creation, the Patriarch stories, hero stories of the Book of Judges, the story of David up to his coronation and the pastoral story of Ruth. To make the characters realistic and the stories more interesting a certain amount of imaginativeness is allow- able. Why, for instance, should not the man who fell among thieves on the Jericho road have had a wife and children? Why should not Zaccheus be furnished with neighbors, who criticized him? Why should not the story of the supper by the lake be told from the standpoint of the boy who had the five loaves and the two fishes? Details added to the life of Jesus, save as they are implicit in the narrative, seem unnecessary and really unsuccessful. It is often helpful to add to the telling of a story details 0.S to the probable thoughts of the characters in connection with the incidents which are told. For instance, the 162 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING tribulations of David in his struggle toward the throne would suggest at every point intimate thoughts that may easily be pictured which the child will enjoy sharing. In the story of the Good Samaritan it may be helpful, after asking the little folks how many children they think the man who was robbed had in his home, to confer with them as to the anxieties which these youngsters felt when their father went down the dangerous Jericho road, the thoughts in the mind of the selfish priest and the Levite and the dialogue which passed between the man who was robbed and his family after he at length returned safely to them. Subtraction, as we have implied, is useful in telling Bible stories. We may agree with Felix Adler " that sour milk is no proper food for children, nor do those stories afford proper moral food in which, so to speak, the milk of human kindness has turned sour." The attempted sacrifice of Isaac, the story of Jael, the killing of Agag, are instances which occur to mind. In telling the story of Hagar, it is best to exclude all that is repellant, touching only the picture of a mother's love. The story of Moses the deliverer in great part is unfit for children under nine or ten, not for moral reasons, but because it includes motives too complex and mature to be within their comprehension. The childhood of Moses, on the other hand, is a drama with which children have been entranced. It sometimes adds force to the Bible to change the order in which it is related in the Scriptures. This has already been done to certain in- cidents, since certain instances in the Old Testament are told in different order when we find them in another place. Curios, stereographs, reproductions of sacred art are all helpful devices for making Bible lands and people real. Most parents, when their children begin to read, place the entire English version in their hands. The very mechanical beauty of the book, its flexible leather binding, its red and gold edges, and, in many versions, its attrac- tive pictures, cause it to become the brightest cornerstone of the future Hbrary. Many parents, however, make THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 163 the mistake of selecting for their children editions of the Scriptures printed in small type. It must be acknowl- edged, too, that it is somewhat difficult for the child, unaided, to find his way through so great a country in which there are no guide posts. We would scarcely have the temerity, in the case of any other volume so complex, to anticipate very great success. The danger that the child will come across passages which are unsuitable for his reading need not be exaggerated, since the possibility is that the child will not understand their meaning and therefore will probably skip them. But by early ado- lescence the danger is great. On the whole, it is desirable to place first in the hands of the young child one of the many helpful arrangements especialty made for children, printed in large, clear type, with modem paragraph divisions and selected, arranged and explained so as to make it intelligible and enjoyable. There is nothing sacred about a limp-backed Bible per se. If it is the greatest book in the world, we should give children the most benefit by an abundant entrance into it. Space does not permit discussion of the great systems of Bible study in church schools. What has already been said has intimated to the reader that some parts of the Bible are more suitable for children than others. Our most thoughtful lesson writers are now busy in the following important tasks: selection of Biblical material appropriate to each stage of development; methods of presentation suitable to each stage as discovered from our best pedagogical -science ; educating the teacher in applying these methods to the children; textbooks and illustrated material which shall call forth the co-operation of the child; the most practical correlation between what the child learns in Sunday school and natural, unselfish service in the home, the school playground and the com- munity. The Right Attitude Toward the Bible The attitude toward the Bible that we hold when teaching it to children is likely to be the one we hold for 164 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING ourselves. But we must realize that the adult attitude is not that of the child. The adult is likely to think of the Bible in terms of theology. It has formed so strongly a determining factor in the ripening of his own philosophical determinations about religion that he is tempted to try to communicate these terms to the child. But to the child the Bible is, as we have said, a story-book and not a book of theology, and its relations are with life more than with thought. It is our duty to give the child the Bible in his own terms, as a story-book that interprets life. A special error of adults is to endeavor to communicate to the child by means of the Bible their own special view of the supernatural. This often takes the form of em- phasizing the miraculous. But to a small child everything is a wonder and a miracle. He must pass through his stage of seeing the extraordinary and even the grotesque in everything, and he is not ready yet for any definite and permanent view of the matter. We must protect him from being frightened by what he hears or reads and we must see that he does not get any idea of God that will alienate him from his Father. We may safely leave imtil later the shaping of his theories upon this topic. The writer frankly believes that the modem methods of Bible study have restored to us the real Bible, and that they are both an aid to faith and to reality in religion. Believing thus, it has been his own method, justified by good results, to take for granted with children whatever scholarship has brought to light and to teach them nothing that they would need to unlearn later. It has been a peculiar satisfaction to note that a considerable number of young persons have, as the result, been prepared to meet the scientific methods and approaches of college without disturbance to their faith. Let a child's training be reasonable as far as it goes, give him the Bible as a book of life, and then let him have room to grow. Reading References Mrs. Houghton's " Telling Bible Stories," referred to in Chapter XIX, is not only helpful for the purpose which its title indicates, but it is sug- THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD 165 gestive as to the best way to bring children into contact with our modern knowledge of the Bible. The volume of the Religious Education Asso- ciation reports entitled " The Bible in Practical Life," has, on pp. 55-85, 180-209, instructive articles on the use of the Bible with children and in modern religious education. In Stephen Paget's " The New Parent's Assistant " is an exceedingly sensible chapter entitled " Defenders of the Faith." Chapter IV of G. Stanley Hall's " Educational Problems " deals with the matter with his usual freshness and boldness, but it should be read with a good measure of personal discrimination. CHAPTER XXIII SUNDAY The problem of Sunday in the home depends largely upon a clear statement of what kind of Sunday the home desires to observe. There is considerable need of clear thinking upon this subject. We have before us, roughly speaking, four kinds of Sundays: The Old Testament Sabbath. The Sabbath of Jesus. The Puritan Sunday. The so-called " Continental " Sunday. A great many persons who believe in the Puritan Sunday and who suppose it to be identical with the first two would be enlightened by a little careful Bible study. The reader may better make this study for himself, but a fair state- ment of its results may be ventured to start us on our way. The Sabbath of the Old Testament had two view- points. As seen in the so-called prophetic sources it was a day of joy, recreation and compensation. From the priestly standpoint, its ceremonial value was more dis- tinctly emphasized. The priests saw it as a day that was of value to God, a kind of ceremonial offering for his satisfaction. The prophets saw it rather as a day of value to man, and believed that God's satisfaction in it, as in all things human, was in its value to men. From neither viewpoint was its observance very similar to any Sunday we know at present. It was not a day of church- going, save as men might chance to be near the temple at Jerusalem. The synagogue services, which had sprung up generally since the exile, were somewhat analogous to our Sunday schools. It was in all times among the Jews a day of rest from work and of feasting and joy at home. In the time of Jesus the priestly view of the Sabbath had become dominant. The day, without losing 166 SUNDAY 167 its general character as one of rest and feasting, had been clogged by many restrictions of a formal kind, which made it uncomfortable. Jesus distinctly stood for the revival of the prophetic idea of the Sabbath. " The Sabbath was made for man." He broke deliberately from the Pharisaic restrictions and walked, ate and acted in general during the day with com- plete freedom, under the sanction of the thought of making the day worth while to Himself and His followers. He went customarily to the synagogue, but the s^magogue, though largely in the hands of scribes of the priestly school, was the forum of prophets and as such He regarded it. The Puritan Sunday was one of the many needed pro- tests of Puritanism. It was a revolt against formal church services, and the inconsistent riotings that followed them. It. brought a simpler worship and a more austere home observance. It went to the extreme of establishing the ceremonial of restraint and gloom in place of the cere- monial of ritualism. It even m.ade its own ceremonials a virtue, and in so far resembled in spirit the Sabbath of the Pharisees. The " Continental " Sunda^^ is the individualistic use of the day within no limits save those of the civil laws. It seeks the joy of the prophets' day, but not always with the prophets' questioning as to what is of highest worth. It resembles to a degree the Sunday of the Cavaliers, but is, in Germany at least, a family day. This little study may help clear our minds. The Puritan Sunday, which we may be inclined through tradition to think of as the only religious Sunday, was not such, and had its manifest limitations. It was for one thing an awful day for children. If to Jesus every day was a religious day, we cannot certainly except the Sabbath. It was to him, as was every day, it is true, a day in which joy, recreation and compensation were to be pursued in the religious spirit. It was more than every other day, for it was, as an ancient phrase had it, " the day of the lifting off of burdens." Because it was not a day for work, it was a day of peculiar opportunity. 168 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING This word would seem to be the keynote of the home Sunday — opportunity; not repression, but privilege. And when we say opportunity we like to add Christian opportunity. For we must remember that in our Sun- day we not only may have Jesus' ideal, but we have his memorial. The beautiful name that has come down to us since the life and resurrection of Jesus is " the Lord's day." To him to whom Jesus means Life the day is the peculiar opportunity to remember and live in the spirit of Jesus. But someone at once objects: " Under this definition do we not at once open the door to every abuse of the day ? Will not the child say, ' If this is the day of opportunity, for joy, why, for example, do we not take our car and spend the day in a jolly ride into the country?' " The writer wishes to be frank ; he could not in frankness exclude this as a way of spending Sunday which may be and often has been justified as appropriate. But a broader considera- tion would limit, it would seem, even this method of spending every Sunday of the year. Let us remember some of the factors of the prophets', of Jesus', Sabbath. 1. It was a day at home, and for the home. 2. It was a day of joy in the best things. 3. It was a day for everybody to be at home and have the best things. The automobile Sunday does not well meet all these tests. Some Sundays at least, most Sundays one would think, should be enjoyed at home. The family may be kept together in a car, but the house itself with its associations is a part of the family, and we ought to enjoy our houses and firesides more, not less, than we do. The automobile Sunday may bring us what is best at certain times, say for certain hours, but the joy of rapid motion among pleasant scenes, though whole- some and restful, is not the total of the best that is avail- able to any famijy. We may easily lose God amongst his works; we find in books, pictures, friends, higher joys than in a ride in a machine. Then most excursions on Sunday tend to defeat the third object mentioned above; they make somewhat less possible for everybody SUNDAY 169 a quiet Sunday without work or care. The automobile is particularly destructive of the quiet and rest of human life at any time. On the other hand, it would be hard to prove that a car is any less sacred than a man's own legs or that the day is spoiled by going fifty miles from home rather than five. This frank discussion of a particular point may help us get back to general principles. Sunday is a day of opportunity for rest, particularly for rest in change. This is, after all, the best kind of rest. To most the night is sufficient for rest in sleep, though to some overstrained lives, additional sleep on Sunday is the changeful rest that seems to be demanded. But in general and especially for children, the best rest is not sleep and the best Sunda^^ is not a sleepy one. Many simple changes make Sunday a festival to children and create happy and lifelong memories. To their intense physical beings change in the food and in the table fur- nishings are joyously sym.bolic. For change in play (since in the Old Testament work upon the Sabbath is disallowed, but not play, so that it cannot be Mrong to play on Sunday, as some aver) certain playthings may well be reserved and certain plays, especially with father, whose only day of play it usually is. Indeed, both out of fairness and because he needs it, Sunday may be defined as a weekly Father's Day. Since Sunday is a family day and should be a day of freedom to all, it is only fair that it should be easier to the housewife and the servants. Hence the appropriateness and the pride of making some of the children, who are old enough, responsible for certain meals and minor tasks on Sunday. Best clothes, fresh flowers, new phonograph records or piano solos, everything that is " new " and " best," should appear on Sunday. One reason why church-going is wholesome is because it is an antidote to the personal slovenliness that usually belongs to those who are " porch Christians." Public worship, one of man's oldest institutions, surely demands no defence. Praise and prayer in unison have, according to the testimony of many races and times, 170 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING proven useful, and they have always been associated with a periodical rest day. Whether one finds peace in the visitations that come into the Quakers' silence or in the loud acclaim, of sonorous liturgies, some appropriate opportunity is open to nearl}^ all. We cannot guarantee that our children will always go to church after they are grown up, but it would seem to be at the least a deprivation that they should never have been accustomed to the attentiveness, the expectancy and the reward of hours of united worship. To think of noble things together is surely a restful change on Sunday, and for this purpose Sunday schools came into being and are maintained. Let us grant that the Sunday school is not what it ought to be pedagogically and even that it can never become, with its meagre hour and its volunteer leadership, a completely satisfac- tory school of religion, yet it can be and usually is at least what we have said — an opportunity to think of noble things together. The chief value of the Sunday school is that it is a wholesome social companionship under unselfish leadership. Children do at least learn to think and feel in common, where good men and women are. It also supplements and confirms the home teaching and stands as a doorway into the church. Other ideals the modem Sunday school strives for, but we speak now of the average school, and do not claim too much. These are worth while. The Sunday school is worth while on Sunday. Its worth- whileness is increasing. Social fellowship and hospitality are surely opportunities for Sunday. Among the Hebrews the Sabbath was, and is still, called " the Day of Lights," and the candlestick that was lighted by the house-mother on Sabbath eve was the symbol of the fellowship between God and men and between men and men. Unless the hospitality be earnestly simple it may encroach upon the real rest of the day. Yet such hospitality is possible and most de- sirable. If a boy or girl may freely bring his chum to his own room and carry thither at least a cafeteria lunch, how wholesome and pleasant is the custom ! If a Sunday SUNDAY 171 school class may go into the fields with their teacher, how excellent the opportunity for acquaintance! If the parents can bring wise men to the home on that day, how educative for the children! If the church can in the summer have a camp for its working boys and girls, how sensible a way of imitating Him who spread a feast for the weary and heavy laden beside the lake! And let us not forget too that, from early days, Sunday has been the day set apart for courtship. Whatever else a Chris- tian Endeavor society is, not the least of its functions is to bring young folks pleasantly together, usually on Sun- day and under the shelter of the church. The home should, when those days come, plan for the welcomed meeting under its roof of those who shall some day make homes of their own. The Master gave us His example that we should serve each other on the Sabbath, and the day is gracious with memories of His thoughtfulness and eager activities upon the holy day. It is desirable that children should early learn that Sunday is not only the most joyous but the most unselfish day of the week, and joyous chiefly because of its unselfishness. The curse of the Continental Sab- bath is not its liberty, but its hardness, its individualism, its disregard of others. The best protection against that kind of a Sunday is the systematic training of our yoimg people in the tender and thoughtful care on Sunday of the sick, the lonely and the unfortunate. Among these last not least to be considered are those who serve us in so many ways, whose work on Sunday a thoughtful con- sideration might make less burdensome. Reading References Nearly all books on the Sabbath and Sunday are special pleas for the restoration of theTuritan Sunday. Floody's " The Scientific Basis of Sabbath and Sunday" is an endeavor to trace the history and signifi- cance of the weekly rest day. Books on Sunday observance in the home deal chiefly with young children and with indoor devices. Of these none is better than Faris' " Pleasant Sunday Afternoons for the Children." CHAPTER XXIV PARENTS' PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH THE DAY SCHOOL It would not, of coiirse, be possible in this handbook to go very deeply into the theory of education. The author's plan is to outline in the present chapter the aims of public education as modemly accepted and some of the problems of the public school which specially interest the home, and in the chapter following to suggest some ways in which the home and the school may co-operate. What the School is Trying to do Many definitions have been made of education, but they really all sift down to two. These represent two standpoints: one, that of what humanity has to teach; the other, that of what the child is to become. From the standpoint of the need of the child, education is his fullest possible development. From the standpoint of the work of the teacher, education is to put the child in possession of the best heritages of the race. The for- mer approaches the child as a growing organism, unfold- ing from within; the latter sees him as a receptacle of knowledge, lighted and watered from without. The defect of the first viewpoint is that alone it leaves the teacher uncertain as to his goal, that of the second is that alone it leaves him uncertain of his way. We need to hold both points steadily and together in mind when we engage in any of the processes of education. Perhaps the second view has to be seen first, because we must know what we have to impart before we impart anything, but we must hold the first very soon after, because, as we learned in a previous chapter, this matter of " impart- ing " depends very much upon the capacity of the child, which is changing and limited. 172 THE DAY SCHOOL 173 Education as Acquisition We spoke of education as the putting of the child in possession of the best heritages of the race. What are the best heritages of the race? Are they not spiritual, natural and humanistic ? Leaving aside the first for the moment, are not the treasures of the race, as President Butler has said, all answers to two questions, " the question how, whose answer is science, and the question why, whose answer is philosophy"? And has not man insisted also in asking and attempting to answer the third question, whence — the spiritual ques- tion? In the nature group we put not only what usually goes under that name, but also geography and the various sciences. In the human group we place everything that is concerned with the story of man's life, activities and aspirations. Of course the two overlap. Though we put arithmetic in the nature group, yet it has to do with man's modes of reckoning, and though we put language in the human group, we recognize that it is the means by which discoveries in natural science have been made known. In the spiritual group we place those impulses and interests which have inspired both philosophy and science. These are the things that are worth while. When we say that they are worth while we imply that our civiliza- tion has found them so; we imply also that we wish our children to enter fully into the life of our civilization, to share and carry out the social purpose of our race. In this category of worth falls G. Stanley Hall's definition of education, " to teach us to delight in what we should." Under this aim would be included the preparation of a child to earn a living, to maintain a family, to become a good neighbor, even to enrich and advance the life of his time. Such is education, considered as acquisition, as adjust- ment. This is our goal, but we have not yet learned our way. Perhaps the other viewpoint will help us to find it. 174 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Education as Unfoldment Did we consider only the view of education just named, which was the only view that used to be considered, our problem would be indeed simple. We would select the things worth while, either in the order of their worth or of their convenience to the teacher, and proceed to pour them into or upon the child. But we have begun to discover that at certain times the child is impregnable to knowledge of certain kinds. The child from a very early period is a person, individual, independent, positive. As Kirkpatrick has it, " Paul may plant and Apollos may water, but it is God that giveth the increase. The educa- tor may plan and the teacher may train, but the child develops because it is his God-given nature to do so." Neither need the educator worry, in the case of a normal child, about the fact of development. " The gardener does not lie awake nights worrvdng lest the sap shall not rise, or the nutrient materials shall be taken to the wrong place. It would be well if the educator had something of the same faith regarding the child." F. Clement C. Egerton, an English educator, has put this faith into what he calls his " educational creed," and it is an excellent statement of the modem view of education as seen from the developmental standpoint: I believe: That the child is endowed at his birth wdth certain latent forces and powers, which it is the business of education to bring out and foster; That the cliild is naturally good, and that if he receives a fair chance, he himself will develop that natural goodness; That the child is better able to teach himself than the most highly trained person is able to teach him, and that he will do so if opportunity is allowed him ; That the child's physical, mental and moral faculties should be developed simultaneously and harmoniously, not individually and one at the expense of another. In this view of education the educator is a gardener who gives the plant (the growing child) a chance, by taking out of his way what would impede his growth and THE DAY SCHOOL 175 by furnishing him the nutriment which our best knowledge of his nature proves to be best suited to encourage growth at each stage of his development. Specifically, our studies have already shown us what are some of the things to take out of a child's way. We have seen that the small child desires the concrete, what he can observe and measure and handle and do with, so we must ' take abstractions out of his way. We have seen that he is a social being and early loves to act with others, so we had better take any isolation in study out of his way and thus make education what Epicurus asked for, " friends seeking happiness together." We have seen that even though he is social yet he is strongly individu- alistic and has his own ways of looking at and compre- hending things, so we must take out of his way any lock- step method that prevents his trsn.ng his own experiments and making progress at his own rate. So too we already see some of the factors that will help his development: more self-help, more tactual experiences, interests that shall give power instead of requirements that shall use it up. Perhaps our two best ways in educa- tion may be said to be, to teach the child to want things and how to find things. Now, having said this, we return to our other viewpoint of education, that of what the teacher has to give. The child, we say, can receive only as he is ready, so the teacher's task is to arrange his treasures not in the order in which he might prefer to impart them, but in the order and in the aspect in which the child can apprehend them. He endeavors to adapt his work to the inner processes of the child. But he is also training the child to an ad- justment to var\dng situations in society to secure their highest value. This implies not only watering and fertil- izing, but pruning and trimming the human plant. The skilful teacher is he who can help maintain the child's vigor of growth and direct that growth without maiming the child. James' definition puts the two viewpoints in one: " Education is the organization of resources in the human 17G CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING being, of powers of conduct, that shall fit him to his social and physical world." The Special Problems of the School The school is the organized institution of education. School teachers are its trained and authorized executives. Having been granted the practical monopoly of formal education, they are as a class deeply cognizant of their responsibilities; and no profession today is so sensitive to criticism or so eager to fulfil its recognized opportunities. The world is full of clamor about and against the schools, and the livest topic of our time is education. Every criticism of the schools is really a criticism of society and of ourselves. The schools are as good as society will afford and as we deserve. Let us summarize these problems briefly. They may be classified as the problems of opportunity, of expense, of ignorance, of the social situation, and of moral education. The problems of opportunity. Though it is the recog- nized, the school is by no means the principal, agency of education. The young child gets more from the home than he does from the school, the school boy learns more on the playground than he does in the schoolroom, the child has the chance to unlearn during vacation nearly all the school can teach him. While we speak of " popular educa- tion," this is a misnomer since the people do not get it, for the majority of our population are sixth-graders — or less. The school has no influence upon the mass of our people after they are fourteen years old; they leave before the years of greatest mental alertness and broadest acquisi- tion. The school, then, at its best does not get at the children in any way to share more than a small part of the responsibility for their education. The life of the school is limited in its opportunity. Really it is not life. We unconsciously say to ourselves: " Here is the school; there is life. Here our children are getting ready for life — there." But the child is not getting ready for life; he is living. The school has little contact with reality. A child, asked how long was a THE DAY SCHOOL 177 rod, marked off about an inch on his finger — that was how long a rod looked in a sketch in his arithmetic. The child studies the pictures of things, when the world around him is full of the things themselves. In his play and in his helping at home the child is busy with real projects, but in school he knows only the history of projects or the descriptions of them. The overemphasis upon school athletics is partly due to the necessity of substituting a highly organized and artificial form of exercise for natural forms — with the alternative of having no exercise at all. The most recent recognition of educators is that of the need of enlarging the life of the school by relating it with, and even taking it into, the life of the home, of the gang, of business and of the community. Up to now the reason it is so hard to get a child to tell what he has done in school today is that he has done nothing that is a part of his real self. Another problem is the problem of expense. Enormous as are the total expenditures for our schools, they are entirely inadequate for the need. The ideal school will close or greatly contract the jail, the poorhouse and the hospital, and release such expenditures for education. One sometimes wishes we had the courage to pour those moneys at once into the institution that generates human power, and see what would happen to the institutions of human correction and repair. Teachers are the most underpaid persons in the world doing intellectual work, and the profession is becoming for that reason almost a closed one to men. The lack of money for the schools means the loss of three of the most necessary factors in effective education. Three things a child chiefly wants are impossible in an impoverished school. He wants to ask questions; in a classroom that has big numbers because the school is poor this is impossible, so the teacher asks questions of him. The child wants to initiate, to invent, to make; a big class gives no room for that. He wants to co-operate, to organize, to work with others; in a crowded room the only possible way to teach is to teach each sociable yoiingster as if he were in solitary confine- 178 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING merit. Lack of money, not lack of educational ideals, makes the " hep! hep!" of the lockstep. The problem of ignorance is a real one. The tragedy of the school is to see an educational genius with a corps of keen teachers, domineered and driven by a school board composed of ward heelers and even saloon keepers. Another tragedy is the complete ignorance of parents not only as to the methods, but as to the very purposes of the institution in which their children spend the better part of their waking hours. There is still ignorance among educators, even fetish worship. The fetish of practical- ness is formal discipline, and the fetish of culture is Latin and algebra. Between the two the child loses his intel- lectual appetite and leaves school, having hated all the subjects of the curriculum alike. Our most pressing educational problems are those that arise out of the social situation. There is room only to state some of them. How, in a strongly industrial and commercial state, shall we prepare all our children for their suitable vocations without making a cleavage between those who work in the office and those who work in the shop? How shall we mould education to fit life needs and not the demands of college entrance examina- tions? On the other hand, how shall we give such an intellectual thirst to those who do not go to college that culture shall be possible to them? How may a man in his own life satisfy the demands of his business and those of his higher nature? The problem of moral education is becoming recognized as the greatest that is before our schools today. We have space to do little more than state the problem. Our best authorities are saying that character is the chief aim in education. Social and national and domestic welfare are impossible without it, and no one is an edu- cated person who does not know how and is not able to use the tools of education nobly. Yet how shall charac- ter be obtained ? Will it come out of textbooks and formal and direct teaching ? Or is it entirely true that ' ' charac- ter is caught, not taught "? Have we sufficient materials THE DAY SCHOOL 179 for the making of character in the very organization and discipline of the schools? Or is it true, as our Roman Catholic brethren so earnestly insist, that there is no guarantee of character without a religious basis, that this religious basis cannot be assured to all, unless it is given by the day school? Shall we, therefore, anticipate creating Protestant parochial schools or dividing the school moneys among the sects or establishing supple- mental schools of religious education in our churches? These are the questions, and the answers are many. Perhaps the present trend of thought among Protestant leaders is in these directions : 1. The religious basis is needed as the foundation of character; but 2. Our governmental structure will never permit the use of public money for the teaching of religion by the sects. 3. Protestant people favor the introduction into the schools of more direct, wise, moral teaching, but rely still upon the character of carefully chosen teachers as the best moral asset of the public schools. 4. They are strongly aroused to the need of renewing and strengthening moral and religious teaching by parents. 5. They are working hard for the improvement of the Sunday school, and its extension in social and educational directions into the week. 6. They are deeply interested in plans for giving school credit for religious teaching — that is, of standard educational quality, done outside the school by any sect. They have begun to establish week-day instruction in religion in the churches. 7. It is fair to say that they have not seen clearly the wise method of affording adequate religious education to the children of those who are outside the reach of the churches. The Parent's Viewpoint of These Problems The parent sees these problems not only from a general but from a specific viewpoint. He himself has committed 180 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING children to the local public schools and is very desirous that the best things in education, so far as he knows what they are, be granted to these young people who are so dear to him. Let us, therefore, go over what has just been said, with the parent's viewpoint particularly in mind. Let us ask ourselves some of these questions concerning the schools as related to our own children. 1. Is the school which my child attends putting him in possession of the best heritage of the race, so far as that particular school ought to do so? If not, is the reason because of unintelligent direction by the school board, imperfect supervision by the superintendent or principal, inadequate equipment, or uncertain teaching? 2. Is the school which my child is attending satis- factorily assisting in this child's unfoldment? If it is not, which one of the reasons just mentioned accounts for it; or, if none of these, is the fault that of the child or is it, to some degree, my own fault? 3. Do I, to my own knowledge, sufficiently know the ideals and methods of the teacher to whom. I have com- mitted my child for so many hours of each day? 4. To what extent is this special school relating its work to real life? How may the study or work of the school be guided that it may be more closely related? 