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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
CONCERNING
CHILDREN
BY
CHARLOTTE PERKINS [STETSON] GILMAN
AUTHOR OF “WOMEN AND ECONOMICS,” “IN THIS OUR WORLD,
“THE YELLOW WALL paper”
[issued
for the rationalist press association, limited,
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH MESSRS. G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS]
London :
WATTS & CO.,
17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
1907
��CONTENTS
PAGE
I.
II.
The Precious Ten
The Effect
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Minding
of
on the
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Two
IV.
V.
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20
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The Burnt Child Dreads the Slipper
Two Together
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Mind
III.
and
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35
A Place for Children
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41
VII.
Unconscious Schooling
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48
VIII.
Presumptuous Age
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53
VI.
Teachable Ethics
IX.The Respect Due
X.
XI.
XII.
to
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Youth -
Too Much Consideration
Six Mothers
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82
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Meditations on the Nurse-Maid
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XIII.
Children and Servants
XIV.
Social Parentage
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Mothers, Natural and Unnatural-
XV.
56
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61
�TO
MY DAUGHTER KATHARINE,
WHO HAS TAUGHT ME MUCH OF WHAT
IS WRITTEN HERE
�INTRODUCTION
This book is, broadly speaking, a plea for human motherhood. It is
written by a woman studying her own child and learning through her
own experience. But it is written by a free woman, whose life is not
overmastered, but sustained, by natural affection and primal instinct.
For the book is an attempt to define the workings of the deep impulse of
love for offspring as it separates itself from its lower forms and, rising
from the narrow channels prepared for it in the brute brain, fills with
warm and vivifying waves all those higher reaches of mental and moral
life which are summed up in the word “ humanity.”
The book is more than original. It is a pioneer book. It breaks new
ground. Its attitude to the young child is at once impersonal and yet
more reverent than anything we have met even in the works of the
greatest philosophers and child-students. This tiny slave of slaves,
whose fetters we have hidden for centuries under roses—this little being
“fretted with sallies of his mother’s kisses,” but from whom an abject
submission is often exacted as the first of child-virtues—is now introduced
to us as a human being with feelings; a being who does not like, small as
he is, to be treated as a slave or as a standing joke and a thing to be
played with 1 The writer shows us “ the clear-eyed child struck dumb
and crimson by the rude laughter of his elder over an act which had no
element of humour for him,” or burning with a sense of injury in being
punished for speaking rudely back to an elder who has first spoken as
rudely in provocation. It was the task of the modern psychologist to
show us that the child is not a small man or woman. It is the task of
Mrs. Gilman to show that the child is nevertheless human.
“ But surely,” it may be said, “ all this is obvious already. The
mother’s eye sees so much !” And, indeed, the mother’s eyes do see a
great deal, and are much occupied. Unfortunately, however, human
eyes cannot be everywhere at the same time. It is curious to see how, as
we mount in the scale of vision, range is sacrificed to quality; so that, for
example, a cat’s eyes have a smaller range than a rabbit’s. A human
being’s vision is a much more complicated and interesting thing than
even a cat’s, but it is not exercised over a widening area. On the
contrary, the highest types of people are inclined to be myopic.
This, then, raises the striking question : “ What are mothers looking
for? What are they attending to?” It would appear that they are
attending a little too exclusively to external things. Thus a mother
usually knows “that Johnnie does not like meat, that Jessie hates
potatoes, that Maud is near-sighted,”1 and so on ; but it is only a minority
1 It is only the better kind of mother who gleans even this kind of informa
tion, as the revelations of the past few years in elementary schools abundantly
show.
�6
INTXOD UCTION
who know how the moral or the mental life of their children is affected by
one influence and another. They leave that higher kind of knowledge to
others, and do not carry their motherhood so far afield. Consequently,
of course, that confined mother-love becomes morbid, rampant; so that
one lady declares her “personality gets between the sheets when she
makes her child’s bed.”
Still, the lowly duties have to be done. Cooking, washing, mending,
scrubbing—all these are necessary, and who is to do them if not the
mother ? Certainly these things have to be done, though not always, it
is to be hoped, in primitive ways or at the tremendous cost involved in
the doing of them to-day. Mrs. Gilman shows that a home may become
a kind of backwater, that a shrine may become a prison. The human
mother is to-day facing the problems of her life not only without much
training, but in utter isolation. Other orders of workers are trained ;
she learns by experiment, and at the expense of her children. But, what
is much more to the point, other workers form themselves into groups
and communities, into guilds, societies, associations. She, who has so
much to learn from her fellow workers, is alone. And the result is that,
of all industries, housework remains the least open to improvement and
reform; while the mothers’ contribution towards the elucidation of
social problems is very small.
Mrs. Gilman shows us human motherhood at the door of the home
that was once a prison. Shut up in this isolated home, she, the
isolated mother, with all her labour and love, has not known how to
buy her dear one safety or happiness. She sends him forth at last—nay,
she sends him forth daily in childhood—and to meet what? Why,
infectious disease, impurity, evil influences of every order, all the risks
and plagues of the unmothered world ! From these she should have
helped to save him only by being herself a protecting and saving force
beyond the borders of her home. And what is progress but the power of
entering into an ever-growing number of human relationships ? Alas,
she has halted for ages in her own kitchen, and her motherhood has
been laid literally “ among the pots.” This book raises the hope that it
may yet appear “ as doves,” winged at last, and touched with the gold
of the morning. For, briefly, this book shows how education is a social
problem; how, for the economy of power, domestic work should be
socialised, and also why the work of taking care of the young should
be specialised. Finally, it sets forth the duty of mothers in keeping in
view their higher office and task, and so finding an ever-widening realm
and expression for the love which is the greatest redemptive force active
in human life.
Margaret McMillan.
April ¿th, rgop.
�CONCERNING CHILDREN
I.
THE PRECIOUS TEN
According to our religious belief, the
last, best work of God is the human
race. According to the observation of
biologists, the highest product of evo
lution is the human race. According
to our own natural inner conviction,
this twofold testimony is quite accept
able : we are the first class.
Whatever our merits when com
pared with lower species, however,
we vary conspicuously when compared
with one another.
Humanity is
superior to equinity, felinity, caninity;
but there are degrees of humanness.
Between existing nations there is
marked difference in the qualities we
call human ; and history shows us a
long line of advance in these qualities
in the same nation. The human race
is still in the making, is by no means
done ; and, however noble it is to be
human, it will be nobler to be
humaner. As conscious beings, able
to modify our own acts, we have
power to improve the species, to
promote the development of the
human race. This brings us to the
children. Individuals may improve
more or less at any time, though
most largely and easily in youth ; but
race improvement must be made in
youth to be transmitted. The real
progress of man is born in him.
If you were buying babies, investing
in young human stock as you would
in colts or calves, for the value of the
beast, a sturdy English baby would
be worth more than an equally
vigorous young Fuegian. With the
same training and care, you could
develop higher faculties in the English
specimen than in the Fuegian speci
men, because it was better bred.
The savage baby would excel in some
points, but the qualities of the modern
baby are those dominant to-day.
Education can do much, but the body
and brain the child is born with are
all that you have to educate. The
progress of humanity must be re
corded in living flesh. Unless the
child is a more advanced specimen
than his father and mother, there is
no racial improvement. Virtues, we
still strive for are not yet ours : it is
the unconscious virtues we are bom
with that measure the rise of
nations.
Our mechanical products in all their
rich variety serve two purposes—to
show the measure of the brains that
made them and to help make better
ones.
The printing-press, for instance,
marked a century of ability ; but its
main value is to develop centuries of
greater ability. Society secretes, as
it were, this mass of material where
with to nourish its countless young ;
and as this material is so permanent
and so mobile, it is proportionately
more advantageous to our posterity
than the careful preparation of some
anxious insect for her swarm of
�THE PRECIOUS TEN
progeny. Unless the creature is born
better than his creators, they do not
save him. He sinks back, or is over
come by others, perhaps lingering
decadent among the traces of lost
arts, like degenerate nomad savages
who wander among the ruins of
ancestral temples. We see plenty of
such cases, individually, showing this
arrested social development—from
the eighteenth-century man, who is
only a little behind his age and does
not hinder us much, to the dragging
masses of dull peasantry and crude
savagery which keep us back so
seriously. This does not include the
reversions and degenerates, the abso
lutely abortive members of society,
but merely its raw stock, that heavy
proportion of the people who are not
bred up to the standard of the age.
To such we may apply every advan
tage of education, every facile conve
nience of the latest day ; and, though
these things do help a little, we have
still the slow-minded mass, whose
limited range of faculties acts as a
steady check on the success of our
best intellects. The surest, quickest
way to improve humanity is to improve
the stock, the people themselves; and
all experience shows that the time to
improve people is while they are
young. As in a growing cornstalk
the height is to be measured from
joint to joint, not counting the length
of its long, down-flowing leaves, so
in our line of ascent the height is to
be measured from birth to birth, not
counting the further development of
the parent after the child is born.
The continued life of the parent
counts in other ways, as it contri
butes to social service ; and, in
especial, as- it reacts to promote the
further growth of the young. But
the best service to society and the
child is in the progress made by the
individual before parentage, for that
progress is born into the race.
Between birth and birth is the race
bred upward. Suppose we wish to
improve a race of low savages and
we carefully select the parents, sub*
jecting them to the most elaborate
educational influences, till they are all
dead. Then we return, and take a
fresh set of parents to place under
these advantageous conditions* leav?
ing the children always to grow up in
untouched savagery. This might be
done for many generations, and we
should always have the same kind of
savages to labour with, what improve
ment was made being buried with
each set of parents. Now, on the
other hand, let us take the children of
the tribe, subject them to the most
advantageous conditions, and when
they become parents discontinue our
efforts on that generation and begin
on the next. What gain was made
in this case would be incorporated in
the stock; we should have gradually
improving relays of children.
So far as environment is really to
develop the race, that development
must be made before the birth of the
next generation.
If a young man and woman are
clean, healthy, vigorous, and virtuous
before parenthood, they may become
dirty, sickly, weak, and wicked after
wards, with far less ill effect to the race
than if they were sick and vicious
before their children were born and
thereafter became stalwart saints.
The sowing of wild oats would be far
less harmful if sowed in the autumn
instead of in the spring.
Human beings are said to have a
longer period of immaturity than
other animals; but it is not pro
longed childhood which distinguishes
us so much as prolonged parenthood.
In early forms of life the parent
promptly dies after having reproduced
the species. He is of no further use
to the race, and therefore his life is
discontinued. In the evolution of
species, as the parent becomes more
and more able to benefit the young,
he is retained longer in office ; and in
humanity, as it developes, we see an
�THE PRECIOUS TEN
increasing prolongation of parental
usefulness. The reactive value of the
adult upon the young is very great,
covering our whole range of conscious
education ; but the real worth of that
education is in its effects on the
young before they become parents,
that the training and improvement
may become ours by birth, an inbred
racial progress.
It may be well here to consider the
objections raised by the Weismann
theory that “acquired traits are not
transmissible.” To those who believe
this it seems useless to try to improve
a race by development of the young
with a view to transmission. They
hold that the child inherits a certain
group of faculties, differing from the
parents perhaps through the “ ten
dency to vary,” and that, although
you may improve the individual inde
finitely through education, that
improvement is not transmissible
to his offspring. The original facul
ties may be transmitted, but not the
individual modification. Thus they
would hold that, if two brothers
inherited the same kind and amount
of brain power, and one brother was
submitted to the finest educational
environment, while the other was
entirely neglected, yet the children of
the two brothers would inherit the
same amount of brain development:
the training and exercise which so
visibly improved the brain of the
educated brother would be lost to his
children.
Or, if two brothers inherited the
same physical constitution, and one
developed and improved it by judi
cious care and exercise, while the
other wasted strength and contracted
disease, the children of either would
inherit the original constitutional
tendencies of the parent, unaffected
by that parent’s previous career.
This would .mean that the whole
tremendous march of race-modifica
tion has been made under no other
influence than the tendency to vary,
9
and that individual modification in no
way affects the race.
Successivegenerationsof individuals
may be affected by the cumulative
pressure of progress, but not the race
itself. Under this view the Fuegian
baby would be as valuable an invest
ment as the English baby, unless,
indeed, successive and singularly
connected tendencies to vary had
worked long upon the English
stock and peculiarly neglected the
Fuegian. In proof of this claim that
“acquired traits are not transmis
sible,” an overwhelming series of
experiments are presented, as wherein
many consecutive generations of
peaceful guinea-pigs are mutilated in
precisely the same way, and lo 1 the
last guinea-pig is born as four-legged
and symmetrically-featured as the
first.
If it had been so arranged that the
crippled guinea-pigs obtained some
advantage because of their injuries,
they might have thus become “fittest”;
and the “tendency to vary” would
perhaps have launched out a cripple
somewhere, and so evolved a trium
phant line of three-legged guinea-pigs.
But, as proven by these carefully
conducted scientific experiments, it
does not “ modify the species ” at all
to cut off its legs—not in a score of
generations. It modifies the imme
diate pig, of course, and is doubtless
unpleasant to him ; but the effect is
lost with his death.
It has always seemed to me that
there was a large difference between
a mutilation and an acquired trait.
An acquired trait is something that
one uses and developes, not something
one has lost.
The children of a soldier are sup
posed to inherit something of his
courage and his habit of obedience,
not his wooden leg.
The dwindled feet of the Chinese
ladies are not transmitted ; but the
Chinese habits are. The individual is
most modified by what he does, not by
�IO
THE PRECIOUS TEN
what is done to him ; and so is the
race.
Let a new experiment be performed
on the long-suffering- guinea-pig.
Take two flourishing pairs of the same
family (fortunately, the tendency to
vary appears to be but slight in
guinea-pigs, so there is not serious
trouble from that source), and let one
pair of guinea-pigs be lodged in a
small but comfortable cage, and fed
and fed and fed—not to excess, but
so as to supply all guinea-piggian
desires as soon as felt—them and
their descendants in their unnumbered
generations. Let the other pair be
started on a long, slow, cautious,
delicate, but inexorable system of
exercise, not exercise involving any
advantage, with careful mating of the
most lively—for this would be claimed
as showing only the '‘tendency to
vary ” and “ survival of the fittest ”—
but exercise forced upon the unwilling
piggies to no profit whatever.
A wheel, such as mitigates the
captivity of the nimble squirrel,
should be applied to these reluctant
victims ; a well-selected, stimulating
diet given at slowly increasing inter
vals ; and the physical inequalities of
their abode become greater, so that
the unhappy subjects of scientific
research would find themselves skip
ping ever faster and farther from day
to day.
If, after many generations of such
training, the descendants of these cul
tivated guinea-pigs could not outrun
the descendants of the plump and
puffy cage-fed pair, the Wiesmann
theory would be more strongly re
inforced than by all the evidence of
his suffering cripples. Meanwhile
the parent and teacher in general is
not greatly concerned about theories
of pan-genesis or germ-plasm. He
knows that, “as the twig is bent the
tree’s inclined,” and that, if the
fathers have eaten sour grapes, the
children’s teeth are pretty certain to
be set on edge.
Inherit we must to some degree ;
and whatever comes to us by that
method must belong to the parent
before he is a parent. Traits acquired
after parentage are certainly not trans
missible, whatever may be the case
before. Our inherited constitution,
temper, character, tendency, is like
an entailed estate. It is in the family,
belongs to the family in succession,
not to the individual. It is “owned ”
by the individual in usufruct, but
cannot be sold, given away, or other
wise alienated. It must be handed
on to the next heir, somewhat better
or worse, perhaps, for the current
ownership. When the new heir takes
possession of his estate, he confers
with the steward, and becomes
thoroughly acquainted with his hold
ings. Here are the assets—this much
in permanent capital, this much in
income, which he may use as he will.
It would be possible for him to over
spend that income, to cut down the
timber and sell it, to incur debts,
impoverishing the next heir. Perhaps
this has been done, and he finds him
self with neglected lands, buildings in
disrepair, restricted resources, and
heavy debts. In such case the duty
of the heir is to live carefully, avoid
ing every extravagance, and devote
all he can save to clearing off the
encumbrances on the estate, thus
handing it on to the next heir in
better shape than he received it. If
this is not done, if one generation
after another of inheritors draws
relentlessly on the burdened estate
and adds to its encumbrances, there
comes a time when the heavy mort
gages are foreclosed, and that estate
is lost.
So with the human constitution.
We inherit such and such powers and
faculties; such and such weaknesses,
faults, tendencies to disease. Our
income is the available strength we
have to spare without drawing on our
capital. Perhaps our ancestors have
overdrawn already, wasting their
�THE PRECIOUS TEN
nerve force, injuring- their organisms,
handing' down to us an impoverished
physique, with scarce income enough
for running expenses, yet needing a
large sinking fund for repairs.
In this case it is our plain duty to
live “ within our means ” in nerve
force, however limited, and to devote
all we can spare to building up the
constitution, that we may transmit it
in an improved condition to the next
heir. If we do not do this, if suc
cessive generations overdraw their
strength, neglect necessary rest and
recreation, increase their weaknesses
and diseases, then there comes a time
when the inexorable creditor called
Nature forecloses the mortgage, and
that family is extinct. The heir of
the entailed estate in lands and houses
has an advantage over the heir of
blood and brain. He does not trans
mit his property until he dies. He
has a lifetime to make the needed
improvements. But the inheritor of
poor eyesight, weak lungs, and a bad
temper has a shorter period for repairs.
If a woman, she is likely to become a
mother by the time she is twenty-five
—perhaps sooner ; the man, a father
by thirty.
Taking the very early marriages of
the poor into consideration (and they
are a heavy majority of the popula
tion), we may take twenty-five as the
average beginning of • parenthood.
Of course there is still room for imprefvement before the later children
appear; but the running expenses
increase so heavily that there is but
a small margin to be given to repairs.
The amount of nerve force hitherto
set aside to control the irritable temper
will now be drawn upon by many new
demands ; the time given to special
exercises for the good of the lungs
will now be otherwise used. How
ever good the intentions afterwards,
the best period for self-improvement
is before the children come. This
reduces the time in which to develop
humanity’s inheritance to twenty-five
ii
years. Twenty-five years is not much
at best; and that time is further
limited, as far as individual responsi
bility goes, by subtracting the period
of childhood. The first, say, fifteen
years of our lives are comparatively
irresponsible. We have not the
judgment or the self-control to meddle
with our own lives to any advantage ;
nor is it desirable that we should.
Unconscious growth is best, and the
desired improvement during this
period should be made by the skilful
educator without the child’s know
ledge. But at about fifteen the indi
vidual comes to a keen new conscious
ness of personal responsibility.
That fresh, unwarped sense of
human honour, the race-enthusiasm
of the young; and the fund of
strength they bear with them ; toge
ther with the very light expenses of
this period, all the heavy drains of
life being met by the parent—these
conditions make that short ten years
the most important decade of a life
time.
It is no wonder that we worship
youth. On it depends more than on
the most care-burdened age. It is
one of the many follies of our blunder
ing progression that we have for so
long supposed that the value of this
period lay merely in its enjoyable
ness. With fresh sensations and new
strength, with care, labour, and pain
largely kept away, youth naturally
enjoys more heartily than age, and
has less to suffer ; but these are only
incidental conditions. Every period
has its advantage and accompanying
responsibilities. This blessed time of
youth is not ours to riot through in
cheerful disregard of human duty.
The biological advantage of a longer
period of immaturity is in its cumula
tive value to the race, the older
parent having more development to
transmit.
The human animal becomes adult
comparatively early—that is, becomes
capable of reproducing the species ;
�12
THE PRECIOUS TEN
and in states of low social grade he
promptly sets about it.
But the human being is not only an
individual animal : he is a social
constituent. He may be early ready
to replace himself by another man as
good, but he is not yet able to
improve upon the past and give the
world a man much better. He is not
yet developed as a member of society
—trained in those special lines which
make him not only a healthier,
stronger, rounder individual, but a
more highly efficient member of
society. Our people to-day are not
only larger and longer-lived than
earlier races, but they are capable of
social relations immeasurably higher
than those open to a never-so-healthy
savage.
The savage as an individual animal
may be equal—in some ways superior
—to the modern man, but as a social
constituent he is like a grain of sand
in a heap compared to some ex
quisitely fitted part of an intricate
machine—a living machine, an orga
nism. In this social relation man
may grow and develop all his life ;
and that is why civilisation, socialisa
tion, brings us useful and honourable
age, while savagery knocks its old
folk on the head.