5. Studying the last school report, do I find that we are spending upon our local schools a sum of money proportionate to our population? 6. Are these expenditures proportionate to the needs of teachers (salaries), to an adequate building, to sufficient teaching material (such as books, laboratories, shops, etc.), or to the best supervision? 7. To what degree is there any evidence of deliberate or careless waste? 8. What is the average size of classes to the teacher in the school which my child attends? 9. What methods of moral education does our city stand for, and what are being used in this school ? What textbooks, if any; how often should such exercises occur; who supervises and instructs the teachers as to their use? THE DAY SCHOOL 181 10. Which impresses a child more, the teacher or the subject of study? What inference does this suggest to me? Reading References Thorndike's " Education: a First Book " gives an adequate summary of educational theory. Smith's " All the Children of All the People," Weeks' " The Education of Tomorrow," and Munroe's " New Demands in Education " are popular discussions of school problems, the first em- phasizing the need of recognizing and teaching the individual, the other two the importance of adjusting the child through education to the times in which he Uves. Dewey's " The School and Society " is a mighty little book, influential in causing us to realize the social outreach of the school. Some further questions by means of which one may test the local school situation are suggested in Kirkpatrick's " Fundamentals of Child Study," pp. 357-360. A plan for a general survey by the class is worked out toward the close of this course. The class may decide to use it at this time. To those who are deeply interested in education and particularly those who have young children, the present-day tendencies in education are of enough import at least to involve further reading, and perhaps a day of special discussion in the class. The one most helpful book here is Dewey's " Schools of Tomorrow." Dr. John Dewey, the educational philosopher, has, with the aid of his daughter, taken up one by one the new movements in school life, describing each system graphically and discussing its mean- ing as a part of child training. The keynote of the survey is this sentence: " Learning is a necessary incident of dealing with real situations." Each method described has its roots in the endeavor to put the child close to a real situation, to substitute actual experiences for book knowledge. The kindergarten is described, and to those who wish to understand how varied is the apparatus that is taking the place to a large degree of Froebel's " gifts " a booklet, pubUshed by Teachers' College, Columbia University, entitled " Experimental Studies in Kindergarten Education " is recom- mended as giving in fuller detail what Dr. Dewey briefly outlines. The contributions and the limitations of the Montessori system are discussed. This chapter may well be supplemented by Kilpatrick's " The Montessori System Examined," the fullest and fairest critique of the brilliant Italian educator's methods. Connected with the discussion of the kindergarten, much space is devoted to the discussion of play in education. Here one will enjoy reading the works of such enthusiasts as Lee (" Play in Educa- tion") and Curtis (" Education through Play " and " The Practical Or- ganization of Play "). But lest one should give play too large a function or make the term " play " cover wholly what we have generally known as work, Munroe's " New Demands in Education " will be wholesome as a corrective. The description of the Fairhope School of Organic Education and the Elementary School of the University of Missouri carries us up a step higher through the grades. When Dr. Dewey comes to the industrial and pre-vocational parts of education naturally he describes the Gary schools, to which further references are given in our chapters upon voca- tion (XXXIII-XXXV). The book does not dwell to any extent upon edu- cation in the arts. Modern educators are insisting that behind all art education there must be an artistic background and the factor of interested 182 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING appreciation. This ground is well covered in Henry Turner Bailey's little book, " Art Education." Dr. Dewey does not go on to the high school. Our most recent outline of the highest grades of popular education is found in Johnston's " The Modern High School." We do not find in Dewey's book very much about that most vital of questions — the kind of man we want the schools to make. To aid us in thinking this out, there is a brilliant and sometimes exasperating study by C. Hanford Henderson: " What is it to be Educated? " The annual proceedings of the National Education Association (Ann Arbor, Mich.) and the annual reports of the Bureau of Education are in- expensive and sen.aceable media by which to keep abreast of the current movements and discussions in this great field. CHAPTER XXV HOME AND SCHOOL The two persons who share between them the largest part of a child's time ought to be the closest friends and co-workers. As a matter of fact, the majority of miothers do not know more than the name of the teacher who spends five to six hours a day for five days a week with their children, and the majority of teachers have never even seen the mothers of half their children. There are several reasons for this singular situation. One is the impracticability of a teacher's going to the individual homes of forty pupils. Another is that, under the de- partmental system, the child has more than one teacher. But the chief difficulty is with the miother, who in rele- gating the major part of the intellectual training of her children to the school teacher forgets that the whole child goes to school, and that she still has much to give to and much to get from that teacher. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss briefly some of the manifold ways in which the home and the school are related. Home and School Leagues As is so often the case in our country, the fresh recog- nition of the desirability of interesting the home more vitally in the school has already taken on the dimensions of a " movement " and there have sprung up Parent- Teacher Associations, or Home and School Leagues, which are federated in state and national organizations. From the viewpoint of school teachers and superinten- dents, by whom these societies are usually heartily sup- ported, they are an earnest effort to bring school needs and conditions within the actual knowledge of school patrons. They are sometimes a bold endeavor to appeal from ignorant or bigoted school boards or political rings to the people themselves, and often the very development 183 184 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING of such associations leads to the removal of popular prejudices due to ignorance, to a larger and more honest expenditure upon the schools and to the introduction of modem methods of education. From the parents' point of view they express the endeavor to study and improve the schools in which their own children are being educated. The individual mother is timid about approaching the busy, professional teacher, but protected by the group of which she is a part, she comes gladly to the school, and learns, perchance, that that professional person also has a mother's heart and an extraordinary^ knowledge of her own child, whom she had occasionally thought to be ne- glected or misunderstood. Mrs. Grice reports a significant difference between the attitude of fathers and of mothers when they come into the school building to attend their first parent-teacher meeting. The father is interested in the equipment and the system, but the mother always asks, " Where does Johnny sit? " The two attitudes suggest both the administrative and the personal im.prove- ments that are likely to come out of such conferences. And despite the evident need for the former, one cannot but be convinced that the opportunity for the starting of co-operation between the teacher and the mother in the case of the individual boy or girl is the best result of such organizations. If I were asked what is the time and place where a mother may make a more profitable condensed study of her child than any other, I would say, in a patient, alert morning spent in his schoolroom watching him. at his work. Such an observation usually removes entirely any tendency to criticize the teacher for " bearing down " on the child and brings the mother to desire humbly to con- fer with the woman whose intellectual preparation and personal knowledge combine to make her a better expert about that child than she is herself. It is not favoritism that produces the result that the child of the mother who visits the school makes better progress. It is that the mother is better prepared to help the child to right study habits at home and that the HOA'IE AND SCHOOL 1S5 teacher knows that she may depend upon the mother for that hearty support without which the teacher's pre- scriptions for the child are ineffective. Out of such mutual understanding come results of even larger significance. Parents who know and believe in the school keep their child in school, defend him from the adolescent whim to wander or work and are willing to sacrifice for his higher education. Teaching the Child at Home Recent books and magazine articles give expression to a wholesome reaction in favor of resuming in the home a larger share in the child's education. One of these ten- dencies is toward teaching the child as long as possible at home instead of in the school. Several books have been published showing how children, kept from any school and given careful and earnest attention at home, have entered college at eleven or twelve years of age or have made extraordinary linguistic or artistic attainments. That such results are possible cannot be denied, although in almost every published instance the brilliancy of the parents suggests that the children themselves were of high potentiality. Whether these results are worth while remains to be proven. To precipitate a child of twelve who has lived entirely with adults and who is " prepared " for college in only the one element of acquisitive knowledge into the sophisticated society of youths of eighteen who have been through the rough and tumble of the schools and of athletic and social life, is somewhat dangerous. That these lonely pilgrims from an intellectual Arcadia never quite adjust themselves to the university Vanity Fair and are always looked askance at there, seems clear. It is an open question whether their over-development in one direction is really time saved, either in getting ready for life or in living the full life of their time. There is, however, something to be said on the other side. If college or life is not yet adjusted to the youth, who through painstaking care and individual instruction has saved from two to five years of routine preparation, 186 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING then so much the worse for life and for college. If the process is worth while, the adjustment is bound to come. No doubt there is much waste in wholesale teaching; no doubt there is much loss of time in teaching in the wrong order or in the wrong way. If these bright parents can show us some needed educational changes, let us be thankful, and prepare our public schools and higher institutions to accept them. Another motive is emphasizing the desirability of home training through the earliest years. A well-nourished child from a home of intellectual habits is mentally from one to two years in advance of the average child in the first grades in school. If he enters the grade system at the bottom and falls into the lockstep he con- tinually generates more power than he can use, his curi- osity and alertness are deadened and he is likely to reach high school a monotonous and uninterested individual. If the mOi:her has time to teach him, and it is surprising how little extra time it takes if she uses the educational opportunities of his every-day play and conversation, and if she will skilfully adapt herself to school requirements, she may a little later send into the schools, at a consider- ably advanced grade, a child who is healthier, more alert and fully able to meet the requirements. Such children, if no accidents prevent, may be expected to leave high school a year or two before the average, still eager to progress, having had a normal social experience and des- tined usually to be leaders in the world of which they are a comfortable part. But each child, whether he goes to school or not, needs child companions. This brings up what is often a very pressing question: Shall we, on account of the undesirable companions which our child will meet, send him to the public school? Prob- ably the thorough-going democrat says, " Yes. Bring him up to judge men as men, and don't let him be a snob or an aristocrat." The careful mother does not find the answer as easy as this. She may be worried by the carelessness of her neighbors as to contagion; she may question whether she wishes her child exposed to certain racial ideals and HOME AND SCHOOL 187 customs inconsistent with her own; she may fear actual moral contamination. The difficulty often is simply one of educational opportunity, the subjects of study and the methods of the public school not being adequate to qualify her child for entrance to an institution of higher learning. We can hardly deny that the tendency is in- creasing, in the larger centers, toward a separation of pupils even in the public schools along lines of race and wealth and that private schools are growing in popularity. The same father who takes his own first-bom out of public school may be much interested in increasing the appropria- tions for the public schools and in raising their standards, in the hope that it may be feasible for him to send a second child to them. In a city where school appropriations are generous it is to be remembered that few private schools can afford to pay the salaries to their teachers that are paid in the public schools. Their patrons, too, are often unwilling to have their children face as rigorous standards of scholarship. The advisability of home study after school is still being discussed. Of one fact we are sure, — not many chil- dren in the early grades know how to study alone. When home study is required it does not become effective unless it is supervised and guided by the parent. The Home as a Laboratory Mention was made in an earlier chapter of movements toward using the home tools and equipment as the most inexpensive and effective laboratory of the practical arts, the home kitchen for domestic science, the home garden for horticulture and nature study. The movement is not a new one. For many years the teachers have been giving tasks which offered the home opportunities for practice in even wider directions. They have directly appealed to parents by sending home tasks in drawing for which the home could furnish models, tasks for ob- servation and nature study for which the home grounds would afford Hving things, tasks in reading and memoriz- ing which the home might easily supplement with its 188 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING own books and literary interests, home-study assignments which parents might easily make a part of the table talk. These things we ought to have done, and not left the other undone. Musicians tell us that, no matter how much practice a child may have, he cannot really get a musical education if he lives in a home without a musical back- ground. Why do we not recognize the larger truth that a child, even if in school he reads the poets, sings from the masters and mingles with those who have discovered the secrets of nature, may not become really educated if in his home nobody reads anything but the papers, knows any music but ragtime nor sees anything out of doors but the weather? The question has often been asked why it is that men and women of genius and success have so generally come from a particular type of home, a home of plain living, but of high thinking. Plain rather than luxurious living is no doubt good for a child, but the generation of power by such a home is more in the fact that the life which the school recommends actually exists in this household. The School as a Larger Home Many parents and homes have not the equipment for this fine endeavor. In the great cities especially, families that are pigeon-holed in flats find their shelters suitable for only the lower functions of a home, the eating and sleeping, and seek their recreation, their culture and their social life elsewhere. In other words, the home has to go outside itself to be a home. Thus the saloon, the club, the dance hall, the motion-picture house, the amusement park, do for the family what it cannot do for itself. The disadvantages of the situation are obvious. Commer- cialized amusement tends to fall below rather than to rise above the aspirations of those to whom it caters. It easily links itself to vice because it is more profitable to commercialize vice than it is amusement. The saloon is the front door to drunkenness and crime and the dance hall to immorality. But the greatest disadvantage is that it separates the members of the family. The home can HOME AND SCHOOL 189 stand any strain but that. At this point the school, the people's institution, steps forward and offers its help. Its buildings would otherwise be empty and idle at the hours when the home needs them. They are, therefore, made into recreation centers, to which the whole family may repair. They may play or study or work or simply gather in social groups. They may make use of the li- brary, the pianos, the gymnasium, the baths and the class- rooms. There is a chance for motion pictures, dancing, athletics, and a free forum. Such a school, as one of our social leaders says, " duplicates the settlement in all but its personal work, and the church-house or parochial school in all but its distinctly religious work," and its ideal is: " For all classes, of all ages, vitalizing the voca- tional aim, pointing towards the religious life of the church, providing the incentive which the vocations lack, and unifying the socialization of man as a member of the State and of the Nation." It stimulates the father, recreates the mother, and gives the child a more interest- ing life than even that of the street. It reacts favorably toward the home, while at the same time it carries the ideals of the school to each member of the family. Reading References Mrs. E. C. Grice's little book, " Home and School in Widening Circles of Influence," describes the work of the well-known Home and School Leagues of Philadelphia, and gives practical hints for forming and con- ducting such associations. A number of books exist, intended to help mothers in the home training of little children. Of a general character is Nora Archibald Smith's " A Home-Made Kindergarten." Mrs. Dorothy Canfield Fisher's " A Montes- sori Mother " tells how to use the Montessori ideas and apparatus in the nursery. Educators prefer that mothers shall not attempt to carry little children very far in the technique of learning before they enter school. V. M. Hillyer's " Child Training " recognizes this tendency. It gives the mother explicit directions for using the common home opportunities for informal educational purposes. Pages 3-84 are devoted to habit drills; pages 85-106, to physical training; pagesl41-170, to rhythmicarts; pages 185-218, to simple manual training. For specific training the following may be useful: Kotzschmar's "Half Hour Lessons in Music," Constance Johnson's " When Mother Lets Us Cook," and W^illiam Byron Forbush's " Manual of Play." Suggestions that will be helpful to mothers in guiding home study are found in Miss Earhart's " Training the Child to Study," 139-176. Perry's " The Larger Use of School Houses " describes the varied uses of the socialized public school. CHAPTER XXVI CERTAIN COMMON FAULTS OF CHILDREN Thus far we have impHed that our children will always, under careful training, develop satisfactorily at every stage. It is time for us to take account of a few less agreeable manifestations that appear, often quite sud- denly, even in the most patiently nurtured children. We select some that cause anxiety in the home. They have social relationship in that they affect social as well as individual morality. Lying This vice whenever it appears is always shocking to the young parent. To " tell the truth in his heart " has even from the days of the psalmist seemed fundamental to the moral life. The parent does not realize that when an- other psalmist said, perhaps in haste, that all men are liars, he might have said it at his leisure concerning young children. And yet it would be just as fair to say that the child is naturally a truth-teller as that he is a liar. The fact is that up to six or so he tells just what he thinks as well as what he sees. He simply reports the string of mingled fancies, facts, suppositions and hearsay that his active brain has fastened together. He accepts whatever is told him and he believes that thinking a thing is so is the same as its being so. " Why doesn't someone tell me what the truth is, so that I can tell it? " a little child cried out one day after he had been rebuked for lying. Telling the truth is not a simple or easy nor al- ways a successful process with any of us. Most of the lying of little children is due to fancy. What they heard out of a book yesterday or dreamed in the night gets mixed up with what they saw today, and reported, with faulty memories, it bears only a cousinly resemblance to fact. Good imagination holds the germ 190 CERTAIN COMMON FAULTS OF CHILDREN 191 of creative literature and art, and if you would not have your child as monotonous and as colorless in his life as yourself you cannot be entirely sorry that he sometimes seems to over-exercise the truth. Then, too, there is the lie that is due to laziness. The child was not entirely attentive, he does not quite re- member, and he gives the easiest answer that occurs to him. Naturally, it is the answer that will be most likely to keep him out of trouble. There is the lie of vanity. The boy desires to make a great impression and so he tells big stories about himself. Then there is " the lie heroic," when the child lies to protect others. Part of the code of childhood is that " Truth is for friends." Ellen Key divides all lies into two classes, " hot lies," and " cold lies." Cold lies are deliberate untruthfulness; they are told to get some advantage or to defend one's self from ill consequences. Hot lies are the expression of an excited mind or of vigorous fancy. Cold lies must be punished, hot lies should not be punished but corrected. We need to consider the age of the child who tells un- truths. If he is but five, we may suppose that he is likely to tell many a fanciful story; if he lies at eight he may per- haps be talking for effect; but if a child of ten tells a lie, it is a more serious matter. Such a child is not deluded by fancy, but is either forming the habit of saying what is most easy or pleasant or is being cowed into telling untruths for the sake of self -protection. Some parents declare that they will never whip a child except for lying and for cowardice. These are at least two faults for which a child should never be whipped. To whip a child because he is imaginative only confuses his brain, and to whip him when he has lied from desire only tempts him to secure his desires by lying still more skilfully. The best way to correct a child who lies im- aginatively is to train him patiently to observe accurately and to tell exactly what he sees. The child who lies for advantage needs an even longer course of treatment. He must have both the prospect of profit and the element of 192 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING fear removed from his mind. No matter how wrongly he has acted, he must never be put by his parents in a position where he will be better off in any way for telling an un- truth. Give the child room. Many children are nagged into lying by being perpetually spied upon. Accept truth from the children. Trust them, and although it is hard to trust them when they lie to you, keep on trusting them. A ten-year-old boy added a new and good inter- pretation to the Washington cherry-tree story when he said, " It was no trouble to tell the truth when one had such a kind father." And finally, one must add seriously, that the problem of raising a truth-telling child is chiefly that of furnishing him with truth-loving parents. Stealing This is another common fault of children which makes many parents panic-stricken, until they learn that almost no home has been without the experience. " Taking things " is almost universal among small children. A number of innocent beliefs makes it natural. The prop- erty sense, as we have seen, is slow in developing. Even children old enough to go to school express the convic- tion that they are to some degree part owners in every- thing. This feeling rises probably from the communism of the home, where much is held in common. Parents who encourage their children to share their playthings, thinking the custom lends itself to friendliness and know- ing that it does to economy, are in the writer's judgment making a mistake. It does not develop friendliness and it confuses the child as to what does properly belong to him. It encourages the idea that it is not wrong to take even money, if it is money found in the house. Other motives that lead to " picking and stealing," as the catechism has it, are extraordinary desire, lack of self- control, the spirit of adventure, and a sort of group predatory instinct. Most commonly though, when this occurs in the home, the child, rightly or wrongly, attrib- utes his conduct to some sense of injustice. He has not got his share, one of his parents has been unfair to him, CERTAIN COMMON FAULTS OF CHILDREN 193 his allowance has been penalized, and he determines to make it up. Thus a real misunderstanding, a crude sense of justice and some wish for revenge combine to bring about an unfortunate situation. Denseness on the part of parents as to what is going on in the child's mind, as- sisted too often by the careless custom of leaving money about and of not asking for an accounting of entrusted sums, results in parental consternation. The general course of cure is plain. There must be the completest fairness, firmness and the most understanding generosity on the part of the parent. The child must through an allowance system be treated as a partner within the firm and not as a creditor outside. There must also be careful training in business methods and business honesty. Teasing, Bullying and Quarrelling These faults refer not to relations between child and parent, but between brothers and sisters. They rest in some exceedingly human traits of childhood. In the first place, there seems to. be a genuine anger instinct in a child at birth. It comes down from un- counted generations during which it was the means of race- preservation and the stimulus to activity. Another has remarked that the very keynote to boyhood is struggle. A child, who was congratulated by his mother because when going into the country for a vacation he would be likely to find some other boys to make friends with, re- plied, " Oh, I do hope I shall find some enemies too." He was quite typical. The anger instinct is stimulated by its own peculiar pleasures, the pleasures of attention, advantage and victory. Its expressions are very httle hindered during the years of lack of self-control. Family relationship does not secure immunity from the emotion of anger. Quite the contrary. A terse modem proverb has it : " God gives us our relations. Thank God, we can choose our friends." It is the dissimilarity of a friend that makes him our complement and gives him ever the attraction of surprise. But a brother is so like us that he is tiresome, particularly because he generally wants 194 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING what we want at about the same time. He knows so much about us which he is so imtatingly glad to tell. He is in a position to thwart and hinder us constantly and is so close to us always that the opportunities for collision are frequent. Similarity of age aggravates the similarity of taste and coincident desire. Difference of age stimu- lates the desire of the younger to tease, and of the older to bully. Being a woman is no special protection to a sister before the days of chivalry" come ; in fact, her woman- hood is sometimes an aggravation to a brother if he thinks his sister is trying to hide herself behind her sex by us- ing it as a means of appeal to father or mother. Expressions of temper by children in the home have some special causes. Ill health is one. The ill-nourished, the weak, the nervous, the constipated child, is an ill- tempered child. The weather, too, which has defeated the aspirations of many an adult Christian, affects the dispositions of children. Most hot-tempered children have hot-tempered parents. There are even parents who think that to " put themselves into a temper " is whole- some for a child, because it makes him afraid to do wrong. Such fears will soon wear away, but even more serious results will last. Being teased by adults who visit the home, bachelor uncles, for example, is a not infrequent cause of the spoiled disposition of a child. To be too frequently and unnecessarily thwarted will keep any youngster in a state of irritation. There are also a few children, the causes of whose wrath may at root be some of those just mentioned, who give way to paroxysms of rage in which they resemble what we are told of persons possessed with the devil, during which shrieking, rigidity or throwing about of the body are constant. Each ex- treme case of this sort needs special study and attention. Quarrelling, too, comes from some of the causes just mentioned. Its immediate occasion, however, is gener- ally that lack of clear understanding about personal rights and possessions which drives even nations to com- bat. A quarrel is sometimes precipitated by the unholy glee of one party at being held up by a parent as an ex- CERTAIN COMMON FAULTS OF CHILDREN 195 ample for the emulation of the other. Underneath fraternal quarrels there is one wholesome tendency. Disagreeable as it is to adiilts, the children are really sometimes striving about justice, and often it is better to give them the mental exercise of arriving at it them- selves than to come in as a dominating and often ignorant arbitrator. To interfere may mean that we encourage one type of child in the weak habit of continually demand- ing adult sympath^^ or another type in using a noisy mode of avoiding fairness. If we accept the apostle's advice, so to separate possessions that each child shall look only on his own things and not on the things of others, we shall use good sense. Where quarrels get chronic, brothers had better be separated and other chums brought in. The fact that two brothers almost never belong to the same gang is significant. Teasing does not in the early years mean to be cruel. The child who teases is simply curious to see how the one he teases will act. His adventurous spirit wants some- thing doing and he can always start something in this way. It is an early expression of the sense of humor. In the home it is usually the younger brother or sister w^ho teases, and this is natural since it is the only safe means of defence for the weaker against the aggressions of the stronger. It is a fault that is somewhat difficult to cor- rect because it can be indulged without overt or easily detected acts. A glance or a gesture may be enough to infuriate the victim. Something may be done by arming the teased so that he will be nearly impregnable. But our best recourse is in the recognition that teasing is the danger signal of idleness. A child may be kept so busy that he won't have time to tease, and if his projects sug- gest the need of the co-operation or advice of the one who was erst tormented the magnanimous . assistance of the other will bring them pleasantly together again. Bullying is an exaggerated, cruel form of teasing, and involves the aggression of one who is larger upon a smaller. The treatment would be much the same, and if the bully can be led to see his need of the younger or to become his 196 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING champion instead of his tormentor, we put him in a posi- tion where the tendency is exactly reversed. To develop the clan spirit in a family is a great help to this method. There is good even in the anger instinct. Guided and held in check, it may some day defend the youth " from anything by which the soul is shamed or insulted," the lad against anything that shall make him seem a coward or a miscreant, the girl against any attempt, direct or indirect, upon her virtue. Positive anger of the right sort involves the capacity of moral indignation and the longing to belong to the chivalry of crusades against social injustice. Truancy Running away from home reminds us of the migrator^' ages of the race. Little ones start off as soon as they are big enough to push open the gate, and older ones manifest the tendency so strongly that sometimes it seems as if the history of childhood consisted in the constant desire to get away from home. It starts in imaginativeness, the feeling that some of the things that have been told about in stories must be around the comer out of sight, and it is assisted by that curious liking, common to children up to adolescence, the liking to be chased. Sometimes there may be a goal, the wish to visit a playmate, the desire to get to water or a sandpile, the longing for a forbidden pleasure. Truancy does not spring entirely from the paucity of the home resources, since children of rich par- ents like to leave home as well as do those of the poor. During the common-school years there is measurable content at home. The boy is usually satisfied to get away to the ballground, to have a shack in the woods, to slip out to the motion-picture show, and to stay out all night on Hallowe'en. But the impulse takes a new trend during adolescence. It is then stimulated by books of adventure and by talking with travellers; it is aggravated by dislike of school or work; it is made pressing by the spectacle of the uneventful, sedentary life of the home. But beneath is a native unrest. " Somewhere else " is magic. The red gods call. The love of the sense of motion which CERTAIN COMMON FAULTS OF CHILDREN 197 makes scenic railway's profitable upholds the adventure. The writer has talked with returned prodigals about their exploits and has been surprised to find that while in every case their journeys were extensive and often marked by hardship and danger they had not gone to see anything in particular nor did they bring back definite impressions from their journeys. The road, rather than the goal, beckons. This seems very similar to what is seen later in adults who get the habit of globe-trotting with no interests in art or humanity or who break up their homes and move from one boarding-house to another. Perhaps the domestic and the nomadic instincts struggle within us all, and during the period when the youth is on the quest for himself and for his world he feels impelled to go forth literally into the world to find it. Girls feel the same impulse, but because they live a life of regular repression satisfy it by reading, by day-dreaming or at the most by engaging in a clandestine correspondence or acquaint- ance. Probably we cannot and ought not utterly to crush this impulse. A more generously hospitable home life, the suiting of the school more closely to the new interests of adolescence, endeavors to find work that shall embody some element of pioneering, adventure or responsibility, will do something to guide the tendency. A father who has kept up outdoor habits and who takes his son camp- ing, hunting and travelling will pretty nearly control it. A real wander jahr, an ancient and recognized element in education, may be essential to some young people. Summary The condensed discussions of this chapter deal with matters that are important enough for prolonged thought. Two essential facts have been in the writer's mind, which he would leave in the reader's. Troublesome traits of childhood arise out of natural instincts, which have been misunderstood, neglected or mishandled; they always imply something important and precious for the child's future. These traits not only involve the child's individu- 198 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING ality, but they grow with the growth of his social relation- ships in the home and elsewhere; therefore, we must deal with them socially as well as individually and in the consciousness that right permanent social relationships will depend upon such wise dealings. One common method of approach is to be ours, in meet- ing all these diverse tendencies: The way to prevent in- jurious acts is to open the way to non-injurious acts that bring the same sort of pleasure. Reading References The fifth chapter of G. Stanley Hah's " Adolescence " is devoted to "Juvenile Faults," which are studied, of course, from the genetic stand- point, with a wealth of interesting detail and statistical material. In Swift's " Mind in the Making " the second chapter is on " Criminal Ten- dencies of Boyhood," which are studied in their source and as to their peril. Chapter V of Abbott's " On the Training of Parents " treats quar- relling sensibly. The writer, in a monograph entitled " Truth- Telling and .the Problem of Children's Lies," has written at length concerning this Subiect. There is a helpful chapter in Mrs. Dorothy Canfield Fisher's " Mothers and Children." CHAPTER XXVII THE HOME TRAINING OF SCHOOL CHILDREN In a previous chapter (X: " The Problems of Obedi- ence ") we discussed the home training of children under school age. We emphasized the fact that, for their own protection, obedience was the cardinal virtue, inculcated by the parent until the child should be old enough to be wise and strong for self -obedience. We urged that even during that early period the child should be given in his obediences some opportunities to use the power of choice, so as to begin to prepare to take charge of his own life. During the school years before adolescence this training continues. This whole era from six to twelve is one of transition from control by the parent to self-control. In familiar situations the child more and more takes the initiative and acts according to laws which have already been laid down. In new situations the parent suggests, guides and sometimes commands, until these in turn be- come familiar situations and the child knows how to act. The Attitude of the Child We need to be reminded of a few facts concerning the child's attitude to law and right before we go further into this important subject. We are to expect during this period no very deep sorrow for wrong-doing, little shame, almost no remorse. The average child is hurt by the disapproval of his parent and is chagrined when he is found out in disobedience. He regrets the penalties that are visited upon him and he is genuinely grieved when he gives pain to one he loves. But since it is believed that before the age of ten the child responds to personal commands rather than to general laws, it seems fair to say that his conscience is largely in the custody of his elders and that since he does not feel 199 200 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING deep personal responsibility he cannot feel much personal penitence. If he has had suitable training the child comes to recognize the authority of law and to shape for himself, with the assistance of his playmates and his parents, a code whose infraction he regards with increas- ing regret and discomfort. This is very instructive. It shows us that many a child probably is giving quite a different name to his offences* than we give. What is to us naughtiness, untruthfulness, depravity, may seem to him natural impulse, humor, hav- ing a good time. He may not feel seriously uneasy when he disobeys unless he is found out or very directly repri- manded. We are more or less constantly conscientious, but he may have days which he is fond of believing God doesn't count and which he hopes He does not see. Even in this respect children differ. Some respond with early docility to habit-training and accept as their own the ideas and customs of their elders. Others show a marked independence of thought and action all through their school days. Some children display a sensitive and well-nigh morbid conscientiousness; others seem rather to reflect the public sentiment immediately about them. They are perhaps alike in this, that few have yet made a complete and final transition from imitativeness to entire self-discipline. We have to carry children through this transition from docility to self-command as steadily and completely as possible, giving them as fast as is natural responsibility with all its consequences and materials of experience out of which to build a moral code. Methods of Government The methods which are to be suggested are those which are believed to be of the best help in making this transi- tion. Securing Insight. This is the most important of all. We need always to understand the child and to know just what we are about. Mrs. Annie Winsor Allen urges that a child should every day be " freshly noticed," as HOME TRAINING OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 201 if we did not know him at all before and " never treated as if he were in last month's state of mind." This happily suggests that perpetual listening at the door of the child's life which must be done if we are at all to know what is going on inside. The question " Why did he do it?" should be ever trem- bling at a parent's lips. When on the way to settle a dis- pute or to give a punishment it would always be well to ask it aloud. The answer, " Fatigue," is one that should always be considered. Those da3^s that the child would have God forget are the ones when he arose tired and unrefreshed from sleep, when the weather was humid, when there were indications of the coming on of a childish malady. The mother who tried always to be gentle in command after four o'clock in the afternoon had insight as to the limits of her children's vigor. If a mother would begin the job of tr3dng to get her boy to gather up his playthings before he is quite exhausted by play she would have better success. The mother of a baby is skilful in interpreting his every cr}% but when the child grows older she is not always as watchful. But the school- girl cries for as many different reasons as does a baby. She may be cr}dng for herself or for her mother, for grief or to get her own way, in distress or anger or fear or bodily discomfort. A boy may fight for as many different rea- sons as a girl may cry, and some of them are justifiable. But the immediate question always is, " Why? " Having Foresight. We are too extemporaneous in our home training. Why should we daily be caught unawares by the old besetting difficulty? The boy has started the habit of getting away from the house right after school and going, nobody knows where. Why is there not a new plaything or a task or a lunch always ready for him as soon as he gets home? Here is a child whose obstinacy already gives concern, though it may imply the presence of a good strong will, which is evidently aroused because people thoughtlessly spring things on him. Why shouldn't he have some quiet forewarning of what is to come ? Why should there not be the legitimate use of the 202 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING suggestion that mother expects that when the time comes he will be able and willing to perform it cheerfully ? Why shoxild he not be taken into confidence as to why the proposed action is necessary or wise ? In short, why should he not be given time to see the situation himself, to make up his mind and to enlist his will on the right side ? This kind of foresight is usually quite feasible. There is even a better kind of foresight. It refers not to some particular action, but it is exerted in reference to the entire career of the child. Ennis Richmond calls it " appealing to the advance nature " of the child. It involves treating children as if they were a little older than they are, implying that they have a little more sense than is visible; it suggests always a loving expectancy. Here foresight runs into trust. The Method of Comradeship. We can hardly exercise either insight or foresight if we do not keep alongside. It might well be wished that fathers, for examiple, would purchase and read some of the excellent books on child study that are now available, but many a father would do better to put the same amount of money into a baseball bat and mitt and let his son throw curves at him in the back yard. All through this period of which we are speaking, beginning at about six when the child starts to school and increasingly at about ten when the " gang " comes into being, the influence of adults tends to be sup- planted by that of children of the child's own age. But throughout this time and even all through adolescence there is a potent, though secretive, sort of hero-worship of admired adults, and the parent may easily be such a hero if he qualifies early. We cannot go into this important subject more fully at this time, but there are several opportunities that are so obvious and so important that they deserve the emphasis of being tabulated for further thought and discussion. They are: Play. Work. HOME TRAINING OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 203 • Table talk. Bedtime. A home night (a regular family evening at home at least weekly). Sunda}^ afternoon with father. Home hospitality for the " gang." The team organization of the home for self-government is a ven^ happy and useful device. It may be based upon some sort of a family " covenant " or constitution which all may sign ; it may have its law-making and law-enfor- cing sessions; its experiments in individual initiative; its self -corrective instruments; its judicial decisions. Such an organization, of course, will have other activities, and will function in home evenings, festivals and outings as well as in disciplinary^ occasions. The Method of Suggestion. We have already spoken of the desirability of breaking things gentl}" to a child. A wise parent may prepare the wa}' for willing compliance, sometimes with a gentle plea, sometimes with a great show of secrecy, always with a loving expectancy. But suggestion may be used not merely for getting hard or disagreeable things done. It is useful in keeping up a lot of desirable and delightful occupations. Children do not of themselves have a very great stock of ideas; they are not alwa3^s very resourceful. One reason wh}^ an adult is so welcome in a " gang ' ' is because he can think of more things to do and can do them better than can any of the boys. The parent who puts some brains into his chil- dren's home hours is not only governing them, but is con- tributing greatl}' to their education. The Method of Explanation. It is so pleasant to be pope and perhaps for a while so necessary in the home that it is hard to know when to lay off the tiara. To some parents explanations appear dangerous as being possible concessions to disobedience. But they certainly make obedience heartier, and an instructed child who knows not only what is wanted, but why, ought to be able to do it better than a stupid one who is merely docile. Some- time the child will need forethought and intelligence in 204 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING his actions ; when shall he begin ? Of course, it ought not to be necessary to explain to a child why he should do what he has been in the habit of doing. When a boy asks why he must bring up the coal, what he needs is not explana- tion. If, however, a new course of action is proposed the child may have, beforehand if there is time, afterward if there is not, the reason for what is to be done. Our delightful and keen-minded spinster, Miss Repplier, who writes so sensibly about children, thinks implicit obedience is better, and she cites the child who is about to run ignorantly over a precipice and whose life may be saved only by his own instinctive obedience to the unexplained shriek of his mother to stop right where he is. To this the reply may be made that precipices are somewhat negligible and that the child of sense who had been in the habit of getting explanations from his mother would respond to the shriek anyhow, even if he insisted on return- ing at once to find out what was the matter. This gives us the opportunity to say that the best use of explanations sometimes is not as an inducement to obedience before the act but as a clearing-up process afterward. A pleas- ant illustration to a boy of the way his uncouthness or ungraciousness appeared to his mother, illustrated by imitation perhaps, would be gratefully received by him when rebuke or sarcasm would only irritate him. Closely allied with explanation is the Method of Persua- sion, the appeal to good sense or affection or pride. It has to be used with caution. The plea of " mother's headache " may soon wear out. Praise, thoughtfully and frequently administered, but never to the extreme of in- sincerity or flattery, has magical results. The Method of Habituation. The years between six and twelve are known to be those of remarkable impressi- bility and of strength of memory. It is believed that it is easier then than ever again to make correct manners and usages automatic. Regularity is one of life's best time-savers, and we probably never realize how great a realm of good behavior may be included within the sphere of habit. We know that habits of jorivate devotion, for . HOME TRAINING OF SCHOOL CHILDREN 205 example, induced during these years, are never afterward easily forsworn. The whole secret is in beginning soon enough. Habit-training ought to begin in the cradle; the best nurses tell us, on the first day of the child's life. Successful government through habituation during the school days is not easy unless it began long before school days. Drill is made easier because children have, as we have seen, a respect for personal authority. They respond during these years to devices based upon this fact. They will learn to obey promptly by playing " soldier "; they will enjoy signing and re-reading a " family compact," which is framed and kept always in sight ; they will accept punishment by imprisonment cheerfully when they have been told that they are " sailors in irons " and that they are getting what is appropriate in case of mutiny. Methods of Punishment. No child is so good by nature that he does not need negative reward once in a while. The principles and purposes of punishment were stated in Chapter X and should be reviewed at this time. One or two further words need to be said about this rigorous kind of teaching. In the first place, it is more difficult to administer pun- ishment wisely and successfully than it was in infancy. The child is less docile, is more self-willed, has more re- sisting power, errs from a greater variety of motives. We have said that the purpose of punishment is not to stop a course of conduct so much as to change a course of desire. This suggests both our difficulty and our oppor- tunity. Desires are harder to reach than acts, but if they are reached they control conduct. Evidently corporal punishment would not often be indicated during this period. It seldom creates a love for virtue. It does not change a course of desire, except in a weak-willed child, in whom it creates the motive of ab- jectly following the desires of another instead of creating noble desires of his own. It is impossible to indicate lines of punishment for all the various offences of child- hood. Some general suggestions may be made, based 206 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING upon the thought that all punishment should be intended as a means of will-training. 1. Punishments should not be given without warning or for offences that have never been prohibited. After clearly understood warning they should be given as promised. 2. When a punishment is to be given, time should be allowed to make it fully effective. The parent often needs time to control his temper, to get all the facts, to decide just what is best to do. Such delay is more impressive than sudden, thoughtless penalties. The child should usually be given time to state his defence if he has any, to think over his failing so as to be able to give the right name to his conduct and to get the best out of the whole trans- action. 3. If possible, the child should co-operate in his own punishment. Sometimes he can be led fairly and to a good degree impartially to see and to say what he had better do, in the way of restitution, of apology, of penance. 4. With the possible exception of a case where the offence has been against a group or a gang, where others may have something to say about the matter, reproofs, punishments and the discussion of punishments should always be strictly private. Training Individuality. The time of punishment is not the best or the only time to correct faults. The positive method is better than the negative one. The best method of will training is to give the child frequent opportunities of using his good sense. The following opportunities will suggest themselves as deserving of careful consideration and working out. 1. Encourage initiative in every possible way. When a child suggests a course of conduct that is novel, but apparently harmless, let him try it. Some children are made obstinate and sullvy by parents whose instinct seems to be to say " No " whenever the child suggests anything new. They think they are cautious; they are really too lazy to follow up the child's originality and find out what he is up to. If the child wants to engage in HOME TRAINING OP SCHOOL CHILDREN 207 some small commercial transaction, encourage him. Go even further. Give him an allowance that increases as fast as it is safe and make him more and more responsible for spending it. Embark with him as a partner in his new business. Hunt up hard and challenging things for him to try. 2. Let him make as many of his own decisions as pos- sible, giving him plenty of time to do so and all the help he asks for, and then have him stick to them. If a red- headed child insists after due deliberation on buying him- self a crimson necktie, let him do it, and then let him wear it out. 3. Don't say " Don't " to him, but train him to learn to say " Don't " to himself. 4. Strengthen and glorify his positive choices in every possible way, by generous concessions, by mutual helpful- ness, by praise, by larger opportunities. 5. When his choices lead to unfortunate results, do not chide him. Treat him as one who has made an honest experiment. Talk it over, and point out why it didn't work. Reading References So many good books exist upon the topic of home training that it is hard to know which to recommend. Among those of specific value for the themes of this chapter are these: Griggs' " Moral Education " has an excellent and thorough discussion of discipline, pp. 129-181. In Paget's " The New Parents' Assistant," pp. 29-40, is a reminder of the real pur- pose and the limitations of parental autharity, and on pages 71-82 he sensibly discusses discipline. Dorothy Canfield Fisher in her stimulating " Mothers and Children," pp. 99-170, goes carefully into the problems of obedience. Other books, to which specific page-references would not do justice, are: Jacob Abbott's " Gentle Measures in the Training of the Young." Ernest Hamhn Abbott's " On the Training of Parents." William A. McKeever's " Training the Boy." Mary Wood-Allen's " Making the Best of Our Children." Annie Winsor Allen's " Home, School and Vacation." CHAPTER XXVIII COMPANIONSHIP The Way the Social Impulse Develops In order to understand the importance and possible value of the social impulse it is necessary briefly to trace the way of its usual development. Kirkpatrick's names for the periods of childhood are based upon recognition of this impulse, and they are used here, with some words of description. The Pre-Social Stage. This includes only about half of the first year of life. During this period the baby is very busy learning the parts of his body and gathering a multitude of sense impressions, and he does not care much about people except that they shall make him comfortable. By the end of the first half of the year he has begun to sit up and in a short time to creep and thus, through locomotion, to enlarge his objective world. By this time he welcomes persons as a part of this world and is pleased with the objects which they bring to his attention and the endeavors which they make to amuse him. This leads to — The Imitating and Socializing Stage, which culminates at the end of the third year. As soon as the child has seen an act he tries now to imitate it, and after his imagina- tion develops, during the second year, he not only imi- tates the act, but uses it dramatically. He shows signs of real affection, particularly to adults, with whom he gets along better than with children. The Individualizing Stage comes next and lasts until about the end of the sixth year. The increasing self- consciousness which is now his makes the child not only assertive and perhaps rebellious to his parents, but inde- pendent in his relations with his first playmates. We now see the amusing situation that at a party a group of little 208 COMPANIONSHIP 209 children may enter a nursery and each one seize a toy and play with it in as complete and happy isolation as if he were quite alone. Kindergarten begins during this period and the child is socialized a little by the influence of his teachers and by imitation of his many new companions. This brings him to — The Stage of Competitive Socializing, which culminates just before puberty. These are the years of individual- istic contests in almost every field of endeavor. Imita- tion distinctly yields to competition. The child, however, has been smoothed off somewhat by compulsory social usages and does not go to the extremes of pugnacity which would be natural if he did not come under the influence of the school and the home. During the last two years of this period " gangs " arise among boys, chiefly for con- venience in playing the group competitive games, for un- dertaking and protecting each other in adventures that would not be possible alone, and for neighborhood self- defence against other encroaching " gangs." Early adolescence, up to eighteen, is called by Kirk- patrick the Transitional Stage, and perhaps there is no better name for the eventful years in which the boy be- comes a man and the girl a woman. The social impulse is now at its height and involves an interesting group of facts. The one that is most significant is that relations that were somewhat accidental, external and impersonal now change into those that mean real personal friendships. Differences Between Boys and Girls in Their Social Instincts Among boys the social impulse is peculiarly well marked. It has been said that while one man out of ten joins a church and one man out of five a lodge, three boys out of every four go into a " gang." Counting out those who have no such opportunity and the few who are by nature unsocial, we find the " gang " phenomenon practically universal among boys from ten to sixteen or seventeen. This must mean that a large part of a boy's social training during these years comes from such self-formed and 210 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING self-conducted organizations. Puffer divides the activi- ties of such groups as follows: Expressions of the primitive impulses. Expressions of the predatory impulses. Expressions of tribal impulses. Group games. A statistical study from the largest questionnaire that has been made of the " gang " divides these activities in the following proportions: Athletic games 61% Predatory, fighting and building activities 17% Industrial activities 8§% Total associations involving Hvely physical activity 862% Total associations for social, secret and self- improvement purposes 13^% These facts suggest that boys organize chiefly in the summer-time, for activities that represent those of some- what primitive man and that they meet usually out of doors and away from home. Girls organize to nearly as great a per cent as do boys, but for quite different purposes. The same study yielded the following results: Physical activities • • • 10% Three to five times as many societies for social, secret and self -improvement purposes. Girls group themselves more often in the winter-time, for sociability, self-improvement and service, and indoors and at home. Puffer refuses the name " gang " to girls' social groupings, and prefers "sets." He says, ''Sets and gangs are quite different institutions. The set is ex- clusive, undemocratic. It has no organization, leaders, history. The set snubs its rivals; the gang fights them. The members of a set also snub one another, quarrel and backbite. There is none of the deep-seated, instinctive loyalty which the members of a gang have for each other." Puffer also notes the fact that boys have a passion for games, while girls will play them when taught. He COMPANIONSHIP 211 thinks these distinct activities not only prophetic of the separate functions of men and of women, but also definitely preparatory^ for them. As soon as boys and girls begin to regard themselves as having come to maturity, they begin to imitate adults in their social groups. They organize in high school fra- ternities, imitative of those conducted by college students. They freely join societies of an altruistic purpose organ- ized by adults for their benefit and, as soon as they are eligible, the lodges to which their parents belong. At least fifty per cent more girls are found in church organ- izations than boys, and a reverse proportion of young men in secret lodges. The coming to consciousness of the sex instinct pro- duces significant changes in the " gang " impulse. On the whole, the former is disintegrating to the latter. There is a curious pairing-off tendency, not only of boys with girls, but of boys with boys and of girls with girls, for mutual confidences and co-operation in the early attempts at courtship. This prophesies the more inti- mate attachments of mature years. Other Important Facts Several miscellaneous facts are of importance: 1. The boy from the poor home is more likely to belong to a gang, because he cannot comfortably satisfy the social instinct in his home. Such a boy is also more endangered morally. 2. The gang is usually quite subject to its leader, who may be of its own age or an adult. It imitates him closely. In many ways he resembles in his influence and power the chieftain of a clan. He is a fair spokesman and expression of the group ideals. 3. A gang tends to codify the morality of its individual members, who are for a time at least more powerfully influenced by the public opinion of the group than by any other force. It is almost impossible during this stage to produce a moral impression that is not a group impression. 4. The fact that the heyday of the gang is coincident 212 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING with the storm and stress of adolescence and with years that are often anti-domestic in feeHng, suggests the pos- sible peril of lawless and thoughtless conduct from the unregulated group. These perils are increased by the fact that the gang dares do together what no individual would do alone. 5. The frequent tendencies of brothers to belong to different groups and so to play more freely with other boys than with each other gives parents an unexpected and puzzling problem. 6. All these associations help to create a larger self, and are important in relation to the future civic and social relations of young people. 7. The power of being a leader has a remarkable influ- ence upon the boy who can gain and maintain that posi- tion. According to Swift, the leaders excel the other boys in truthfulness, perseverance, generosit}^ braver>% reason, shrewdness and independence. " The Leader is free from many of the limitations of his followers. They have their reputations to make. He has made his. The very fact of his leadership and his feeling that he is the protector of his followers gives him a social self that is in advance of that of his subordinates. "_ Some Helpful Suggestions A number of suggestions come from these facts: 1. The home must recognize and prepare for early expressions of this social instinct. No household can live unto itself. To forbid a child to play with his neighbors is to make of him an unpopular snob. To keep the neighbors' children away is to deprive one's own children of any natural comrades. The home must be free, though careful, with its hospitality, each household must take an interest in the children of others and there is room for sensible, united action of groups of families in supervising the social relations of their children. 2. The schoolroom is often too much a place where children, in sight of each other, are working in solitary confinement. There are unreached educational possi- COMPANIONSHIP 213 bilities in conjunct study and experiment and in utilizing the natural child-leaders. 3. The church should recognize the normal social likings of its young people, especially in its organized Sunday- school classes and by keeping boys and girls separate in their social organizations until they are about sixteen. 4. So potent and so far-reaching are the influences of " gangs " and " sets " that there can be no more im- portant or challenging social and moral opportunity for men and women of ability and charm than to become leaders of such groups, and help transform their ideals and lead them out into wholesome social co-operation. And parents should be above all others pre-eminently equipped for this high calling. 5. No religious work among adolescents should be undertaken without serious recognition of the psychology of the group. Reading References The first statistical study of the gang impulse was made some years ago by Sheldon in his " Institutional Activities of American Children." Forbush in his " The Boy Problem " called attention to the meaning of these facts to social and religious effort. Pages 66-129 offered a critique of organizations intended for boys originated by adults. On pages 130-192 constructive suggestions were given. Puffer in his book " The Boy and His Gang " gave fresh figures and a study drawn from some very real experiences. His inferences are given, beginning on page 124. Swift in his " Youth and the Race," 246-287, goes over the ground again, with the suggestive chapter title, " The Spirit of the Gang; an Educational Asset." CHAPTER XXIX AMUSEMENTS AND SOCIAL LIFE What has been said of both the individual and social development of the young prepares us to accept the follow- ing brief statement of the particular recreational interests of children and young people. 1. Children up to school age play alone or in company with adults and engage in free play rather than in or- ganized games. 2. Young children engage in a somewhat desultory fashion in running games and other forms of keen competi- tion. 3. Then, during the gang period, boys develop the highly organized games and unite for purposes of adven- ture. Girls group themselves more quietly, and are never so enthusiastic about games, of which, however, they become interested spectators as soon as they begin to be interested in boys. 4. When sex attraction appears, young people like to be very much together, at parties, in social groups, on outings, in homes where they are welcome, and privately. When the subject of Play was being discussed (in Chapter XVII) enough perhaps was said for our present purpose about the recreations of childhood. Let us now think for a little of the recreations of youth, involving what is frequently called " the amusement question," and wholesome relations between the sexes. To those who accept the traditional taboos of " cards, theatre and dancing," this question appears perfectly simple, at least until the necessity arises under modem conditions of providing adequate substitutes for those rejected pleasures. Today the tendency is to reconsider the whole question in the light of our better knowledge of child nature and to seek for broad principles by which 214 AMUSEMENTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 215 these and all offered recreations may be tested. Each era has its new problems of amusement with which to deal. Once it was backgammon, bear-baiting and ring- ing church bells. Today we have the motion picture show, the trolley park and the week-end party. Some Problems of Social Life The following list of present-day problems may seem a somewhat miscellaneous one, yet they are among the most important which parents and moralists must face before they can settle in their own minds what they would ap- prove or disapprove for the young: 1. There exists the universal play impulse which, as we have seen, has the deepest educative, social and moral possibilities. It ought not to be neglected; it must not be crushed. It is subject to many perils; its best fruits can be won only by industrious vigilance and positive provision for play on the part of those who are the pro- tectors of youth. 2. This recognition is particularly necessary on the part of adults, who not only have forgotten what they did, but how they felt when they were young. It is very easy for the father and mother, who at night crave nothing better than slippers, books or a quiet game at home, to fail to appreciate the natural desire of their children for excitement, a crowd and a boisterous good time with other boys and girls. 3. Adults of conservative temper who were brought up in a Puritan or a rural atmosphere do not readily real- ize that they are bringing up children who live in richer times and who will probably make their homes in the city. To keep a child from what seems to his parents dangerous conformity to the world may actually mean to keep him in social ostracism from his schoolmates. Even if the parents are right who hold such a position, the rebellious- ness of their children who cannot even see their point of view is a cause of keen irritation. To them it appears that nearly all the regular and available forms of enter- tainment are tabooed. Seldom, we must acknowledge, 216 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING are such parents equally vigorous and faithful to endeavor to find other and better recreational opportunities. 4. Adults who are serious-minded and who wish all the pleasures of life to contribute to culture and character are likely to forget certain manifest limitations of youth. Young people are not resourceful. To grown persons nothing is more delightful than an evening of chat. But the conversational powers of the young are easily ex- hausted. Such an evening, in a miscellaneous company where some are shy and some are not bright, would drag terribly. Before the third dimension, of depth, is added, the young may be expected to giggle over nothing, to like to play games rather than to talk and to engage in social pleasures which have not much better warrant than that they pass the time. 5. The dramatic element in play has been mentioned as of great moment. The imaginative side has been stated to be the major part of the play of youth. The desire to have the sense of adventure, to perform before an audience, to look upon thrilling scenes — these are a part of the very fact of being young. No wonder then that the drama appeals to youth. Whether we wish to admit the play- house or not into our children's lives, we must recognize and provide for this dramatic instinct. 6. The sex element in recreation is equally real and equally important. Courtship plays have existed in every race and time. There must be some experiments in getting acquainted between" the sexes during the quest for life partners. When we object to the dance because of its erotic suggestions, we must not forget that the primal forces are present just the same and that the instinct for physical contact is natural, cannot be suppressed, but may be conventionalized, chaperoned and lifted to the level of gallantry. If children learn to dance before the sex impulse ap- pears, amid wholesome surroundings and companion- ships, and the exercise is made a part of their education, they are delivered — so many believe — from the later perils of the ballroom. To teach the dance early is to AMUSEMENTS AND SOCIAL LIFE 217 develop in their lives one of the oldest, most natural and most joyous of the arts. 7. The tendency of the amusements of young people who are yet at school to become unduly luxurious and extravagant is a cause of concern not only to the poor, but to all who believe that such precocious and unwar- ranted indulgences are inappropriate to children and dangerous to sweetness and contentment. 8. The commercializing of pleasure is a real social peril. It tends to passive rather than active, public rather than domestic, enjoyment. More seriously, it seeks the level of the crowd rather than the rising ideals of the earnest-minded. Its cheapness, its popularity, its con- venience make it dangerously available even to children who have little money to spend. Questions for Parents to Ask Themselves The writer is opposed to any ready-miade answers to these problems. After all, questions are more essential than answers, questions that shall set us thoughtfully to find our own answers. These are some queries which may properly be considered by the individual or the study class. 1. Shall we accept the dictum of our church or social circle or family tradition or shall we reconsider the whole amusement problem anew, in view of what we know of the needs and nature of childhood, of local social condi- tions and of the opportunities that are now available? 2. Are our own amusements as adults, if not planned with our children in iTiind, wholesome for them to imitate and share, and adequate for them? 3. What are the actual recreational resources available in our homes to our children ? 4. Have we begun early enough to forecast the larger recreational desires that are to come? 5. Considering cards as time-fillers, what place, if any, should they have in the family life? If none, what other amusements of the time-filling class shall we substitute? 6. Recognizing the sex-element in the dance, shall we 218 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING teach dancing to our children before the sex-interest appears, or how shall we endeavor to supervise and guide this attraction when it comes? 