But while the social structure grows
in beauty, refinement, and power, and
eighty years may be spent in its
glorious service, that service must be
given by individuals. Unless these
individuals improve from age to age,
showing a finer, subtler, stronger
brain and unimpaired physique, there
can be no genuine or enduring social
improvement. We have seen re
peatedly in history a social status
lodged in comparatively few indi
viduals, a narrow, fragile, upper-class
civilisation ; and we have seen it
always fall—fall to the level of its
main constituents, the mass of the
people.
One per cent, of sane men in a
society of lunatics would make but a
foolish state ; one per cent, of good
men in a society of criminals would
make a low grade of virtue ; one per
cent, of rich men in a society of poor
peasants does not make a rich com
munity. A society is composed of the
people who compose it, strange to
say—all of them ; and as they are, it
is. The people must be steadily
made better if the world is to move«
The way to make people better is to
have them born better. The way to
have them born better is to make all
possible improvement in the indi
vidual before parentage. That is
why youth is holy and august: it is
the fountain of human progress. Not
only that “ the child is father to the
man,” but the child is father to the
state—and mother.
The first fifteen years of a child’s
life should be treated with a view to
developing the power of “judgment ”
and “will,” that he may be able to
spend his precious ten in making the
best possible growth.
A boy of
fifteen is quite old enough to under
stand the main principles of right
living and to follow them. A girl of
fifteen is quite old enough to see the
splendid possibilities that lie before
her, both in her individual service to
society and the almost limitless
power of motherhood. It is not youth
which makes our boys and girls so
foolish in their behaviour. It is the
kind of training we give the little
child, keeping back the most valuable
faculties of the brain instead of
helping them to grow. A boy cast
out upon the street to work soon
manifests both the abilities and vices
of an older person. A girl reared in
a frivolous and artificial society
becomes a practising coquette while
yet a child. These conditions are
bad, and we do not wish to parallel
them by producing a morbidly selfconscious and prematurely aged set of
youngsters. But if the child has been
trained in reason and self-control—
not forced, but allowed to grow in
�THE PRECIOUS TEN
the natural use of these qualities—he
will be used to exercising them when
he reaches the freer period of youth,
and not find it so difficult to be wise.
It is natural for a child to reason, and
the power grows with encouragement
and use. It is natural for a child to
delight in the exercise of his own will
upon himself in learning to “ do
things.”
The facility and pleasure and strong
self-control shown by a child in
playing some arbitrary game prove
that it is quite natural for him to
govern his acts to a desired end, and
enjoy it.
To a desired end, however. We
have not yet succeeded in enlisting
the child’s desires to help his efforts.
We rather convince him that being
good is tedious and unprofitable,
often poignantly disagreeable; and
when he passes childhood he is
hampered with this unfortunate mis
belief of our instilling.
But, with a healthy brain and will,
a youth of fifteen, with the knowledge
easily available at that age, should
be not only able and willing, but
gloriously eager for personal develop
ment. It is an age of soaring ambi
tion ; and that ambition, directed in
lines of real improvement, is one of
Nature’s loveliest and strongest forces
to lift mankind.
There is a splendid wealth of aspira
tion in youth, a pure and haughty
desire for the very highest, which
¡3
ought to be playing into the current
of our racial life and lifting it higher
and higher with each new generation.
The love of emulation, too, so
hurtful in the cheap, false forms it so
often takes, is a beautiful force when
turned to self - improvement.
We
underrate the power of good intention «
of our young people. We check and
irritate them all through childhood,
confusing and depressing the upward
tendencies, and then wag our aged
heads pityingly over “ the follies of
youth.”
There is wisdom in youth, and
power, if we would but let it grow.
A simple, unconscious childhood,
shooting upwards fast and strong
along lines of rational improving
growth, would give to the opening
consciousness of youth a healthy
background of orderly achievement,
and a glorious foreground—the limit
less front of human progress. Such
young people, easily appreciating
what could be done for themselves
and the world by right living, would
pour their rich enthusiasm and un
strained powers into real human
growing—the growing that can be
done so well in that short, wonderful
ten years—that must be done then, if
the race is to be born better. Three
or four generations of such growth
would do more for man’s improve
ment than our present methods of
humaniculture accomplish in as many
centuries.
�THE EFFECT OF MINDING ON THE MIND
II.
THE EFFECT OF MINDING ON THE MIND
Obedience, we are told, is a virtue.
This seems simple and conclusive,
but on examination further questions
rise.
What is " a virtue ”?
What is “ obedience ”?
And, if a virtue, is it always and
equally so ?
“ There is a time when patience
ceases to be a virtue.”
Perhaps
obedience has its limits, too.
A virtue is a specific quality of any
thing, as the virtue of mustard is in
its biting quality ; of glass, trans
parency ; of a sword, its edge and
temper. In moral application a virtue
is a quality in mankind whereby we
are most advantaged. We make a
distinction in our specific qualities,
claiming some to be good and some
bad ; and the virtues are those where
by we gain the highest good. These
virtues of humanity change in relative
value with time, place, and circum
stance. What is considered a virtue
in primitive life becomes foolishness,
or even vice, in later civilisation; yet
each age and place can show clear
reason for its virtues, trace their
introduction, rise into high honour,
and gradual neglect.
For instance, the virtue of endur
ance ranks high among savages. To
be able to bear hunger and heat and
cold and pain and dire fatigue—this
power is supreme virtue to the savage
for the simple reason that it is
supremely necessary to him. He has
a large chance of meeting these afflic
tions all through life, and wisely
prepares himself beforehand by wil
fully undergoing even worse hard
ships.
Chastity is a comparatively modern
virtue, still but partially accepted.
Even as an ideal it is not universally
admired, being considered mainly as
a feminine distinction. This is good
proof of its gradual introduction—
first as solely female, a demand from
the man, and then proving its value
as a racial virtue, and rising slowly in
general esteem, until to-day there is a
very marked movement towards a
higher standard of masculine chastity.
Courage, on the other hand, has
been held almost wholly as a mascu
line virtue, from the same simple
causes of sociological development ;
to this day one hears otherwise intel
ligent and respectable women own
themselves, without the slightest
sense of shame, to be cowards.
A comparative study of the virtues
would reveal a mixed and changeful
throng, and always through them all
the underlying force of necessity,
which makes this or that quality a
virtue in its time.
We speak of “ making a virtue of
necessity.” As a matter of fact, all
virtues are made of necessity.
A virtue, then, in the human race is
that quality which is held supremely
beneficial, valuable, necessary, at that
time. And what, in close analysis, is
obedience ? It is a noun made from
the verb “ to obey. ”
What is it to obey? It is to act
under the impulse of another will—to
submit one’s behaviour to outside
direction.
It involves the surrender of both
judgment and will. Is this capacity
of submission of sufficient value to the
human race to be called a virtue?
Assuredly it is — sometimes.
The
most familiar instance of the uses of
obedience is among soldiers and
sailors, always promptly adduced by
�THE EFFECT OF MINDING ON THE MIND
the staunch upholders of this quality.
L They do not speak of it as particu
larly desirable among farmers or
merchants or artists, but cling to the
battlefield or the deck, as sufficient
illustrations. We may note, also, that,
when our elaborate efforts are made
to inculcate its value to young
children, we always introduce a rail
road accident, runaway, fire, burglar,
or other element of danger ; and,
equally, in the stories of young
animals designed for the same pur
pose, the disobedient little beast is
always exposed to dire peril, and the
obedient saved.
All this clearly indicates the real
basis of our respect for obedience.
Its first and greatest use is this :
where concerted action is necessary,
in such instant performance that it
would be impossible to transmit the
impulse through a number of varying
intelligences.
That is why the soldier and sailor
have to obey. Military and nautical
action is essentially collective, essen
tially instant, and too intricate for
that easy understanding which would
allow of swift common action on
individual initiative. Under such cir
cumstances, obedience is, indeed, a
virtue, and disobedience the unpar
donable sin.
Again, with the animals, we have a
case where it is essential that the
young should act instantly under
stimuli perceptible to the mother and
not to the young. No explanation is
possible. There is not speech for it,
even if there were time. A sudden,
silent danger needs a sudden, silent
escape. Under this pressure of con
dition has been evolved a degree of
obedience absolutely instinctive and
automatic, as so beautifully shown in
Mr. Thompson’s story of the little
partridges flattening themselves into
effacement on their mother’s warning
signal.
With deadly peril at hand, with no
brain to give or to receive explanation,
*5
with no time to do more than squeak
an inarticulate command, there is
indeed need for obedience; and
obedience is forthcoming. But is
this so essential quality in rearing
young animals as essential in human
education ? So far in human history
our absolute desideratum in child
training is that the child shall obey.
The child who “minds” promptly
and unquestioningly is the ideal; the
child who refuses to mind, who, per
haps, even says, “I won’t,” is the
example of all evil.
Parental success is judged by ability
to “make the children mind”; to be
without that is failure. All this has
no reference whatever to the kind of
behaviour required. The virtue in
the child is simply to do what it is
told in any extreme of folly, or even
danger. Witness the immortal fame
of Casabianca. Being told to “ stay,”
this sublime infant stayed, though
every instinct and reason was against
it, and he was blown up unflinching
in pursuance of duty. The effect of
minding on the mind is here shown in
extreme instance. Under the pressure
of the imposed will and judgment of
his father the child restrained his own
will and judgment, and suffered the
consequences. The moral to be
drawn is a very circuitous one.
Although obedience was palpably
injurious in this case, it is held that
such perfect surrender would in most
cases be highly beneficial.
That other popular instance, begin
ning
Old “ Ironsides ” at anchor lay
In the harbour of Mahon,
is more practical. The judicious
father orders the perilously poised
son to
Jump ! Jump, boy, far into the deep !
and he jumps, and is hauled out by
the sailors.
As usual, we see that the reason
why obedience is so necessary . is
because of imminent danger, which
�16
THE EFFECT OF, MINDING ON THE MIND
only obedience can escape. With desired act. Almost any mother can
this for a practical background, and recall this baulked feeling, like the
with the added proviso that, unless annoyance of an arrested sneeze.
obedience is demanded and secured
To this instinct our gradually
when there is no danger, it will not enlarging humanness has added the
be. forthcoming when there is, the breadth of wider perceptions and the
child is (i trained to obey ” from the weight of growing ideas of authority,
first. No matter how capricious and with the tremendous depth of tradi
unnecessary the command, he must tion and habit. Early races lived in
“mind,” or be punished for not constant danger, military service was
“minding.” We may fall short of universal, despotism the common
success in our efforts ; but this is our government, and slavery the general
ideal—that a child shall do what he is condition. The ruling despot exacted
told on the instant, and thus fulfil his obedience from all ; and it was by
whole scale of virtue,, as well as meet each grade exacted remorselessly from
all the advantages of safety.
its inferiors. No overseer so cruel as
Our intense reverence for the virtue the slave. Where men were slaves
of obedience is easily traceable. In to despotic sovereigns, their women
the first place there is the deep-seated were slaves to them ; and the women
animal instinct, far outdating human tyrannised in turn over their slaves,
history. For uncounted ages our if they had any. But under every
brute mother ancestors had reared one else were always the children,
their brute young in automatic obedi defenceless absolutely, inferior physi
ence—an obedience bred in the bone cally and mentally. Naturally, they
by those who obeyed and lived, any were expected to obey. ’ As we built
deficiency in which was steadily ex out of our clouded brains dim and
purgated by the cutting off of the sinister gods, we predicated of them
hapless youngster who disobeyed. the habits so prominent in our earthly
This had, of course, a reflex action rulers ; the one thing the gods would
on the mother. When one’s nerve have was obedience, which, therefore,
impulse finds expression through grew to have first place in our primi
another body, that expression gives tive . religion. The early Hebrew
the same sense of relief and pleasure traditions of God, with which we are
as a personal expression. When one all so familiar, picture him as in a
wills another to do something which continuous state of annoyance because
the other promptly does, it gives one his “children” would not “mind.”
an even larger satisfaction than doing In the centuries of dominance of the
what one wills one’s self. That is Roman Catholic Church, obedience
the pleasure we have in a good dog— became additionally exalted.
The
our will flows through his organism power and success of that magnificent
uninterrupted. It is a temporary organisation depended so absolutely
extension of self in activity that does on this characteristic that it was given
not weary.
high place in the vows of religious
This is one initial reason for the societies—highest of all by the J esuits,
parental pleasure in obedience and who carried.it to its logical extreme,
displeasure in disobedience. When the subordinate being required to
the parent emits an impulse calling become as will-less as a corpse,
for expression through the child, and actuated solely by the commands of
the child refuses to express it, there his superior. Even militarism offers
is a distinct sense of distress in the no better instance of the value and
parent, quite apart from any ulterior power of obedience than does “ the
advantage to either party in the Church. ”
�THE EFFECT OF MINDING ON THE MIND
It now becomes clear why we so
naturally venerate this quality : first,
the deep brute instinct; second, the
years of historic necessity and habit ;
third, the tremendous sanction of reli
gion, It is only a few centuries since
the Protestant Reformation broke the
power of Church dominance and suc
cessfully established the rebellion of
free thought: It is less than that
since the American Revolution and
the French Revolution again trium
phantly disobeyed, and established
the liberty of the individual in matters
temporal. Since then the delighted
brain has spread and strengthened,
thinking for itself and doing what it
thought; and we have seen some
foretaste of what a full democracy will
ultimately bring to us. But this
growth of individual freedom has but
just begun to penetrate that strong
hold of all habit and tradition, the
Home.
Men might be free, but
women must still obey. Women are
beginning to be free, but still the
child remains—the under-dog always;
and he, at least, must obey. On this
we are still practically at one—
Catholic and Protestant, soldier and
farmer, subject and citizen.
Let us untangle the real necessity
from this vast mass of hoary tradi
tion, and see if obedience is really the
best thing to teach a child—if “ by
obedience ” is the best way to teach a
child. And let careful provision here
be made for a senseless inference con
stantly made when this question is
raised. Dare to criticise a system of
training based on obedience, and you
are instantly assumed to be advo
cating no system at all, no training,
merely letting the child run wild and
’“have his own way.” This is a most
unfair assumption. Those who know
no other way of modifying a child’s
behaviour than through “making him
mind ” suppose that, if he were not
made to mind, he must be utterly
neglected. Child-training, to their
minds, is to be accomplished only
i7
through child-ordering; and many
think the training quite accomplished
if only the subject is a model of
obedience.
Others, a little more
open-minded, and who have perhaps
read something on the subject, assume
that, if you do not demand obedience
of the child, it means that you
must “explain” everything to him,
“ reason ” with him from deed to
deed ; and this they wearily and
rightly declare to be impossible. But
neither of these assumptions is correct.
One may question the efficacy of
the Salisbury method without being
thereby pledged to vegetarianism.
One may criticise our school system,
yet not mean that children should
have no education.
The rearing of children is the most
important work, and it is here con
tended that in this great educational
process obedience, as a main factor,
has a bad effect on the growing mind.
A child is a human creature. He
should be reared with a view to his
development and behaviour as an
adult, not solely with a view to his
behaviour as a child. He is tem
porarily a child, far more permanently
a man ; and it is the man we are
training. The work of “parenthood”
is not only to guard and nourish the
young, but to develop the qualities
needed in the mature.
Obedience is defended, first, as
being necessary to the protection of
the child, and, second, as developing
desirable qualities in the adult. But
the child can be far better protected
by removing all danger, which our
present civilisation is quite competent
to do ; and “ the habit of obedience ”
developes very undesirable qualities.
On what characteristics does our
human pre-eminence rest? On our
breadth and accuracy of judgment
and force of will. Because we can
see widely and judge wisely, because
we have power to do what we see to
be right, therefore we are the domi
nant species in the animal kingdom,
B
�18
THE EFFECT OF MINDING ON THE MIND
therefore we are consciously the
children of God.
These qualities are lodged in indi
viduals, and must be exercised by
individuals for the best human pro
gress. If our method of advance
were that one person alone should be
wise and strong, and all other
persons prosperous through a strict
subservience to his commands, then,
indeed, we could do no better for our
children than to train them to obey.
Judgment would be of no use to them
if they had to take another’s ; will
power would be valueless if they were
never to exercise it.
But this is by no means the condi
tion of human life. More and more
is it being recognised that progress
lies in a well-developed average intel
ligence rather than in a wise despot
and his stupid serfs. For every indi
vidual to have a good judgment and a
strong will is far better for the com
munity than for a few to have these
qualities and the rest to follow them.
The “habit of obedience,” forced in
upon the impressible nature of a child,
does not develop judgment and will,
but does develop that fatal facility in
following other people’s judgment and
other people’s wills which tends to
make us a helpless mob, mere sheep,
instead of wise, free, strong indi
viduals. The habit of submission to
authority, the long, deeply impressed
conviction that to “ be good ” is to
“ give up,” that there is virtue in the
act of surrender—this is one of the
sources from which we continually
replenish human weakness, and fill
the world with an inert mass of mind
less, will-less folk, pushed and pulled
about by those whom they obey.
Moreover, there is the opposite
effect—the injurious reaction from
obedience—almost as common and
hurtful as its full achievement—
namely, that fierce, rebellious desire
to do exactly the opposite of what
one is told, which is no nearer to
calm judgment than the other.
In obeying another will or in resist
ing another will nothing is gained in
wisdom. A human creature is a selfgoverning intelligence, and the rich
years of childhood should be passed
in the guarded and gradual exercise
of those powers.
Now, this will no doubt call up to
the minds of many a picture of
a selfish, domineering youngster,
stormily ploughing through a number
of experimental adventures, with a
group of sacrificial parents and
teachers prostrate before him. Again
an unwarranted assumption. Con
sideration of others is one of the first
laws of life, one of the first things a
child should be taught ; but con
sideration of others is not identical
with obedience. Again, it will be
imagined that the child is to be left to
work out laboriously for himself the
accumulated experiments of humanity,
and deprived of the profits of all
previous experience. By no means.
On the contrary, it is the business of
those who have the care of the very
young to see to it that they do benefit
by that previous experience far more
fully than is now possible.
Our system of obedience cuts the
child off from precisely this advantage,
and leaves him longing to do the
forbidden things, generally doing
them, too, when he gets away from
his tutelage. The behaviour of the
released child, in its riotous reaction
against authority as such, as shown
glaringly in the action of the average
college student, tells how much judg
ment and self-control have been
developing behind the obedience.
The brain grows by exercise. The
best time to develop it is in youth.
To obey does not develop the brain,
but checks its growth. It gives to
the will a peculiar suicidal power of
aborting its own impulse, not con
trolling it, but giving it up. This
leaves a habit of giving up which
weakens our power of continued
effort.
�THE EFFECT OF MINDING ON THE MINE)
All this is not saying that obedience
is never useful in childhood. There
aite occasions when it is; and on such
occasions, with a child otherwise intelli
gently trained, it will be forthcoming.
•We make a wide mistake in assuming
that, unless a child is made to obey at
every step, it will never obey. A
grown person will obey under sharp,
instant pressure.
If there is a sudden danger, and
you shriek at your friend, “ Get upquick !” or hiss a terrified “ Sh I Sh !
Be still 1” your friend promptly obeys.
Of course, if you had been endeavour
ing to “boss” that friend with a
thousand pointless caprices, he might
distrust you in the hour of peril; but
if he knew you to be a reasonable
person, he would respond promptly to
a sudden command.
Much more will a child so respond
where he has full reason to respect
the judgment of the commander.
Children have the automatic habit of
obedience by the same animal inheri
tance that gives the mother the habit
of command ; but we so abuse that
faculty that it becomes lost in
righteous rebellion or crushed sub
mission. The animal mother never
misuses her precious authority. She
does not cry, “Wolf! Wolf!” We
talk glibly about “the best good of
the child,” but there are few children
who are not clearly aware that they
are “ minding ” for the convenience of
“ the grown-ups ” the greater part of
the time. Therefore, they suspect
self-interest in even the necessary
commands, and might very readily
refuse to obey in the hour of dang'er.
It is a commonplace observation
that the best children—z.e., the most
submissive and obedient — do not
make the best men.
If they aré
utterly subdued, “too good to live,”
they swell the Sunday-school list of
infant saints, die young, and go to
heaven ; whereas the rebellious and
unruly boy often makes the best
citizen.