7. How shall we provide for our daughters not only prudent chaperonage, but those ideals which make chaperonage less necessarv^? 8. Shall we select plays and accompany our children to them, or shall we forbid the theatre ? How shall we satisfy the dramatic instinct? Can w^e do something in the church and the social circle as well as the home to develop its active as well as its passive enjoyment? 9. If cards and the adventure-spirit sometimes lead to gambling, how can we satisfy the spirit of adventure in other ways that are wholesome? 10. How may we help fulfil our larger duty, in co- operating with others to improve the tastes, increase the wise restrictions and remove the objectionable and fash- ionable factors of and about the local amusement situation ? In this new coiintry of ours we have been slow to recog- nize the importance of good taste as a part of beautiful living. If we as parents put ourselves on the side of decorous dancing, of the clean and uplifting drama, of courteous social living, we are doing more than to redeem our time from vulgarity and indecency — we are aligning ourselves with serene and potent moral forces. Reading References A great many books have been written from the negative side as to the amusement question. They seldom touch the impulses that lie at the bottom of the problem. This Jane Addams has done with sympathetic understanding in Chapters III andlVof " TheSpiritof Youth and the City Streets." The author has suggested his own viewpoint as a parent in " The Boy Problem in the Home," pp. 200-20.5. Richard H. Edwards has made the matter a special study and has written two valuable books upon it. In his " The Amusement Question " he covers the whole field of public and commercial recreation. His " Christianity and Amuse- ments " is a textbook for young people of the age that directly faces these problems, and is personally suggestive. Ross: " Popular Amusements " is also good. The Catholic Theatre Movement of New York City pviblishes annually a " white list " of standard plays. The national (Chicago) and local Drama Leagues issue from time to time hsts of recommended current dramas. CHAPTER XXX MONEY The property sense does not appear with children at the beginning. For the first year or two, while they grasp at every attractive object, they relinquish with equanim- ity, and on the whole seem to take about as much pleasure in seeing things in the hands of friends as in their own. Sometime in the third year, this disposition changes and there is a strong desire to hold and retain their own possessions. At this period children do not share so pleasantly. We have spoken of the fact that even at a party each child monopolizes some toy and is quite con- tent to play with it by himself. It is dangerous to take children of this age to a toy store, because they are likely to claim as theirs or insist stormily upon the immediate purchase of whatever attracts their attention. They take what does not belong to them without compunction, on the principle apparently that " finding's keepings." By the time they enter school they gather hoards of trivial objects, and at a later period, collections, whether of stamps, cigar tags or natural objects, are of interest because of their quantity rather than their quality. The child, for example, would rather have given him a thou- sand postage stamps that cost a quarter than a few unique examples. In this the competitive spirit is involved. Childish barter, which is very common, consists naturally of the exchange of objects of little value, but even these are exchanged because of their brightness or color or for reasons that are not obvious to the adult mind. The Child's First Relations with Money A child soon learns that money is something tnat is regarded by adults as of great and almost magical im- portance. He is probably usually puzzled by his first 219 220 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING experiences with it. Various sums are given him by his fond relatives and friends, which he is adjured at once to put into the bank, a disposal which must strike him as at once foolish and useless. He soon learns from such small sums as he is allowed to use that it is a medium of exchange for candy and marbles and destructible toys. Indeed it would be hard for adults to explain the incon- sistent position which they take with children, to the effect that sums large enough to purchase anything worth while ought to be saved while the smaller amounts are to be spent at once for what will injure the digestion and give only momentary pleasure. Not many older persons realize that money may have educational uses from the start and that instruction and practice as to its uses are of the greatest importance if the youth is ever to be either prudent, wise, foresighted or generous in its spending. In the first place, not only are small coins one of the most useful means by which to learn the simpler opera- tions of arithmetic, but it is hard to see how a child can learn the value of money unless he practices these very operations. For this reason, it is well to begin to create a sense of values by giving a young child a small weekly allowance, entirely in one-cent pieces, and discussing what they will amount to in the various attractive commodi- ties. Confectionery and perhaps soda water should be eliminated from the budget at the start, because the home should provide wholesome sweets as a part of the regular dietary and because the soda fountain is usually unsani- tary. " Here are ten pennies. Now let us go down to the stores and ask what they will buy for you. Here is a whoje bag of marbles which can be bought for ten cents, and here is a ball of string for your kite, and here is a little Noah's ark — but it doesn't look very strong, and don't you really think you would like to have a few more animals? That one is marked twenty-five cents, and it is so much stronger and has four times as many animals, and it looks as if it would float on real water. How much is twenty -five cents? See, here it is all in one-cent pieces. It is quite a lot, isn't it? And how long would it take MONEY 221 before you could buy it? Well, it would take this week and next week — and you have five cents now in your little bank, haven't you? So it would take just one week, seven days longer, to get the big ark. But you don't want to wait? Well, just think it over a few minutes and decide which you will do." Very likely the child will decide not to wait, but even if he takes the poorer bar- gain — since everything is Now to a young child • — he will be getting an experience through his unwise purchase, he will have had a measure of values illustrated, and he will be a little more likely to show some self-control next time. Special Problems of the Allowance Why should not the parent in such a case loan the child enough to make his desired purchase at once ? Because it will only postpone the hour of reckoning, and especially if the parent is indulgent and never calls for repayment, will educate the child in that vice of modem households, mortgaging the future. Some parents, however, think it well to give a few experiences in this direction. The sug- gestion is made that if the child wishes to borrow ten cents, for example, his allowance for the next fortnight, twenty cents, be laid out in two piles of ten cents each. The parent then suggests drawing five cents from each pile. The child looks at his diminished piles and realizes that his expenditures for the next following weeks must be curtailed so much. He now has the situation clearly before him so as to decide whether, for the sake of the immediate gratification, he can endure these deprivations in the future. He will be much less likely to accept the loan if he looks at those lessened piles than if he faced nothing but a general abstraction to the effect that some- time he must return the borrowed money. It helps the transaction if the child is told the nature and sacredness of a promissory note and signs one solemnly whenever he makes a loan. It may be well even that he should learn why interest is charged and be asked to pay a cent or so himself on long-term loans. A child's allowance ought of course to be held sacred. 222 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING He should not be penalized in his money account. It is difficult to teach honesty to a child when money is at times taken from him, without his consent, even though he has done wrong. This does not mean, however, that a persistently careless child should not pay for things he destroys. But if this is tried some article should be chosen which either is of small value or for whose de- struction a moderate penalty may wisely be required. A conversation should be entered into, of which the logic will be that the child himself should see and suggest that to purchase another plaything, say, in return for that one of little brother's which he broke would be most fair. And it seems wholesome that, instead of taking his sav- ings to any extent for this, the child should be allowed to earn a large part of the required amount by childish toils for which he should be paid reasonably by the hour. Here, too, a little preliminary figuring will be useful, and the actual labor will impress the cost of money while not infringing upon the sacred hoard. Should Children be Paid for Work? This brings up the question whether children should ever be paid for work in the home. It is thought by some that to allow this is to encourage the child to a demand- ing disposition and discourage him from offering services of love. On the other hand, it is difficult to make the allowance at all elastic for changing needs and wants or to interpret what salary-earning means or even to make clear how work is an exchange for cash without some such arrangement. And it is quite possible to make an ad- justment which will include services for reward without excluding services for love. The whole matter of wisely handling the finances of children seems to depend upon a right attitude on the part of all concerned, and it is the failure to find and hold this attitude which explains most of the difficulties with this matter between husbands and wives as well as between parents and children. In the home where the father gives money only in responses to request or entreaty, the arrangement is as unbusinesslike MONEY 223 as it is unwise. It assumes the absolute dependence and incapacity of the child and makes the father the perpetual arbiter of each separate expenditure. Not only does this cause the child's income to depend upon the mood or whim of the parent, but it puts him in such perpetual un- certainty regarding that income that he has no opportunity to learn the value of money or of its uses, and it holds him in such a position of subservience that when he is old enough to have considerable sense he is treated as if he had none. This situation is unfair, imwise and full of irritation. In the home where the parent gives a regular allowance but never anything more, the situation is better because it is more certain, but it is too rigid and still involves the attitude that the parent is all-wise and all- comprehending, which is never the case. Both attitudes assume that the child is a dependent, a serf. The right attitude is quite different. It is this: That the child is a junior partner, and that he is, therefore, entitled to his fair share of the income of the concern. His allowance is not an act of grace, it is a right. As a partner he has his obligations as well as his privileges. He has much to give, — his loyal affection, his attention as a learner in the concern, his share in the tasks of the household and of the business. For this he receives his allowance, his salary, if you please, which increases with his ability to serve as well as with his needs. If, when there comes to him an extraordinary need or desire, he is willing to do an extra task, he may receive an extra salary, without modifying the regular arrangement by which he gives as well as receives. If this is all carefully talked over, the child will appreciate and understand it. In a home where this is the attitude there is little difficulty about " hold ups " from the children. They have from the beginning been taken into the confidence of their parents, so far as was discreet, concerning the sources of the family income. They have some inkling of how hard father has to work to earn his salary, what sacrifices mother makes to keep the home together. They will come in sometimes, beg- ging to be given what " the other children " have, but if 224 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING they share the family hopes and ambitions they will not be so demanding, knowing that the prudence or self-restraint of their " concern " has its own high aims and its large plans. This does not mean that children are to be both- ered with all the family anxieties or that they are to babble the family secrets, but there does not seem to be any way by which children in homes of moderate circum- stances can be brought up among other homes of wealth or of careless expenditures without envy, except by train- ing them in wise and cheerful* thrift. The Adjustment of the Allowance It is, of course, impossible to state what the amount of the allowance in a given family should be. Its purpose, as stated above, will suggest to each parent what is right. That purpose is not the bestowing of a weekly license to waste or indulgence. It is a just arrangement for an educative end. That end is the instruction of the child in what is worth while. He will at first naturally buy nothing but playthings, which is very much worth while for him. He will learn that it is better to deny himself at times and always to buy things that will last and give enduring pleasure. As his nature deepens he may want to have tools or books, and eventually he will have a keen interest in clothes and social pleasures. The allowance should accommodate itself to these legitimate desires, and should be supplemented by self-sacrificing extra labors of his own. In the writer's judgment, the allowance, given on this principle, may properly be somewhat larger than is customary. The fact that the child " spends every cent he gets " does not in itself prove that he is a spend- thrift. Perhaps he does not get enough for his wants. Putting money in the bank is a noble habit for adults, but to do so when a child is not so natural, since to the child it seems very much like losing it altogether. To delay in spending for the sake of better goods is about as much as we may expect, until the youth gets some real purpose to save for, which hardly comes before adoles- cence. Of one thing the writer is so sure that he has made MONEY • 225 it a definite crusade wherever his voice has been heard. The allowance should, as the child grows both in his desires and his knowledge of the use of money, become, early in the high school years, inclusive — that is, it should embrace clothes, social pleasures, school fares and lunches, and everything except board at home and such accidents as medical and dental care. This plan enables the youth to do what too few adults ever attain, — have a budget and work to it. It has to be bestowed and administered with some oversight by the parent, but it is the writer's con- viction, observation and experience that it is the one most important arrangement between parent and child which is possible during the adolescent years. Its outreach is extraordinary, for it is not only an education in taste and in prudence, but it particularly affects the youth's choice of entertainments and social pleasures, the responsibility of which is placed upon his own shoulders and which are governed by the necessary choice between many invita- tions in behalf of those which his income causes him to decide are worth while. The influence of this arrange- ment in continuing pleasant relations between the parent and the youth and in developing self-mastery is remark- able. Further Suggestions 1. A regular weekly or monthly accounting of all expenditures should be made. Bookkeeping forms should be learned in this way. The parents should know but not necessarily control expenditures. 2. Children should be trained in the purchase of clothes and wearing apparel before adolescence; first, minor articles; then major articles with the parent present at the beginning to explain differences in quality, usableness, etc. 3. Children should be early taught to make purchases for the household with discrimination as to quality and price. This applies to both boys and girls. They should learn to judge fruits, meats, vegetables, bakery goods, kitchen utensils, carpets, furniture, wall paper, pictures, 226 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING etc. They will enjoy learning if they are actually allowed to choose little by little. 4. Let the children early do the household banking and paying of accounts. Education in Benevolence There is room to say a word about educating the child in benevolence. Forced benefactions are, of course, worse than useless; they leave a feeling of injustice to rankle, and dry up the springs of generous feeling. Formal gifts, such as " the penny for Sunday school," only induce thoughtless giving. Generosity must begin and be kept alive by a real and deep appreciation of human need. The natural way to begin is with physical needs, such as those the child can realize, need for food and shelter, and especially the needs of children. These rather than the " Boards " of the church must be emphasized at first. The child must learn, too, from the start that " the gift without the giver is bare," and should give his personal service oftener than his money. He may rightly follow his gifts with intelligence, knowing somewhat of how they are administered, and not getting the idea that they all go to the minister or the church treasurer, for example. He may be given reading matter which shall make real the fields of service where his money may help, and should know that his gift can do a tangible thing, such as to sus- tain a famine orphan for a day or keep a sick child on a floating hospital for an equally definite time. The Sun- day school and the young people's society should educate their young people in these same directions, by teaching the actual and unutterable needs and the practical means of supply; also by having children choose between alternatives. In adolescence it is desirable to set before young people the way by which human gifts and human service take their place in the whole of social betterment. Then at least they may learn how their consecration may help destroy the factors which multiply misery faster than money can relieve it. MONEY 227 Reading References E. A. Kirkpatrick has just produced an excellent book dealing with all the problems touched upon in this chapter. It is entitled " The Use of Money." Chapter VIII of Carl Ewald's " My Little Boy " gives some amusing experiences of a small child adventuring for the first time with liis weekly allowance. There are more books that tell how to make money than how to spend it. Cunningham's " The Christian Use of Money " suggests to adults rather than to children the principles that underlie financial unselfishness. Hix- son's " Missions in the Sunday School," pp. 119-135, gives advice about training children to give. To help young people face the large problem of money v/isely, nothing is better than a chapter in Elliott and Cutler's textbook, " Student Standards of Action," pp. 31-44, entitled " An Ex- pense Account." St. John's " Child Nature and Child Nurture," pp. 97-106, shows parents how to train children aright in relation to property and benevolence. The Missionary Education Movement and all the denominational boards circulate tracts upon Christian stewardship of money. They also furnish lists of recommended stories and biographies upon missionary themes. CHAPTER XXXI WHEN THE CHILDREN BECOME "YOUNG PEOPLE" This chapter rounds out the discussion of the home training of children which began in Chapter X and was continued in Chapter XXVH. In the other chapters we frequently used the word "government"; we must now substitute the word " help." We said that obedience by the child was a temporary necessity until he could learn self-obedience. We said that the purpose of punishment is to affect the child's desires even more than his conduct, and that what we seek is to develop a creature who knows what he is about and who has the will to do it. The logic of all this is that, whether we like it or not, children when they be- come " young people " (a much more human word than " adolescents ") should not be governed, but helped. The Situation of Young People The situation is a very difficult one. On the one hand we have the youth himself. Here are some of his traits : 1. He has a new sense of personal power, he does not want to obey others, but he does not know just what he wants to do himself. 2. He has a keen desire for excitement and entertain- ment, many wants that require money, but he usually has neither the money nor the physical endurance to en- joy himself as he would; his desires are independent of his parents, but he is still dependent upon them financially. 3. He has a new spirit of daring and adventure, par- ticularly when supported by his crowd, and will do with them things that he would never do alone. 4. His romantic spirit, his frequent discouragement and 228 CHILDREN BECOME "YOUNG PEOPLE" 229 disappointment in his achievements and pleasures, his ebbs and flows of emotion, combine to make him reticent ; this with his new independence may aHenate him from his home. 5. Following this, he may become restless in school, tired of humdrum, disposed to wander. 6. The interest of the sexes in each other grows to be absorbing and relates itself with many physical, mental and moral problems. 7. Although there is often lack of interest in the church and its institutions, there is often, in the same youths, keen sensitiveness to moral and religious matters. 8. While the development of the girl is not character- ized by such jerky revolutions as that of boys, it comes earlier and follows very much the same course. The Attitude of Parents The average parent, thirty years removed from his child, has quite a different attitude. 1. He has lost and perhaps forgotten the feeling of exuberance and of desire which young people feel. 2. He has learned to measure things more truly as to their worth, and he finds it hard to sympathize with the passion which young people feel for a constant " good time." If he is poor the new financial demands seem to him unjust, and if he is thoughtful they appear dangerous. 3. He finds it difficult to keep close to his children, who have suddenly become at once so annoyingly self- assertive and so baffiingly secretive. 4. He sees more readily the perils than the purpose of the new sex problems that have arisen. 5. Amid the turmoil of the youth's desires he does not readily single out the significance of the real quest for vocational and religious settlement, and is apt to measure them as mere fickleness and restlessness. The Mutual Problems So there are some hard problems that parents and children ought to solve together, which too often they 230 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TR.\INING try to solve separately. These may conveniently be separated and listed, though in fact they dovetail and interact continually. Some of them are these: The Problem of Building a Body Adequate for Man- hood. The Problem of Getting a Thorough Intellectual Prepa- ration for Life. The Problem of Vocational Choice. The Problem of Wholesome Recreational Tastes and Habits. The Sex Problem, especially that of Choosing a Life Partner. The Problem of Faith. This extraordinary new situation demands a recasting of our whole program. We have now to complete the transition of the management of the child by adults to his own complete self-management. We can no longer command or punish; it is useless to nag or scold. The demands upon us as parents are extreme. While the youth is never calm, we must always be calm. Though he is frequently disquieted and often in despair, we must ever be hopeful. When, as Le Baron Briggs says, he wants to act like a child and be treated like a gentleman, we must have enough sense of humor to do it. When he is most impertinent, contrary and cold we must be least so. The situation has its encouraging features. Most of the things that annoy are transitor^^ some of them are hopeful. If the youth is garrulous about himself it means that he is trying to be confidential, and is probably explaining himself, perhaps trying to understand and control himself. If he is susceptible to imworthy com- panions, susceptibility is impartial and he will respond with equal enthusiasm to worthy ones, if we can find them for him. If he is not studious, maybe he is not following the line of study that will kindle his interests and fit him for his real life-work. Probably, too, he most yearns for love and appreciation when he least knows how to receive them. And the best of all is that as they be- come most trying these young people are just about to CHILDREN BECOME "YOUNG PEOPLE" 231 become most enjoyable, for the first time in their lives old enough to be capable of being comrades on a real level with their fathers and mothers. Though they may be too busy discovering themselves to be grateful, they do now begin to become real friends. To say that an equal comradeship begins now is not to imply that companionship should not have been set up many years before. The parent, it is to be supposed, has already releamed children's plays and games, and now is ready to induct his young people into wider and deeper pleasures, such as travel and camping out. Establishing Favorable Conditions We see at once that the youth has to solve problems for which he needs favorable conditions. Most of these the average home can supply. Physical protection is urgent. Both boys and girls are tempted now to overdraw their nervous energ3\ This comes chiefly through the over-developed social life of the high school. The boy who goes heartily into athletics may conquer this temptation, but if too strenuous may meet the other one of physical overstrain. The girl, less active physically, is too often given the extra burden of music lessons. We have to fight for the right proportion of food, sleep and exercise to -carrv^ the fast-growing body through this season of strain. Review and reminder of the meaning of the physical changes which overtake youth at the beginning of adolescence have already been strongly advocated. It is because of the emotional as well as the physical \ tension of the time that we need to study the problem seriousl}^ not only as individual parents, but also to unite in groups sufficiently strong to create public sentiment against the wearying and precocious social demands upon young people's lives in our communities today. The parent who tries alone to segregate his own children from such social opportunities as are expressed by the continual round of parties, school dances, automobile trips, theatre parties, moving picture shows, has an ungracious and \ 232 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING almost impossible task. It is all the more difficult because the restless youth has for a time seemed to outgrow his quiet home, whose resources are with difficulty extended to repre- sent all the excitement and hospitality he craves. A great deal has been done by co-operation. In some places the high school and the hom.e have narrowed the social life of pupils closely to one evening in the week. Neighbor- hood groups of mothers have made such social occasions more simple and appropriate. In many churches the social organizations of boys and girls begin their work be- fore high school and retain a wholesome influence well on through the high-school period. The one word that needs to be emphasized is that the home must expect to take a good deal of pains with its children during this whole period. One sympathizes with the mother who expressed the wish to go into a retreat during the year before her oldest child entered high school so that grace and wisdom might be given her for the ordeal. A mother who endeavors to perform the whole parental task now alone is at a pitiful disadvantage. As was said in an early chapter, it is not necessary to believe that the mother is chiefly suited to train children when they are young if we say that now a peculiar oppor- tunity comes to the father. He knows some things about what it means to be a big boy that the boy's mother cannot know. He has special traits which suit him to be his daughter's first lover. His very business training and experience may fit him to study and solve the adolescent problem in a large and broad-minded way. His financial co-operation is necessary to meet the properly enlarged wants of youth and to equip the house to continue it as the social center of his children's lives. As a voting citi- zen he ought to join with others in putting through needed regulations which shall make the community life safe for all young people. Using the Ruling Motives The hardest thing a parent has to do is to realize that a time has come when he must take his hands off his child CHILDREN BECOME " YOUNG PEOPLE " 233 whether for control or punishment. When a child could be whipped or shut up or held down physically, it seemed as if we could really do something to him and for him, but it is very hard to reconcile to ourselves that we are now dealing with a separate personality with rights and privileges of his own. And, of course, the bitterest realiza- tion is that one of his privileges is that of making his own mistakes. The great lesson to parents of adolescents is, that they can no longer move the child as by a belt of power from themselves wound round a wheel on the outside of the child, but that they must let the child go by motive power that is within himself. What are the motive powers of 3''outh? One of them is Pride. It may begin in nothing greater than an interest in clothes and in keeping clean. It leads to the cultivation of social graces, it may move to such a conventionalization of conduct as shall deliver from the more brutish vices, it may rise to the level of personal honor. Of course, it can sink to snobbery and general uselessness. But we can encourage it and believe in its highest uses. Often the appreciation and expectancy of a parent have proven the steadying power that has brought the youth who was discoiu-aged about himself through to success. This evidently relates itself to Hero-Worship. It is rather extraordinary how a youth always idealizes in terms of biography. One who resents any kind of per- sonal advice will frankly form himself after an individual model. We cannot conceive any influence in Sunday school during the adolescent years so powerful as that of a teacher who represents in his own person what boys or girls wish to be. Responsibility is pride carrying its own burden. ^ The youth who fails as an assistant often succeeds admirably if he is put in charge of the job. The value of the inclu- sive financial allowance is that it puts the situation in the young person's own hands. In no trade-apprenticeship can one get very far unless he has a chance to learn by doing something alone. The only men upon whom any- 234 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING one has ever depended for service are those who have proven capable of bearing responsibiHty. We parents fail here more often than do our children. We do not dare to let them make their own mistakes. We cannot see that mistakes must inevitably be made and that they are never made more safely than when those who make them are to some degree protected. We forget that part at least of what the youth does of which we disapprove is due to the fact that he is not going to be an entire copy of ourselves. What he does may mean something for his individuality that is too precious for him to lose. A Life Purpose is the most important product and the most potent force of adolescence. It is what he loves that constitutes the propelling power of any man's life. This purpose may center for a time about a human affection, or it may have to do with vocation. All " conversions " during adolescence are not in church, though most of them as they deepen become essentially religious. We desire, of course, that they be consciously so. We would have them embrace a social consecration also. Parents do not originate these motives of which we have been speaking, but they can feed them and the}^ can give them room to grow. One planteth and another watereth and God giveth the increase. Reading References The problems that have been discussed in this chapter in a general way are taken up helpfully in the following books: Hall: " Adolescence," particularly Chapters X and XL Slattery: " The Girl in Her Teens." Swift: " The High School Age." Fiske: " Boy Life and Self -Government," particularly Chapters V and XIV. Kirtley: " That Boy of Yours." The author has discussed adolescence more thorouglily in " The Boy Problem in the Home," pp. 219-277. CHAPTER XXXII VOCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES President Charles W. Eliot once said, " The career motive has the greatest spiritual content of all motives." The statement may at first seem exaggerated, but when we realize how much finding one's own place in life means toward the fullest use of spiritual consecration, we can see how this may be true. It is not strange, therefore, that matters of vocational training and guidance are the livest topics in educational discussion. It ought not to be strange that they should be faced earnestly in domestic and religious circles. To make a careless investment of a life is surely one of the deadly sins. To make a right investment is to be in the way of fulfilling the fondest hopes that a parent can cherish. We have every reason to believe that multitudes of young persons are not facing this decision wisely. Many of them drift from school into work, influenced by no better motive than distaste for study or the glowing re- ports of a comrade who has found employment. Others take their father's calling for granted as their own, with- out asking whether it has the same advantages that it had when the father was young, or go into some new vocation without inquiring whether it meets a permanent demand of society or whether it is already overcrowded. Immediateness of profit is so much desired that any em- ployment bureau can within an hour furnish to any em- ployer fresh, unskilled labor of youth who are thus thoughtlessly ready to trade their possibilities for a temporary wage. But the foolish choices which young people make are not always because of shortsightedness or carelessness of the future. They are due to ignorance, ignorance of the fields of toil and ignorance of the require-' ments for any special field. And since we who are older are not much better informed, it seems necessary to pref- •335 236 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING ace the consideration of vocational guidance of the young by a brief consideration of the modern vocational situa- tion and of the present facilities for vocational education. Changes in the Vocations The most important of these changes are those that have come as the result of the introduction of labor-saving machinery. Once the cobbler made a whole shoe; today in the shoe factory more than twenty men are employed in making a shoe, each doing but a small part. This means the passing of the artisan and the entrance of the " operative." The artisan was an intelligent, trained, adaptable worker who conduc ed his own business. The operative need not be intelligent so long as he is trained to do some one small task, which with its narrow training and monotonous practice takes from him all initiative and adaptability. He is an employee, too, whose place may so easily be filled that he is quite at the disposal of his employer, especially since he is helpless away from his one capability. Against the aggressions of employers has risen a power- ful trades-union system aiming to protect its members from unreasonable requirements and from inadequate wages. In the skilled trades collective bargaining has been especially effective and it has proven of some ac- count even in those which require but little training. The trades unions have, however, tended to hamper the ambitious by holding down the productiveness of the individual to the level of the average and only about half of them have shown an active interest in insisting upon systems of apprenticeship which shall give young men and women thorough preparation. Important vocational changes have come from the steady movement of population to the cities and especially to the great cities. This means not only the flooding of these centers with the unskilled and consequently the unemployed, but it has the even more important meaning that the variety of industries in the villages and towns grows continually smaller, so that to boys and girls who VOCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 237 live in small places the range of choice grows ever more and more limited. We have hardly realized yet the social import of the fact that the best blood of the country is getting the narrowest opportunity to find its most fitting outlet. Two conditions of industry have come lately to modify to some extent vocational possibilities One is the de- velopment of seasonal industries, dependent upon har- vests or fashions or greatly fluctuating supply and demand. Closely connected with these are district industries, utiliz- ing men in one part of the country only and that often a part in which there are no other opportunities. An illustration of an industry that is both seasonal and local is wheat harvesting in the northwest, which calls for enormous numbers of men for only a few months of the year who cannot possibly find employment in that part of the country after their special job is over. Socially, this suggests the need of elaborate adjustments of whole regiments of toilers, which we have not yet learned how to make; individually, it sets before men thus employed a constantly critical and difficult personal problem. Immigration so far has not made easier the matter of finding attractive vocational opportunities. In the skilled trades the German and English artisans, trained as ap- prentices and educated in continuation schools, take posi- tions which young Americans with their hit-or-miss preparation cannot hold, while at the lower end of the scale there is always an army of unskilled Italians or Hungarians crowding the labor market. Race prejudice has come to have some effect upon voca- tional possibilities. The negro in the North is finding one door after another of opportunity closing before him. The Chinese and Japanese have never been given more than the most limited room in the w^orld of toil. The entrance of women into daily work has made far- reaching changes in the vocations. They have not, as a rule, risen to administrative and executive positions, but they have taken the places of men almost entirely in clerical tasks and in education. 238 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Thus far we have been speaking of the trades. Com- merce and the professions are also undergoing great changes. The grocer, for example, was until recently regarded as a man whose business in staples was safe, sure and profitable, but the man who buys a grocery store today may find himself tomorrow in despairing competi- tion with a syndicate that operates a chain of two hundred groceries. The department store has made a similar change of outlook not in one but in many kinds of shops. And the more enormous the concern the smaller the proportion of individual employees who can distinguish .themselves. The professions have long been overcrowded, partly because our academic courses distinctly have these as their goal, partly because of the attractiveness of their noble work, partly perhaps because they give social stand- ing, clean clothes and hands and an intellectual life. But changes are constantly occurring in these as voca- tional opportunities. In engineering, for example, the tasks are so inviting and have been so lucrative that technological courses have multiplied in many of our higher institutions of learning, and the examination of high-school boys as to their aspirations will often reveal that two-thirds of them look forward to some branch of this diversified calling. But in the State of Wisconsin it was recently estimated that if all those who are now in the schools of that State who look forward to that profession should enter it, Wisconsin would have enough engineers within the next five years to fill all the engineering posi- tions in that State for the next century. Medicine, which is one of the most crowded of professions, is becom- ing increasingly difficult to enter. The ordinary boy, without special capital or influence, must count somehow on seven or eight years of training beyond high school, two years in a hospital and from three to ten years of bare self-support afterward before he is satisfactorily adjusted in his life work. The lure of riches made in commercial adventure is today drawing college men away from the learned professions. The youth hears of great fortunes VOCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 239 rapidty accumulated by young men who have friends in Wall Street ; he learns that the world will give a man who can successfully exploit a patent medicine more than it will one who makes an important scientific discovery; he is told that advertising will do wonders with a worthless novel or magazine or toilet preparation, and his whole sense of values becomes obscured. Mistakes That Young People Make Pathetic are some of the mistakes that young people make, as the result of ignorance or misguided inclination. Little can they know at the best of these sweeping gusts and eddies of the industrial world.. The hope, the self- confidence, the desires of youth carry them into careers that have no outlet and no future. Let us enumerate just a few of the more common mistakes. The public school curriculum offers before the four- teenth year almost nothing that has direct bearing upon any of the common occupations. The first year in high school is usually distinctly scholastic. The result is that at about thirteen or fourteen there is a veritable emigra- tion from the schools. From one-half to two-thirds of our school children drop out by the eighth grade, only one- tenth finish high school and less than five per cent go to college. In districts where workingmen live and in States where children are allowed to be employed at fourteen that age is traditionally accepted by young people as the time when they will go to work. Mangold tells us of the vocational future of those who leave school too early. " No children who drop out of school at the end of the fifth or sixth grades can hope to have acquired direct training for any occupation which they may enter; the seventh and eighth grade children may acquire a little manual dexterity. It has been esti- mated that ninety per cent of the working children enter unskilled occupations; about seven per cent skilled occu- pations of low grade; perhaps three per cent enter high- grade occupations which promise a future." Of the three per cent, however, Mangold reminds us, the defects of the 240 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING apprentice system are such that many are allowed to learn a trade only by absorption and in a desidtory manner. All work that is worth while pays little at the first. This fact is not apparent to the boy who wants spending money or the girl who thinks she will be employed only imtil she is married. Youth is not patient, and has not the observation or experience to look beyond the present or the circle of immediate acquaintance to see the larger situation. Adjustments That Are Needed The life waste that is being made is terrible. As Eli W. Weaver reminds us, the State does not permit a child's fortune to be used without the oversight of a special court, yet it permits the child to sell his time and ambition with- out foresight and advice. It does not let a grocer sell a bottle of milk without its supervision, yet it stands idly by while a young man or boy gives the most precious years of his life without opportunity for improvement or prospects of advancement. Evidently some important adjustments are necessary. Some of them are these: 1. The school must adjust itself to the preparation of every class, not the professional class chiefly, for life. 2. The child, the individual child, must be more care- fully studied, that he may be adapted to the right course of study for his development, that he may be placed in the right occupation, that he may be traced even after he has entered an occupation to be sure that his work treats him fairly, that he is really suited to it, and that he has opportunity for promotion. 3. The placement agencies must be adjusted. Today too often the child determines his future with little con- ference with his parents or teachers; he depends upon his young friends or an employment bureau for his first job; he considers but a narrow range of opportunities, and he moves frequently and restlessly from one place to another. Placement must be taken away from commercialized or ignorant hands. It must be taken up by the school and VOCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES 241 the home. It must be reconsidered, not from the view- point of the first wage, but from that of the child's largest future. 4. The vocations themselves must be readjusted. Ap- prenticeship must be revived. Profit-sharing must be encouraged. Unemployment must be reduced not only by educating more employable young people, but by large, perhaps national, schemes of supervising industry, mov- ing about labor where there is work, and insurance against unemployment. Our present study gives room only for considering what training and guidance can do to solve vocational problems. Reading References The situation that the youth who is entering upon Hfe today faces is outhned in Snedden's " The Problem of Vocational Education " and more briefly in Munroe's "New Demands in Education," Chapters I-VII. The relation of industry to child labor is shown in Hearing's " The Child Labor Problem " and in Mangold's " Problems of Child Welfare," pp. 227-344. Weaver's two books, " Profitable Vocations for Boys " and " Profitable Vocations for Girls," give fair statements about the attractions of the dif- ferent callings. Specific studies of different trades have been made by the Vocation Bureau of Boston. Laselle and Wiley's " Vocations for Girls " and Perkins' "Vocations for the Trained Woman " are detailed studies of the opportunities that exist for girls. The National Child Labor Committee, 105 East Twenty-Second Street, New York, is glad to furnish statements about the local child labor laws, and deserves support in its endeavor to save the youth of the nation from exploitation. CHAPTER XXXIII VOCATIONAL EDUCATION In the great field of training children for their places in the world there are yet many disputed and unsolved • questions. This chapter can only state the general trend 8 of the best educational ideals of today. Vocational education is based upon the recognition of certain adjustments that are needed in the school and in society, some of which were enumerated at the end of the last chapter. Certain other considerations are involved in it. 1. Vocational education must be kept democratic. The term " industrial education," which has been pro- posed as a substitute, is unsatisfactory because it suggests that the only vocations in which the schools are inter- ested are those that involve toil with the hands. The proposal to create separate school boards and depart- ments of supervision for vocational schools is unfortunate, because it makes a cleavage between those who are pre- paring for the professions and those who are preparing for the trades, and makes difficult the transfer of pupils who are discovered to belong elsewhere from one type of school to the other. No education is democratic that gives any private interest any kind of control. Close co- operation of schools with shops is good, but not control of schools by manufacturers. 2. Vocational education must regard girls as much as it does boys. We must accept women as a large and prob- ably increasing factor in the industrial world. If, as is said to be the case, women spend eight of the nine billions of dollars that are spent in this country every year, we must in our schools regard the education of those who shall spend as well as that of those who shall earn. We have also with young women the difficult but important 242 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 243 problem, a double education, for employment and for home-making. 3. Vocational education must consider the man more than the job. Vocational education might simply feed " hands " to corporations. It might train industrial bond-slaves. It ought to train men who are adaptable as well as specifically efficient. But, particularly because so many occupations are necessarily monotonous and because so many youth are evidently adapted only for such kind of work, it seems necessary that young people should be educated for avocations as well as for vocations, for the wise use of their leisure as well as their working hours. Both the rights of the worker and some indica- tions in employers of a fresh appreciation of breadth in the worker persuade us that culture and vocation are not mutually exclusive words, but that vocational education must include culture. There is, of course, a difference of opinion as to what culture means. Thomdike gives at least five separate definitions, of which the German " Kultur " includes but one. He finally settles upon one: " It should perhaps be defined as training for the imper- sonal pleasures — the unselfish satisfactions which involve no necessary deprivation for any other man • — those equitable, stainless wants whose increase is seen to be one main element of the aim of education." Such culture in a democratic state should be a right of every child. The Scope of Vocational Education In making plans for public vocational education there seems to be substantial agreement as to its scope. So-called pre-vocational education should not begin before the seventh grade. Every child needs thorough training in the technique of learning, in knowing how to read, to write, to make simple computations, and to express himself in simple ways with his hands. After the sixth grade there should come differentiations in courses that shall open up to the child the great divi- sions of human toil and shall lay the foundations of prac- tice in their elements. This differentiation seizes upon 244 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING the child's interests a year or two before the child can legally go to work, tends to occupy him profitably during those years from fourteen to sixteen which are of most value in preparation and of least value to industry and gives opportunity for some of those methods of co-opera- tion between the school and the shop, which are to be described, by which the youth may gain skill as well as knowledge. The ambition of vocational education is to retain all young people under some kind of technical training until they are at least eighteen. It is thought that not only is this the earliest age at which a young man can show the maturity as well as the skill that mil enable him to take a position, but that it is as soon as his capabilities are sufficiently manifest to place him wisely. The ideal vocational education will not drop the youth after he has left school, but will assist in placing and re- placing him until he has successfully solved his life problem. Methods of Vocational Education Following are some of the present-day plans for voca- tional training. Many of them are summarized from Taylor. 1. Vocational emphasis in the elementar>^ grades. This is being made in two ways, — by utilizing the constructive instinct of children in real projects and by making simple studies of actual industries. Manual training in the earli- est grades has of late years departed from formal method to the creation of objects of real value for play or other home use. Drawing and cabinet w^ork and metal work and printing have found their way down as low" as the sixth grade. Children are being shown something of such industries as gardening, dairying, textile industries, transportation, etc. 2. The so-called " 6-1-6 " plan of division has been brought forward in the administering of the grades. This means that the first six grades are reserved for gen- eral training, that instead of accepting the gaps and VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 245 losses at the door of the high school a six-year vocational program begins after the general preparation, which broad- ens out into technical as well as academic courses. 3. Whether the 6+6 plan is formally accepted or not, we are seeing the introduction of the " intermediate school." This school is intended to come effectively as an antidote to those years of defection. It is an elementary trade school, emphasizing in a pre-vocational way commerce, manual arts and household arts. Such schools may be publicly or privately conducted. The commercial high school is an intermediate school of the highest grade. 4. Part-time schools. IMany young people cannot afford to remain in school unless they can do self-support- ing work. Even if they can afford this, they need skill as well as knowledge. Some who are getting the skill in the shop find the knowledge in evening and correspondence courses. But for those who are yet in school we are seeing an ingenious revival of the apprentice system through plans of co-operation betw^een schools and shops by which a boy works part of his time at the bench and part at the desk. Often the plan is made practicable by dividing the classes into pairs, one member of which occupies the desk while the other works and vice versa. These plans are winning the hearty approval of employers and shop managers. Corporations themselves are opening schools, whose value educationally depends, of course, on whether they train young people for more than the mere manipula- tions of a specialized industry. These new developments in the schools affect the aca- demic students indirectly but positively. New cultural values are being sought in vocational subjects, of which many academic students avail themselves. Academic subjects that bear no obvious relation to real life are coming up for fresh valuation, and sometimes are being relegated to a minor prominence. The joy and serious- ness of co-operative work in the shop or at the forge tend to counteract the laziness and dilettantism of the recita- tion room. And since the endeavor is made to make transition convenient from one department to another, 246 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING the students of each department interact upon each other. The new vocational emphasis is not disproportionate. Ninety-six per cent of American workers are in the in- dustries and commerce. They are simply coming into their own. The emphasis is not misplaced. Vocational education has always existed, but it has existed too far up. We had colleges from the beginning, and they were vocational schools for the professions. We had institutes of technology before we had trade schools, and thus edu- cated the captains before the privates of industry. Vocational schools are not only meeting a larger range of need, but they are making popular education a fact as well as a name. We have for many years talked of " our system of universal education," but it was a misnomer so long as the people were not getting it. When twenty- five per cent of our population only get far enough in school to "read, write and figure," when "the average American is a sixth-grader," when only one-tenth finish the public school system, we have not real popular educa- tion. Our high schools, which cost proportionately two or three times as much to maintain as the lower grades, are reserved largely for the children of the prosperous. So our public school system is undemocratic as well as exclusive. Vocational education tends to change this condition. It makes it practicable and profitable for the workingman's son to stay in school until he is ready for life. It also performs the special service of showing that generally the so-called dullard, the retarded pupil, the truant, is simply the child who has been misimderstood and misplaced. The social outreach of vocational education is not yet fully apprehended. We can already see that something is going to come of institutions where youths work to- gether which did 'not come of institutions where each recited an individual lesson. From a school where the ideal is efficiency something different is to come from what came from one whose ideal was abstract culture. The youth who goes to school with an interest is going to be a different man from the one who stays because he was VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 247 sent. We can see this — that these prospects are all socially hopeful. From the commercial standpoint reinforcement has come to the new educational ideal. The industrial or- ganization of Germany has been a lesson to us. It is stated that Germany has two million skilled artisans, and America only twenty-five thousand. As someone has put it, " America is a stevedore," simply loading its crude materials at its own water's edge for the men of other nations to manufacture into objects of utility and beauty. Our employers' associations and our trades unions alike are beginning to ask for the renewal of the apprentice system and thus are adding the shop school to the public school as complementary to a national educational scheme. The Need of Leadership Just now there is a pressing need for vocational teachers. A new type of man is required and an unusual one. He must know the technique of his calling from actual prac- tice; he must have the ability to interest his pupils and to explain things clearly; he must be a man of character and scholarship. The apprentice system is not going to come back with- out effort. There are still concerns that believe it to be more profitable to limit the work of their employees to particular operations. There are trades unions that in- sist on limiting the number of apprentices. Journeymen are often unwilling to instruct apprentices. The relations between capital and labor are not yet so friendly as to make all these adjustments easy. There are even ex- tremists who think the fruits of the earth belong to all men alike whether they have patiently and conscientiously prepared to earn them or not. The desire to get one's share takes the place of willingness to do one's share. A public sentiment must be created by leaders, if these adjustments are to be made. Vocational training is expensive. It is less expensive to the nation than to get along without it. But this is not always clear to a local school board. It is propor- 248 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING tionately more expensive and less satisfactory in the country than in the city, and yet it is needed in the country as much as in the city. It is a gospel that must be preached, and it is one worthy to be preached by ministers and by Christian laymen. Some country ministers have already begun to make the deserts of country life to blossom like the rose, by bringing voca- tional training in agriculture and household science close to the farm boys and girls. This kind of influence must be extended more broadly. Our national Department of Agriculture is taking the lead in this direction. Through its various achievement clubs it is stimulating the co- operative endeavors of farm boys and girls; these in turn lead toward the desire for a higher education in the voca- tions of farming and farm housekeeping ; and the work of such vocational colleges is constantly supplemented by the widely circulated results of agricultural research among those who are actually at work upon the land. The Master said, " What shall a man give in exchange for his life? " He had in mind not mere existence, but all that makes life worth while. In this complex and difficult age of ours He could point to no task more chal- lenging to his followers than that of making young life everywhere more rich and capable. Reading References A veritable flood of books upon vocational education is upon us. Kerschensteiner's " Three Lectures on Vocational Training " sets forth the German method. Person's " Industrial Education " and Russell and Bonser's book of the same title outline the latest theory and practice in this field. King's " Social Aspects of Education " endeavors to put voca- tional education in its proper social setting. Thorndike's " Education," pp. 23-26, 270-275, tersely does the same. CHAPTER XXXIV VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE We have already noted some of the reasons why a child or young person is incompetent to plan his own future. Of these, three are most conspicuous: The child does not know what the available occupations are or much of any- thing about them; he knows next to nothing about work or his own ability to do it ; he is not yet mature enough so that his talents are fully manifest. There are also certain ideals and longings, which are consciously or un- consciously cherished, that commonly influence a youth at this critical period of choice, often disastrously. One of these is the desire for immediate reward. Youth is not patient or foresighted. " A fifty-cent piece now looks bigger than the prospect of learning a trade." This means that thousands of bright young people at once settle down to lifelong employment within reach of their hands instead of that which might be within reach of their brains, if they were trained. Coupled with this is intense self-confidence, combined with the irrepressible hopefulness of youth. The boy may know that his untrained father at fifty is a failure, but he cannot conceive at twenty that he himself can ever fail. So, as the manager of an employment bureau said, young people are every day offering themselves for work who " know nothing and want to be paid for it." The desires of young people limit the range of their choices in many directions. City-bred youth think life unendurable in the country and country youth want to get into the city. Both feel an aversion to work with the hands, particularly if it involves a workingman's garb. " Office work " therefore makes a strong appeal, regard- less of its real values, and work in a store answers the same desire. 249 250 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING One motive, creditable in itself, may have through lack of guidance or opportunity a tendency to limitation. It is ambition. It may be expressed in one of several ways: " I don't want to be taking orders from another nian all my life." " I want to get where somebody else will be working for me." " I want to be at the top." Or it is put in the pathetic words of a hard-working parent: " We don't want our children always to have such a hard time as. we have had." Such ambition is creditable, but if it is undirected it may be fruitless. That it is general is indi- cated by the enormous amount of correspondence-school advertising, always illustrated by pictures of two men, one in working clothes with a hang-dog expression, and the other in a business suit giving an order to the first. Every young man wants to be sitting in that office chair, commanding. But there are difficulties. There may be lack of ability. There may be unwillingness to plod or to use the discoverable and available means of prepara- tion. The concern into which the youth finds his way may be notorious for using up men and then throwing them aside, or his particular work may be one that offers no apprenticeship and gives no training. Again, in this age of youth's independence, no matter how wise or foreseeing the parent, it is the young people themselves who usually decide what they will do ; and even the wisest parent, if the youth be determined, hesitates to deflect him, thinking that the determination itself may prove the indication of aptitude or the motive power for perseverance. Finally, there is a factor which affects vocational choice in the most subtle ways. Many men today do not work for the sake of their work, but for the sake of their leisure. They work not to save, but to spend. The monotony of much toil is such that the worker can ask no pleasure out of it except the wage at the end of the week. This is especially true of the vocations that are followed by the poor and ignorant. The child of this class grows up with no expectation that his work can in itself be a joy, but he has just as keen a desire to get pleasure out of life as a VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 251 rich man's son. What does he care about the nature of his work, so long as it pays for his pleasures ? The thought that work is a curse is as old as the Book of Genesis and is cherished by people in every level of society. The Interest of Society in Vocational Guidance Society has an important stake in this matter. It cannot afford to waste its chief asset, men. If it be true that Germany has two million trained artisans and America but twenty-five thousand, society knows that its material future is in peril. If it be true that only twenty-five per cent of boys and girls who go to work between the ages of fourteen and sixteen ever get into any employment that is worth while, society cannot afford to allow that condition to continue. Society knows that if a large proportion of its citizenship can offer to the labor world nothing but brute strength, they will be use- less and helpless when that strength is gone, unemploy- ment will always be a critical fact, and old age pensions will be loaded upon the shoulders of those who were trained and are successful. Genius is just as likely to be bom among the poor as the rich, and society cannot afford to lose those masters of the arts, those inventors and leaders w^ho were throttled before they ever came to the light. Men will always seek goals beyond their daily work and some men will never see much further than their wages, but society cannot be composed of a happy citizenship if the joy of artisanship perishes. The Aims of Vocational Guidance Before coming to the special agencies of guidance, let us ask ourselves the general aims which every agency should hold in view. They are perhaps four. First, is the study of the nature and abilities of the child. What we perceive of the limitations of psychology and of our knowledge of the human being who is best known to us suggests how appalling this task must be, in the case of a child who does not understand himself, who cannot clearly state what he does know, and who is so far 252 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING only in a formative condition. Yet this task must be undertaken, with the use of every process of examination and the co-operation of everybody who knows, if we are to take the first step in guidance. In studying the child we naturally turn first to what- ever he can reveal by careful self -study. It may not be much, but it will be earnest and sincere. His desires will be of interest. The vocational aspirations of children seem to be affected in the earlier years by their imagina- tions, through what attracts them in books and in life. In a certain grammar school, for instance, the pupils, who were about eleven years of age, when asked what they wished to be in the world responded as follows: 14% bookkeepers 12% policemen 7% artists 51% teachers One fancies that he can define this situation pretty clearly. The boys, of course, were going to be the policemen, and some of them bookkeepers and artists. The girls were going to be the teachers and a few of them bookkeepers and artists. The element of hero-worship was obvious, in the favorite teacher and the stalwart comer " cop." The desire for an occupation that involved good clothes was universal in these choices. There was a feeling for self-expression in the artistic longing. It cannot be said that these preferences were very significant or prophetic. In high school, as we noted in another chapter, vocations that have the appeal of financial reward and of gentility are strongly considered. The writer recently questioned personally about a hundred boys in high schools in market centers of a farming region in the Middle West. Many were going to be farmers, but practically all the rest would become engineers, lawyers and doctors. When one tries to get closer to a child's self-knowledge than his whims or conventional desires, the task' is still difficult. Prof. Frank Parsons, the father of vocational guidance, devised some ingenious questionnaires which VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 253 an applicant might fill out for self -measurement. So far as they involve the child's family and school record they are valuable and they are interesting as they reveal some of his tastes, habits and ways of looking at life. But they do not go very deeply into self-analysis. The writer has had a little experience with a question sheet modelled after one that was devised by Prof. Herman Schneider of the University of Cincinnati. At one point the endeavor was made to discover the temperament of the individual by asking him to class himself in one of two exclusive categories. (For instance, " Are you a leader, or a fol- lower? Are you quick to initiate, or patient to follow up? ") In several cases the confident youth gave to all the alternatives the improbable reply that he was both. Evidently, as Professor Parsons and others have acknowl- edged, such sheets are of use only as they are reviewed patiently in personal conference between the counsellor and the youth. Of course, better than personal memories are carefully kept school records, and these, if kept throughout the grades, and if they concern the right sorts of efficiency, are extremely important as measurements of development of intelligence and power. They may be used with cau- tion for prophecy as well as history. Psychological tests are being devised which already in certain callings are definitive. At Harvard an ingenious device has been invented which has delimited from the calling of motormen a large number of individuals, many of them able for other callings, whose perceptive and inhibitory powers were not immediate enough to insure quick action in emergencies at the motor. Tests for color blindness have, of course, long been applied in railroad engineering. All such tests are negative and show only what an individual cannot do. In the enormous diversity of callings they can apparently have but limited appli- cability. The vocational counsellor does not do his full duty unless he seizes upon every shred of evidence which co- operation can bring within his reach. He makes a close 254 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING and sympathetic study of the child's own experience and knowledge of himself; he not only studies the school records, but he confers with the school teacher; he endeav- ors to consult carefully with the parents ; he uses any testi- mony that may be given by any employer who has watched the child at w^ork. The next step is to discuss the child's preparation. " Vocational guidance," says Meyer Bloomfield, " is educational guidance." The presumption is that the * child is not yet prepared. Guidance is chiefly for the purpose of telling him how to get ready. The counsellor wants both to develop his capacity as far and as long as possible and also to leave the doors of opportunity and of final choice open as late as possible, until the full capacity has revealed itself. Few pupils know the preparational resources of the varied schools of their own city. Few indeed know what the next year or years in their own school can give. There is still less knowledge of prep- arational opportunities in continuation schools, appren- ticeships, store schools, etc. A third task is the study of industrial opportunities. So essential was this seen to be that our first Vocational Bureau, the one in Boston, has made this, rather than individual counsel, its most conspicuous achievement. Employers themselves had never known the situation in their own industries until the facts were pointed out to them. But to the 3^outh who is deciding, the nature of preparation, the financial rewards, the working condi- tions, the steadiness or fluctuation of demand for labor, are all of the deepest import. The fact, for instance, that between sixty and eighty per cent of those who leave school at fourteen drift into occupations that have t no outlet, that at least a third of these change work sev- eral times during the first year, seldom to their advantage, and that a very small proportion ever even enter occupa- tions which afford an income sufficient to establish a decent home, is enough to cause any young person to make whatever personal sacrifice is needful in order to rise above such a destiny. VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 255 Then comes to the vocational counsellor the task of placing the individual with satisfaction to himself and his employer. This may mean placing and replacing him, tracing him from position to position, taking up afresh with him his whole situation, watching the effect upon his work of his habits, his recreations, his marriage, his home life, etc. The counsellor is thus not only guide, but should be lifelong philosopher and friend. The Agencies of Vocational Guidance This work naturally started in the schools. Here were the people who laiew and were interested. In Brooklyn there was a student aid committee of volunteer teachers; in Boston the schools availed themselves of the aid of the Vocation Bureau and its affiliated institutions. We are evidently soon to have men and women set apart, in close relation with the school system, for this specific mission. Since vocational guidance is different from and involves much more than an employment bureau, the work should not be commercialized and it should be retained as a proper part of the educational system. There seems to be opportunity for the church to do something in this field. There is, of course, danger of working with zeal rather than discretion. Since the ideal counsellor should have had industrial as well as educational experience, the minister who has had neither is likely to be an impractical and sometimes dangerous idealist. But what minister, Sunday-school teacher, club and camp leader all together know about a boy or girl is of great value to any vocational counsellor, and the church has the opportunity to convey and conserve those noble and generous motives which ought to underlie every life choice. Back to the home, however, comes the deepest duty and the finest opportunity. It can follow the child's development with the most minute and tender care. It can afford home opportunities for play, occupation and financial experience that are valuable tests of capability. It can place before the child for regular reading periodi- 256 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING cals of popular science and industry and books that tell of actual life in the world's calHngs. It can bring in as guests men who are doing noble work for others. It can encourage summer-time experiments which may determine the life interest. None but the home can so tactfully show the child the gap that may exist between his admira- tions and his endowments. Almost all youth are poets at some time or other but, while we may crave that they remain poets so far as appreciation is concerned as long as they live, somebody has to prove to many children that writing poetry is not to be their life work. The home only can exalt the durable satisfactions of life. The home has to remind its children that money is not the only criterion of success. " The discovery of truth and the bearing of worthy children," as Thomdike reminds us, " the two things most essential to the world's welfare, are as a rule not paid for at all." 