The too obedient child has learned
only to do what he is told. If not
told, he has no initiative; and if told
wrong, he does wrong. Life to him
is not a series of problems to be
solved, but a mere book of orders ;
and, instead of understanding the true
imperious “force” of natural law,
which a wise man follows because he
sees the wisdom of the course, he
takes every “must” in life to be like
a personal command—a thing pro
bably unreasonable, and to be evaded
if possible.
The escaped child, long suppressed
under obedience, is in no mood for a
cheerful acceptance of real laws, but
imagines that there is more “ fun ” in
“having his own way.” The foolish
parent claims to be obeyed as a god ;
and the grown-up child seeks to evade
God, to treat the laws of Nature as if
she, too, were a foolish parent.
Suppose you are teaching a child
arithmetic.
You tell him to put
down such and such figures in such
a position. He inquires, “Why?”
You explain the reason. If you do
not explain the reason, he does not
understand the problem. You might
continue to give orders as to what
figures to set down, and in what
places ; and the child, obeying, could
be trotted through the arithmetic in a
month’s time.
But the arithmetic
would not have gone through him.
He would be no better versed in the
science of numbers than a type-setter
is in the learned books he “ sets up.”
We recognise this in the teaching of
arithmetic, and go to great lengths in
inventing test problems and arranging
easy stages by which the child may
gradually master his task. But. we do
not recognise it in teaching the child
life. The small acts of infancy are
the child’s first problems in living.
He naturally wishes to understand
them. He says, “Why ?” To which
we reply inanely, “ Because I tell you
to!” That is no reason. It is a force,
no doubt, a pressure, to which the
B 2
�20
TWO AND TWO TOGETHER
child may be compelled to yield. But
he is no wiser than he was before.
He has learned nothing except the
lesson we imagine so valuable—to
obey.
At the very best, he may
remember always, in like case, that
“ mamma would wish me to do so,”
and do it. But, when cases differ, he
has no guide. With the best inten
tions in life, he can but cast about in
his mind to try to imagine what some
one else might tell him to do if
present: the circumstances them
selves mean nothing to him. Docility,
subservience, a quick surrender of
purpose, a wavering, untrained,
easily shaken judgment—these are
the qualities developed by much
obedience.
Are they the qualities we wish to
develop in our citizens ?
III.
TWO AND TWO TOGETHER
“ If not trained to obedience, what
shall the child be trained to?” natu
rally demands the outraged parent.
To inculcate that first of virtues has
taken so much time and effort that
we have overlooked the subsequent
qualities which require our help, and
feel rather at sea when this sheet
anchor is taken from us.
But it is not so hard a problem,
when honestly faced. A child has a
body and a mind to be nourished,
sheltered, protected, allowed to grow,
and judiciously trained.
We are here considering the brain
training ; but that is safely compar
able to—is, indeed, part of—the body
training, for the brain as much as the
lungs or liver is an organ of the body.
In training the little body, our main
line of duty is to furnish proper food,
to insure proper rest, and to allow
and encourage
proper exercise.
Exactly this is wanted to promote
right brain growth. We do not wish
to over-stimulate the brain, to develop
it at the expense of other organs ; but
we do wish to insure its full natural
growth, and to promote its natural
activities, by a wise selection of the
highest qualities for preferred use.
And we need more knowledge of the
various brain functions than is com
monly possessed by those in charge of
young children.
The office of the brain we are here
considering is to receive, retain, and
collate impressions, and, in retaining
them, to hold their original force as
far as possible, so that the ultimate
act, coming from a previous impres
sion, may have the force of the
original impulse. The human crea
ture does not originate nervous
energy ; but he does secrete it, so to
speak, from the impact of natural *
forces. He has a storage battery of
power we call the will. By this high
faculty we see a well-developed human
being working steadily for a desired
object, without any present stimulus,
directed to that end, even in opposi
tion to present stimulus tending to’
oppose that end. This width of per
ception, length of retention, storage
of force, and power of steady, selfdetermined action distinguish the
advanced human brain.
�TWO AND TWO TOGETHER
Early forms of life had no brains to
speak of. They received impressions
and transmitted them in expressions
without check or discrimination.
With the development of more com
plex organisms and their more com
plex activities came the accompanying
complexity of brain, which could co
ordinate those activities to the best
advantage. Action is the main line
of growth. Conditions press upon
all life, but life is modified through
its own action under given conditions.
And the relative wisdom and success
of different acts depend on the brain
power of the organism.
The superiority of races lies in
better adaptation to conditions. In
human life, in the long competition
among nations, classes, and indivi
duals, superiority still lies in the
same development. Power to receive
and retain more wide, deep, and
subtle impression ; power more accu
rately and judiciously to collate these
impressions ; power to act steadily on
these stored and selected impulses
rather than on immediate impulses—
this it is which marks our line of
advance.
The education of the child should
be. such as to develop these distin
guishing human faculties. The uni
verse, speaking loudly, lies around
every creature. Little by little we
learn to hear, to understand, to act
accordingly. And this we should
teach the child, to recognise more
accurately the laws about him and to
act upon them.
A very little child does this in his
narrow range exactly as does the
adult in wider fields. He receives
impressions, such as are allowed to
reach him. He stores and collates
those impressions with increasing
vigour and accuracy from day to
day ; and he acts on the sum of those
impressions with growing power.
Naturally, his range of impression
is limited, his power of retention
is limited, his ability to relate the
21
impression retained is limited; and
his action is at first far more open to
immediate outside stimulus, and less
responsive to the inner will-force, than
that of an adult. That is the condi
tion of childhood. It is for us gently,
delicately, steadily to surround the
child with such conditions as shall
promote this orderly sequence of brain
function rather than forcibly to deve
lop and retain his more primitive
methods.
Before going further, let us look at
the average mental working of the
human creature, and see if it seems
to us in smooth running order. We
have made enormous progress in
brain development, and we manifest
wide differences in brain power. But
clearly discernible through all the
progress and all the difference is this
large fault in our mental machinery—:
a peculiar discrepancy between the
sum of our knowledge and the sum of
our behaviour. Man being conscious
and intelligent, it would seem that to
teach him the desirability of a given
course of action would be sufficient.
That it is not sufficient every mother,
every teacher, every preacher, every
discoverer, inventor, reformer, knows
full well.
Instruction may be poured in by
the ton ; it comes out in action by
the ounce. You may teach and
preach and pray for two thousand
years, and very imperfectly Chris
tianise a small portion of the human
race. You may exhort and command
and reiterate; and yet the sinner,
whether infant or adult, remains
obdurate. No wonder we imagined
an active Enemy striving to oppose
us, so difficult was good behaviour in
spite of all our efforts. It has never
occurred to us that we were pursuing
an entirely erroneous method. We
uttered like parrots the pregnant
proverb, “ Example is better than
precept,” learning nothing by it.
What does that simple saying
mean ? That one learns better by
�22
TWO AND TWO TOGETHER
observation than by instruction, espe
cially when instruction is coupled with
command. This being a clearly estab
lished fact, why have we not profited
by it ? Because our brains, all of our
brains from the beginning of time,
have been blurred and blinded and
weakened by the same mistake in
infant education.
What is this mistake ? What is it
we have done so patiently and faith
fully all these years to every one of
the human race which has injured the
natural working of the brain ? This :
we have systematically checked in
our children acts which were the
natural sequence of their observation
and inference ; and enforced acts
which, to the child’s mind, had no
reason. Thus we have carefully
trained a world of people to the habit
of acting without understanding, and
also of understanding without acting.
Because we were unable entirely
to subvert natural brain processes,
because our children must needs do
some things of their own motion and
not in obedience to us, therefore some
power of judgment and self-govern
ment has grown in humanity. But
because we have been so largely suc
cessful in our dealings with the help
less little brain is there so little power
of judgment and self-government
among us.
Observe, too, that our most intelli
gent progress is made in those arts,
trades, professions, sciences, wherein
little children are not trained; and
that our most palpable deficiencies are
in the morals, manners, and general
personal relations of life, wherein
little children are trained. The things
we are compelled to do in obedience
we make no progress in. They are
either obeyed or disobeyed, but are
not understood and improved upon ;
they stand like the customs of China.
The things we learn by understanding
and practising are open to further
knowledge and growth.
A normal human act, as distin
guished from the instinctive behaviour
of lower animals or from mere excitoJ
motory reaction, involves always these
three stages—impression, judgmentexpression. These are not separate!
but are orderly steps in the great
main fact of life—action. It is all a
part of that transmission of energy
which appears to be the business of
the universe.
The sun’s heat pours upon the
earth, and passes through whatever
substance it strikes, coming out trans
formed variously, according to the
nature of the substance. Man re
ceives his complement of energy, like
every other creature—physical stimu
lus from food and fire, psychical
stimulus from its less known sources ;
and these impressions tend to flow
through him into expression as natur
ally as, though with more complexity
than, in other creatures.
* The song of the skylark and
Shelley’s “Skylark” show this wide
difference in the amount and quality
of transmission, yet are both expres
sions of the same impressions, plus
those wider impressions to which the
poet’s organism was open.
The distinctive power of man is
that of connected action. Our im
mense capacity for receiving and
retaining impressions gives us that
world-stock of stored information and
its arrested stimulus which we call
knowledge. But wisdom, the higher
word, refers to our capacity for con
sidering what we know—handling
and balancing the information in
stock, and so acting judiciously from
the best impression or group of im
pressions, instead of indiscriminately
from the latest or from any that
happens to be uppermost.
This power, in cases of immediate
danger, we call “presence of mind.”
Similarly, when otherwise intelligent
persons do visibly foolish things, we
call it “ absence of mind. ” The brain,
as an organ, is present in both cases;
but in the former it is connected with
�TWO AND TWO TOGETHER
23
action, in the latter the connection is them. A child’s limitless credulity is
broken. The word “ thoughtless,” the open door of imposition, and is
as applied to so large a share of our ruthlessly taken advantage of by
walk and conversation, describes this mother and father, nurse and older
same absence of the mind from the companion generally.
As a feature in brain-training, this,
place where it is wanted.
In training the brain of the child, of course, works absolute harm. It
first importance lies in cultivating prolongs the infant weakness of the
this connection between the mind and racial brain, keeps us credulous and
the behaviour. As with eye or hand, open to all imposture, hinders our
we should induce frequent repetition true growth. What we should do is
of the desired motions, that the habit to help the child to question and find
of right action be formed. If the out—teach him to learn, not to believe.
child is steadily encouraged to act in He does learn, of course. We cannot
this natural connection, in orderly shut out the workings of natural laws
sequence of feeling, thought, and from him altogether. Gradually he
action, he would grow into constant discovers that fire is hot and water
“ presence of mind ” in his behaviour. wet, that stone is hard to fall on, and
Habits work in all directions ; and a that there are “pins in pussy’s toes.”
habit of thoughtful behaviour is as His brain is always being healthily
easy to form as, really easier than, a acted upon by facts, his power of
habit of obedience—easier, because it discrimination he practises as best he
would be the natural function of the may, and his behaviour follows
brain to govern behaviour if we did* inevitably.
Given such a child, with such and
not so laboriously contradict it. We
have preferred submission to intelli such an inheritance of constitution
gence, and have got neither—not and tendency, submit him to certain
intelligence because we have so impressions, and he behaves accord
violently discouraged it, and not sub ingly. He has felt. He has thought.
mission because the healthy upward He is about to do. Here comes in
We concern
forces of human brain-growth will not our universal error.
submit. Those races where the chil ourselves almost wholly with what
dren are most absolutely subservient, the child does, and ignore what he
as with the Chinese and Hindu, where feels and thinks. We check the
parents are fairly worshipped and behaviour which is the logical result
blindly obeyed, are not races of free of his feeling and thinking, and sub
and progressive thought and healthy stitute another and different beha
viour for his adoption.
activity.
Now it is a direct insult to the
The potential attitude of mind
involved in our method is shown in brain to try to make the body do
that perfect expression of “childish something which the brain does not
faith ”—“ It’s so because mamma says authorise. It is a physical shock : it
so ; and if mamma says so, ’tis so if causes a sort of mental nausea. There
’tain’t so.” That position makes it are many subconscious activities
very easy for mamma as long as which go on without our recognition:
“ childish faith ” endures ; but how but to call on the body consciously to
does it help the man she has reared go through certain motions, undi
in this idyllic falsehood-? The pain rected by previous mental processes,
ful truth is that we have used childish is an affront to any healthy brain. It
weaknesses to make our government is sharply distasteful to us, because it
easy for us, instead of cultivating the is against the natural working of the
powers that shall make life easy to machinery. The vigorous functional
�24
TWO AND TWO TOGETHER
activity of the young- brain cries out
against it; and the child says,
“Why?” “Why” is an articulate
sound to express the groping of the
brain for relation, for consistency.
We have so brow-beaten and contro
verted this natural tendency, so forced
young growing brains to accept the
inconsistent, that consistency has be
come so rare in human conduct as to
be called “ a jewel.” Yet the desire
for consistency is one of the most
inherent and essential of our mental
appetites. It is the logical tendency,
the power to “ put two and two to
gether,” the one great force that holds
our acts in sequence and makes
human society possible.
We demand consistency in others,
and scoff at the lack of it, even in
early youth.
“ What yer talkin’
about, anyway?” we cry. “There’s
no sense in that!” We expect con
sistency of ourselves, too.
It is
funny, though painful, to see the
ordinary warped brain trying to
square its own conduct with its
own ideals.
Square they must,
somehow, however strained and thin
is our' patchwork connection.
We
check the child’s act, the natural
sequence of his feeling and thought,
so incessantly as to give plenty of
basis for that pathetic tale of the
little girl who said her name was
Mary.
“ And what is your last
name?” “ Don’t,’’ .said she. “Mary
Don’t.” By doing this we constantly
send back upon the brain its own
“impulses, and accustom it to such
continual discouragement of natural
initiative that it gradually ceases to
govern the individual behaviour. In
highest success, this produces the
heavy child, whining, “ What shall I
do now?” always hanging about, fit
subject for any other will to work on ;
and the heavy adult, victim of ennui,
and needing constant outside stimulus
to “ pass away the time.”
The slowness, the inertia, the
opaque conservatism, and the open
ness to any sort of external pressure—
easiest, of course, on the down side—
which so block the path of humanity,
largely come back to that poor
child’s surname, Mary Don’t. It is
thoroughly beaten into us when
young, and for the rest of life we
mostly “Don’t.”
But beyond the
paralysing “Don’t!” checking the
natural movement of the organism,
comes a galvanising “ Do ! ” shocking
it into unnatural activity. We tell
the child to perform a certain action
toward which his own feeling and
thought have made no stir whatever.
“Why?” he demands. And we state
as reason our authority, and add an
immediate heaven or hell arrangement
of our own making to facilitate his
performance. He does it. Hell is very
near. He does it many, many times.
He becomes habituated to a course of
behaviour which comes to its expres»sion, not through his own previous
impression and judgment, but through
ours—that is, he is acting from
another person’s feeling and thinking.
We have asserted our authority just
before his act, between it and his
thought. We have made a cleft
which wudens to a chasm between
what he feels and thinks and what he
does.
Into that chasm pours to
waste an immeasurable amount of
human energy. The struggles of the
dethroned mind to get possession of
its own body again, as the young
man or woman grows to personal
freedom, ought to strike remorse and
shame to the parental heart. They
do not, because the devoted parent
knows no more of these simple
psychic processes than the Goths
knew of the priceless manuscripts
they destroyed so cheerfully. With
the slow, late kindling of the freed
mind, under the stimulus, perhaps, of
noble thoughts from others, or just
the inner force of human upgrowth,
the youth tries to take the rudder,
and steer straight. But the rudder
chains are stretched to useless
�TWO AND TWO TOGETHER
slackness, or rusted and broken. He
feelsnobly. Hethinksnobly. Hestarts
to do nobly, but his inner pressure
meets no quick response in outer act.
The connection is broken. The habit
of "Don’t” is strong upon him. Fol
lowing each upward impulse which
says, " Do !” is that automatic check,
artificial, but heavily driven in, which
has so thoroughly and effectually
taught the brain to stop at thinking,
not to do what it thought. What he
felt and thought was not allowed to
govern his action these fifteen years
past. Why should it now ? It takes
years of conscientious work to re
establish this original line of smooth
connection, and the mended place is
never so strong as it would have been
if it had not been broken.
Also, the work of those who seek
to educate our later youth, and of
those who are for ever pouring out
their lives to lead the world a little
higher, is rendered a millionfold more
difficult by this same gulf, this
terrible line of cleavage which strikes
so deep to the roots of life, and leaves
our beautiful feelings and wise
thoughts to mount sky-high in mag
nificent culture, while our action,
which is life’s real test, grovels
slowly along, scarce moved by all our
fine ideas.
A more general discourager of our
racial advancement than this method
of brain-training we could hardly have
invented. It is universal in its appli
cation, and grinds down steadily on
all our people during the most im
pressionable years of life. That we
grow as we do in spite of it is splendid
proof of the beneficent forces of our
unconscious life, always stronger
than our conscious efforts ; and that
our children grow more freely, and
so have more power of initiative and
self-government, is the best work of
our democracy.
“But what else can we do?” will
ask the appalled parents. Without
authority they feel no grip upon the
child, and see themselves exposed to
infant tyranny, and the infant grow
ing up neglected and untrained. This
shows how little progress we have
made in child-culture, how little grasp
we have of the real processes of edu
cation. Any parent, no matter how
ignorant, is wiser than a baby and
larger. Therefore, any parent can
direct a child’s action and enforce it,
to some extent. But to understand
how to modify the child’s action by
such processes as shall keep it still
his own, to alter his act by first
altering his feeling and thought, and
so keeping the healthy sequence
unbroken—that is a far more subtle
and difficult task. A typical instance
of this difference in method may be
illustrated in that common and always
difficult task, teaching a child table
manners. Here is a case in which
there is no instinct in the child to be
¿appealed to. The noise, clumsiness,
and carelessness to which we object
are not at all unpleasant to him. In
what way can we reach the child’s
range of reasoning, and convince him
of the desirability of this artificial
code of ours? We can, of course,
state that it displeases us, and appeal
to his goodwill not to give us pain.
This is rational enough; but con
sideration for others, based on a mere
statement of distaste—a distaste he
cannot sympathise with—is a rather
weak force with most children. It is
a pity to overstrain this delicate
feeling. It should be softly tested
from time to time, and used enough
to encourage a healthy growth ; but
to appeal continually to a sympathy
none too strong is often to strain
and weaken it. In table manners it
seldom works well. The alleged dis
tress of the parent requires too much
imagination, the desired self-control
has too slight a basis.
But there is a far safer and better
way. Carefully work out in your
own mind the real reason why you
wish the child to conform to this
�26
TWO AND TWO TOGETHER
particular code of table ethics. It is
not wholly on the ground of displeas
ing you by the immediate acts. The
main reason why they displease you,
and why you are so concerned about
the matter, is that this is the accepted
standard among the people with
whom you associate and with whom
you expect the child to associate-, and
if he does not conform to this code he
will be excluded from desirable society.
Reasons why table manners exist
at all, or are what they are, require
further study ; but the point at issue
is not why it is customary to eat with
the fork instead of the knife, but why
your child should do so. When he
gets to the point of analysing these
details, and asks why he should fold
his napkin in one case and leave it
crumpled in another, you will of
course be prepared with the real
reasons. Meanwhile, the real reason
why the child should learn not to do
these undesirable things is that such
manners, if pursued, will deprive him
of desirable society.
We usually content ourselves with
an oral statement to this effect :
“ Nobody will want to eat with you if
you do so!” Right here let a word
be said to those who are afraid of
over-stimulating a child’s brain by a
more rational method of training.
Training by observation and deduc
tion is far easier to a young brain
than training by oral statements.
To take into the mind by ear a state
ment of fact, and to hold that state
ment in memory and preserve its
force to check a natural action, is a
difficult feat for an adult. But to see
that such a thing has such a conse
quence, and “ take warning” by that,
is the “early method,” the natural
method, the quickest, easiest, surest
way. So, instead of saying to the
child, “ If you behave so, people will
not want to eat with you,” we should
let him see that this is the case, and
feel the lack.
f-Jis most desirable society is usually
that of his parents ; and his first
entrance upon that plane should be
fairly conditioned upon his learning
to play the game as they do. No
compulsion, no penalties, no thought
of “ naughtiness,” merely that, if he
wants to eat with them, why, that is
the way they eat, and he must do so,
too. If he will not, exit the desirable
society. By very gradual steps—not
by long, tiresome, grown-up meals,
but by a graduated series of exercises
that should recognise the physical
difficulty of co-ordinating the young
faculties on this elaborate “ manual of
arms
a child could learn the whole
performance in a reasonable time, and
lose neither nervous force nor clear
ness of perception in the process.