'l*he home, too, has the opportunity to discover possibilities that even the school may never find. Some of the courses of study that make men are not examinable. The Christian home alone can teach its children that, in the decision of a calling, a rela- tion is being discussed that is not only between ability and the task, between work and leisure, between man and man, but that is between man and God. " Is Life a Career or a Mission? " was the title of a now-forgotten tract. The question is still pertinent. To the young Christian life is a mission more than a career. The prayer and choice of the home and of the youth who is preparing to live should be: " To serve the present age. My calling to fulfil. Oh, may it all my powers engage To do my Master's will." Reading References Frank Parsons' " Choosing a Vocation " describes the interesting work of counsel inaugurated by this pioneer. Bloomfield's " Youth, School and Vocation " tells how this work was continued. Davis' " Vocational and Moral Guidance," II, IV-IX, describes a helpful experiment for developing thoughtfulness in school pupils concerning their futures, and VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 257 gives, 177-298, some of the results. His Chapter XIV discusses the work of vocational counselling. Cooper's " Why Go to College?'' and Wilson's " Working One's Way through College " will be very helpful to older boys and girls who are measuring the value and possibility of thorough preparation for life through a higher education. CHAPTER XXXV THE CHURCH AND HER CHILDREN So far as children are concerned we have three types of churches. There is the church that neglects its children. The building, the services, the plans, the leadership — • ever>''thing except a Sunday school, conducted almost in- dependently — are entirely for adults. Children are ignored until they cease to be children and then are expected to enter what other adults participate in. The method of revival is often depended upon to bring about this change. To the revivalist sinners and children are alike — they are outsiders. Second, there is the church that is ineffective with children. In this church there is someone, there may be several, who recognize the need of " doing something for the children." So there may be a troop of Boy Scouts, there may even be an assistant minister who is especially charged with children's inter- ests. The church, however, is not vitally concerned in any of these. The Sunday school is virtually a separate institution. Somebod}^ of his own initiative started the Scouts, but the church has not adopted the organization and does not know very much about it. The assistant minister has the blessing of the church, but not its alle- giance. The children are still outside. In these two types of churches there are parents who are earnestly concerned for the religious training of children, but there is not a considerable body of persons who have the courage to scrutinize the church as if it had just been thought of and ask themselves what is the will concerning it of Jesus who said: " Of such [that is, of children] is the kingdom of heaven." To build a meeting-house primarily for those of whom is the kingdom, to conduct services, to make plans 'and to engage a minister really for their sakes has 258 THE CHURCH AND HER CHILDREN 259 not been within the vision of many Christian churches. The third type consists of the churches that have caught such a vision. The purpose of this chapter is to suggest A Church Plan for Children There would not be room in the chapter, even if there were the desire in the mind of the author, to propose a revolution of church organization. What he intends to do is simply to state five rights which every child should have in every church. How the attainment of these rights will affect the present constitution of the church is beyond the 'present inquiry. These rights are, however, so simple and really so within reach of attainment in any earnest church that it may be premised that they will not be destructive of what is now worth while. Worship Whether church-going is always to occupy the central place in organized religion that it occupies toda}^ may be a question. The most religious nation of antiquity had for a long period only one temple of worship, to which all the people resorted at infrequent intervals. The practical matter is that for many centuries the vitality of the church has seemed to be closely linked with its ceremonies of public worship. Its safe future depends, in part, upon the strength of this service. The church that expects to win and hold the coming generation must build the life of its young people into this service, and not depend upon converting them to it after contrary habits have been formed. We are also coming to believe that the services of devotion in the Sunday school, " junior con- gregations " and attempts to combine church and Sunday school in one service are unsatisfying, because fortifying the habit of attendance at one service makes more diffi- cult rather than more easy the transition to another and because a composite service pleases nobody. The best goal seems to be to make a church service that shall mean something to a whole family. 260 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING In these days of " enriching " the service of non- liturgical churches and liberalizing the service in liturgical ones we ought to take advantage of the willingness to make changes, and study the psychology of the way a child worships so that these changes shall suit childhood. We may in this study ignore very young children, on the ground that while they are still living, moving and having their being mostly in the home life, we do them no injustice if we do not provide regular occasions of public worship for them. It will be enough for them for the present to share in the church festivals and to look forward to taking their place in the church home. As for the older ones, we can see already that the simple, the dramatic and tlie active will appeal to them. Each sect, according to its own genius, must consider changes in these directions. Simplicity may come in shortening the service and omitting vain and meaningless repetitions. The story-sermon or the chil- dren's sermon has already found its way into many of our churches, and its popularity with adults has revealed to some preachers the superiority of the parabolic over the hortatory method of teaching. Endeavors for the enrich- ment of the service in non-liturgical churches cautiously patterned after the Book of Common Prayer have been in unconscious recognition of the remarkable dramatic movement of that order of service. It is because children enjoy and appreciate that movement that we look for a cheering Christian unity in this direction. The return to the church in some modem form, especially for occasions of festival, of the miracle play is, if we mistake not, something to be definitely worked for. Activity is, of course, essential to children who require frequent changes of position. The best activity in worship is that of song. The quartet choir is a fetich which we worship in church and do not endure in the secular concert. The possi- bilities of children's choruses have not been reached in this country. A few musicians know not only what can be done with trained cathedral choirs but that pretty nearly all children can be taught to sing. THE CHURCH AND HER CHILDREN 261 Religious Education The writer of a recent book upon Sunday-school work has entitled it " The Church School." In the truest sense the whole church is a school, and there is nothing done with children in the service of worship or in the boys' club or at the summer camp that is not for the direct purpose of education. But the so-called Sunday school is the proper center for the church's most important educa- tional activities, and so it deserves to be developed into a comprehensive church school. It may or may not meet all together on Sunday. To call it " the Bible school " is to accept without consideration the presupposition that the church's only textbook will be the Bible. The church has been moving, amid various struggles, toward the development of a real and worthy school of religion. We need only summarize the results of this movement. It has come to embrace all classes of chil- dren in its effort. It has gradually narrowed the subject of instruction, which in the days before free schools in- cluded secular subjects, to religious education. It has studied the child to find out what religious teaching he needs at each period and has also studied the Bible afresh to find out what the Bible has for each age. It has im- mensely increased the worth of the textbooks and other educational devices used by teachers and pupils. It has begun with some seriousness the work of training its teachers, who are mostly volunteers, so that they may be real educators. It contemplates some extension of its courses into the weekdays and a closer relationship be- tween its school and its so-called " young people's so- cieties." The best thing that the church has learned is to appreciate that the Sunday school is the church's own school. Doing this means not only assuming its budget, appointing its officers and hearing its reports, but putting the whole strength and responsibility of the church into its most important task. A great educator has said that the greatest of educa- tional tasks is "to find the teacher, not to found the school." The livest matter of interest in church school 262 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING circles is to get into the consciousness of the church the necessity of providing a trained faculty for the school. The very improvements that have been made in courses and equipment may tend to make the church well satis- fied, but that satisfaction cannot be lasting, since there is nothing vital in any school but its teachers. Some of the old New England churches used to set apart a second minister, on a parity with the " pastor," as " teacher." The church must learn to regard all its teachers as of its most sacred office, and ask many of its members, not as a courteous and temporary act of good nature, but as a lifetime consecration, to assume this task of teaching, after thorough training, in the church school. This is a right of the child, and is essential to the future of the church. Social Life We have been impressed at every step of our study with the fact that the child is a social individual. We have learned that the child has not only no " original nature," but that he literally shares much of his life with others. His religious development comes under the same law, and the universal way by which children come forward in their groups into church membership should be enough to cause us to realize that we can make no religious im- pressions that do not involve the social nature. Neither can the child or the youth serve and so express his reli- gious life except in social relations. A merely " Sunday church," therefore, can be reaching only a small part of the capacities of the child, and its very success on Sunday may have and often does have the effect of per- suading the child that religion is a Sunday matter. In neighborhood churches at least it would not seem to be too much to crave that the earliest social life of the child should develop under church sanctions. It seems prob- able that such early connections will do much to keep sane and sweet the entrance of youth later into a larger society. In all churches there ought to be regular oppor- tunities for mutual acquaintance and service among its young people. All such facilities ought to be very closely THE CHURCH AND HER CHILDREN 263 under the control of the church and be in effect an exten- sion of the hfe of its school. A gymnasium and a camp are excellent institutions, but they are not worth much for the purposes we have in mind if they are carried on by persons hired for the purpose who have httle other con- cern in the church itself. The Boy Scouts, the Knights of King Arthur, the Campfire Girls, are ingenious and educative appKances, but they should be conducted by the church school teachers and be used chiefly as means of bringing classes or groups of classes into club life. The Christian Endeavor and such like movements are, in the writer's judgment, eventually to secure a much-needed adult direction, definite aim and universal grasp by losing their life so that they may add richness to the life of the church school. Committal There is, as we have, seen, a break between the Hfe of children and of adults in the church. To some degree it may be inevitable. There is a break between being a child and being an adult. What the church wants to do with all its children is what the parent tries to do with the individual child, to carry the children from childhood over into adulthood in the church without losing anything that is permanently precious in childhood and without unnecessary strain and unrest on the way. There are different ways of doing this. One church assumes that its children are infant members and after appropriate instruction " confirms " them. Another by a " Decision Day " in its church school takes an annual census of those who will move definitely forward into an accepted rela- tion with the church. A third works more quietly still, but arranges that each class of young adolescents shall each year, as a group and as individuals, have the oppor- tunity to make some committal. Different communions may work in different ways, but each one may, as a part of its church program, work for and expect that its whole school shall, as it matures, enter the graduate school of church membership. 264 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING This, too, is a right of the child, to come naturally into a place in his Father's House. Everywhere, but in the church of God especially, the child has a right to A Friend The church is an institution, but its work if it be divine must be personal. We have already seen to what an extraordinary degree a child responds to personal influ- ence. What we know about moral and religious education is chiefly this, that formal instruction does some good in helping a child to put right names to things, but that he is made good chiefly by seeing how goodness looks when it is lived. When Charles Kingsley was asked the secret of his life, he replied: " I had a friend." Swift reports that of 255 boys in the Waukesha Reform School, 54 had never seen anyone whom they particularly admired, while 42 others who said they had, could not name anyone. To 28 others Washington had been the nearest available hero. There are many obvious lessons in such facts. One of them only will be named here in connection with the church rights of a child, a church plan for children. It is this: Oftentimes when we imagine that we cannot persuade anybody to " take a Sunday-school class " or do some other particular chore in the church, we can have the finest young men and women in the community if we will tell them what we know men and women like themselves mean to boys and girls who are climbing be- hind them up the hill of life. Such a challenge calls forth a fine chivalr}^ If the church believes in its work like this, it can have the right men and women to do the work. Reading References Of course, Horace Bushnell forecasted the views of this chapter many years ago in his " Christian Nurture." This thought of embracing chil- dren in the arms of the mother church from the beginning and nurturing them with quiet, devoted wisdom has been worked out admirably and with a sane psychology in AIcKinley's " Educational Evangelism." The author's " Church Work with Boys " shows how it may be done in the case of boys. Coe has given us " The Christian View of Childhood " in the THE CHURCH AND HER CHILDREN 265 fourth chapter of his " Education in Religion and Morals." The book cited in the chapter as the best recent one upon the Sunday school is Athearn's " The Church School." Not only is it a complete manual, but its references to books and educational material are exhaustive. Harts- horne's " Worship in the Sunday School " is the only thorough book upon its theme. CHAPTER XXXVI THE GOAL: SERVICE FOR THE KINGDOM The Christian worid is not yet sure what it means to be a Christian. If it were, Christian men would never find it necessary to go out and shoot each other. If it "w^ere, it would not find it necessary so to waste its strength and resources among a hundred sects that it has no time to attack the social problem and has no money with which to give its children adequate religious education. But so far as it has come to any vision it says that to be a Christian means, in a word, Self-Devotion. And then needing, just as the child needs, to see its duty in terms of a life, it goes back to its Master to learn what Self-Devo- tion is like. It was not selflessness. Whatever the metaphysician Paul meant when he spoke of the Christ as " emptying himself," Jesus did not empty himself of his humanity. What we know of his silent years from the great result in the few years of his public ministr>^ per- suades us that they were spent in magnificent preparation. Not selflessness but a superb self-respect was behind the life that gave itself so royally when it was ready. It gave not because it was poor, but because it was exceedingly rich and because it had so much to share. Such have been the other lives that have reminded us most of Jesus: from Paul through Saint Francis and Livingstone to Grenfell. They express an attitude and a bestowing. This attitude and this bestowing obtain their grandeur from the greatness of the ends to which they were conse- crated. These, as the Two Laws of the Kingdom state them, are Love to God and Love to Man. Stated thus baldly, they are mere abstractions, but stated in terms of life, of the life that Jesus lived, they are glowing realities. To say what Love to God means is to say all that the di- vine Father meant to the soul of Jesus; to say what Love 266 THE GOAL: SERVICE FOR THE KINGDOM 2G7 to man means is to say all that men and women and chil- dren called forth from Jesus of compassion, loyalty and chivalrous attachment. The Young Christian as a Knight When our Teutonic ancestors were wild warriors, with cruel hatreds and ungovemed passions, the Christian teachers who converted them were puzzled how to turn these furious forces into orderly channels. Already these shagg}^ fighters had their distinctions of rank and honor. The monks who influenced them decided to allow these distinctions to stand, while they endeavored to use the best ideals they represented to nobler ends. So the Franks continued to have their chevaliers and the Ger- mans their Ritter, both denominating the men who rode on horseback. But they established new rules for their conduct and they taught them to be proud of a new name, that of Knechten, or servants. They made them wish to consecrate to a heavenly Master their old prowess and strength. From this word, in time, came the modem word " knights." So the men who had no taste to be monks or scholars were captivated by this new kind of soldiering. Without being other than themselves, with- out destroying anything in them that was reaUy worthy, they strove to live up to their new nobility with the old enthusiasm and fellowship. This has been said to help us state to young people and to ourselves for their sakes what it means for them to be Christians. It is to be knights of the Kingdom of Christ. This, of course, is not in the sense of what historic knight- hood actually became, but of knighthood as it was held as an ideal. This ideal does not enfold all of personal Christianity as it may be attained by a mature Christian. It does not exhaust the meaning of the life of Jesus. But it does express probably better than any other single con- ception the attitude which a young Christian living ac- cording to his development may best hold. It is at least helpful to us who are older to use such a clear-cut concep- tion so as to differentiate what is meant when we ask a 268 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING young person to follow Jesus, from what it means to a little child. It guards one or two important and sacred qualities of youth of which he is jealous as an integral part of his manhood. When we say manhood we include young womanhood also, since the chivalric ideal in femi- nine form is congenial to girls. The qualities which I particularly have in mind are Self-Respect and Chivalry. Self-Respect Young persons do not take satisfaction in the thought that they are " worms of the dust." They are unwilling to sing, " Oh, to be nothing, nothing." They may sing, but they cannot mean, that other hymn which begins, " Perfect submission." They are not followers of either Saint Jerome or Saint Anthony, but rather of Saint Christopher, who sought to find the strongest as master, because he had so much strength to give. The youth has not yet fathomed or tested his strength, but he believes it is immense. It is not necessary to disturb this high confidence. Life will disturb it soon enough. Let him continue to roar forth that favorite hymn in every pre- paratory school in this country: " The Son of God goes forth to war, A kingly crown to gain; His blood-red banner streams afar, Who follows in His train? " This attitude, confident, heroic, loyal, a young man or woman ought to carry into his religion. But it has to be qualified by another. That other is Chivalry Here, too often, we stop. We are living in an opulent time. We rear our youth like princes. But we forget that the first essential to the knightly ideal was the Quest. Listen to an account of the ancient custom. " He was first solemnly reminded of the duties of a knight, and then left in the solitude of the sanctuary to spend the night in meditation and in prayer. Around him in the shades of the aisles were the resting-places of the dead. On the THE GOAL: SERVICE FOR THE KINGDOM 260 painted windows, faintly shown by the pale light of the moon, were the pictured records of the conflicts of the saints and martyrs of other days. In front, upon the altar, where lie the weapons he is to bear, dimly seen by the rays of the constant lamp, was the cross, the symbol of his faith. What is the meaning of it? He is not simply a restless young wanderer, eager for fame. Still less is he a bold, mercenary fighter. The knight errant is conse- crated to the service of the weak, the needy and the wronged." Such an ideal is not uncongenial to youth. Someone has said that " the ke^^note to boyhood is struggle," referring doubtless to the stormy endeavors of lads toward self-knowledge and adjustment with their fellows. Even the Boy Scouts, a peaceful organization, has found uni- forms, decorations and drills essential. And to girls, no less, though in somewhat different ways, the idea of con- flict is interwoven with much of their early experience. Now comes the Master and tells these young people, whose whole preparation has been of soldierly quality, that its destiny is this: warfare, yes, but warfare in behalf of others. Jesus recognizes the storm and stress of adoles- cence; he even anticipates its continuity, but he redeems it. To one who looks abroad in the times of which we are a part there is something more than the reverberations of almost universal war to suggest that the present issue is most suitably'- stated in terms of Conflict. Underneath the pretexts that set the world ablaze we see the outreaching of whole races for opportunity and the struggle of democ- racy to come into control. The so-called feminist move- ment is more than the effort to grasp the suffrage; it is an expression of an entire sex coming to self-realization. Political struggles take names from contests about the tariff and the regulation of trusts, but they come back to the personal desire of men and women to have for them- selves and for their children life more abundantly. The various recent movements in the churches, brotherhoods, revivals organized upon business methods, other co- operative movements, are endeavors to make vital and 270 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING effective the crusading spirit that is native to the heart of every Christian. We may do this, even more vitally and more effectively, with young people. We can transform the love of strenu- ous play, of fighting, of fellowship, into the contests of the Kingdom. Their strength is unspoiled by self-seeking; they have not misused the spirit of contest in the selfish- ness of business or society; they are not disillusioned. All that is best of their enthusiasm, vigor and romance may be enlisted in the Holy War. How may we best inculcate in the young the ultimate of the chivalrous ideal, the will to serve ? Training to Serve This, like all our training, must follow along the lines of the child's own development. We have said that the child at the beginning is self-regarding and demanding. We have indicated the desirability of his getting a sense of property rights and of learning to deal prudently with money and other possessions. But we do not need to stop there. The child, who is capable of love, is also capable of enjoying the luxury of giving and serving. He may be encouraged to this by the approval of those who train him. He may be taught to use his love of surprises by planning unexpected pleasures for others. He should be taught to sympathize. His range of sympathy naturally is limited by his experience. He can feel for the sorrows of other children who have never had not only what he most prizes but even his common blessings. He can sympathize to some degree with those who are shut off from sunshine and outdoor play by sickness. If he cannot give money or goods to these, he can help prepare the gifts and go with those who present them. Gradually and steadily, as his intelligence and experience develop, he should be brought close to the various needs of the world. The benevolent boards of the churches are of great importance, but they do not always represent instructional material of the widest or closest range, and until recently their facts have not been attractively or simply stated for chil- THE GOAL: SERVICE FOR THE KINGDOM 271 dren. These boards are themselves to blame in not build- ing up a new clientele of supporters if they do not educate them. The child's allowance should never be forcibly levied upon for benevolence. If he offers to give, let him do so in a free, self-respecting fashion. If he is interested and is informed of the technique of bestowing (the tithe sys- tem, for example; how the money actually gets to India, etc.) he will usually become a systematic donor when he is quite young. There is much joy in joint benevolence. Considerable ingenuity has been shown in young people's societies (with girls more than with boys, however) in developing co-operative schemes of handicraft, dramatics and social entertainments for the sake of good causes. It cannot be said that any of these go very far along the way of sacrifice, but if the cause is clearly known and really loved and the personal element is kept alive in the bestowal, these merry, co-operative tasks have considerable value in training young people in working together. The Right Relation Toward Money But there are things in the chivalric life more important than young people's dramatics. One of these is the right relation toward money. We turn back to the attitude of Jesus and of Francis of Assisi with refreshment — and bewilderment. We admire, and we despair. While one has to struggle with the high cost of simply keeping alive, it is not always easy to follow the teachings of Jesus who lived in a time when it was probably not as hard for a man to clothe himself as it is today. It is the glory of a good civilization that it creates wants, and ours has created many which only money can supply. It is easier for young persons to see this kind of wants and desire to satisfy them than the — still better — ones that money cannot supply. The very air is full of the lust of money. It gets into the home conversation, as we express our financial anxieties, tell of our money-making schemes, make clear by the general trend of our talk that while we 272 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING want the children to be honest and unselfish, we shall be very uneasy indeed unless they lay up a fortune. It would be difficult in a short chapter to say how a home can counteract the money-loving tendencies of the time. So far as the young people are concerned, we must somehow persuade them that money is not the young knight's shield, but his sword; that he must master it, that he ma}^ wield it for good; that this, like his talents, may be made to help the wronged and serve the Kingdom. The Quest for Social Justice Some Christians believe that the road of the Master will in the near future point away from the ways of the church. They point to the alienation of wage-earners from her doors. They claim that the moral fervor that once glowed on the church's altars now shines in the halls of organized labor. They say that the church is allied with a social system which must be overturned before the Kingdom of God can come on the earth. The purpose of this textbook is not to say what the home or the church shall teach young people about social questions. But we are sure that they should encourage them to face them boldly. We think that every home and the leaders of every church should at least know what the proletariat is saying and feeling. We believe that there is a capitalistic press and a labor press, and that most of us read too exclusively of either sort. We want the men and women who are going to lead the church of God in the future to find some way of standing beside the weary and the heavy-laden and continuing the task of the Carpenter of Nazareth in lifting their yokes as well as in giving rest to their souls. The Consecration of Self We have said that not self -crucifixion but self-devotion is the motive that appeals to youth. Possibly we have implied that such consecration is made in some hour of crisis only. Those hours of vision and definite resolve are indeed holy, but perhaps not more so than those of THE GOAL: SERVICE FOR THE KINGDOM 273 every day. The mother who can keep step with the prayers of her child craves that each day may mean the giving of the child, according to his knowledge and love, to the life of the world as represented in his daily duty. Here, after all, is where the emphasis must be made. The reason why we listen sometimes with uneavsiness to the petition or resolve expressed in the young people's meet- ing or watch without pleasure the shallow endeavors of the service committee is not because they are necessarily insincere, for probably they are not, but because we are so afraid they are being made the substitute for what is vital, the consecration of the daily Hfe. And this is where the perpetual companionship of parent and child is most precious, because it gives the parent the chance to try to show how religion is chiefly a matter of home duties and home obligations. To get the young knight to transfer his enthusiasm from riding gaily in the lists to shaking down the furnace is a ver>^ difficult but important task. Reading References A little book by Robert J. Drummond, " The Christian Knight " (Bag- sters, London), expresses more fully than we have seen elsewhere the con- viction that Christianity for young people should be thought of in terms of chivalry. " Graded Social Service for the Sunday School," byHutchins, is broader than its title indicates, being an earnest endeavor to give graded suggestions, appropriate to each period, for co-operative ser\nce by young people. Such well-known books as Mathews' " Social Teachings of Jesus," and Rauschenbusch's " Christianity and the Social Crisis " are moderate in their statements of the duty of the church in view of the social situation. Bouck White's " The Call of the Carpenter " is a radical document on this subject. Josiah Strong's textbooks, issued in monthly parts under the title " The Gospel of the Kingdom," have been found very useful in adult classes that wish to discuss the social problems of today from the Christian standpoint. Behind the confusion of social theories stands the vision of the type of manhood which we crave to help create as the fullest expression of the Christian ideal. Recent writers have approached this subject from dif- ferent standpoints. In his stimulating " Crowds " the poet-sociologist, Gerald Stanley Lee, has endeavored to state this ideal in social terms; in his earlier " The Lost Art of Reading " he has written it more clearly from the literary point of view. The mystics' aspiration was never more passionately worded than in Richard Jefferies' memories of his youth, " The Story of My Heart." But probably the most useful studies of the man whom the Christ would have us be are some recent books about Jesus himself. Bruce Barton's " The Young Man's Jesus," by no means a deep book, yet suggests by its title the honest desire to answer this ques- 274 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING tion from the standpoint of youth. Crooker's " The Supremacy of Jesus," King's " Rational Living " and Fosdick's " The Manhood of the Master " are conscious endeavors to interpret the ideals of Jesus to young lives. Two textbooks for this purpose may be recommended: Jenks' " Life Problems of High School Boys " and Elliott-Cutler's " Student Standards of Action," the latter being intended for college students. The continua- tion of this present course of study, by the study of any of the last three mentioned, with the purpose of teaching the same to classes of boys or girls, would be an admirably practical way to carry these lessons on child training into real religious education. LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS The studies which follow are " laboratory topics." It is believed that those who have read thus far are now ready for some first-hand experiments and are equipped to make somewhat more careful observations of their own and to interpret them. Those, however, who have not pursued the course before would by no means fail of profit by joining a class at this point. The methods of work available to an average group are these: Reminiscence. Interviews. Reading. Observation. Experiment. Survey. More than one of these are suggested in each of the studies that follow. By " Reminiscence " is meant a careful search of one's own memories; by " Interviews," informal but purposeful chats with children as well as more formal questioning of adults; by " Reading " is implied the search of diaries, autobiographies, tabulated and untabulated records, etc., as well as the published observations of other students. " Experiment " implies nothing Hke vivisection, but simply modest endeavors to try out a theory or to arrange a situation in which a child shall express himself naturally. A " Survey " is a careful study of a local social situation for a definite purpose. The useful rather than the scholastic aim is understood to be at the bottom of every method. The following general hints are introductory to the study as a whole. Hints on Reminiscence In trying to recall one's own viewpoint as a child, the following cautions are needful : 275 276 CHILD vSTtJDY AND CHILD TRAINING 1. Dissociate anything you are trying to prove from what you are tr>"ing to remember. In fact, never try to prove anything — except the truth. Give everything your memory offers, whether it is in accord with the gen- eraHzations of others or not, so long as it has direct bear- ing on the case. 2. Separate carefully what you yourself recall from what you have been told by others and especially be sure that recent suggestion from your reading has not thrown itself back into the guise of memory. Hints on Interview's In all conversations, whether informal or by appoint- ment, with adults or children, conceal carefully your theory or thesis. Ask only and clearly. What do you remember ? What do you think ? How do you feel about this? With reference to a child especially, any expres- sion of opinion, to be valuable, must be checked up by a considerable knowledge of the child, his temperament, his freedom, sincerity or reticence of speech, and often is better secured under several differing circumstances and moods. The child is so responsive that he is likely to say what you want him to say. His words are not ac- cepted in a court of law and they are not to be counted as reliable elsewhere. But when you can catch a spon- taneous statement of opinion or feeling, you have some- thing, and when you have responses from enough children you get quite a respectable body of evidence. Hint on Reading You will value in quite different categories the litera- ture of insight, the popular book based on second-hand evidence, and the monograph of original research. Hints on Observation and Experiment The following valuable suggestion is from Coe. What you observe is not the subjective states of children, but what they do in any particular situation. There is a situation and here is the reaction ; usually there is a social LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS 277 situation and here is a social response. Observe care- fully the original situation and just how the children respond to it. Then change the situation in a single definable way and note the change in the children's reactions. Do not explain in advance why you make the change, and do not tell the children how you expect them to act. Just change the situation and note the changed response. Always note age, sex, and any other known determinant of the child's conduct. Interpret your notes in terms of instincts or other unlearned tendencies, in habits, ideals, laws of growth or laws of learning. Hints for a Survey The following directions that are given for investigating certain subjects of study by the survey method are chosen from the best surveys that have actually been made that are available. Unless the student is sure he has a wiser method he would better carefully follow those indicated. Their value is that they clearly had in mind what was being sought after and chose what seemed to be the best questions by which to find it out. The Remaining Topics Some of the topics cover more thoroughly ground that has already been touched in some of the first thirty-six chapters. But they involve direct contact with practical details and applications, and closer relations between the individual problem and the social problem as it appears in the school, the church and the community. The pur- pose is not only to master more thoroughly what has been read, but to use it more effectively. To this end the observations, interviews with adults and experiments nearty all have some practical and immediate focus. The division of the rest of the study is by topics rather than by chapters. It is not anticipated that all of these will be used by any given class. Classes that are able to give not more than three months more to the study will, in twelve sessions, use not more than a dozen of the topics. One will usually be enough for a session. 