As we do these things now, pulling
this string and that, appealing to
feelings half developed, urging reasons
which find no recognition, using com
pulsion which to the child’s mind is
arbitrary and unjust, we may super
induce a tolerable system of table
manners ; but we have more or less
injured the instrument in so doing.
A typewriter could, perhaps, be
worked with a hammer, but it would
not improve the machine. We have
had far more consideration for “ the
machinery of the household ” than for
the machinery of a child’s mind, and
yet the real foundation-claim of the
home is that it is necessary to rear
children in. If the ordinary condi
tions of household life are unsuitable
to convey the instruction we desire, it
is for us so to arrange those condi
tions as to make them suitable.
There are cases, many cases, in a
child-time, where we cannot command
the conditions necessary for this
method of instruction, where the
child must act from our suggestion
with no previous or accompanying
reasoning. This makes it all the
more necessary that such reasoning
should be open to him when we can
command it. Moreover, the ordinary
events in a young- life are not surprises.
�THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER
to the parent. We know in advance
the things that are so unexpected to
the child. Why should we not be at
some pains to prepare him for these
experiences ? The given acts of each
day are not the crucial points we
make of them. What is important is
that the child shall gradually establish
a rational and connected scheme of
life and method of action, his young
faculties improving as he uses them,
life growing easier and plainer to him
from year to year. It is for the
parent, the educator, the brain
trainer, to study out details of method
and delicate applications. The main
purpose is that the child’s conduct
shall be his own-—his own chosen
course of action, adopted by him
through the use of his own faculties,
not forced upon him by immediate
external pressure.
27
It is our business to make plain to
him the desirability of the behaviour
we wish produced, carefully estab
lishing from day to day his percep
tions of the use and beauty of life,
and his proven confidence in us as
interpreters. The young brain should
be regularly practised in the first easy
steps of sequential reasoning, arguing
from the interesting causes we so
carefully provide to the pleasant or
not too painful effects we so honestly
let it feel, always putting two and two
together as it advances in the art and
practice of human conduct. Then it
will grow into a strong, clear, active,
mature brain, capable of relating the
facts of life with a wider and juster
vision than has been ours, and acting
unflinchingly from its own best judg
ment, as we have striven to do in vain
these many years.
IV.
THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER
The question of discipline is a serious
one to every young mother; and most
mothers are young to begin with.
She feels the weight of maternal
responsibility and the necessity for
bringing up her child properly, but
has studied nothing whatever on the
subject.
What methods of discipline are in
general use in the rearing of children?
The oldest and commonest of all is
that of meeting an error in the child’s
behaviour with physical pain. We
simply hurt the child when he does
wrong, in order that he may so learn
not to do wrong. A method so
pontmon and sp old as this ought to
be clearly justified, or as clearly con
demned, by its results.
Have we succeeded yet in simplify
ing and making easy the training of
children—easy for the trainer and for
the trained; and have we developed a
race of beings with plain, strong,
clear perceptions of right and wrong
behaviour and an easy and accurate
fulfilment of those perceptions ?
It must be admitted that we have
not; but two claims will be made in
excuse : first, that, however unsuc
cessful, this method of discipline is
better than any other ; and, second,
that the bad behaviour of humanity is
dup to pur ipherpnt depravity, and
�28
THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER
cannot be ameliorated much even by
physical punishment. Some may go
further, and say thatwhatever advance
we have made is due to this parti
cular system. Unfortunately, we have
almost no exact data from which to
compute the value of different methods
of child-training.
In horse-training something definite
is known. On one of the great stock
ranches of the West, for instance,
where some phenomenal racers have
been bred, the trainers of colts not
only forbid any rough handling of the
sensitive young animals, but even
rough speaking to them. It has been
proven that the intelligent and affec
tionate horse is trained more easily
and effectually by gentleness than by
severity. But with horses the methods
used are open to inspection, and also
the results.
With children each family practises
alone on its own young ones, and no
record is kept beyond the casual obser
vation and hearsay reports of the
neighbours. Yet, even so, there is a
glimmer of light. The proverbial
uncertainty as to “ ministers’ sons ”
indicates a tendency to reaction when
a child has been too severely re
strained ; and the almost sure down
fall of the “mamma’s darling,” the
too-much-smothered and over-in
dulged boy, shows the tendency to
foolish excesses when a child has not
been restrained enough.
Again, our general uncertainty as
to methods proves that even the
currently accepted “ rod ” system is
not infallible. If it were, we should
have peace of mind and uncounted
generations of good citizens. As it
is, we have the mixed and spotty
world we all know so well—a heavy
percentage of acknowledged criminals,
a much larger grade of those who
just do not break the law, but whose
defections from honesty, courage,
truth, and honour weigh heavily
upon us all. Following that comes
the vast mass of “good people,”
and their behaviour is sometimes
more trying than that of thè bad
ones.
Humanity does gain, but not as
fast as so intelligent a race should.
In penology something has been
learned. Here, dealing with the
extreme criminal, we are slowly estab
lishing the facts that arbitrary and
severe punishment does no’t propor
tionately decrease crime ; that crime
has causes, which may be removed;
and that the individual needs to be
treated
beforehand,
preventively,
rather than afterward, retributively.
This would seem to throw some light
on infant penology. If retributive
punishment does not proportionately
decrease crime in adult criminals,
perhaps it does not decrease “naugh
tiness ” among little children.
If
there is an arrangement of conditions
and a treatment which may prevent
the crime, perhaps there may be an
arrangement of conditions and a treat
ment which will prevent the naughti
ness.
One point may be clearly established
to begin with, and that is the need of
an open court for our helpless little
offenders. Whatever else we think
of human nature, we know it to be
fallible, and that a private individual
cannot be expected to administer
justice in secret and alone.
Suppose Mr. Jones steals a cow
from Mr. Smith, is Mr. Smith capable
of being himself both judge and execu
tioner? Does not the very concep
tion of justice involve a third party,
someone to hold the scales, to
balance, to decide ? And, if circum
stances compel much power to be
invested in an individual for a season,
should not that individual be pre
viously instructed from some code of
law which many have sanctioned, and
afterward be held responsible to public
judgment ?
A ship captain, for instance, has
absolute authority for a while ; but
his authority rests on law, and. if he
�THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER
breaks that law, he is liable to punish
ment. Moreover, if he goes too far
while in command, he is liable to
dangerous mutiny as well. But in
domestic discipline the child is abso
lutely in the power of the parent.
There is no appeal. There is no
defence. There are no witnesses.
The child offends against the parent,
and the offended one is both judge
and executioner. A number of chil
dren may commit exactly the same
offence, as, for instance, if six boys
all go swimming when forbidden ; yet
they are liable to six several punish
ments at the hands of their six several
mothers or fathers—punishments bear
ing relation to the views, health, and
temper of the parent at the time
rather than to the nature of the mis
deed. The only glimmer of protection
which the child gets from an enlight
ened community is in the Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
—a small, feeble body, acting in few
localities, and intervening only to save
the child from the parent when gross
physical cruelty is practised. That
in many cases parents are even
violently cruel to little children gives
reason to believe that many others
are a little cruel; and that still more,
while not cruel, are unwise.
There is no society for the preven
tion of over-indulgence to children,
for instance; yet this is a frequent
injury to our young people. What
ever the views of the separate parents,
and whatever their standard of jus
tice, a great improvement would be
made if there were some publicity and
community of action in their methods.
A hundred men together can decide
upon and carry out a higher course of
action than they could be trusted
to follow severally. Our beautiful
growth in justice and equity (for
grown people) has always required
this openness and union. Many a
mdther, tired and cross with her
housework, does things to her child
which she would be ashamed to retail
to a cool and unprejudiced circle of
friends. And many another mother
consistently and conscientiously inflicts
punishments which she would learn
to be ashamed of if she heard them
discussed by her respected associates
with a consensus of disapproval.
In the ordinary contact of neigh
bourly life some little development of
this sort goes on; a few sporadic
Mothers’ Clubs lead to more concerted
discussions ; and to-day the Mothers’
Congress, lately become the Parents’
Congress, and other bodies, together
with a growing field of literature on
the subject, is leading to far wider
and deeper thought, and some experi
ment. But the field is as wide as the
world, and very little is yet accom
plished. We have swung wide from
the stern severity of earlier times,
so that our children are notoriously
11 indulged ” ; but merely to leave off
a wrong method, without introducing
a better one, is not all that can be
hoped.
The discipline of life lies before us
all. The more carefully and wisely
we teach and train our children, the
less they and others need suffer after
ward. But there does seem to be
some grave deficiency in our method
of domestic discipline. Here is little
Albert being educated. He is not
going to school yet. He is “ not old
enough.” That is, he is not old
enough to be taught anything syste
matically by persons whose business
it is to teach ; but he is old enough
to be learning the A B C of life at the
hands of those with whom he chances
to be. A child learns every day.
That cannot be helped. What he
learns, and how, we can largely dic
tate ; but we cannot keep his brain
shut until he gets to school, and then
open it for three or four hours a day
only. What does little Albert learn ?
Put yourself in his place for a little
while. Here are ' new sensations
coming to him momently, through
the eager nerves of sense. Here is a
�3°
THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLITPER
new brain, fresh to receive impres
sions, store them, and act upon them.
The pleasure of perceiving is keen,
the pleasure of his limited but grow
ing reflection is keen, and the pleasure
of action is best of all. Life is full of
interest. All the innumerable facts
which form our smooth background
of behaviour, in the knowledge of
which we avoid the water and the
fire and go down hill circumspectly,
are to him fresh discoveries and reve
lations. He has to prove them and
put them together, and see how they
work. The feelings with which we
have learned to associate certain facts
and actions do not exist to him. He
knows nothing of “ should ” or
“should not,” except as he learns it
by personal trial or through the
reaction of other persons upon him.
This open state of mind we early
destroy by labelling certain acts as
good and others as bad ; and, since
we do not see our way to exhibiting
the goodness or badness to the baby
brain in natural colours, we paint
them in sharp black and white, with
no shading. He has to gather his
sense of relatively good and bad from
the degree of our praise and punish
ment ; and strange indeed are his
impressions.
The loving and cuddling which
delight his baby soul are associated
with so many different acts, and in
such varying proportion, that he does
not clearly gather whether it- is more
virtuous to kiss mamma or to pull
grandpa’s whiskers; and it takes him
some time to learn which dress he
must not hug. But if the good
things confuse him, the bad ones are
far more complex and uncertain.
Little Albert is, we will say, inves
tigating his mother’s work-basket.
A tall object stands before him. He
just bumped his head against it, and
it wiggled. He felt it wiggle. He
reaches forth an inquiring hand, and
finds graspable wicker legs within
reach. To grasp and to pull are
natural to the human hand and arm.
To shake was early taught him.
Things were put in his hands, the
shaking of which produced an agree
able noise and admiration from the
beloved ones. So he shakes this new
object, and, to his delight, something
rattles. He puts forth his strength,
and, lo! the tall, shakable object
falls prostrate before him, and scatters
into a sprawling shower of little
things that clink and roll. Excellent!
Lovely ! Have not persons built up
tall creations of vari-coloured blocks,
and taught baby to knock them down
and rejoice in their scattering?
But mamma, to whom this group
of surfaces, textures, colours, move
ments, and sounds, means much
besides infantile instruction, asserts
that he is “naughty,” and treats him
with severity.
“ If you do that
again,” says irate mamma, “ I’ll whip
you !” If Albert has not already
been whipped, the new word means
nothing. How is an unwhipped child
to know what whipping means ? She
might save her breath. The lesson
is not taught by words. But if she
promptly whips him, and does so
inevitably when he repeats the offence,
he does learn a definite lesson—
namely, that the act of pulling over a
work-basket results in a species of
physical pain, via mamma.
Then the unprejudiced young brain
makes its deduction—“The pulling
over of things causes physical pain,
named whipping.” This much being
established, he acts on the informa
tion. Presently he learns, with some
little confusion, that going out of the
gate without leave is also productive
of whipping—dissimilar acts, but the
same result—and lays this up with
the other : “ Pulling over things and
going out of gates are two causes
with the same result—whipping.”
Then comes another case. He
begins to investigate that endless
■wonder and attraction, the fire. Tf
ever cause and effect were neatly and
�THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER
forcibly related, it is in this useful
and dangerous element. So simple
and sure is its instructive and deter
rent action that we have built a
proverb on it—-“The burnt child
dreads the fire.”
But the mother of Albert has a
better plan than mother Nature.
She interposes with her usual arbi
trary consequence-—“ If you play with
fire, I will whip you,” and Albert
learns anew that this third cause still
produces the same unpleasant result ;
and he makes his record—“Pulling
things over, going out of gates,
playing with fire, result in whipping.”
And he acts accordingly. Then one
day he makes a new and startling
discovery.
Led by some special
temptation, he slips out of the gate
and safely back again, unseen of
any. No whipping follows. Then
his astonished but accurate brain
hastily revises the previous informa
tion, and adds a glaring new clause—“ It is not just going out of gates that
makes a whipping come : it is being
seen !” This is covertly tried on the
other deeds with the same result.
“Aha 1 Aha !” clicks the little record
ing machine inside. “ Now I know !
Whipping does not come from those
things : it comes from mamma ; and
if she does not see me it doesn’t
come 1 Whipping is the result of
being seen! ” Of course, a little
child does not actually say this to
himself in so many words ; but he
does get this impression very clearly,
as may be seen from his ensuing
behaviour.
The principle in question, in con
sidering this usual method of disci
pline, is whether it is better to asso
ciate a child’s idea of consequences
with the act itself or with an indi
vidual, and conditioned upon the
chance of discovery. Our general
habit is to make the result of the
child’s deed contingent upon the
parental knowledge and displeasure
rather than upon the deed itself. As
3i
in this hackneyed instance of the fire,
instead of teaching the child by mild
and cautious experiment that fire
burns, we teach him that fire whips.
The baby who is taught not to play
with fire by the application of a rear
ward slipper does not understand the
nature of the glittering attraction any
better than before; and as soon as he
learns that whippings are contingent
upon personal observation, he fondly
imagines that if he can play with fire
without being seen no pain will follow.
Thus the danger we seek to avert
is not averted. He is still liable to
be burned through ignorance. We
have denied the true lesson as to the
nature of fire, and taught a false one
of arbitrary but uncertain punish
ment. Even if the child is preter
naturally obedient and never does the
things we tell him not to do, he does
not learn the lesson. He is no wiser
than before. We have saved him
from danger, and also from know
ledge. If he is disobedient, he runs
the same risk as if we had told him
nothing, with the added danger of
acting alone and nervously. Whereas,
if he were taught the simple lesson
that fire burns, under our careful
supervision to see that the burn was
not serious, then he would know the
actual nature of fire, and dread it with
sure reason, far more than he dreads
the uncertain slipper.
This has been dwelt upon so fully
by previous writers that there would
seem small need of further mention ;
but still our mothers do not read or
do not understand, and still our
babies are confronted with arbitrary
punishment instead of natural conse
quence. The worst result of this
system is in its effect on the moral
sense. We have a world full of
people who are partially restrained
from evil by the fear of arbitrary
punishment, and who do evil when
they imagine they can do so without
discovery. Never having been taught
to attach the evil consequence to the
�32
THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER
evil act, but, instead, to find it
a remote contingency hinging on
another person’s observation, we grow
up in the same attitude of mind,
afraid not of stealing, but of the
policeman.
If there is no slipper, why not tip
over the work-basket; if there is no
policeman, why not steal ? Back of
slipper and police we hold up to the
infant mind a still more remote con
tingency of eternal punishment; but
this has to be wholly imagined, and
is so distant, to a child’s mind, as to
have little weight. It has little weight
with grown persons even, and, neces
sarily, less with a child.
The mental processes involved in
receiving by ear an image of a thing
never seen, of visualising it by imagi
nation and then remembering the
vision, and finally of bringing forward
that remembered vision to act as
check to a present and actual tempta
tion, are most difficult. But where a
consequence is instant and clear—
when baby tries to grab the parrot,
and the parrot bites—that baby,
without being promised a whipping
or being whipped, will thereafter
religiously avoid all parrots.
A baby soon learns to shun certain
things for reasons of his own. What
he dislikes and fears he will not
touch. It is no effort for the young
mind to observe and remember a
prompt natural consequence. We do
make some clumsy attempts in this
direction, as when we tie up in an
ill-tasting rag the thumb too often
sucked. If thumb-sucking is a really
bad habit and a general one, we
should long since have invented a
neat and harmless wash, purchasable
in small bottles at the drug store, of
which a few applications would sicken
the unhappy suckling of that thumb
most effectually. But thumb-sucking
we do not consider as wrong, merely
as undesirable. When the child does
what we call wrong, we think he
should be “punished.” Our ideas of
domestic discipline are still of the
crudely savage era; while in social
discipline, in penology, we have
become tolerably civilised.
Some will say that the child is like
a savage, and is most open to the
treatment current at that time in our
history. It is true that the child
passes through the same phases in
personal development that the race
passed long ago, and that he is open
to the kind of instruction which would
affect a primitive-minded adult. But
this means (if we are seeking to
benefit the child) not the behaviour
of one savage to another, but such
behaviour as would elevate the
savage. One of the most simple and
useful elements in primitive discipline
is retaliation. It is Nature’s law of
reaction in conscious form.
To retaliate in kind is primitive
justice. If we observe the code of
ethics in use among children, it
resolves itself into two simple prin
ciples : that of instant and equal
retaliation; or, when that fails, the
dread ultimatum which no child can
resist—“I won’t play ! ” A child who
is considered “ mean ” and disagree
able by his fellows meets the simple
and effectual treatment of snubbing,
neglect, ostracism.
These two principles may be applied
in domestic discipline gently, a.ccurately, fairly, and without ill-feeling ;
and their effect is admirable. “ What
is the difference between this and the
other method?” will be asked. “Is
not this also descending to the plane
of childishness, of savagery, to which
you were just now objecting ? ” Here
is the difference.
To apply a brutal and arbitrary
punishment to the person of the
offender is what savages do, and
what we do to the child. To receive
a just and accurate retaliation is what
child and savage understand, are
restrained and instructed by.
We
should treat the child in methods
applicable by the savage, not with the
�THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER
behaviour of savages. For instance,
you are playing with a little child.
The little child is rude to you. You
put him down, and go away. This is a
gentle reaction, which, being repeated,
he soon learns to associate with the
behaviour you dislike. “ When I do
this,” observes the infant mind, “the
play stops. I like to play. There
fore I will not do the thing that
stops it.”
This is simple observation, and
involves no ill-feeling. He learns to
modify his conduct to a desired end,
which is the lesson of life. In this
case you treat him by a method of
retaliation quite perceptible to a
savage, and appealing to the sense
of justice without arousing antago
nism. But if you are playing with
the little one, he is rude to you, and
you spank him, he is conscious of a
personal assault which does arouse
antagonism. It is not only what a
savage could understand, but what a
savage would have done. It arouses
savage feelings, and helps to keep the
child a savage. Also, it helps to keep
the race a savage ; for the child who
grows up under the treatment
common in that era finds it difficult
to behave in a manner suitable to
civilisation.
Discipline is part of life; and, if
met early and accepted, all life
becomes easier. But the discipline
which the real world gives us is based
on inexorable law, not on personal
whim. We make the child’s idea of
right and wrong rest on some
person’s feeling, not on the nature of
the act. He is trained to behave on
a level of primitive despotism, and
cannot successfully adjust himself to
a free democracy. This is why our
children, who get less of the oldfashioned discipline, make better
citizens than the more submissive
races who were kept severely down
in youth, and are unable to keep
themselves down in later life.
There is a painful paucity of ideas
33
on child-training in most families, as
clearly shown in the too common
confession, “ I’m sure I don’t know
what to do with that child!” or,
“What would you do with such a
child as that ?”
If we may not use the ever-ready
slipper, the shrill, abusive voice, the
dark closet, or threat of withheld
meal, what remains to us in the line
of discipline ? What is to be done to
the naughty child? We need here
some knowledge of what naughtiness
really is. The child is a growing
group of faculties, the comparative
development of which makes him a
good or bad member of society. His
behaviour has, first, the limitations of
his age, and, second, of his person
ality.
A child is naturally more timid than
a grown person, and a given child
may be afflicted with more timidity
than is natural to his age.
Acts
which indicate such a condition show
need of training and discipline. A
certain amount of selfishness is natural
to childhood : acts indicating unusual
selfishness call for correction.
So with the whole field of childish
behaviour : whatever acts show evil
tendencies need checking ; but the
acts natural to every child only show
that he is a child—which is not
“ naughty ”! If we considered the
field beforehand, asked ourselves
what we expected during this day or
this year in the behaviour of such a
child, and were not displeased when
he behaved within those lines, much
unnecessary pain and trouble would
be saved to both parties. Then, when
things really indicative of evil were
done, we should carefully examine
and test the character so manifested,
and begin to apply the suitable
discipline.
For example, it is natural to child
hood to be inconsiderate of others.
The intense little ego, full of strong
new sensations, has small sympathy
for the sensations of his associates.
�34
THE BURNT CHILD DREADS THE SLIPPER
The baby may love the kitten, and
yet hurt it cruelly because he does
not know how kittens feel. This is
not naughty, and needs only the
positive training which shall hasten
his natural growth in extension of
sympathy. To show him the right
methods of handling the pet, and
especially of not handling it; to teach
him to enjoy watching the kitten’s
natural activities and to respect its
preferences—all that is education,
and needs no “ discipline.” But if
the child shows a pleasure in hurting
the kitten after he knows it hurts,
then you have real evil to deal with.
A character is indicated which may
grow to callous indifference to the
feelings of others, and even to their
actual injury. These acts are“ wrong,”
and wise, strong measures are neces
sary.
There are two main lines on which
to work. One is to take extra
measures to cultivate sympathy, using
nature study, and to examine and
care for such pronounced cases of
suffering as must arouse even the most
dominant interest. The too-callous
child might be taken to a children’s
hospital, and helped to minister to
the needs of the small sufferers. His
pets, meanwhile, should be large and
strong creatures, which he would
depend on more or less, and his
enjoying their company made abso
lutely contingent on right treatment.
Special attention should also be paid
to all such acts as showed considera
tion of others—to encourage and
reward them.
Again, if a child shows a tod violent
or sullen temper, or is distinctly sly
and untrustworthy, these are serious
indications, and need careful and
thorough treatment.
But the great majority of acts for
which children are punished are not
at all evil. “Carelessness,” for in
stance, is incident to the young brain
-—-essential to it. The power always
to co-relate properly and remember is
an adult power, and not always
strong in the adult. We need, of
course, to encourage a growing care
fulness, but not to expect it nor
punish its natural lack.
Clumsiness is also incidental to the
young nerve connections. The baby
drops things continually, the child
frequently; the adult will hold an
object even while the mind is other
wise engaged, the habit of the flexomotor nerves being well established.
Enterprising experiment is not only
natural to childhood, but a positive
virtue. That is the quality which
leads the world onward, and the lack
of it is a Chinese wall against pro
gress. One enormous field of what
we call naughtiness in our little ones
lies in offences against things.
First and foremost, clothes. Wet
ting, soiling, and tearing clothes—
what a sea of tears has been shed,
what wails and sobs, what heavy and
useless punishments inflicted, because
of injured clothing ! Yet almost every
accident to clothing comes from the
interaction of two facts—first, the
perfectly natural clumsiness and care
lessness of childhood ; and second,
our interminable folly in dressing a
child in unchildish garments, and
placing him in unchildish conditions.
There is no naughtiness involved
except in the parent, who shows a
stupidity abnormal to her age. Chil
dren are frequently reproached for
wearing out their shoes. What does
the intelligent parent expect ? Is the
child to sit in a chair, lie down, or
ride the bicycle continually? If the
child is seen to cut his shoes with
knives or grind them on a grindstone,
that may be discouraged as malicious
mischief; but the inevitable stubbing
and scuffing of the eager, restless,
ungoverned little feet should have
been foreseen and allowed for. We
do strive to buy the heaviest possible
mass of iron-shod leather for our boys,
and then we scold them for being
noisy.
�TEACHABLE ETHICS
3^
To surround a growing creature behaviour which is sure to appear,
with artificial difficulties, to fail to this is not the kind of discipline which
understand or allow for the natural makes wise, strong, self-governing
difficulties of his age, and then to citizens.
punish with arbitrary retribution the
V.
TEACHABLE ETHICS
Our g'eneral knowledge of ethics is
small and unreliable, and our practice
in ethics even smaller and more un
reliable. The good intentions of
mankind are prominent ; but our
ideas of right behaviour are so con
tradictory and uncertain, our execu
tion of such ideas as we hold so
partial and irregular, that human
behaviour continues to be most un
satisfactory. This condition we used
cheerfully to attribute to the infirmity
of human nature, taking ignominious
consolation from the thought of our
vicious tendencies and hopeless weak
ness.
The broad light of evolutionary
study has removed this contemptible
excuse. We now know human nature
to be quite as good as the rest of
nature, wherein everything is good
after its kind ; and that, furthermore,
our human kind has made great
improvement in conduct so far, and
is capable of making a great deal
more. We are not weak: we are
strong. We are not wicked : we
earnestly desire to be good. But we
are still very ignorant of the science
of ethics, and most inept in its
practice.
We learn mathematics, and apply
our knowledge with marvellous
results. We learn physics, and use
what we know therein to work
miracles in the material world. Ethics
is as plain a science as physics, and
as easy of application. Ethics is the
physics of social relation. The cause
of our slow growth in ethics is this :—
The prominent importance of right
action and constant need of some
general standard to appeal to, strongly
impress the human mind in its very
earliest stage of development. In
capable as yet of scientific methods of
study, ignorant, supremely credulous
and timid, conservative and super
stitious to a degree, primitive man
promptly made “ a religion ” of his
scant observations and deductions in
ethics, and forbade all further study
and experiment. Where other sciences
have their recognised room for pro
gress, a slowly accumulating, and
often changing, knowledge behind,
and a free field of uncertainty in front,
ethics was promptly walled in with
the absolute and the supernatural.
The few lines of action then recog
nised as “ moral ” or “ immoral ”
were defined in the most conclusive
manner, and no room left for later
study. It is most interesting to note
the efforts of conscientious men in
later ages to make an intelligible,
consistent scheme of ethics out
of these essentially incorrect early
attempts. By these efforts a religion
grew from a simple group of dogmas
c 2
�36
TEACHABLE ETHICS
and rites to the complex ramifications
of many commentators; and the occa
sional vigorous and progressive brain
that saw more light has always had
to suffer and struggle long to intro
duce new truth. We have forbidden,
under awful penalties, all openminded study in these lines ; and this
especially hindering mental attitude
has kept the most general and simple
of the sciences in a very backward
condition, so that we go through
school and college with no real
enlightenment on the subject.
Thus a young man, quite proficient
in languages, physics, and the higher
mathematics, will be shamefully defi
cient in even the lowest ethics (right
behaviour in regard to himself), and
show no acquaintance whatever with
the higher branches of the subject.
We err very commonly in right treat
ment of ourselves, more commonly in
treatment of one another; and our
confusion of idea and behaviour
increases with the square of the
distance, our behaviour to other
nations or other kinds of animals
being lowest of all. We have a
common scheme of behaviour, coming
from various influences and condi
tions, which we cannot ourselves
account for by any ethical rules ; and
this everyday, working ethics of ours
shows how social evolution uncon
sciously developes needed conduct,
even where our conscious intelligence
fails to recognise or recommend such
conduct as ethical. Thus we have
developed many stalwart and timely
virtues in spite of rather than because
of religious approval, and many serious
vices flourish without religious oppo
sition.
A conspicuous instance of this is in
the pious contentment of a wealthy
church corporation, the income of
which is derived from tenement houses
which are hotbeds of evil ; and in the
often observed conduct of an irreli
gious man, who practises the com
monplace necessary virtues of daily
business life.
But this power of
social evolution developes the imme
diate virtues essential to close per
sonal intercourse more quickly than
the higher range of virtue needed in
national and international affairs.
Thus we often see “ a good family
man,” friend, and perhaps even an
honest business dealer, shamefully
negligent or corrupt in political duty.
It would seem that the same brains
which have brought us forward to
such enormous knowledge in other
lines might have made more progress
in this.
Some special cause must
have operated, and be still operating,
to prevent a normal growth in this
deeply important field.
Much might be said here of the
influence of religious custom ; but the
still closer and more invariable cause
lies not in the church, but in the
home.
Where in social relation our neces
sary enlargement and progress have
forced upon us nobler characteristics,
in the domestic relation small change
has been made. The privacy and con
servatism of the family group have
made it a nursing ground of rudimen
tary survivals, long since outgrown
in more open fields ; and the ethical
code of the family is patently behind
that of the society in which it is
located.
The primitive instincts,
affections, and passions are there;
but justice, liberty, courtesy, and
such later social sentiments are very
weak.
New truth is seen by new brains.
As the organ we think with grows
from age to age, we are able to think
farther and deeper ; but, if the grow
ing brain is especially injured in any
one department in early youth, it will
not grow as fast in that one line. As
a general rule—a rule with rare excep
tions—-we do thus injure the baby
brain in the line of ethical thought
and action.
In other sciences we
teach what we know, when we teach
at all, and practise fairly; but,
�TEACHABLE ETHICS
in teaching a child ethics, we do not
give even what we have of knowledge,
and our practice with him and the
practice we demand from him are not
at all in accordance withour true views.
In glaring instance is the habit of
lying to children.
A woman who
would not lie to a grown friend will
lie freely to her own child. A man
who would not be unjust to his
brother or a stranger will be unjust
to his little son. The common cour
tesy given any adult is not given to
the child. That delicate consideration
for another’s feelings, which is part of
our common practice among friends,
is lacking in our dealings with chil
dren.
From the treatment they
receive, children cannot learn any
rational and consistent scheme of
ethics.
Their healthy little brains
make early inference from the conduct
of their elders, and incite behaviour
on the same plan ; but they speedily
find that these are poor rules, for they
do not work both ways. The conduct
we seek to enforce from them does
not accord with our conduct, nor form
any consistent whole by itself. It is
not based on any simple group of
principles which a child can under
stand, but rests very largely on the
personal equation and the minor
variations of circumstance.
Take lying again as an instance.
1. We lie to the child. He discovers
it. No evil is apparently resultant.
2. He accuses us of it, and we punish
him for impertinence. 3. He lies to
us, and meets severe penalties.
4. We accuse him of it, rightly or
wrongly, and are not punished for
impertinence. 5. He observes us lie
to the visitor in the way of politeness
with no evil result. 6. He lies to the
visitor less skilfully, and is again
made to suffer. 7. He lies to his
more ignorant juniors, and nothing
happens. 8. Meanwhile, if he receives
any definite ethical instruction on the
subject, he is probably told that God
hates a liar, that to lie is a sin !
37
The elastic human brain can and
does accommodate itself to this con
fusion, and grows up to repeat the
whole performance complacently with
out any consciousness of inconsistency;
but progress in ethics is hardly to be
looked for under such conditions. It
is pathetic to see this waste of power
in each generation. We are born
with the gentler and kinder impulses
bred by long social interrelation.
We have ever broader and subtler
brains ; but our good impulses are
checked, twisted, tangled, weighed
down with many artificial restrictions,
and our restless questionings and
suggestions are snubbed or neglected.
A child is temptingly open to instruc
tion in ethics. His primitive mental
attitude recognises the importance of
the main principles as strongly as the
early savage did. His simple and
guarded life makes it easy for us to
supply profuse and continuous illus
trations of the working of these prin
ciples ; and his strong, keen feelings
enable us to impress with lasting
power the relative rightness and
wrongness of different lines of action.
Yet this beautiful opportunity is not
only neglected, but the fresh mind and
its eager powers are blurred, confused,
discouraged, by our senseless treat
ment. Our lack of knowledge does
not excuse it. Our lingering religious
restriction does not excuse it. We
know something of ethics, and prac
tise something, but treat the child as
if he was a lower instead of a higher
being.
Surely we can reduce our
ethical knowledge into some simple
and teachable shape, and take the
same pains to teach this noblest, this
most indispensable of sciences that
we take to teach music or dancing.
Physics is the science of molecular
relation—how things work in relation
to other things. Ethics is the science
of social relation—how people work
in relation to other people. To the
individual there is no ethics but of
self-development and reproduction.
�38
TEACHABLE ETHICS
The lonely animal’s behaviour goes
no farther. But gregarious animals
have to relate their behaviour to one
another—a more complex problem ;
and in our intricate co-relation there
is so wide a field of interrelative be
haviour that its working principles
and laws form a science.
However complex our ultimate acts,
they are open to classification, and
resolve themselves into certain general
principles which long since were recog
nised and named. Liberty, justice,
love—we all know these and others,
and can promptly square a given act
by some familiar principle. The sense
of justice developes very early, and
may be used as a basis for a large
range of conduct. “To play fair”
can be early taught. 11 That isn’t
fair !” is one of a child’s earliest per
ceptions. “ When I want to go some
where, you say I’m too little ; and
when I cry, you say I’m too big ! It
isn’t fair !” protests the child.
In training a child in the perception
and practice of justice we should
always remember that the standard
must suit the child’s mind, not ours.
What to our longer, wider sweep of
vision seems quite just, to him may
seem bitterly unjust; and, if we
punish a child in a way that seems to
him unjust, he is unjustly punished.
So the instructor in ethics must have
an extended knowledge of the child’s
point of view—that of children in
general and of the child being in
structed in particular—and the illus
trations measured accordingly. It
ought to be unnecessary to remark
that no more passion should be used
in teaching ethics than in teaching
arithmetic. The child will make
mistakes, of course. We know that
beforehand, and can largely provide
for them. It is for us to arrange his
successive problems so that they are
not too rapid ot* too difficult, and to
be no more impatient or displeased at
a natural slip in this line of develop
ment than in any other.
Unhappily, it is just here that we
almost always err. The child’s slowly
accumulating perceptions and increas
ing accuracy of expression are not
only confused by our erroneous teach
ing, but greatly shocked and jarred
by our manner, our evident excitement
in cases of conduct which we call
“matters of right and wrong.” All
conduct is right or wrong. A differ
ence in praise or blame belongs to
relative excellence of intention or of
performance ; but the formation of a
delicate and accurate conscience is
sadly interfered with by our violent
feelings. It is this which renders
ethical action so sensitive and morbid.
Where in other lines we act calmly,
according to our knowledge, or,
if we err, calmly rectify the error,
in ethics we are nervous, vacillat
ing, unduly elated or depressed,
because our early teachings in this
field were so over-weighted with
intense feeling.
Self-control is one of the first essen
tials in the practice of ethics—which
is to say, in living. Self-control can
be taught a child by gently graduated
exercises, so that he shall come calmly
into his first kingdom, and exercise
this normal human power without
self-consciousness. We do nothing
actively to develop this power. We
simply punish the lack of it when that
lack happens to be disagreeable to us.
A child who has “tantrums,” for
instance—those helpless, prostrate
passions of screaming and kicking—is treated variously during' the attack;
but nothing is done during the placid
interval to cultivate the desired power
of control. Self-control is involved
in all conscious acts. Therefore, it
should not be hard so to arrange and
relate those acts as steadily to deve
lop the habit.
Games in varying degree require
further exertion of self-control, and
games are the child’s daily lessons.
The natural ethical sense of humanity
is strongly and early shown in our
�TEACHABLE ETHICS
games. It is a joy to us to learn
“the rules” and play according to
them, or to a maturer student to
grasp the principles and work them
out; and our quick condemnation of
the poor player or the careless player,
and our rage at him who “ does not
play fair,” show how naturally we
incline to right conduct. Life is a
large game, with so many rules that
it is very hard to learn by them ; but
its principles can be taught to the
youngest. When we rightly under
stand those principles, we can leave
off many arbitrary rules, and greatly
simplify the game. The recognition
of the rights of others is justice,
and comes easily to the child. The
generosity which goes beyond justice
is also natural to the child in some
degree, and open to easy culture. It
should, however, always rest on its
natural precursor, justice; and the
child be led on to generositygradually,
and by the visible example of the
higher pleasure involved.
To divide the fruit evenly is the
first step. To show that you enjoy
giving up your share, that you take
pleasure in his pleasure, and then,
when this act is imitated, to show
such delight and gratitude as shall
make the baby mind feel your satis
faction—that ■ is a slow but simple
process. We usually neglect the
foundation of justice, and then find it
hard to teach loving-kindness to the
young mind. Demands on the child’s
personal surrender and generosity
should be made very gradually, and
always with a clearly visible cause.
Where any dawning faculty is over
strained in youth, it is hard and slow
to re-establish the growth.
One simple ethical principle most
needful in child-training, and usually
most painfully lacking, is honesty.
Aside from direct lying, we almost
universally use concealment and
evasion; and even earlier than that
we assume an artificial manner with
babies and young children which
39
causes the dawning ethical sense
strange perturbations.
It is a very common thing to
demand from little children a show of
affection without its natural prompt
ing. Even between mother and child
this playing at loving is often seen.
“ Come and kiss mamma ! What 1
Don’t you love mamma? Poor
mamma! Mamma cry!” And mamma
pretends to cry, in order to make
baby pretend to love her. The adult
visitor almost invariably simulates an
interest and cordiality which is not
felt, and does it in a palpably artificial
manner. These may seem small
matters. We pass them without
notice daily, but they are important
in the foundation impressions of the
young brain. Children are usually
very keen to detect the pretence.
“ Oh, you don’t mean that; you only
say so ! ” they remark. We thus help
to develop a loose, straggling sense
of honesty and honour, a chronic
ethical inaccuracy, like a bad “ ear ”
for music.
The baby-educator should see to it
that she show only real feelings to the
child ; and show them in large letters,
as it were. Do not say, “ Mamma is
angry,” or “ Mamma is grieved,” or
“ Mamma is ashamed,” but be angry,
grieved, or ashamed visibly. Let the
child observe the effect of his act on
you, not hear you say you feel thus
and so, and see no signs of it. We
depend far too much on oral state
ments, and neglect the simpler,
stronger, surer means of conveying
impressions. The delicacy of percep
tion of a child should be preserved and
tenderly used. We often blur and
weaken it by giving false, irregular,
and disproportionate impressions, and
then are forced to use more and more
violence to make any impression at
all. All this sensitiveness is to ethics
what the “ musical ear ” is to music.
In injuring it, we make it harder for
the growing soul to discriminate
delicately in ethical questions—a
�4°
TEACHABLE ETHICS
difficulty but too common among us.
The basis of human ethics, being
social, requires for its growth a grow
ing perception of collective and inter
relative rights and duties. Our con
tinual object with the child is to estab
lish in his mind this common con
sciousness and an accurate measure
in perception. It is at first a simple
matter of arithmetic. Here is the
group of little ones, and the equal
number of cookies ; palpably, each
should have one. Here is one extra
cookie. Who shall have it ? Robby,
because his is the smallest. Jamie
cries that his is as small as Robby’s.
Is it? The fact is ascertained. Divide
the extra cookie, then, that’s fair. Or
here is one who was not well yester
day and had no cookies. Give it to
him. These things are not to be
ostentatiously done nor too continu
ally, but always with care and accu
racy, as lessons more important than
any others. The deeper and larger
sense of social duty—not the personal
balancing of rights, which is easy to
even the youngest mind, but the
devotion to the service of all, the
recognition that the greater includes
the less—this must be shown by
personal example long before it can
be imitated.
Parents neglect this where it would
help them most, and substitute, to
meet the child’s inquiries, only per
sonal authority and compulsion. If
the parent would constantly manifest
a recognition of duty and perform
ance of it even against desire, it
would be a great help to the child.
Most children imagine that grown
persons do just as they want to, and
that the stringent code of behaviour
enforced upon them is requisite only
in childhood, and enforceable only
because of their weakness. Much of
the parent’s conduct can be used as
an object-lesson to the child ; but its
skilful employment needs clear ethical
perception and much educational
ability. For instance, if the mother
elaborately explains that she is
obliged to do something which seems
to the child absurd, or if she claims
to have to do a certain thing which
the child can see that she really
enjoys, the impressions made are not
correct ones. A recognition of the
importance of right teaching of ethics
to the child would help adult conduct
in most cases. And if the child were
receiving proper grounding in ethics
from a special educator, he could
come home and perplex his parents
with problems, as a bright child often
does now in other sciences.