278 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING It is presupposed that the leader and the class will decide in conference, before going further, which of the topics shall be taken up, and that, since most of them require and will reward a preparation lasting more than one week, ass'gnments will be made at this time to those who will report upon nearly every one of the topics. Where more than one method of investigation is sug- gested under a single topic it is desirable, though it is not necessary, that all of them should be followed up. TOPIC I INSTANCES OF MISUNDERSTANDING AND OF BEING MISUNDERSTOOD Throughout the earHer chapters we were continually noticing how children were wronged because they were misunderstood. We saw that their primitive instincts were always getting them into trouble, that we were never prepared to appreciate their imaginativeness, that in all our relations with them of discipline, fellowship, even of religious nurture, we were continually trampling upon some impulse, fancy, conviction, which we did not even know existed. We saw that when adolescence came with all its storm and stress the child who had been in- jured all his life by others was now in danger of self -injury because he did not understand himself. The purpose of the points for investigation named below is to show up some of the more common matters of misunderstanding and thus to put ourselves on guard against them. It hardly need be said that, in this and all the succeed- ing topics in which it is implied that the pupils are to be free of textbook or teacher, successful class sessions depend upon faithful and hearty preparation of the work suggested. Some of the tasks suggested are for individ- uals and some are co-operative. Though assigned by the leader, it is presumed that each student volunteers as to which assignment he prefers. Several ma}^ accept the same task, and thus bring in results that are of increased value, because arrived at independently. Work Under This Topic 1. Note as carefully as you can the instances in your childhood and youth when you were misunderstood. Place the dates as closely as possible. Select only in- stances in which you judge that there was no fault in your behavior, simple cases of misapprehending words or acts or motives. Having done this, note in each case, for report, the cause of the misunderstanding. 279 280 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Was it because you did not know how to express yourself ? Was it because the adult apparent!}- did not take pains to understand? Was it due to some secret fancy that you did not wish or feel able to explain? Did you intend to cast suspicion on yourself; and if so, why? etc. 2. Confess a number of instances in which you have failed to understand a given child. Give the reasons w-hy you think you failed. Give the explanations that now occur to you. State any unsolved cases. Suggest how you or others could enter into more perfect understanding. 3. List the next twenty questions that are spontaneously asked you by a given child. Outline your answers. State in each case what you think the child was seeking. Use a notebook for this, and indicate age and sex of child. 4. As a help to your own understanding, ask several children of various ages what they are most afraid of, and why. 5. Since the child is often not self-explanatory, take a specific case of temper, and give as many extenuating circumstances as you can think of, endeavoring to take the child's viewpoint. 6. Deal with a case of sulkiness in the same way. 7. Take the habit of cr^ang spells and seek similar ex- planations. 8. Gather a few instances of " prodigals "; that is, of boys or girls who left home because they were unhappy there. If you have the confidence of one such person, relate his story and his reasons, anonymously, in full, or give several such stories in part with the probable reasons from the prodigals' standpoints. 9. In your own home you have become convinced that a certain misunderstanding is due to a circumstance that you know and can remedy. Change the situation in that respect and report the result. If you get no result, alter the experiment in the light of your further wisdom. THE HIDDEN LONGINGS OF CHILDHOOD 281 TOPIC II THE HIDDEN LONGINGS OF CHILDHOOD The purpose of this study is to come closer to an understanding of individual children by bringing to light typical instances of desires that have been strongly held by children but which for various reasons have been kept concealed. The further aim is to learn how we may help children either by bringing such desires to fruition, or at least by sympathizing with them. Work Under This Topic 1. Try to state clearly (best on paper) a few of the hidden longings of your childhood and youth. Beneath each one put notes as follows : » (a) At what age did this desire begin, how long did it last, and when did it cease? (b) Did it or did it not come to fulfilment ? In what way? (c) Why did you conceal it : because it was impossi- ble of fulfilment, because you thought adults would not understand or sympathize, because you thought it might be wrong, or for what reason or reasons? (d) What was the influence of this desire upon you, then and later? (e) Have you suspected or known such a desire in the mind of your own child? Of another child ? How have you dealt with it ? Give a sketch of a few significant hidden desires in the lives of children of which we have record in literature. (The following books, if available, will be useful. Biog- raphies, which speak of their subject's childhood in detail may also be searched. Una Hunt's " Una Mary " Chapter VIII of G. Stanley Hall's " Adolescence " Chapters I, IV and XI of Annie Steger Winston's " Mem- oirs of a Child " and Marie Bashkirtseff's autobiog- raphy.) 282 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING 3. Give instances of this sort that have been told you by other adults. Make special inquiries also for this report. TOPIC III THE INTERESTS OF AN INDIVIDUAL CHILD Study one child (more than one if you can) and find out from his conversation, his school record as interpreted by his teacher, his activities at home and in any other possible way what are his principal interests. Tabulate these, placing in the first column the subjects he studies in school, and in the second his chief activities out of school. Underline singly and doubly to indicate the intensity of the appeal of any. Connect by a line items in one column that are related to items in another column. Connect by dotted lines items in one column that inter- fere with or are exclusive of items in the other column. Having done this, study the results, and give a report, verbally or in writing, on the following points : How many items in each column seem to represent real, natural interests? How do the school activities help or hinder the outside activities ? How do the outside interests help or hinder the school interests ? What do the answers to the last two questions suggest as to the desirability of modifying either school or outside activities ? In making this study the student should read again Chapter XIII. TOPIC IV SCHOOL AND THE INTERESTS OF LIFE The aim is to discover, in various ways, how school may be more closely related to the permanent interests of life. SCHOOL AND THE INTERESTS OP LIFE 283 Work Under This Topic 1. What specific subjects of study in school (such as Hterature, drawing, nature study, etc.) awoke or stimu- lated in your life interests that have become vital? In your reply, specify how they did so, whether by the method of presentation, some feature of the textbook or laboratory, the enthusiasm of the teacher, the evident relation with an interest already alert, one or all. 2. Reviewing the principal subjects of instruction in the common schools, which in your case tended to stimu- late, which to satiate and which to destroy vital inter- ests? The test, of course, would be a comparison of the vitality of such interests, so far as it can be made, before and after the study of these subjects. 3. Which subjects of study in school do your children talk over with you at home ? Concerning which are they silent? What inferences do these facts suggest? 4. Ask a child of a given age (more than one if possible) what subjects in school interest him, and why. Then suggest the possible relations of each of these studies to his life, present or future, and note his further com- ments. 5. What, if any, has been the favorable influence upon you later of studies which in schooldays were not your favorites? In your reply, make some such classification as this, — subjects that were the tools of knowledge (such as spelling); subjects that were believed to be " discipli- nary"; subjects that were not well introduced or ade- quately explained to you; subjects for which you were not ripe. What, in detail, is your impression as to favor- able possibilities that might have been brought out, by rearrangement, by better presentation, by omission? 6. Secure a copy of the curriculum of our local high school and study it in relation to the probable futures of its pupils. What changes, if any, would be desirable to bring the school closer to the life interests of our young people ? 284 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING TOPIC V AROUND THE CLOCK WITH A CHILD AT PLAY A study like this has been undertaken before, at two different ages of childhood, and it may be hoped that the results of these two investigations may be presented to- day. But they will be of greater value if they are not offered until after individuals have made their own inde- pendent observations. Students of childhood who are experts will welcome gladly careful testimonies regarding the life of the child in his free play. It is suggested that each member of the class take this one subject for report. There is room for different ap- proaches, as to age, sex and circumstance. Such an investigation will be more valuable the longer it is con- tinued and the more times specific observatioas are made. Following are suggestions for various ways of undertaking the work. Work Under This Topic 1. In the Nu^ser}^ The mother of a little child can easily, with a small notebook at her hand, jot down each playful activity of the child from the time he wakes in the morning until he takes his nap. The fact that one observer made over seventy separate notes in the space of two hours indicates how varied are such play activities and how copious faithful notes would be. In such ob- servations the mother, of course, will not confine herself to play with toys or articles of any sort. Some pla^^ful activities will perhaps involve no objects at all. There should be no discrimination in her search for facts, though brief interpretations would not be amiss at the time. The essential thing is to catalogue all that takes place, and afterward to find out what the facts reveal. After the mother has taken all the notes she cares to, such as the complete record of a play-day of twelve hours, or records taken at different periods of the day, or records of play under different circumstances — such as indoors and outdoors, with companions and alone — she AROUND THE CLOCK WITH CHILD AT PLAY 285 is ready for the study of her notes. She may settle upon an}'' topic of special search that she chooses — such as one of these : What proportion of the play, if any, was dramatic, imaginative, in character? What general differences were there, in activity, initi- ative, success, enjoyment between the solitary play and the co-operative play; or between the play with an adult and with another child? What differences were there in the play at different times of day ; or between the play indoors and outdoors ? What specific reactions did the child make to separate playthings (toys of various sorts, household articles not meant for playthings, etc.) ? 2. The Play of the Young School Child. The mother can observe such play, so far as it takes place in her own house or back yard. She should do so unobserved, e.g., by leaving a door open. It may be both surprising and instructive to do so. Some of the objects named above may be kept in miind, particularly as to the influence of different playmates upon action, ideas and ideals. 3. The Play of the Older School Child. Here the student usually depends upon the child's own report. To encourage such a child, who usually talks about his play freely, to go into detail as to just what he does and why he does it and who suggests and leads, etc., will be very instructive. It would be both possible and desirable that the observer should watch the same child in the yard, on the playground, in the woods and other haunts of his group, etc., both imnoticed and as a part of the company. In all such studies that are to be reported, the age and sex of the child, and a fair report of all influential cir- cumstances, should be given. The purpose in each instance should be not to prove a thesis, but to discover the truth. 4. A Study of an Adult's Play. Make a self-examina- tion. Do you really play? When? How regularly? How do your play-interests differ from those when you 286 CHILD- STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING were a child? What does play do for you different from what it used to do ? Do you play enough ? Do you play to the best advantage? What, considering your needs, would be for you a model play program? TOPIC VI A CHILD'S READING What is desired in this study is knowledge of what children actually read, particularly with the thought of studying what they like and also of finding out how their likings may be wisely directed and bettered by adults. Any of the following methods of investigation would be fruitful. Work Under This Topic 1. An extant list of books that were read by some boy or girl. (Children sometimes keep such separate lists; others record them in diaries. In presenting such a list try to trace the ages represented at each point, and give the sex.) 2. A list procured by tracing back the record upon a given child's library card. 3. A composite list of children's reading, procured in co-operation with a children's librarian, by counting on the book-slips in the children's department the number of times books have been taken out during a given period. (The search might be for the twenty most popular books, but the titles least frequently sought for would be equally significant. It would be desirable, either by confining the search to a certain alcove restricted to children of a certain range of age or some other plan which the librarian may suggest, to discover what ages of children are repre- sented in the result.) 4. A list, prepared by co-operation with a given child, whose sex and age are reported, of all he reads during a short interval, including papers and magazines as well as books. PRACTICAL STORY-TELLING 287 5. A catalog of a child's library, with special notes to show two points, the books chosen by the child and those chosen by others for him, and which books are the child's favorites. 6. A catalog of a home bookcase, indicating by number, at least, the books which the children would enjoy read- ing and the departments of literature which such books represent. 7. A study of nickel novels. A report, produced by friendly co-operation with a dealer, of the series that are favorites with young people, indicating the proportion of boys and of girls and the range of age. The investigator should purchase samples of all the series in stock, and examine them for his report with reference to their style, their usefulness, their purity of language, their mechanical appearance, their moral tone, and the reasons adduced for their popularity. Suggestions as to possibilities of substitution would be helpful. 8. A statement of the resources and needs of the chil- dren's department of the local public library, prepared by co-operation with the librarian. 9. A similar statement concerning the local church library. See also Topic XXVI for more detailed sugges- tions on this point. TOPIC VII PRACTICAL STORY-TELLING So important is story-telling because of its emotional, its intellectual and its moral appeal, in the home, the school and the church, that this course would not be com- plete without one or more exercises by the class in the actual telling of stories. These exercises will not be effective unless the stor^^-telling is accompanied by criti- cism, kindly and friendly and intended to improve the technique of all who are present. Following are a few 288 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING suggestions as to subject, method of telling and plan for criticism. (We first studied story-telling in Chapter XIX.) Suggestions for Subjects 1. Some student may like to retell a story that has been told by another. The following are a few that are commonly accessible. In using them, the story-teller will, of course, make them his own so far as possible both in structure and language and will on no account read them to the class. " The Fisherman and His Wife," from Andersen. " The Story of Gareth," from the " Idyls of the King.' " The Pig Brother." " Pippa Passes," from Browning. From the Bible these are suggested : David and Mephibosheth. The Three Hebrew Children, from Daniel. Jezebel and Jehu. An excellent subject for experiment is the story of the visit of the three angels to Abraham, recorded in Gen. xviii. This is the passage: But Abraham moved his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron. And Jehovah appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he was sitting at the door of the tent in the heat of the day; and, as he looked up, he saw three men standing there opposite him. And as soon as he saw them, he ran from the door of the tent to meet them and bowed himself to the ground, and said. My lords, if now I have found favor in your sight, do not, I pray you, pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, I pray you, that you may wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree; and let me bring a bit of bread, that you may refresh yourselves; afterward you may go on your way, since for this reason you are passing by your servant. And they replied. Do even as you have .said. So Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and bake cakes. Abraham also ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, that he might prepare it quickly. And he took curds and milk, with the calf which hq PRACTICAL STORY-TELLING 289 had dressed, and set before them, and he was waiting on them under the tree, while they ate. Then they said to him, Where is thy wife? And he said, There within the tent. And he said, I will certainly return to thee about a year from now, and then Sarah thy wife shall have a son. From the standpoint of story-telHng method and of the child's interest, the angel-stories are the fairy-stories of the Bible, and they should be told with the same grace and lightness of touch. After two or three versions of this narrative have been given, the leader may like to present to this class the following, which is taken from an early chapter in " The Junior Bible," in the graded series of the Bible Study Union Lessons: Long, long ago, across the ocean there was a rich man named Abraham. He did not Hve in a fine house, as rich people do in this countr}^ and he did not keep his riches in a house. Instead of that, he had hundreds and thousands of sheep and goats and cattle ; and he and his wife Sarah lived in a tent on a great plain, where he could look after his many servants, as they cared for his flocks and herds. But although Abraham was so rich, he was not altogether happy. For he and his wife Sarah had no son or daughter. One day. God said to Abraham, " Go forth from thy coimtry, to a land that I will show thee. And I will surely bless thee, and make thy name great, so that thou shalt be a blessing." So Abraham obeyed God's command and he and Sarah, gathering up all their belongings, set out for the far-distant land. And he had a nephew named Lot who went "v^ath him. Lot also had many flocks and herds. It was a long journey. Part of the time they had to travel across a desert, where there was no water, nothing but dreary plains of sand. They had to be on the lookout all the time for Hons and other wild beasts, as well as robbers. But at last they came to the new land, which was called Canaan. Here Abraham and Lot found pastures for their flocks, and lived in their tents as they had done in their former home. And their flocks multiplied, and they grew richer and richer. One hot day, while he was living here, Abraham was sitting in front of his tent door; and it happened that three strangers came down to the road in front of his tent. And Abraham 290 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING called out to them: " My friends, stop here with me for awhile and rest; let a little water be brought, I pray you, that you may wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. And let me bring you a bit of bread, that you may refresh yourselves; afterwards you may go on your way." And the strangers accepted Abraham's invitation, and sat down by the tent. And Abraham called to Sarah and said to her: " Three strangers have just come, and I want to give them something to eat; bake some cakes for them right away, please." So Sarah took some flour, and baked a pan of cakes. And Abraham called a servant and said to him, " Make haste and bring a tender roast for some guests who have just come." So the servant did as Abraham said. And Abraham brought a pan of water so that the strangers could wash their feet; for they didn't wear shoes in those days as we do now, but only sandals. And after a time he brought them the cakes and the roast, and somie nice cool milk, and they had a good dinner. Now Abraham supposed that these three strangers were just ordinary travellers going on a journey; but really they were angels sent from God. And when they rose to go, what do you suppose they said? They said, " Because you have tried to obey aU God's commands, God is going to give you and Sarah a little son." And in about a year a baby was indeed bom to Abraham and Sarah, and they called his name Isaac. And he was the ancestor of the great nation called the Hebrews. 2. Some student may like to tell a story from a picture. The following are issued in the various penny series: The'^Age of Innocence (Reynolds). The Doctor (Fildes). The ChUd in the Temple (Hunt). The Gleaners (Millet). 3. Others may be willing to compose a narrative, on the old models or suggested by their own experience. Excellent sources for stories of a varied character are these : " Stories to Tell to Children " (Bryant). " For the Story-Teller " (Bailey). " Stories and Story-Telling " (Partridge). 4. The writer had a successful experience in a class of this sort by dictating a skeleton for a story, giving his class ten minutes' intermission and then asking each to PRACTICAL STORY-TELLING 291 tell a story built upon the required skeleton. The outline was this : A situation arises in which true worth of some sort will be made clear. Three persons, consciously or uncon- sciously, will show their worth in this respect, and there will be some recognition or reward for the most worthy. It was apparent that such a story would probably turn out to be useful for moral ends. The results were as- tonishingly varied, but each member of the class met the test easily (though previously all expressed alarm), all told good stories, and every story would have been immediately useful in moral education. One young woman placed her scene in a king's court, where unselfish- ness of conduct was attempted and recognized; another gave instances of self-denial in an athletic contest; a young man gave instances by which boys applying for a position endeavored in turn to prove their availability. It being understood that any story told to the class is intended for children, the story-teller should make state- ments before beginning, as to The purpose of the story. The age for which it is intended. The type of the stor^^ whether one of sense appeal, a myth, a legend, a fable, a fairy-story or a hero-tale. Each member of the class should try consciously to follow as many as possible of the suggestions given in Chapter XIX, particularly as to A good beginning. Plenty of action and sense appeal. A method of intense visualizing. The moral interwoven distinctly in the plot (not tagged on). A fine climax. Criticism is to be made of the stor}', not of the story- teller. It may follow along the lines of purpose indicated above : Has the story-teller gained his purpose ? Was his story appropriate to the age for which it was designed ? 292 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Was the story well constructed? Did it have the five virtues of a good story, just named? (A good beginning, plenty of action, etc.) 5. Another excellent method of studying a story is to study the child who is listening to the story, and for this reason it is well for each stor^^-teller to try her narrative on some real children and report the result, or to have the class present among children when some member of the class is telling her story. Miss Angela M. Keyes, in her excellent book on " The Story," says that a listening child may be making any one or more of the following responses to a story. Which reaction did your story- telling produce? (1) It is listening. (2) It is remaining silent. (3) It is commenting. (4) It is joining in. (5) It is retelling. (6) It is partially retelling. (7) It is telling other stories. (8) It is inventing stories. (9) It is expressing story images in other media. (10) It is playing the story. (11) It is growing by the power and grace of the story. TOPIC vm CHILDREN'S IDEAS OF PRAYER The object is to learn a little more about the spiritual conceptions that children hold, and to discover how to help them to clearer and more helpful views of the possi- bilities of personal communion with God. To avoid self- consciousness or the possibility of flippancy, it is desir- able that the children should be questioned when they are alone and in a quiet mood. Even more significant would be remarks dropped spontaneously and carefully recorded. CHILDREN'S INTEREST IN THE BIBLE 293 If questions are used, they should be framed so as not to suggest a preconceived reply or to sustain the logic of the questioner. Work Under This Topic 1. A report on a given child's views of prayer. At different times, perhaps, ask these questions: Why do people pray? Do you ever pray except when you " say your prayers"? What do you sometimes say when you pray that way ? Do you ever pray when you do not ask for something? Do you like to pray? Why? The above questions are only adapted to children about ten to twelve years old. 2. A sketch of the history of your own prayer life : Your first recollections of prayer ; how you were taught to pray ; the feelings with which you prayed at different ages of life; any reluctance to pray, and its cause, at any time; any cessation of the prayer habit, and its occasion; any loss of belief in the efhcacy of prayer at any time, and its provocation; any revival of the desire to pray, and its occasion ; a valuation of the habit of pra^^er in your spirit- ual development. 3. A history of the influence of family worship in your spiritual experience. 4. The effect upon ^''ourself of the prayers of others; your mother's prayers; " pulpit " prayers; the prayer- meeting; the Christian Endeavor society; the prayer- book; occasions of fast or thanksgiving. TOPIC IX CHILDREN'S INTEREST IN THE BIBLE This subject, which we touched in Chapter XXII, is of great importance to all those who have to do with re- ligious teaching. We do not know enough about it. Yet we are framing our Sunday-school curricula upon the meagre information that we have. It is of vital interest 294 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING to the home, in which the Bible is taught first to most children and where it should be of perpetual interest and influence. Work Under This Topic 1. Which Bible stories do your children most often ask for? Give ages and sexes and indicate order of prefer- ence in each case. Where you know, give the stated reason for the preference. 2. What parts of the Bible do your children most enjoy hearing read to them? Use the same methods of report as in 3. 3. How did you take possession of the Bible? What parts do you first remember? How did you get access to them? Through stories, hearing them read, through a story-Bible, through a King James version? Did the style or the pictures in the book affect your interest in any way? Which did you enjoy more, the literal version or some paraphrase ? State successively what other parts interested you, when and why. Did you have any par- ticular aversions; if so, on what account? What are now your favorite portions and why ? 4. How has the Sunday school affected the interest of your children in the Bible? Give age and sex and grade in Sunday school and indi- cate in a general way the methods of instruction, naming the textbooks used. Some persons say an early teaching of the Bible in Sunday school destroys interest in it later. How about it? What specifically have these children seemed to gain as the result of Sunday-school teaching? 5. What influences in life have led you to the Bible? Parents, Sunday school, sermons, reading in public school, influences of other literature, interest of friends, sorrows, curiosity, etc. ? Name all, and indicate how they stimu- lated or guided or upheld such reading. 6. What influence, if any, has the so-called " modem viewpoint " of the Bible had upon young people old enough to know anything about it? Talk with a few thoughtful boys and girls of high-school age. 7. Get the attitude of a number of young people, prefer- PERSONS WHO HAVE INFLUENCED ME 295 ably over ten, as to the accounts of miracles in the Bible. Do they believe in them, or do they account for them? What effect does their attitude seem to have upon their religious life? 8. If you know young people -who read the Bible daily, or with considerable regularity, find out what course of reading they adopt, what are their conscious motives, whether or not they enjoy it, what they think they get out of it. 9. Read aloud to a child who is not much interested in the Bible narrative passages from one of the new transla- tions, Moffatt's or Weymouth's or the Twentieth Century New Testament, and report the reaction. TOPIC X PERSONS WHO HAVE INFLUENCED ME " Me " in the title means anyone who can be induced to give testimony. We have already learned that the personal touch is the most effective force in moral educa- tion. We desire today to confirm that knowledge by individual testimony, and further to endeavor to learn just what qualities in personality are noticeably influen- tial. So far as possible, we would like to have the testi- mony from people of different ages and concerning those in different walks of life who have been influential. Work Under This Topic 1. Name to yourself the persons who have been notable milestones of influence in your life. Taking them in order, of your own age, ask yourself these questions: Which, in order of rank, were more influential to me in this person ? Appearance. Dress. Benefits received from. Manners. 296 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Affectionate demeanor. Athletic prowess. Intellectual ability. Social graces. Goodness. Make some sort of tabulation or summary as to what quaHties impressed you most at each age. 2. Try to get from several children (noting age and sex) their frankest statements as to whom they admire (not " love," " like ") most, and get them to say why. 3. Ask a number of children (noting age and sex) whom they would best wish to be like. Tell them that persons no longer living may be included. Such a study, in nine chapters, was undertaken in Earl Barnes' " Studies in Education," second series, under the caption, " Type Study of Ideals," with a large number of children. Do not compare notes until you have finished your own questionnaire. 4. Find out from as many groups of children as possible who is their leader, and find out why. It may be necessary to get several school teachers to suggest names of boy and girl leaders, because such leadership is sometimes more clearly recognized by adults than by the children themselves. The question may be put to a child like this: " Why is it that you think so m.uch of what Frank Smith says or does? " In Earl Barnes' " Studies in Education," first series, p. 295, is a short paper on " What Determines Leadership in Children's Plays." 5. Gather instances of influences from books of biog- raphy, and analyze them. A morning spent in scanning the early pages of the books in the biographical section of the public library will be fruitful. There is a wealth of testimony in G. Stanley Hall's " Adolescence " in the chapter on " Adolescence in Literature, Biography and History." See also charming details in the prologue of Grahame's " The Golden Age," Winston's " Memoirs of a Child," II, and Una Hunt's " Una Mary," I, VIII, X, XII. 6. Read a selected book to a child or a group of children, and ask which character they like best, and why. CRISES IN A CHILD'S LIFE 297 " Little Men " was tried by a writer in Earl Barnes' " Studies in Education," first series, p. 94. 7. Ask as many church members as possible this ques- tion: Through whose influence are you in the church today? Analyze the replies to discover in how many cases it was that of: the minister, a church officer, a par- ent, a Sunday-school teacher, someone else. 8. What are the characteristics of their best teacher, as recognized by a school of children? (This inquiry could be undertaken only through the co-operation of the super- intendent of a public or Sunday school. The result of such an inquiry is described by Kratz in his " Studies and Observations in the School-Room," Chapter V.) TOPIC XI CRISES IN A CHILD'S LIFE This is not meant to be solely a study of religious con- version or of adolescent phenomena. Perhaps these have been studied proportionately too much. The thought is to gather and interpret instances which the child of various ages has regarded or which the adult upon retro- spect now regards as having been noteworthy turning- points in life. Separate researches are suggested, but it is to be hoped that someone, the leader cr another, may attempt at this or the next session some correlation and unified interpretation, if such be possible. Work Under This Topic 1. What was the first startling experience that was influential in your life? Was it a shock, perhaps of fear? Was it a sorrow? Was it a misunderstanding? Or a sickness? Or a revelation? How did it affect you at the time? What has been its abiding influence ? The experi- ence may not have been a favorable one; this is to be remembered in the report. 