This, of course, points to the need
of accepted text-books on ethics, and
will allow of disputes between autho
rities and disagreement on many
points ; but these conditions exist in
all sciences. There are different
authorities and “schools,” much dis
agreement and dispute and varying
conduct based on our various scien
tific beliefs. But out of the study,
discussion, and ensuing behaviour
comes the gradual proof of what is
really true ; and we establish certain
generally accepted facts and prin
ciples, while still allowing a margin
for divergence of opinion and further
knowledge.
Our dread of studying ethics as a
science on account of this divergence
of opinion is a hereditary brain ten
dency, due to the long association of
ethical values with one infallible reli
gious text-book—Koran or Bible or
Talmud or Zend-Avesta.
“ It is written ” was the most con
clusive of statements to the ancient
mind. The modern mind ought by
this time to have developed a wide
and healthy distrust of that which is
written. While our “ written ” ethics
has remained at a standstill always
until the upward sweep of social
conduct demanded and produced a.
better religion, our unnoticed practice
of ethics has worked out many
common rules.
In the fearless study of this held of
�A PL A CE FOR CHILDREN
practical ethics lies our way to such
simple text-books as may be used to
teach children. There is no question
as to whether we should or should
not teach ethics to very little childien.
We do, we must, whether we will or
not. The real question is what to
teach and how. They learn from our
daily walk and conversation, and they
learn strange things. Most palpable
of all among the wrong impressions
given to our children is that of the
pre-eminent importance of the primi
tive relations of life, and the utter
unimportance of the great social rela
tions of our time. Whatever ideas of
right and wrong the child succeeds in
gathering, they are all of a closely
personal nature, based on inter
personal conduct in the family rela
tion, or in such restricted and shallow
social relations as are covered by our
code of “ company manners.”
The greatest need of better ethics
to-day is in our true social relation—
the economic and political field, of
action in which lie our major activities,
and in which we are still so grossly
uncivilised. Not until he goes to
school does the child begin to appre
ciate any general basis of conduct ;
and even there the ethics of the
position are open to much clearer
treatment.
As the mother is so prominent a
4i
factor in influencing the child’s life, it
is pre-eminently necessary that she
should be grounded in this larger
ethics, and able to teach it by example
as well as by description. She needs
a perception of the proportionate
duties of mankind—an understanding
of their true basis, and a trained skill
in imparting this knowledge to the
child. If she cannot properly teach
ethics, she should provide a teacher
more competent. At present the only
special ethical teaching for the child
outside the family is in the Sundayschool ; and Sunday-school teachers
are usually amiable young ladies who
are besought on any terms—with no
preparation whatever—to give this
instruction. Once we boldly enter
the field of ethical study, and reduce
its simple principles to a teachable
basis—when we make clear to. our
selves and our children the legitimate
reasons of right conduct—the same
intelligence and ambition which carry
us on so far in other sciences will lift
the standard of behaviour of our race,
both in theory and practice. Mean
while, with such knowledge and prac
tice as we have to-day, let us see to
it that we give to little children our
best ethics by precept and example,
with hopes that they may go on to
higher levels.
VI.
A PLACE FOR CHILDREN
The one main cause of our unfairness
to children is that we consider them
wholly in a personal light. Justice
and equity, the rights of humanity,
require a broader basis than blood
relationship. Children are part of
humanity, and the largest part. Few
of us realise their numbers, or think
that they constitute the majority, of
human beings. The average family,
�4<2
A PLACE FOR CHILDREN
as given in the census returns, consists
of five persons—two adults and three
minors. Any population which in
creases has a majority of children,
our own being three-fifths.
This
large proportion of human beings
constitutes a- permanent class —another fact we fail to consider
because of our personal point of view.
One’s own child and one’s neigh
bour’s child grow up and pass out of
childhood, and with them goes one’s
interest in children. Of course, we
intellectually know that there are
others ; but to the conscious mind of
most persons children are evanescent
personal incidents.
The permanence of childhood as a
human status is proven by the
survival among them of games and
phrases of utmost antiquity, which
are handed down, not from father to
son, but from child to child. If an
isolated family moves into a new
country, and its children grow up
alone, they do not know these games.
We should bear in mind in studying
children that we have before us a
permanent class, larger than the. adult
population. So that in question of
numerical justice they certainly have
a right to at least equal attention.
But when we remember also that
this large and permanent class of
human beings is by far the most
important, that on its right treatment
rests the progress of the world, then,
indeed, it behoves' us to consider
the attitude of the adult population
towards the junior members of society.
As members of society, we find that
they have received almost no atten
tion. They are treated as members
of the family by the family, but not
even recognised as belonging to
society. Only in modern history do
we find even enough perception of the
child’s place in the State to provide
some public education ; and to-day,
in some more advanced cities, some
provision for public protection and
recreation. Children’s playgrounds
are beginning to appear at last among
people who have long maintained
public parks and gardens for adults.
Also, in the general parks a children’s
quarter is often now provided, with
facilities for their special care and
entertainment. But except for these
rare cases of special playgrounds,
except for the quite generous array of
school-houses and a few orphan
asylums and kindred 'institutions,
there are no indications in city or
country that there are such people as
children.
A visitor from another planet,
examining- our houses, streets, furni
ture, and machinery, would not gather
much evidence of childhood as a large
or an important factor in human life.
The answer to this is prompt and
loud : “ Children belong at home!
Look there, and you will see if they
are considered or not.”
Let us look there carefully. The
average home is a house of, say, six
rooms. This is a liberal allowance,
applicable only to America. Even
with us, in our cities, the average
home is in a crowded tenement—only
two or three rooms ; and in wide
stretches of country it is a small and
crowded farmhouse. Six rooms is
liberal allowance—kitchen, dining
room, and parlour, and three bed
rooms. Gazing upon the home from
the outside, we see a building of
dimensions suited to adults. There
is nothing to indicate children there.
Examining it from the inside, we find
the same proportionate dimensions,
and nothing in the materials or
arrangement of the internal furnish
ings to indicate children there. The
stairs are measured to the adult
tread, the windows to the adult eye,
the chairs and table to the adult seat.
Hold I In a bedroom we discover
a cradle—descended from who knows
what inherited desire for swinging
boughs !—and in some cases, a crib.
In the dining-room is often a high
chair (made to accommodate the
�A PLACE FOR CHILDREN
adult table), and sometimes in the
parlour a low chair for the child. If
people are wealthy and careful, there
is, perhaps, a low table, too ; but the
utmost that can be claimed for the
average child is a cradle or crib, a
high chair, and a “little rocker.”
There can be no reasonable objection
to this, so long as the child is con
sidered merely as a member of a
family. The adult family precedes
and outlasts the child, and it would
be absurd to expect them to stoop
and suffer in a house built and fur
nished for children.
So we build for the adult only, and
small legs toil painfully up our stairs
and fall more painfully down them.
But the moment we begin to address
ourselves to the needs of children as a
class, the result is different. In the
school-house all the seats are for
children, except “teacher’s chair”;
in the kindergarten the tiny chairs
and tables are perfectly appropriate ;
in the playground all the appointments
are child-size. “What do you expect?”
protests the perplexed parent. “ You
say yourself, I cannot build my house
child-size. Do you expect me to add
a child-size house in the back yard ?
I cannot afford it.”
■ No, the individual parent cannot
afford to build a child-house for his
own family, nor, for that matter,
a school-house. We, collectively,
whether through general taxation, as
in the public school, or combination
of personal funds, as in the private
school, do manage to provide our
children with schoolhouses, because
we recognise their need of them.
Similarly, we can provide for them
suitable houses for a far more early
and continuous education—when we
see the need of them. Here the un
touched brain-spaces make no re
sponse. “ What do you mean?” cries
the parent. “ Do you wish us to club
together, and build a — a — public
nursery -for our children?” This
seems sufficiently horrific to stop all
43
further discussion. But is it ? May
we not gently pursue the theme ?
We can and do cheerfully admit the
advantages of a public school and a
public school-teacher for our children.
Some of us admit the advantages of
a public kindergarten and a public
kindergartner for our children. The
step between child-garden and baby
garden is slight. Why not a public
nursery and a public nurse ? That,
of course, for those classes who gladly
provide and patronise the public
school and kindergarten. The swarm
ing, neglected babies of the poor, now
“ underfoot ” in dirty kitchen or dirtier
street, part neglected and part abused,
a tax on the toiling mother and a
grievous injury to the older children
who must care for them—these would
be far better off if every crowded block
had its big, bright baby-garden on the
roof, and their young lives were kept
peaceful, clean, and well cared for by
special nurses who knew their busi
ness. A public nursery is safer than
the public street. One hot reply to
this proposition is that “statistics
prove that babies in institutions die
faster than babies even in the poorest
families.” Perhaps this is so.
But consider the difference in the
cases. Children in institutions are
motherless, generally orphans. No
one is proposing to remove the mothers
of the babies in the baby-garden.
“ But they would be separated from
their mothers!” Children who go
to school are separated from their
mothers. Children who go to the
kindergarten are separated from their
mothers. Children who play in the
streetareseparated from theirmothers.
If the mothers of these children had
nothing else to do, they could give all
their time to them. But they have
other things to do ; and, while they
are busy, the baby would be better off
in the baby-garden than in the street.
To those who prefer to maintain the
private school and the private kinder
garten, a private baby-garden would
�44
A PLACE FOR CHILDREN
be equally available. “ But we do
not want it. We prefer to care for
our children at home,” they reply.
This means that they prefer to have
their little ones in their own nursery,
under the care of the mother, via the
nurse.
The question remains open as to
which the children would prefer, and
which would be better for them.
Perhaps certain clear and positive
assertions should be made here, to
allay the anxiety and anger about
“ separating the child from the
mother.”
The mother of a young baby should
be near enough to nurse it, as a
matter of course. She should “take
care of it ”; that is, see that it has
everything necessary to its health,
comfort, and development. But that
is no reason why she should admini
ster to its every need with her own
hands. The ignorant, low-class, poor
mother does this, and does not pre
serve the lives of her children thereby.
The educated, high-class, rich mother
does not do this, but promptly hires a
servant to do it for her. The nursery
and the nurse are essential to the
baby ; but what kind of nursery and
nurse are most desirable ? The kind
of servant hired by the ordinary wellto-do family is often not a suitable
person to have the care of little chil
dren. A young child needs even more
intelligent care than an older one.
A group of families, each paying
for its children’s schooling, can afford
to give them a far higher class of
teacher than each could afford to
provide separately. So a group of
families, each paying for its children’s
“nursing,” could afford to provide a
far superior class of “nurse” than
each can provide separately.
¿lere again rises the protest that it
is not good for small children—babies
—to be “ herded together ”—see infant
mortality in institutions. Again, an
unfair comparison is involved. The
poorest kind of children, motherless
and fatherless, are crowded in undue
numbers in “ charitable ” or “ public ”
institutions, and submitted to the
perfunctory care of low-grade, ill-paid
attendants, among accommodations
by no means of the best. We are
asked to compare this to small groups
of healthy, well-bred children, placed
for certain hours of the day only in
carefully planned apartments, in all
ways suitable, under the care of high
grade, well-paid, expert attendants
and instructors.
The care of little children is not
servants’ work. It is not “ nurses ’ ”
work. A healthy child should have
his physical needs all properly supplied,
and, for the rest, be under the most
gentle and exquisite “training.” It
is education, and education more
valuable than that received in college,
which our little ones need ; and they
do not get it from nurse-maids.
Then rises the mother. “ I can
teach my baby better than any
teacher, however highly trained.” If
the mother can, by all means let her.
But can she? We do not hear
mothers protesting that they can teach
their grown-up sons and daughters
better than the college professors, nor
their middle-aged children better than
the school-teachers. Why, then, are
they so certain that they can teach
the babies better than trained baby
teachers ? They are willing to consult
a doctor if the baby is ill, and gladly
submit to his dictation. “ The doctor
says baby must eat this, and go there,
and do so.” There is no wound to
maternal pride in this case. If they
have “ defective ” children, they are
only too glad to place them under
“expert care,” not minding even
“ separation ” for the good of the
child.
Anyone who knows of the marvel
lous results obtained by using specially
trained intelligence in the care of defec
tive children must wonder gravely if
we might not grow up better with
some specially trained intelligence
�A PLACE FOR CHILDREN
used on our normal children. But
this we cannot have till we make a
place for children. No woman or
man, with the intelligence and educa
tion suitable for this great task, would
be willing to be a private servant in
one family. We do not expect it of
college-teacher or school-teacher. We
could not expect it of baby-teacher.
The very wealthy might of course
command all three ; but that has no
application to mankind in general,
and is also open to grave question as
to its relative value.
A private staff of college professors
would not be able to give the boy the
advantages of going to college. We
cannot have separately what we can
have collectively. Moreover, even if
the teacher be secured, we have not
at home the material advantages open
to us in the specially prepared place
for children.
A house or range of apartments for
little children could be made perfectly
safe—which is more than the home is.
From the pins on the carpet, which
baby puts in his mouth, the stairs he
falls down, the windows he falls out
of, and the fire he falls into, to the
doors to jam the little fingers and the
corners and furniture he bumps him
self upon, “the home” is full of danger
to the child. Why should a baby be
surrounded with these superfluous
evils ? A room really designed for
babies to play in need have no “ furni
ture ” save a padded seat along the
wall for the “grown-ups” to sit on, a
seat with little ropes along the edge
for the toddlers to pull up and walk
by. The floor should be smooth and
even, antiseptically clean, and not
hard enough to bump severely. A
baby must fall, but we need not pro
vide cobblestones for hisfirst attempts.
Large soft ropes, running across here
and there, within reach of the eager,
strong little hands, would strengthen
arms and chest, and help in walking.
A shallow pool of water, heated to
suitable temperature, with the careful
45
trainer always at hand, would delight,
occupy, and educate for hours daily.
A place of clean, warm sand, another
of clay, with a few’simple tools : these
four thing’s—water, sand, clay, and
ropes to climb on—would fill the days
of happy little children without further
“toys.”
These are simple, safe,
primitive pleasures, all helpful to
growth and a means of gradual edu
cation. The home cannot furnish
these things, nor could the mother
give her time and attention to their
safe management, even if she knew
how to teach swimming, modelling,
and other rudimentary arts.
The home, besides its difficulties
and dangers, is full of unnecessary
limitations.
It is arranged on a
scale of elegance such as the adult
income can compass ; and the natural
activities of childhood continually
injure the household decorations and
conveniences. Perfectly natural and
innocent conduct on the part of the
child is deleterious to the grown-up
home, so patently so that owners of
fine houses are not willing to let them
to families with children.
A nice comment this on the home
as a place for children I Must a home
be shabby and bare ? Or must the
child be confined to his bed ? Why
not develop the home to its own
perfection — a place of beauty and
comfort and peace—and let the chil
dren have a home of their own for
part of the day, wherein the order
and beauty and comfort are child
size ? The child could sleep under
his mother’s eye or ear, and gradually
aspire to the adult table when he had
learned how to be comfortable there,
and not injure the comfort of others.
He could soon have his own room if
the family could afford it, and express
his personality in its arrangement ;
but the general waking time of little
children could be much better passed
in a special house for children than in
the parental kitchen, parlour, bed
room, or back yard. “ But why not
�46
A PLACE FOR CHILDREN
the private nursery—the sunny room
for the child and his toys ? Is not that
enough?” The private nursery means
the private nurse, who is, as a class,
unfit to have the care of little children.
She is a servant; and the forming
ideas of justice, courtesy, and human
rights in general are much injured by
the spectacle of an adult attendant
who is a social inferior. A servant is
not a proper person to have charge of
these impressionable years.
Moreover, however perfect the
private nursery and private nurse
might be, there remains its isolation
to injure the child.
We grow up
unnecessarily selfish, aborted in the
social faculties proper to our stage of
advance, because each child is so in
the focus of family attention all the
time. A number of little ones to
gether for part of every day, having
their advantages in common, learning
from infancy to say “we” instead of
“ I,” would grow up far better able to
fill their places as helpful and happy
members of society.
Even in those rare cases where the
mother does actually devote her entire
time to her children, it would still be
better for them to pass part of that
time in an equally wise and more dis
passionate atmosphere. Our babies
and small children ought to have the
society of the very best people instead of
the society of such low-gradewomen as
we can hire to be nurses in our homes.
And, while they need pre-eminently
the mother’s tender love and watchful
care, they also need the wider justice
and larger experience of the genuine
child-trainer.
So long as we so underrate the
importance of childhood—and that in
proportion to the youth of the child—
those persons who should benefit our
babies by their presence will not do
so. Very great and learned men are
proud to teach youths of eighteen and
twenty in colleges ; but they would
feel themselves painfully ill-placed if
set to teach the same boys at ten,
five, or two years old. Why ? Why
should we not be eager for an intro
duction to “ Professor Coltonstall !
He’s the first man in America in
infant ethics ! Marvellous success I
You can always tell the children who
have been under him !” You cannot
have this professor in your nursery. But
your children and those of fifty other
eager parents could be benefited by his
wisdom, experience, and exquisitely
developed skill in a place in common.
The argument does not appeal to
us. We see no need for “wisdom,”
“experience,” “trained skill ” with a
baby. We have not realised that we
despise our babies; but we do.
Anyone is good enough to take care
of them. We even confide them to
the care of distinctly lower races, as
in the South with its negro nurses.
“ Social equality ” with the negro is
beyond imagination to the Southerner.
That grossly inferior race can never be
admitted to their companionship ; but
to the companionship of the baby—
certainly.
Could anything prove
more clearly our lack of just apprecia
tion of the importance of childhood ?
The coloured nurse is, of course,
thought of merely as the servant of
the child ; and we do not yet consider
whether it is good for a child to have
a servant, or whether a servant is a
good educator.
The truth is we never think of
education in connection with baby
hood, the term being in our minds
inextricably confused with school
houses and books. When we do
honestly admit the plain fact that a
child is being educated in every waking
hour by the conditions in which he is
placed and the persons who are with
him, we shall be readier to see the
need of a higher class of educators
than servant-girls, and a more care
fully planned environment than the
accommodations of the average home.
The home is not materially built
for the convenience of a child, nor are
its necessary workings planned that
�A PL A CE FOR CHILDREN
way ; and, what is more directly evil,
the mother is not trained for the posi
tion of educator. We persist in con
founding mother and teacher. The
mother’s place is her own, and always
will be. Nothing can take it from
her. She loves the child the best;
and, if not too seriously alienated, the
child will love her the best. The
terror of the mother lest her child
should love some other person better
than herself shows that she is afraid
of comparison—that she visibly fears
the greater gentleness and wisdom of
some teacher will appeal to the young
heart more than her arbitrary methods.
If the mother expected to meet daily
comparison with a born lover of chil
dren, trained in the wisest methods of
child-culture, it would have an improv
ing influence on the home methods.
One of the great advantages of this
arrangement will be in its reactive
effect on the mother. In her free
access to the home of the children,
she will see practically illustrated the
better methods of treating them, and
be in frequent communication with
their educators. The mother’s know
ledge of and previous association with
the child will make her a necessary
coadjutor with the teacher, and by
intercourse with the larger knowledge
and wider experience of the teacher
the mother will acquire new points of
view and wiser habits.
As the school and kindergarten
react beneficially upon the home, so
this baby-school will react as bene
ficially, and perhaps more so, as
touching the all-important first years.
The isolated mother has no advantage
of association or comparison, and falls
into careless or evil ways with the
child, which contact with more
thoughtful outside influences would
easily prevent. She could easily
retain her pre-eminent place in the
child’s affections, while not grudging
to the special teacher her helpful
influence. Also, the child, with the
free atmosphere of equality around
47
him for part of each day, with associa
tion with his equals in their place,
would return to his own place in the
home with a special affection, and
submit with good will to its necessary
restrictions.
In all but isolated farm life, or on
the even more primitive cattle range,
it would be possible to build a home
for little children, and engage suitable
persons to take charge of them daily.
It would take no more time from the
housework—if that is the mother’s
trade—to take the child to its day
play-school than it takes to watch
and tend it at home and to prevent or
mend its “mischief.”
“Children are so mischievous,” we
complain, regarding their ingenious
destruction of the domestic decora
tions. A calf in a flower-garden
would do considerable mischief, or
kittens in a dairy. Why seek to rear
young creatures in a place where they
must do mischief if they behave differ
ently from grown people ? Why not
provide for them a place where their
natural activities would not be in
jurious, but educational ?
In cities it is a still simpler question.
Every block could have its one or
more child homes, according to the
number of children thereabouts. The
children of the rich would be saved
from the evil effects of too much care
and servants’ society, and the children
of the poor from the neglect and low
associations of their street-bred lives.
The “ practical ” question w’ill now
arise, “Who is to pay for all this?”
There are two answers. One is, the
same people who pay for the education
of our older children. The baby has
as good a right to his share of our
educational funds, private and public,
as the older child ; and his education
is more important. The other answer
is that an able-bodied mother, relieved
of her position as nursery governess,
would be able to contribute some
thing towards better provision for her
I children.
�48
UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING
VII.
UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING
A small boy came from an oldfashioned city—a city where he went
to school from day to day, and sat
with his fellows in rigid rectangular
rows, gazing on bare whitewashed
walls adorned with a broad stripe of
blackboard; where he did interminable
“sums” on a smeary little slate, and
spelled in sing-song chorus “ Baker !
Baker! b, a, bay ; k, e, r, ker—
Baker! ” He came to a new-fashioned
city, where the most important busi
ness on earth—the training of children
-—was appreciated. The small boy
did not know this. He saw that the
city was clean and bright and full of
wide spaces of grass and trees ; and
he liked it. It pleased him, as a
child ; it was the kind of place that
looked as if it had been planned with
some thought of pleasing children.
Soon he came to a great open gate,
with shady walks and sunny lawns
inside, buildings here and there in the
distance, and, just at hand, some
strange figures among the bushes.
A pleasant-looking lady sat reading
in the shade, with a few children lying
in the grass near by, reading too.
Our small boy stood irresolute ; but
the lady looked up, and said : “Come
in, if you like. Look around all you
want to.” Still he felt shy ; but one
of the reading little boys rose up, and
went to him. “ Come on,” he said,
cheerfully. “ I’ll show you. There’s
lots o’ things, you’ll like. Oh, come
on!” So he entered with uncertain
steps, and made for one of the queer
figures he had seen in the shrubbery.
“ It’s an Indian !” he said. “ Like a
cigar store!” But the resident little
boy resented his comparison. “’Tisn’t,
either ! ” cried he. “ It’s ever so much
nicer ! Look at his moccasins and his
arrows, and see the scalps in his belt!
See the way he’s painted ? That
shows he’s a Sioux. They are great.
One of the best kinds. They live up
in the North-west—Minnesota and
round there ; and they fight splendid!
That one over there is a Yuma Indian.
Look at the difference !”
And he took the visitor about, and
showed him an interesting collection
of samples of American tribes, giving
off rivers of information with evident
delight. From Indians their attention
was taken by a peculiarly handsome
butterfly that fluttered near them,
pursued hotly by an eager little girl
with a net.
“ That must be a—well, I forget the
name,” said the resident little boy.
“ Do you like bugs ?”
“ What kind o’ bugs ? ” inquired the
visitor, rather suspiciously.
“ Oh, tumble bugs and burying
beetles and walking-sticks, and all
kinds.”
“Walking-sticks! What’s that
got to do with bugs ?”
“ Didn’t you ever see the walkingstick one ? Oh, come on in! I’ll
show you ! It’s this way.” And off
they run to a big rambling building
among the shady elms. The visitor
hangs back, somewhat awed by the
size and splendour of the place, and
seeing grown people about ; but his
young guide goes in unchecked, merely
whispering, “ Got to keep still in
here,” and leads him down several
passages into a large, quiet hall,
lined with glass cases.
Such a wealth of “ bugs ” as were
here exhibited had never before been
seen by the astonished visitor ; but,
�UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING
when the walking-stick insect was
pointed out to him, he stoutly denied
that it was a “ bug ” at all. . A whis
pered altercation resulted in appeal
to the curator, a studious youth, who
was taking notes at a large table
bestrewn with specimens. Instantly
dropping his work, he took the object
under discussion from its case, focussed
a magnifying glass upon it, and pro
ceeded to exhibit various features of
insect anatomy, and talk about them
most interestingly. But as soon as
he detected the first signs of inatten
tion and weariness he changed the
subject—suggested that there was
some good target practice going on
in the West Field ; and the two boys,
after a pleasant walk, joined a number
of others who were shooting with
bows and arrows, under careful coach
ing and management. “ I can’t shoot
except Saturdays,” said the guide,
“ because I haven’t joined a team and
practised. But, if you want to, you
just put your name down ; and by
and by you can hit anything. There’s
all kinds of old-fashioned weapons—
and the new ones, too.”
“What do you call this, anyhow ?”
demands the visitor.
“Call what? This is the West
Field: they do all kinds of shooting
here. You see that long bank and
wall stops everything.”
“ Yes ; but the whole place—is it a
park ?”
“ Oh, yes, kind of.
It’s Weybourne Garden. And that was the
museum we went to—one of ’em.”
“ Is it open always ?”
“Yes.”
“ And you don’t have to pay for
anything ?”
“ No. This part is tor children.
We learn how to do all sorts of
things. Do you know how to build
with bricks ? I learned that last. I
built a piece of a real wall. It’s not
here. It was one that was broken on
the other side, and I built a good
piece in !”
49
A big clock struck somewhere.
“Now I must go to dinner with
mother,” said the guide. “The gate
you came in at is on my way. Come
on !” And he showed the wondering
visitor out, and left him at his own
door.
The young stranger did not know
where he had been. He did not
faintly imagine it. Neither, for that
matter, did the other children, who
went there every day, and with whom
he presently found himself enrolled.
They went to certain places at certain
hours, because they were only “ open ”
then with the persons present who
showed them how to do desirable
things.
There were many parks in the city,
with different buildings and depart
ments ; and in them, day by. day,
without ever knowing it, the children
of that city “ went to school.”
The progressive education of a child
should be, as far as possible,, uncon
scious. From his first eager interest
in almost everything, up along the
gradually narrowing lines of personal
specialisation, each child should be
led with the least possible waste of
time and nervous energy. There
would be difficulties enough, as there
are difficulties in learning even desir
able games; but the child would meet
the difficulties because he wanted to
know the thing, and gain strength
without losing interest. So soon as a
child-house is built and education
seen to begin in earliest babyhood, so
soon as we begin to plan a beautiful
and delicately adjusted environment
for our children, in which line and
colour and sound and touch are. all
made avenues of easy, unconscious
learning, we shall find that there is
no sharp break between “ home ” and
“school.” In the baby-garden the
baby will learn many things, and
never know it. In the kindergarten the
little child will learn many things, and
never know it. He will be glad and
proud of his new powers, coming
D
�go
UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING
back to share the astonishing new
information or exhibit the new skill to
papa and mamma ; but he will not be
conscious of any task in all the time,
or of special credit for his perform
ance. Then, as he grows, the garden
grows, too; and he finds himself a
little wiser, a little stronger, a little
more skilful every day—or would if
he stopped to measure. But he does
not measure. His private home is
happy and easy, with a father and
mother interested in all his progress ;
and his larger home—the child-world
he grows up in—is so dominated by
wise, subtle educational influences
that he goes on learning always,
studying a good deal, yet never
“going to school.”
In the wise treatment of his baby
hood, all his natural faculties are
allowed to develop in order and to
their full extent, so that he comes to
a larger range of experiment and
more difficult examples with a
smooth - working,
well - developed
young mind, unwearied and unafraid.
The legitimate theories of the kinder
garten carefully worked out helped
him on through the next years in the
same orderly progression ; and, as a
child of five or six, he was able to
walk, open-eyed and observant, into
wider fields of knowledge. Always
courteous and intelligent specialists
around him, his mental processes
watched and trained as wisely as his
sturdy little body, and a careful
record kept, by these experienced
observers, of his relative capacity and
rate of development.
So he gradually learns that common
stock of human knowledge which it is
well for us all to share—the story of
the building of the earth, the budding
of the plant, the birth of the animal,
the beautiful unfolding of the human
race, from savagery towards civilisa
tion. He learns the rudiments of the
five great handicrafts, and can work
a little in wood, in metal, in clay, in
cloth, and in stone. He learns the
beginnings of the sciences, with
experiment and story, and finds new
wonders to lead him on, no matter
how far he goes—an unending fasci
nation.
For his sciences he goes to the
museum, the laboratory, and the
field, groups of children having about
the same degree of information falling
together under the same teacher. For
the necessary work with pen and
pencil there are quiet rooms provided.
He has looked forward to some of
these from babyhood, seeing the older
ones go there.
Each child has been under careful
observation and record from the very
first. His special interests, his pre
ferred methods, his powers and weak
nesses, are watched and worked with
carefully as he grows. If power of
attention was weak at first, he is
given special work to develop it. If
observation was loose and inaccu
rate, that was laboured with. If the
reasoning faculty worked with diffi
culty, it was exercised more carefully.
He has been under such training from
babyhood to twelve or fifteen years
old as to give a full and co-ordinate
development of his faculties—all of
them ; and such a general grasp of
the main lines of knowledge as to
make possible clear choice of the
lines of study for which he is best
adapted. With such a childhood the
youth will have much more power of
learning, and a deep and growing
interest—an unbroken interest—in his
work.
The natural desire of mankind to
know, and also to teach, and the
steadily enlarging field of knowledge
open to us, should make education
the most delightful of processes.
With our present methods the place
of teacher is usually sought merely
for its meagre salary, by women who
“have to work,” instead of being
eagerly aspired to as the noblest of
professions, and only open to those
best fitted. The children are so
�UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING
over-taxed and mishandled that only
the best intellects come out with any
further desire to learn anything.
Humanity’s progress is made through
brain-improvement, by brain-power.
We need such schooling as shall give
us better brains and uninjured bodies.
Fortunately for us, the value of edu
cation is widely felt to-day, and new
and improved methods are rapidly
coming in. Our school-houses are
more beautiful, our teachers better
trained and more ambitious, and the
beneficent influences of the kinder
garten and of the manual training
system are felt everywhere.
But while much is being done,
much more remains for us. With
such honour and such pay as show
our respect for the office of teacher,
and such acquired training and natural
capacity as shall allow of no incapables, we could surround our
children from birth with the steady
influence of the wisest and best
people. More and more to-day is the
school opening out. It connects with
the public library, with art and
industry, with the open fields ; and
this will go on till the time is reached
when the child does not know that he
is at school—he is always there, and
yet never knows it.
Where residence was permanent,
the teachers of different grades could
constantly compare their growing
records, and the child’s unfolding be
watched steadily, and noted with a
view to still further improvement in
method. Travelling parties of chil
dren are not unknown to us. These
will become more common, until
every child shall know his earth face
to face—mountain, river, lake, and
sea—and gain some idea of political
division as well.
Two main objections to all this will
arise at once : one, that of expense ;
the other, that a child so trained
would not have learned to “ apply
himself”—to force himself to do what
he did not like ; that itwas all too easy.
The ground of too much expense
cannot be held. Nothing is too
expensive that really improves educa
tion ; for such improvement cuts off
all the waste product of society—the
defective and degenerate, the cripple,
thief, and fool—and saves, millions
upon millions now spent in main
taining or restraining these injurious
classes. Not only that, but it as
steadily developes the working value
of humanity, turning out more and
more vigorous and original thinkers
and doers to multiply our wealth and
pleasure. Grant the usefulness of
improved methods in education, and
they can never be expensive. Even
to-day the school-children become a far
better class of citizens than the streetarabs who do not go to school ; and
such school advantages as we have
lower our expense in handling crime
and disease. When we provide for
every child the very best education
real education of body, brain, and
soul—with the trained hand and eye
to do what the trained will and judg
ment command, it is difficult to see
where the “ criminal class ” is to
come from.
As to its being too easy, and not
developing sufficiently stern stuff in
our youngsters, that has two answers.
In the first place, this proposed line of
advance is not without its difficulties.
Whether a child is learning to sew or
to shoot or to lay bricks, to solve
examples in fractions or to play chess,
there are always difficulties.
To
learn what you don’t know is always
a step up.
But why need we add to this the
difficulty of making the child dislike
the work ? t( Because it is necessary
in this world to do what you don’t
like I” is the triumphant rejoinder.
This is an enormous mistake. It
is necessary in this world to like what
you do, if you are to do anything worth
while. One of the biggest of all our
troubles is that so many of us are
patiently and wearily doing what we
D 2
�52
UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING
do not like. It is a constant injury
to the individual, draining- his nervous
strength and leaving him more easily
affected by disease or temptation;
and it is a constant injury to society,
because the work we do not like to
do is not as good as it would be if we
liked it.
The kind oi forcing we use in our
educational processes, the “attention”
paid to what does not interest, the
following of required lines of study
irrespective of inclination—these act
to blunt and lower our natural inclina
tions, and leave us with this mis
chievous capacity for doing what we
do not like.
A healthy child, rightly surrounded
with attractive opportunities, the
stimulus of association, and natural
(not forced) competition, will wTant to
learn the things most generally neces
sary, just as he wants to learn the
principal games his comrades play.
He has his favourite games, and does
best in them, and will have his
favourite studies and do best in them,
which is no injury to anyone.
In this unconscious method the
child learns with personal interest
and pleasure, and not under pressure
of class competition, reward, or
punishment. He knows, of course,
that he is learning, as he knows when
he has learned to swim or to play
golf; but he is not laboriously
“ going to school ” and “ studying ”
against his will. The benefit of such
a process is that it will supply the
world with young citizens of unim
paired mental vigour, original powers
and tastes, and strong special inter
ests, thus multiplying the value and
distinction of our products, and main
taining the health and happiness of
the producer.
As a matter of practical introduc
tion, we are already moving in this
direction, with
the “ laboratory
method,” the natural sciences now
taught so widely, and all the new
impetus through the study of peda
gogy.
But those most capable and most
interested, those who see the value of
this trend and are doing all they can
to promote it, are most keenly con
scious of the difficulties which still
confront them. These difficulties are
not far to seek.
They lie in the
indifference, the criminal indifference,
of our citizens, notably the women.
Sunk in the constant contemplation of
their own families, our female citizens
let the days and years pass by, utterly
ignoring their civic duties. While
women are supported by men, they
have more time to spare for such
broad interests than men have ; and
one would naturally think that even
the lowest sense of honour would lead
them to some form of public useful
ness in return for this immunity. As
the English nobleman—the conscien
tious one—sees in his wealth and
leisure, his opportunities for study
and cultivation, only a heavy obliga
tion to serve the State which so well
serves him, so should our women of
leisure—the thousands of them—feel
in their free and sheltered lives a
glorious compulsion to serve the best
interests of that society which main
tains them.
The care of children is certainly the
duty of women. The best care of
children means the best education.
The woman who has not done her
best to improve the educational
advantages of her city, State, and
country—of the world—has not done
her duty as a citizen or as a woman.
And, as education comes through
every impression received by the
child, we must improve home and
street and city and all the people, to
make a clean, safe, beautiful world,
in which our children may receive the
unconscious schooling to which they
have a right.
�PRESUMPTUOUS AGE
53
VIII.
PRESUMPTUOUS AGE
The ineffable presumption of aged
persons is an affliction too long
endured.
Much is told us of the
becoming modesty of youth. Is no
modesty becoming a period of life
when experience has given some
measure to merit ?
Why should youth be modest ?
Youth believes it can do all things,
and has had no proof to the contrary.
But age : age which has tried many
times and been met by failure: age,
which has learned its limitation
by repeated blows, and become
content with hard-worn compromise
—why should age be so proud ?
In itself it is no distinction, being
but the common lot of man. Those
who do not attain to it are by general
consent of superior merit. “ Whom
the gods love die young.”
Age is not desired and striven for—
not won by honourable effort. It
comes gradually upon us all, falling
like rain upon the just and the unjust.
Taken simply in itself, it proves no
more than that the aged individual, if
a man, has had sufficient strength
and ingenuity to keep himself
alive ; and, if a woman, that she
has been sufficiently pleasing and
well-behaved to be kept alive by
others.
In very early times, when the world
was young and life more exciting and
precarious than now, perhaps the
above qualities were a sufficient dis
tinction.
The constitution which
survived the rigours of a crude and
uncertain diet and of an undiluted
climate was a thing to be proud of;
and the visible proof that one had
survived one’s enemies did indicate
some superiority.
But in a civilisation which takes
special care of the infirm—where
green young cripples grow to a ripe
old age, and a bed-ridden pauper may
outlive many muscular labourers—
mere prolongation of existence is no
self-evident proof of either power or
wisdom. Of two men born in the
same year, the more valuable man,
doing more valuable work, is quite as
likely to die as an innocuous, futile,
low-grade person, paddling feebly
with the tide. Of two women, one
may smilingly repeat herself by the
dozen, and drift sweetly on from
amiable juvenility to as amiable
senility; while another, working
strenuously and effectively, dies in
her earnest youth or middle age.
Survival is no longer a fair test of
value. The wisdom of the ancients is
not the standard of our time. We do
not think that a previous century
knows more than ours, but rather
less ; and if Methuselah were with us
yet—and retained his faculties—he
would be too much confused between
the things he used to believe and what
he was learning now to be a valuable
authority. When learning was but
accumulated tradition, the old had an
advantage over the young, and im
proved it. Now that learning is dis
covery the young have an advantage
over the old.
If wisdom consisted merely in the
accumulation of facts, the long-time
observer would assuredly have more
of them than the new-comer. But
the wisdom that consists in a free
and unbiassed judgment—a new per
ception of the relation of things—
comes better from a fresher brain.
This is not to say that age may not
�Presumptuous
co-exist with superiority, but that age,
per se, is not superiority.
There are many aged persons in
the workhouse who are quite visibly
inferior to many young persons in the
House of Commons. This suggests
a painful antithesis which is better
omitted. Granting the origin of this
arrogance of the aged to have had
some basis in primitive time, it is
easy to see how it has descended to
us by the same principle that main
tains the fag system.
_ Humanity has always its overlap
ping generations ; and the child who
is crushed by the incontrovertible
statement, “ I am older than you
are ! ” waits to recoup himself on
children yet to be. In his subordinate
position in youth he has no chance
to escape from this injustice, or to
retaliate; and he strikes a balance
with fate by assuming the same
superiority over the new-comer. It
is probable that we shall never
outgrow the assumption until we
have a generation of children taught
to respect conduct for its merits,
not for simple duration, holding a
wise, strong, good person, however
young, to be superior to an ignorant
or vicious one, however old. When
the.sense of justice and the sense of
logic of the child are not outraged in
youth, we shall find more modesty as
well as more wisdom in old age.
It is always interesting to see our
psychic development following the
laws of nature, like any other growth.
Under the law of inertia the human
mind, starting under a given concept,
continues to enlarge in that direction,
unless arrested or diverted by some
other force. So this conception of
age as essential superiority, naturally
enough begun, has been followed to
strange and injurious extremes. And
under the law of conservation of
energy—following the line of least
resistance—the aged naturally en
croached upon the young, who were
able to make no resistance whatever.
ape
The respect and care for aged
persons, which is so distinguishing
a mark of advanced civilisation, is
due to two things : first, the prolonged
serviceability of parents ; and, second,
the social relation which allows of
usefulness to even the very old. In
an early savage tribe the elderly
parent is of no special value to the
newly matured young, and the tribal
service has more use for juvenile
warriors than for the ancient ones :
wherefore the old folk are of small
account, and do not meet much
encouragement to prolonged living.
But with us, though the child is
grown quite sufficiently to hunt and
fight and reproduce his kind, he is
not. yet properly equipped for the
social service. He needs more years
yet of parental assistance while he
accumulates knowledge in his profes
sion or skill in his trade.
Therefore, parentag'e is a long'er
and more elaborate operation with us
than with lower races, animal or
human, and the parent consequently
more appreciated. This position is
fondly taken advantage of by the
designing aged, ofttimes with a
pious belief in their righteous ground
which is most convincing.
Because the human parent is of far
more service to the young than earlier
parents, therefore our elders calmly
assume that it is the duty of the
young to provide for and serve them
—not only to render them natural
assistance when real incapacity comes,
but to alter the course of their young
and useful lives to suit the wishes of
the old. Among poor and degraded
classes we see children early set to
work for the parents instead of parents
working for the children—a position
as unnatural as for a hen to eat eggs.
Life is not a short circle, a patent
self-feeder. The business of the hen
is to hatch the egg, and of the egg
to grow to another and different hen
—not to turn round and sacrificially
nourish the previous fowl.