2. What, if any, was the turning-point in your life? A 298 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING sickness or sorrow? A religious conversion? A friend? An experience of love ? A vocational purpose ? etc. 3. What other crises or strong experiences led up to or followed your religious conversion? This is an important but unstudied theme. One person has said that while at the time he regarded his conversion as the watershed of his life, he now recognizes that, as he puts it, " the times when he has done something to make him ashamed of himself " and then repented have been of much deeper moral significance. 4. What crises have you already noted in your chil- dren's lives? Be quite explicit here as to their nature, the changes you have noticed, and their probable future effect. Note undesirable as well as desirable experiences. 5. What experiences in the life of a religious person who " never remembers when he was converted " are a substitute for the experience of conversion? For what experiences is conversion a substitute ? Testimonies upon this point from such individuals, if there be any in the class, will be precious, because this type of mind has not been well understood. 6. Give in detail the experiences that came to you in connection with your religious awakening or awakenings. TOPIC XII HELPING CHILDREN IN HOME STUDY No problem is more difficult to the average parent than this of trying to assist the child in doing his home work. The difficulty comes partly from the fact that the teacher may not have expected or suggested that such help was to be given and has given neither the child nor the mother directions as to how help may profitably be offered, but it is more likely in the fact that the parent tries to help the child get some definite lesson rather than to learn how to get it himself. In other words, what the parent ought HELPING CHILDREN IN HOME STUDY 299 to do is not to find the answer to some problem but to show the child how to study. Work Under This Topic 1. Right conditions for home study. Take the follow- ing statements as to what constitute suitable conditions for successful home study. Note today those which are lacking and the results. Work out with a given child the changes that are necessary in order to meet these sug- gested standards and after a given time report the results. (a) Have the child select afresh the time when he be- lieves himself at his best for work. If necessary, have him experiment a bit about this, tr>dng the hour just after school, the hour before supper, the hour after supper, an hour before school in the morning. (6) Arrange so that the week-end does not interfere with the regularity of the plan. That is, if the afternoon is the selected time do not let Friday afternoon be an exception on the ground that there " will be plenty of time before Monday." (c) Choose a secluded place. If there is a quiet comer in the house, let the child have it. If there is not, allow him to go to the public library or ask permission to remain in school. Let the place be one where the child cannot look out of the window or hear noises from the street or be influenced by others who are at play. (d) Choose a room in which there are no distracting sights, such as pictures, books or playthings. Have the child seat himself as nearly as possible in a situation simi- lar to that in school, with no distractions. (e) Have him set his task clearly before him, and then set a time limit for finishing it. (J) Have him go about his work in the most direct way, by having all his books, papers and implements immedi- ately at hand. Have him go to work calmly, cheerfully and briskly. (g) Ask him to remember as clearly as possible how the teacher told him to go to work as well as what she told him to do, and to rise with a distinct conquest achieved. 300 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING (h) Tell him: " When you get through pumping, let go the handle." Don't have him leave unfinished work or do his work in two installments or worry about it after it is finished. 2. Right habits in home study. Let the parent for a number of days accompany a child in his home study with the single aim of teaching him how to study. Use the following methods, in the order given, as many of them as possible each day. (They are drawn largely from Lida B. Earhart's " Teaching Children to Study," pp. 144-175.) (a) Ask the child what his problem is, what he is trying to find out. (b) Ask him what he has, in the textbook or elsewhere, to help him find out. (c) Ask him what he has already learned that will help him find out. (d) Ask him if the teacher made any suggestion today that may help him find out. (e) Have him (1) gather his data, (2) organize it into related groups, (3) use his judgment, (4) apply himself thoroughly in the execution. (/) Let him bring to you the result, if he has one. If he has not, go over the points again, discover which, if any, he neglected, find the point of difficulty, and as a last resort show him how to use the neglected process. Report to the class in what ways this analytical method seemed to help the pupil. 3. Actual ways of home study. As a help toward understanding the mental processes of children who have home work to do, an exercise like the following is sug- gested. The idea is taken from Kratz' " Studies and Observations in the School -Room." Kratz tried it with a roomful of pupils, but a result could be secured from a single child. He began by telling the class that just as children who run away from school need a truant officer to go after them, so the mind sometimes plays truant and needs to be recalled. " Now I want you to watch your- selves as to how you study. I want you to detect your own bad habits in wasting time, and then set HOME DISCIPLINE 301 about correcting them. Let us take up the study of the . I'll give you five minutes to study the page which describes and finally leads up to a definition of the . I want you to do your best to keep your minds on the subject. Be alert to catch your mind wan- dering and bring it back as quickly as possible. I will indicate when your five minutes are over and then I want you to write out in the next five minutes, How I Tried to Study the . Mention the distractions and indi- cate how much time you think you lost." The results (as given in his Chapter XVI) are interesting as to the methods of memorizing used, and the amount of distrac- tions admitted. The device itself was of some value, because several pupils said they never learned so much in a given time in their lives. TOPIC XIII HOME DISCIPLINE AS SUGGESTED IN THE BIBLE This topic is selected for two reasons. Every great col- lection of books that contains the history and ideals of a race includes its ideals of the family and of childhood and intimations as to its theories of child training. Such sug- gestions are profoundly interesting both as interpretations of the spirit of that race and of some trends in its history. Secondly, to us who are Christians that collection which includes not only the early annals of our own religion, but the story of the race from which it issued is of the closest interest as strengthening and possibl}^ modifying our own viewpoint. We shall not expect to find formal statements about child study and child training in the Bible (though we do come near to finding the latter in the Book of Proverbs), but we may search successfully for ideals that were worked out in practice. The student is asked to select a subject 302 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING for investigation through careful reading from the follow- ing: Work Under This Topic 1. Some ideals as to parenthood and child training in the Book of Proverbs. (Just a few suggestive refer- ences are given. The student is to find and discuss others.) The sanctity of the home (v; vi: 20-35; xxvii:6-ll; iii: 33-35). The functions of fathers and of mothers (iv; xxxi: 10- 31). Thoughts on child training (ii: 1 — iii: 26; xv: 1, 2; xxii: 5, 6), etc. 2. Parts of the Bible that were evidently intended for the direct nurture of children. (Indicate the specific purposes for which these and other passages w^ere pre- pared.) Psalms cxxviii. Psalms cxliv: 11-15. Proverbs vi: 6-11. Proverbs vii. Luke ii. 3. The words of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels about the family, childhood and the relation of the young to religion. Try to put these in the form of a number of terse, logical maxims. 4. Paul's theories as to child training. (The classical passage is Eph. v: 1 — vi: 4, but find others, and arrange the gist of all in somewhat of a system.) TOPIC XIV RELIGION IN THE HOME It will be interesting and important for the home- makers who are in the class to know what other home- makers are doing in the way of introducing religious influ- ences into their home life. Such an inquiry must not be THE TRACES OF THE GANG 303 inquisitive or censorious and can be conducted only in- directly. General free conference in the midweek meeting would be one method; informal conversations conducted by the pastor on his rounds and by members of the class as they meet their friends would serve to give a general impression. A questionnaire to be filled out by many church members whose signatures were not demanded would give explicit knowledge. Information that would be desirable would cover some of these points : 1. How general is the custom of saying grace at table? 2. How general are daily or weekly family prayers? 3. How generally are little children taught to say prayers ? 4. How common is Sunday hymn-singing in the home? 5. In how many homes do parents and children talk freely upon religious matters? 6. How common is the habit of family church-going? 7. What proportion of the families of church members engage in systematic benevolence? 8. What books of distinct religious value are common in the homes ? TOPIC XV THE TRACES OF THE GANG Any study of any group activity of children should begin with the question, Is this a gang? The word " gang " is not in universal use among bo3^s, and is not used at all by girls. A party or a picnic is not necessarily composed of a gang, even if the invitations were all given by a child. A Sunday-school class may not constitute a gang. In each and all of these there will, however, probably be traces of a gang. We can study a group which by the avowal of its own members is constant and self-cohering and so in the true sense, a gang, and we can study another group that is accidental, and still learn something about gangs. We have already studied the gang in Chapter XXVIII. 304 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Work Under This Topic 1. Gather all the facts you can, both from insiders and outsiders, about any club or society of boys or girls which you know to have been formed and managed by children without adult aid and encouragement. (a) Who was or is its leader? (b) How did it start? (c) What was and is its purpose? (d) How often does it meet? (e) Where does it meet? (/) What does it do? (g) What are the ages of its members ? How many are there ? (h) How are they chosen? (i) What is the form of organization? How are meet- ings conducted ? How are members secured and dropped ? (;') What in detail is the character of its influence upon its individual members ? 2. What games are the gangs playing in our city at this time of year? In the spring? In the fall? In the winter? How do they play, and what is the influence of their play upon the individual? 3. The gang and juvenile delinquency. Ask the juvenile court judge or a police captain or officer if the group spirit has any direct relation to the conduct of those who get into trouble. If so, what can be done about it? 4. What conscious efforts are we making in our church to turn the social instinct to good account? In our Sunday school, our social work, our endeavors to build up the membership of our church? 5. The gang idea in our poHtics. Is it present ? How does it work? How can it be met? Can the gang idea be used for clean politics ? 6. The big brother idea in our town. How can it be used in our church, in our schools, in the moral life of the community ? 7. What is the boy problem socially as you see it for a group of boys in whom you are interested? THE VACATION PROBLEM 305 8. Organize a club of boys who need your help, remem- bering and recognizing the gang impulse in your plans, and report to the class later how this recognition has affected the success of your work. Could some study be made of this topic by remi- niscence, e. g., did you, in childhood, belong to a club, or society, spontaneously organized by you and your mates, without adult help or suggestion? How old were you? How did the organization start? Where did it meet? What did it do? TOPIC XVI THE VACATION PROBLEM The vacation season is the wasted fallow field in many a child's year. It is one of the most trying problems of home management. The following inquiries are intended to center constructive thought upon this matter. 1. How my child spent his last summer vacation. (The parent who answers this may accept the assignment either because the vacation was a fruitful or a fruitless one ; in'either case the experience is bound to be instructive to others.) 2. The advantages and disadvantages of the summer camp. (This should be taken by one who has had an experience with a camp conducted by the Y. M. C. A., the church, the Boy Scouts, or by school men.) 3. The possibilities of the family camp. 4. The possibilities of the work camp. (A helpful suggestion may come from the leaflet " Vacation Em- ployment " by William A. McKeever of the University of Kansas, published by the author.) 5. The pro and con of the public playground and recrea- tion park. 6. The possibilities of finding worth-while employment for young people in the summer-time. (The author has a booklet entitled " Money-making and Thrift for Boys and s.-'**. »• ■«» 306 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Girls," published by the American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia.) 7. Are there any dangers to be avoided in vacation jobs ? TOPIC XVII A SURVEY OF A SINGLE SCHOOL In order to make any adequate study even of one public school it is necessary to see it against the background of the school administration of the whole city and to study not only its own equipment, but its relations to the neighborhood and to community welfare. The following " Twelve Marks of an Efficient School " were prepared by Dr. Elizabeth Kember Adams of Smith College for such a test as ours, and are used by her special permission. Two or three of the points may be taken by one student, but the tenth item, if followed out in full, may require miore than one investigator. It is suggested that for our special purpose emphasis be laid upon items 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12. 1. Small, non-partisan Board of Education or School Committee (3-9 members) appointed or elected at large. Superintendent of Schools with term of not less than three years. 2. School funds raised primarily through local taxation with only secondary dependence upon State funds. School finances managed on business principles by some one accountable to Board of Education. 3. A clear, brief school report issued regularly and if possible annually, preferably in pamphlet form, and designed for the information of the tax-payer and the public generally. Expenses stated in terms of some simple unit of expenditure, such as pupil or sitting, so that school may be compared with school, year with year, this school system with other school systems, with respect to such items as instruction, supplies, heating, lighting, repairs, permanent improvement, etc. School records carefully A SURVEY OF A SINGLE SCHOOL 307 kept so that report may contain tables showdng attendance in relation to total number of children of school age, relations of age and grade, of promotions and " school mortality " (number dropping out of school), etc. 4. IVIodem or modernized school bmldings with ade- quate fire protection and floor space, and with well- ventilated, heated and lighted classrooms, desks and seats adjustable, adjusted, and preferably movable, sanitary drinking fountains, and sanitar}^ plumbing. 5. Aledical inspection and supervision of all pupils, not only for exclusion from school of those suffering from contagious diseases, but for the discovery and treatment of removable or improvable defects of eyes, ears, throat, teeth, etc. Persistent efforts to make school conditions hygienic and so far as possible to counteract and to im- prove bad home conditions of pupil with respect to cleanli- ness, nutrition and supply of fresh air. Proper luncheon provided at low cost to pupils who do not go home at noon. If possible, school nurse who shall give " follow- up " treatment at home. 6. Adequate playground space in connection with school, with intelligent adult supervision and direction of play. At least twenty minutes of outdoor recess during a school day with double session. Single session for little children, unless the school conditions are much superior to the home conditions. 7. Adequate supervision (by superintendent, principals, etc., and by supervisors of special subjects) not absorbing over six to twelve per cent of money appropriated for instruction. A certain standard of education and of professional training required of all teachers. Salaries sufficient to prevent constant changing of teachers. Pro- motion and increase of salary for length of service or further professional training or both, plus efficiency. 8. Small percentage of pupils dropping out of various grades; small percentage leaving at expiration of com- pulsory^ school period without graduation from the ele- mentar}^ school ; small percentage of truancy and juvenile misdemeanor; fair percentage of elementar}^ graduates 308 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING entering high school ; large percentage of these graduated from high school ; fair percentage of high school graduates entering colleges or professional schools. 9. In elementary school not more than thirty-five to forty pupils in one room and under charge of one teacher; in high school not more than twenty-five to thirt}'' pupils in one class for recitation. Flexible system of promotions, not less frequent than every half year. Small percentage of pupils having -to repeat entire work of grade because of failure in one subject; recognition of desirability of pro- motion by subjects in upper grades and in high school. Effort made to recognize different rates of work of dull, average, and bright pupils, and to make provisions for these differences. 10. School system including as many of the follow- ing phases of work and equipment as local conditions permit : (a) Kindergartens. (b) Evening schools. (c) Vacation schools including both grade work and high-school work. (d) Special classes for sub-normal children. (e) Special classes or work for exceptionally bright children. (/) Manual training and domestic science classes, (g) Trade schools or classes. (h) Continuation industrial classes for minors at work, (i) School and home gardens. (;') Physical training; g^^mnasiums in schools. (k) School and classroom libraries. (/) School and classroom collections for science and nature study. (m) Simple apparatus for laboratory work in science. (n) School collection of photographs. (o) School camera and stereopticon equipment. (p) Assembly halls. (q) Rooms for medical inspection and simple treatment. (r) Teachers' rest-rooms. {s) Home and school visitors. SOCIAL SITUATION IN OUR HIGH SCHOOL 309 IL School related to community through (a) Regular use of local library, museum, art-gallery, etc. (b) Pupils taken by teachers to places in neighborhood of natural, historic, civic, industrial and aisthetic interest. (c) Exhibitions of work of school open to parents and to citizens generally. (d) Participation by pupils in local celebrations and enterprises of various kinds. (e) Home and school associations with regular meetings at school. 12. Community interest in school sho\ATi by (a) Organized efforts for school improvement by home and school associations, women's clubs, commercial and industrial organizations, public officials, local improvement leagues, etc. (b) Gifts to schools by organizations or by individual citizens. (c) Space given to school affairs in local press. TOPIC XVIII THE SOCIAL SITUATION IN OUR HIGH SCHOOL We all wish to keep our pubhc schools democratic. We know that a varied social life has been growing up in our high schools of late. Much of it is undoubtedly educative; some of it has aroused criticism. Just what is the situation in our own city, and what may we do to improve it? Work Under This Topic 1. Talk with a number of high-school boys and girls as well as with their teachers, to learn if there are acknowl- edged or unacknowledged secret fraternities and sororities in the school. If there are, find out from these sources (1) how many they are, (2) how many members, what proportion of the boys and girls of the school they in- 310 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING elude, (3) how they are supervised and directed, (4) what their aims are, (5) where, when and how often they meet, (6) what are their expenses, (7) what is the feehng toward them of the rest of the school, (8) what is their influence upon their members, (9) what is the attitude toward them of the teachers, (10) what suggestions for improvement may be made. 2. In a similar v/ay, learn what acknowledged and non-secret societies there are in the school, and study these under the same headings. 3. In the general student body, what social facts ap- pear: (1) as to the manner of dress? (2) as to class-con- sciousness, cliquishness or snobbishness? (3) as to race- discriminations? (4) as to favoritism? TOPIC XIX THE STREET LIFE OF BOYS An interesting and important line of study in a city large enough to have a street life of its own is the relation of boys to that life, particularly in the evening. Two directions of inquiry may be pursued side by side, the study of the situation and of the remedy. Always give the ages of the boys you mention. 1. The Situation. (a) How many boys, and how many of each age, as revealed by the license records or the statements of the newspapers, are news sellers? What proportion of these attend school? What proportion peddle on the street and what deliver from house to house? How late at night is the vending or delivery of papers permitted? How early in the morning does it begin ? (6) How many boys work in pool rooms ? Under what conditions? (c) How many in saloons? Under what conditions? (d) How many as telegraph messengers? Under what conditions ? THE STREET LIFE OF BOYS 311 (e) How many bootblacks? Under what conditions? (J) What other undesirable employments or amuse- ments have places for boys? What are the objectionable features ? (g) On a given night within a period of three hours, from eight to eleven, how many boys were noted in the downtown district, what apparently were they there for (give number of boys in each case), and what did they do? (h) How many went to the theatre ? How many to mov- ing-picture houses? How many to penny shows? How many into saloons ? How many used gambling devices ? How many were simply loafing and idling about ? (i) If not otherwise planned, the study of theatres and moving-picture shows, suggested elsewhere, would be appropriate in connection with this study. 2. The Way Out. (a) How in general might the desires which imperil boys on our streets be turned in wholesome directions? (b) What has our Y. M. C. A. to offer boys evenings, on what terms and in what frequency? (c) What other good social institutions make their ap- peal to the boy downtown (such as social settlements, clubs for street boys, evening playgrounds, church clubs, night schools) ? (d) Have we a curfew ordinance? How well is it en- forced? How effective is it? What encouraging experi- ence with it have other cities had? (e) How far is it feasible for our homes to retain their boys evenings? What are some attractive and practic- able plans for doing this? Would a co-operative effort of neighboring homes be effective? (/) Would the larger use of our schoolhouses and churches be helpful? In just what ways? What can be done ? How ? Note. The Bovs' Club Federation, 1 Madison Avenue, New York, and the Boys' Department of the International Y. M. C. A., 128 East 28th Street, New York, are interested in the problem of the street, and would be glad to give further suggestions for making investigations or practical methods. 312 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING TOPIC XX WHAT WAS GOING ON IN OUR TOWN LAST WEEK FOR YOUNG PEOPLE? A census, taken from the papers and other announce- ments and from personal knowledge, of the public and private social occasions of a single week, is bound to be very enlightening. It may suggest serious conditions, pressing needs, large opportunities. The discussion, to be eflFective, must measure as well as enimierate the recreational opportunities, and should suggest what personal and co-operative endeavor might do to counteract the influence of commercial or degrading amusements. TOPIC XXI THE MOTION-PICTURE SHOWS IN OUR TOWN The motion picture has suddenly become the universal source of amusement. Its possibilities, for good or evil, are almost unlimited. On the w^hole, its tendencies are for good, but each communit}^ decides for itself what class of pictures it w^ants, what the moral influences of these centers of entertainment shall be, and how they shall be, or shall not be, used for educational ends. Following are several lines of stud}^ which might be pursued at one time, 1. The General Situation. (a) How many show-houses are there in our city? (b) What hcense fees do they pay annually? (c) What restrictions are they required to meet : As to fire protection. As to sanitation, As to admittance of children, As to censorship of films, As to moral supervision? (d) To what extent are these restrictions lived up to? (e) What is the reputation of the j^ersons who own and manage these houses? MOTION PICTURES IN OUR TOWN 313 (/) What are the usual prices of admission? What are their total estimated receipts in a year ? (g) What proportion of our people attend these shows ? (h) How is the attendance divided: men, women and children, da^^-time, evenings and Sundays; children, after- noons, evenings before nine, evenings after nine? 2. Special Observations. It would be even more to the point in getting the specific influence of these entertainments if an investigator would confine himself to a single house or to a group of houses that reaches a certain neighborhood and make as many as possible of the following observations: (a) Visit the house more than once and at different times of the day and evening. (&) Note the safety from fire and panic, and hygienic condition of the building. (c) Note the number and character of the patrons (as under " h " above). (d) Note the character of the films and of other enter- tainment. (e) Talk with the managers as to where they get their reels, what opportunity they have to learn their character in advance, what regulations they have to meet as to censorship and inspection, what restrictions they impose as to behavior, what class of patrons they have and seek, whether they especially cater to children and how, and what in general are their ideals. Discover if any would respond to an organized group of patrons who desire the best for themselves, their children and the community. Whether they would exhibit educational and feature films Saturdays, if supported by the teachers and intelligent parents of the community. (/) Note whether objectionable social relations result from casual meetings here. (g) Find out from children, parents and teachers how frequently each week children of various ages visit these houses. (h) Learn from the same sources what they think as to the influence upon (1) eyesight, (2) ability to attend and 314 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING concentrate, (3) alertness in school, (4) general intelli- gence, (5) nervous vitality, (6) poise and contentment, (7) efficiency, (8) morality. 3. The theatre may be studied in similar ways. In such a study it would also be interesting to take into account and to discover the influence which the motion picture is having upon the theatre, not only financially, but as to the character of plays, the attendance of children, etc. TOPIC XXII OBSCENE LITERATURE Definite information is desirable as to whether obscene literature is being circulated in the community. The following points are worthy of investigation in this con- nection : 1. Are pictures or postcards being offered publicly for sale that are not merely vulgar, but obscene in character? 2. What periodicals, if any, printed in English or any other language, are circulated in our town which are objectionable on this ground? 3. Which local periodicals, if any, admit advertisements of quack doctors or of medicines for the social diseases? 4. Are pamphlets or circulars of such doctors or reme- dies being circulated? 5. Are objectionable billboards allowed? What in- stances? Who is responsible? 6. In view of these facts, what action, if any, is needed ? TOPIC XXIII THE SOCIAL EVIL Such a class as this will not be able or willing to pursue the inquiry as to the social evil thoroughly, as has been done in notable surveys that have been made in Chicago THE SALOON AND YOUNG PEOPLE 315 and other cities. Such surveys need to be made by ex- perts and must cover a wide range. The following would be appropriate questions to be asked, with the purpose of knowing how pressing is the local situation : 1. Temptations. (a) The extent of the circulation of obscene or suggestive literature and pictures. (b) The number of objectionable penny-in-the-slot places, motion-picture shows, and burlesque houses. (c) The number of objectionable dance halls and social clubs. (d) Other places where boys and girls meet without due restraint. (e) The number of houses of ill fame. 2. The Situation. (a) The extent of the social evil in the high school. (b) Among wage-earning boys and girls. (c) Among newsboys, messengers, bell boys, etc. (d) The prevalence of social diseases among the young. 3. The Cure. (a) The extent of sex instruction in our homes. (b) The preventive work of social organizations that work among the young. (c) The wholesome influence of the school. (d) The influence of the church. The wisest method of pursuing this study would be by personal interviews with judicious persons in the police force, the juvenile courts, the local settlements and mis- sions, the Crittenden Home, among the physicians and teachers, and some older boys in the schools. TOPIC XXIV THE SALOON AND YOUNG PEOPLE The following question sheet, used by the Young Men's Christian Association in a Survey of the Boyhood of Detroit, is suggested for this investigation: 316 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING Date ; Day ; Hour ; Place ..; Address 1. Description of place 2. Number of boys present under 16 ; under 21 3. Number of girls under 18 ; under 21 4. Loafing ; gambling ; drinking ; pool playing 5. Class of boys 6. Class of girls 7. Obscene literature or pictures on display 8. What attracts the boys? Entertainments? Music? Singing? Dancing ? Story-telling ? 9. Bartender, man, woman or child? 10. Methods used by saloon for new recruits 11. Distance from school or church 12. Impression 13. Remarks For the study of a single saloon this sheet should be used by several persons at different times of the day and night. It should be supplemented by the testimony of neighbors, of the police, of the police court magistrate, and of habitues. Particular subjects for inquiry would be : Adherence to legal hours for opening, sale of liquor to minors, use of the saloon as a social center by men, women and children, general influence on morals. For an adequate study of the situation in a district such a method should be applied to all the saloons in the dis- trict. TOPIC XXV OUR PLAYGROUNDS The Playground and Recreation Association of America, 1 Madison Avenue, New York, is glad to direct those who wish to make a comprehensive study of the local recreational situation and to give counsel for its improve- THE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND THE CHILDREN 317 ment. The following inquiries would set before the class the main features which it needs to know. 1. How many public, supervised playgrounds has our city, including those in school grounds, public parks, and in connection with playground associations, settlements, churches, etc. ? How are these located in relation to the social needs of the young people? (A map with stars for sites would be useful here.) How many of them are open and supervised evenings? How many make suitable provision for little children ? For older boys ? 2. Are children, in every sense, safe there? Is the playground apparatus adequate? How are the children conducted to and from the grounds ? May mothers assist as voluntary leaders of the children? To what extent are these playgrounds successful in displacing the attrac- tions of the streets? 3. How many places of informal and unsupervised play do we have? Where are they? What are their influ- ences? What should be done about them? TOPIC XXVI- THE PUBLIC LIBRARY AND THE CHILDREN A friendly study of the local public Hbrary should have as its end the discovery of the needs of the library and its possibilities, and the needs of the children who are within its reach. Some of the following points may be brought out by co-operation with the librarian. 1. A library is usually best administered by an inde- pendent board, and not as a part of the city school system. This board should be composed of persons who are not only unselfish, but who have literary taste and who will give the library much thought and care. What is the case in our city? 2. A Hbrary should have a large, sunny and airy special room for children. Is ours adequate? 318 CHILD STUDY AND CHILD TRAINING 3. The library staff should include enough persons to take good care of the children's room, who have been thoroughly trained and who are sufficiently paid. Is all this true with us? 4. There should be a large, modern, well-selected and ■ attractively arranged collection of children's books. This, of course, is the principal thing. The one who reports upon this should do so in considerable detail, making need- ful comments. i 5. The children's library should have sufficient funds to permit of keeping its stock of books clean and of replenish- ing and increasing the stock as needed. What is the condition in our library in this respect ? 6. What plans are being made effective, if an}^ to bring the library closer to all the children, (a) By attractive bulletins and other publicity ? (6) By story-hours and informal talks? (c) By branches or depositories in schools, shops, stores ? (d) By other relationships with the schools? 7. What can our class best do to advance the interests of the library? TOPIC XXVII THE INFLUENCE OF CIVIC BEAUTY UPON YOUNG PEOPLE 1. What influence does the general appearance of our t' >wn have upon its young people ? Walk through as many streets as possible, imagining yourself a young person considering whether or not to come here and live, and try to see everything freshly. Note especially: the surroundings of the railroad station, the noticeableness of smoke, the pavements, billboards, alleys, care of private grounds, freedom or littering of sidewalks, presence or absence of rubbish and of recep- tacles for rubbish, number, convenience and appearance INFLUENCE OF CIVIC BEAUTY 319 of parks and open spaces, number and character of saloons, comparative neatness and care of churches, apparent presence or absence of lounging places and haunts of vice, number and character of loungers, general appearance of thrift, pride, prosperity, public spirit, or the opposite. 2. What is being done in any of our schools to secure the active co-operation of the school children in any action for civic beautification : On the school grounds? On the streets (such as picking up papers, not scattering papers) ? In the home yards (use of school packets of seeds) ? On special days (such as Arbor Day, Clean-up Week) ? By special organizations (such as Scouts, Junior Street Cleaning Leagues) ? 3. What are some practical projects for enlisting the children in city improvement ? Secure information about what the Boy Scouts have done, elsewhere; about junior civic leagues (from the United Society of Christian En- deavor, Boston) ; about Clean-up Weeks, about school gardening and home gardening projects (from the National School Garden Association, New York). UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. AUG 12)>J95U '.«' 9^\ QL^ f/i(^p 3 1 1984 L Form L9 — 15m-10,'48(B1039)444 AA 000 427 978 2 3 1158 00929 7531 UL ^•^^