�PRESUMPTUOUS AGE
55
The duty of the parent is a deep- remains a withered offshoot, weak
seated, natural law. Without the and fruitless.
These cases are common enough.
parent’s care of the child, no race,
But consider from another point of
no life. The duty of the child to the
parent was largely invented by view the serene presumption of the
parents, from motives of natural self elder woman. Because she had done
interest, and has been so long sanc —so far—her duty by the child that
tioned and practised that we look on was, she now claims a continuous hold
without a shudder and see a healthy on the grown woman and a return for
middle-aged mother calmly swallow her services.
In still earlier days this claim was
ing the life of her growing daughter.
A girl is twenty-one. She has been made even more strenuously. The
properly reared by her mother, whom child awe-fully addressed the father
we will suppose to be a widow. as “ author of my being,” and was
Being twenty-one, the girl is old supposed to “ owe ” him everything.
enough to begin to live her own life, The child does not owe the parent.
and naturally wishes to.. I do not Parental duty is not a loan. It is
speak of marrying—that is generally the never-ending gift of nature an
allowed—but of so studying and work unbroken, outpouring river of love
ing as to develop a wide, useful and labour from the earliest begin
life of her own in case she does not nings of life. The child, while a
child, has also some duty to the
marry.
“ Not so,” says her mother. “ Your parent; but even there it is reflex,
duty is to stay with me. I need and based in last analysis on the
child’s advantage.
you.”
Meanwhile it is a poor parent who
Now, the mother is not bed-ridden.
She is, we will say, an able-bodied cannot win the affection and command
woman of forty-five or fifty. She the respect of the young creature
could easily occupy herself , in one of growing up so near, so that a beautiful
several trades ; but, being in posses relation shall be established between
sion of a house and a tiny income, them for the rest of life. This love
she “does not have to work.” She and honest admiration, this affec
prefers to live in that house, on that tionate friendliness, and all the ties
income, and have her daughter live . of long association, would naturally
with her. The daughter prefers to prompt the child to desire the society
go to New York, and study music or of the parent, and, of course, to pro
art or dressmaking, whatever she is vide for illness and old age ; but that
fit for. But here is her dear mother is a very different position from the
claiming her presence at home as a one taken by an able-bodied, middleduty; and she gives it. She does aged parent demanding the surrender
her duty, living there with her mother of a young life.
Parentage is not a profession with
in the capacity of—of what ? In no
capacity at all. Fancy a young man a sort of mutual insurance return to
living at home in the capacity of a it. The claim that humanity is born
“son,” with no better occupation saddled with this retro-active obliga
than dusting the parlour and arrang tion requires more convincing proof
ing flowers 1 In course of time the than has yet been offered.
An obligation we all have, young
mother dies. The daughter has lost
her position as a “ daughter,” and and old, and to this the child should
has no other place in life. She has be trained : the vast and endless
never been allowed to form part of service of humanity, to which .our
the living organism of society, and lives are pledged without exception.
�56
THE RESPECT DUE TO YOUTH
Seeing the parent devout in this
honourable discharge of duty—realis
ing that his own training is with a
view to that greater service when he
is grown—the child would go onward
in life with the parent, not backward
to him.
But we have not yet forgotten the
habits and traditions of the patriarch
ate.
We demand from the young
respect because we are older, not
because we deserve it. Respect is a
thing which is extorted willy-nilly by
those who deserve it, and which
cannot be given at will. If a parent
loses his temper and talks foolishly,
how can a child respect this weakness?
To demand respectful treatment shows
one cannot command it; and, if it is
not commanded, it cannot be had.
Any false assumption is a block to
progress. So long as the aged expect
to be looked up to on account of the
length of time in which they have not
died, so long will they ignore those
habits of life which should insure
reverence and love at any age.
People ought to be living with wise
forethought and circumspection, in
order that they may be respected
when old—-not carelessly lulled with
the comforting belief that, no matter
how foolish they are, age will bring
dignity.
So, too, if parents did not so fatuously
demand respect merely because they
are parents, but would see to it that
they deserve and win respect by such
visible power and wisdom as the child
must bow to, we might look for a
much quicker advance in these desir
able qualities. The power of learning
things does not cease at maturity.
Many a great mind has gone on to
extreme old age, open, eager, steadily
adding to its store of light and power.
Such keep the freshness and the
modesty of youth. Far more numerous
are the little minds which imagine
that years are equivalent to wisdom,
and, because they are grown up,
decline to learn further. Yet these,
far more than the wise men, sit back
complacent on their age, and talk with
finality of “ my experience ” !
Experience is not merely keeping
alive. Experience involves things
happening and things done. Many a
young manof to-day has done more and
felt more than a peaceful, stationary
nonagenarian of yesterday’s rural life.
That very brashness and self-assump
tion of hot youth, which brings so
complacent and superior a smile to the
cheek of age, would not be so pro
minent but for previous suppression
and contemptuous treatment. A lofty
and supercilious age makes a rash and
incautious youth ; but youth, trained
to early freedom and its rich and
instructive punishments, would grow
to an agreeable age, modest with
much wisdom, tender and considerate
with long power.
IX
THE RESPECT DUE TO YOUTH
Since we have so carefully and tho
roughly beaten back the new braingrowth which should distinguish each
successive generation, and fostered in
every way the primitive mental habits
of our forefathers, the natural conse
quence is a prolonged survival of very
early tendencies. Outside, in the
necessary contact and freedom of the
world’s life, crude ideas must change,
�THE RESPECT DUE TO YOUTH
and either become suited to the times
or lost entirely. But in the privacy of
the home, under the conditions of
family life and the dominant influence
of feminine conservatism, we find a
group of carefully cherished rudiments
which never could have survived with
out such isolation.
Among primitive races the stranger
is an object of legitimate derision.
The differences in his speech and
manner are held as visible inferiorities,
and his attempts to assimilate are
greeted with unchecked merriment.
This attitude of mind is still common
in children, who are passing through
the same stage of culture individually.
Amongintelligent and well-bred grown
people such an attitude of mind is
rightly despised. To them the stranger
is entitled to respectful consideration
because he is a stranger ; and nothing
could be ruder, in the estimation of
such persons, than to laugh at the
stranger’s efforts to learn our language
and manners.
How great is the difference between
this common good breeding in the
world at large and the barbaric crudity
of our behaviour at home to that most
sacred stranger, the child ! He comes
to us absolutely ignorant of our
methods of living, be they wise or
unwise ; and he must needs learn
every step of his way in the paths we
have prepared for him.
Unfortu
nately, we have prepared very little.
A few physical conveniences, perhaps,
in the way of high chairs and cradles,
or nursing-bottles to supplement
maternal deficiency; but in psychic
conveniences—in any better recogni
tion of the childish attitude of mind
and its natural difficulties—we make
small progress.
Calm, wondering, unafraid, the
stranger enters the family circle. He
has no perspective, no gradations of
feeling in regard to the performances
he finds going on about him. He has
neither shame for the truths of real
life nor r.espect for the falsehoods of
57
artificial life. In soberness and eager
interest he begins the mysterious
game of living.
Now, what is the attitude of the
family towards this new-comer ? How
does the intelligent adult treat the
stranger within his gates ? He treats
him with frequent ridicule and general
gross disrespect. Not “unkindly,”
perhaps—that is, not with anger and
blows or undue deprivations—but as
if being a child was a sort of joke. A
healthy child is merry with the free
good spirits of a spring-tide lamb ;
but that pure mirth has nothing in
common with ridicule. Who of us
has not seen a clear-eyed child struck
dumb and crimson by the rude laugh
ter of his elders over some act which
had no element of humour except that
it was new to him? We put grandpa’s
hat on the downy head of the baby,
and roar with laughter at his appear
ance. Do we put baby’s cap on
grandma, and then make fun of the
old lady’s looks ? Why should we
jeer at a baby more than at an old
person ? Why are we so lacking in
the respect due to youth ?
Every child has to learn the lan
guage he is born to. It is certain
that he will make mistakes in the
process, especially as he is not taught
it by any wise system, but blunders
into what usage he can grasp from
day to day.
Now, if an adult foreigner were
learning our language, and we greeted
his efforts with yells of laughter, we
should think ourselves grossly rude.
And what should we think of our
selves if we further misled him by
setting absurd words and phrases
before him, encouraging him to
further blunders, that we might laugh
the more ; and then, if we had visitors,
inciting him to make these blunders
over again to entertain the company ?
Yet this is common household sport,
so long as there is a little child to act
as zany for the amusement of his
elders. The errors of a child are not
�5*
THÈ RESPECT DUE '1'0 YOUTH
legitimate grounds of humour, even
to those coarse enough to laugh at
them, any more than a toddling baby’s
falls have the same elements of the
incongruous as the overthrow of a
stout old gentleman who sits down
astonished in the snow.
A baby has to fall. It is natural,
and not funny. So does the young
child have to make mistakes as he
learns any or all of the crowding tasks
before him; but these are not fair
grounds for ridicule.
I was walking in a friend’s garden,
and met for the first time the daughter
of the house, a tall, beautiful girl of
nineteen or twenty. Her aunt, who
was with me, cried out to her in an
affected tone, “ Come and meet the
lady, Janey I”
The young girl, who was evidently
unpleasantly impressed, looked an
noyed, and turned aside in some con
fusion, speaking softly to her teacher
who was with her. Then the aunt,
who was a very muscular woman,
seized the young lady by her shoulders,
lifted her off the ground, and thrust
her blushing, struggling, and protest
ing into my arms—by way of intro
duction ! Naturally enough, the girl
was overcome with mortification, and
conceived a violent dislike for me.
(This story is exactly true, except that
the daughter of the house was aged
two and a half.)
Now, why—in the name of reason,
courtesy, education, justice, any lofty
and noble consideration—why should
Two-and-a-half be thus insulted ?
What is the point of view of the
insuiter? How does she justify her
brutal behaviour ? Is it on the obvious
ground of physical superiority in age
and strength ? It cannot be that, for
we do not gratuitously outrage the
feelings of all persons younger and
smaller than ourselves. A stalwart
six-foot septuagenarian does not thus
comport himself towards a small gentle
man of thirty or forty. It cannot be
relationship ; for such conduct does
not obtain among adults, be they
never so closely allied. It has no
basis except that the victim is a child,
and the child has no personal rights
which we feel bound to respect.
A baby, when “ good,” is considered
as a first-rate plaything—a toy to play
with or to play on, or to set going like
a machine-top, that we may laugh at
it. There is a legitimate frolicking
with small children, as the cat plays
with her kittens ; but that is not in
the least inconsistent with respect.
Grown people can play together and
laugh together without jeering at each
other. So we might laugh with our
children, even more than we do, and
yet never laugh at them. The pathetic
side of it is that children are even more
sensitive to ridicule than grownpeople.
They have no philosophy to fall back
upon; and—here is the hideously
unjust side—if they lose their tempers,
being yet unlearned in self-restraint,
if they try to turn the tables on their
tormentors, then the wise “grown
up ” promptly punishes them for “ dis
respect.” They must respect their
elders even in this pitiful attitude;
but who is to demand the respect due
to youth ?
There is a deal of complaint among
parents over the “ impertinence ” of
children. “ How dare you speak to
me like that !” cries outraged autho
rity. Yet “ that ” was only the expres
sion used just before by the parent to
the child.
“Hold your tongue!” says the
mother. “ Hold yours !” answers the
child, and is promptly whipped for
impertinence. “ I’ll teach you to
answer me like that ! ” says angry
mamma. And she does.
In the baby’s first attempt to speak
we amused ourselves mightily over
his innocent handling of rude phrases
—overheard by chance or even taught
him, that we might make merry over
the guileless little mouth, uttering at
our behest the words it did not under
stand. Then, a year or so older,
�THE RESPECT DUE tO YOUTH
when he says the same things, he is
laboriously and painfully taught that
what is proper for a parent to say to
a child is not proper for a child to say
to a parent. “Why?” puzzles the
child. We can give no answer, except
our*large assumption that there is no
respect due to youth.
Ask any conscientious mother or
father why the new human being,
fresh from God as they profess to
believe, not yet tainted by sin or
weakened by folly and mistake, seiene
in its mighty innocence and serious
beyond measure, as its deep eyes look
solemnly into life—why this wonderful
kind of humanity is to be treated like a
court fool. What can the parent say ?
From the deeper biological stand
point, seeing the foremost wave of
advancing humanity in each new
generation, there is still less excuse
for such contemptuous treatment.
In the child is lodged the piled-up
progress of the centuries, and as he
shall live is that progress hastened
or retarded. Quite outside of the
natural affection of the parent for the
offspring stands this deep, human
reverence for the latest and best
Specimen of its kind. Every child
should represent a higher step in
racial growth than its parents, and
every parent should reverently recog
nise this. For a time the parent has
the advantage. He has knowledge,
skill, and power ; and we feel that in
the order of nature he is set to
minister to the younger generation
till it shall supplant him. To develop
such a noble feeling has taken a long
time, and many steps upward through
those cruder sentiments which led
towards it. Yet it is the rational,
conscious feeling into which the
human being translates the whole
marvellous law of parental love.
To the animal this great force
expresses itself merely in instinct ;
but, as such, it is accepted and
fulfilled, and the good of the young
subserved unquestioningly. In low
59
grades of human life we have still
this animal parental instinct largely
predominating, coloured more or less
with some prevision of the real glory
of the work in hand. Yet so selfish
is human parentage that in earlier
times children have been sold as
slaves in the interests of parents,
have been and still are set to work
prematurely ; and in certain races the
father looks forward to having a son
for various religious benefits accruing
to him, the father.
Sentiments like these are not con
ducive to respect for youth. The
mother is not generally selfish in this
sense. Her error is in viewing the
child too personally, depending too
much on “instinct,” and giving very
little thought to the matter. She
loves much and serves endlessly, but
reasons little.
The child is pre
eminently “ her ” child, and is treated
as such. Intense affection she gives,
and such forms of discipline and
cultivation as are within her range,
unflagging care and labour also ; but
“respect” for the bewitching bundle
of cambric she has so elaborately
decorated does not occur to her.
Note the behaviour of a group of
admiring women around a baby on
exhibition. Its clothes are prominent,
of course, in their admiration ; and
its toes, fingers, and dimples gene
rally. They kiss it and cuddle it and
play with it, and the proud mamma is
pleased. When the exhibitee is older
and more conscious, it dislikes these
scenes intensely.
Being “ dressed
up ” and passed around for the obser
vation and remark of the grown-up
visitors is an ordeal we can all
remember.
Why cannot a grown person
advance to make the acquaintance of
a child with the same good manners
used in meeting an adult? Frank
ness, naturalness, and respect—these
are all the child wants. And pre
cisely these he is denied. We put on
an assumed interest—a sort of stage
�6o
THE RESPECT DUE TO YOUTH
manner—in accosting the young, and
for all our pretence pay no regard to
their opinions or confidence, when
given. Really well-intentioned per
sons, parents or otherwise, will
repeat before strangers some personal
opinion, just softly whispered in their
ears, with a pair of little arms
holding fast to keep the secret close ;
dragging it out remorselessly before
the persons implicated, while the
betrayed child squirms in wretched
ness and anger.
To do this to a grown-up friend
would warrant an angry dropping of
acquaintance. Such traitorous rude
ness would not be tolerated by man
or woman. But the child—the child
must pocket every insult, as belonging
to a class beneath respect.
Is it not time that we summoned
our wits from their wool-gathering
—however financially profitable the
wool may be—and gave a little
honest thought to the status of child
hood ? Childhood is not a patho
logical condition, nor a term of penal
servitude, nor a practical joke. A
child is a human creature, and
entitled to be treated as such. A
human body three feet long is deserv
ing of as much respect as a human
body six feet long. Yet the bodies of
children are handled with the grossest
familiarity. We pluck and pull and
push them, tweak their hair and ears,
pat them on the head, chuck them
under the chin, kiss them, and hold
them on our laps, entirely regardless
of their personal preferences. Why
should we take liberties with the
person of a child other than those
suitable to an intimate friendship at
any age ?
“ Because children don’t care,”
someone will answer. But children
do care. They care enormously. They
dislike certain persons always because
of disagreeable physical contact in
childhood.
They wriggle
down
clumsily, all their clothes rubbed the
wrong way, with tumbled hair and
flushed, sulky faces, from the warm
“ lap ” of some large woman or bony,
woolly-clothed man, who was holding
them with one hand and variously
assaulting them with the other, find
rush off in helpless rage. No doubt
they “get used to it,” as do eels to
skinning; but in this process of
accustoming childhood to brutal dis
courtesy we lose much of the finest,
most delicate development of human
nature. There is no charge of cruelty,
unkindness, or neglect involved in this.
Discourtesy to children is practised
by the most loving and devoted
parents, the most amiable of relatives
and visitors. Neither is it a question
of knowledge on the part of the elder.
These rudenesses are practised by
persons of exquisite manners, among
their equals. It is simply a case of
survival of an undeveloped field of
human nature—a dark, uncultivated,
neglected spot where we have failed
to grow. The same forces which
have so far civilised us will work
farther when we give them room.
We have but to open our minds and
widen our sphere of action to become
civilised in these domestic relations.
It is the citizenship—the humanness
—of the child we need to recognise,
not merely its relative accomplish
ments compared to ourselves. Also
the tendencies and restraint born of
power and freedom should teach us to
respect the child precisely because of
its helplessness. The principle that
urges even the bullying schoolboy to
“take a fellow of his own size,” and
which forbids torturing a captive,
killing an unarmed man, or insulting
an inferior, ought to put more nobility
into our conduct in relation to the
child. As so much weaker, strength
should respect him ; and, as one
bound to supersede us, wisdom should
recognise his power.
�TOO MUCH CONSIDERA TION
61
X.
TOO MUCH CONSIDERATION
The child comes to the table. He
looks a little weary, knowing the task
before him.
“Now, what will you have?” asks
his fond mamma. “What would you
like, dear ? ”
The child gazes at the dishes there
present, and is somewhat attracted
towards one or more of them ; but
his brain thrusts upon him images of
other viands, and memories of triumph
in securing some vaguely remembered
delicacy. He wavers in his mind,
and wiggles his knife uncertainly.
“ I guess—I’ll have
” Mamma is
all attention. “ Have some of this
nice potato!” she urges. He had
inclined towards the potato pre
viously, but rebels at its being urged
upon him. Also, the cooing adjective
affronts him. He has heard things
called nice before, usually when he
did not want them.
“No, I don’t want any potato,” he
says. “I want—I’ll have some sweet
potato !”
Unhappily there is no sweet potato,
and the good mamma smilingly
excuses the lack. “We will have
some to-morrow,” she promises; and,
to distract him from thought of the
impossible, “Won’t you have a chop?”
“No—yes—I’ll have one chop. On
this plate, not on that plate. I won’t
have it on that plate !”
“ But this plate is warm, dear.”
“ I want it on my own plate !”
“Very well. Will you have some
gravy?”
“Yes, I guess so. Not on the
potato ! Don’t put it on the potato !
I won’t eat it if you put it on the
potato !”
In time he eats, though not with
eagerness. In his young mind is a
vague sense of annoyance and dis
comfort, as if he were in some way
defrauded of his dinner. The present
dinner, rather gloomily going down,
is contrasted with other possible
dinners, not now to be attained.
What he has suffers by comparison
with all the things he has not, and a
dim memory of previous disappoint
ments oppresses him.
“ He never did eat well,” says his
mother. “We have hard work to
find what he will eat.” There may
be some digestive disturbance, but
there is a quite needless psycho
logical disturbance added. Choice is
a wearying thing, even to the trained
scanner of menus.
To select a meal exactly to one’s
taste, and not be haunted by the
unchosen dishes, means the prompt
and skilful exercise of a widely culti
vated taste. Most of us gladly prefer
to have some experienced cook and
caterer set a good meal before us.
A pleased anticipation at a well-known
dinner-table is a more agreeable frame
of mind than that of one who must
needs select, spurred by a tall darkey
with a pencil.
A child has not a cultivated taste,
nor the calmness of experience. A
choice, even from objects before him,
is uncertain enough.
He is apt
speedily to regret and wish to change.
To be called upon to order a meal is
a real tax upon him. While he exerts
himself in this direction, any propo
sition is likely to be resented ; and,
to one who is on tiptoe in effort to
decide, an insinuating suggestion from
without is extremely irritating.
This method of consulting a child’s
�62
TOO MUCH CONSIDERATION
preferences before he has them, intro
ducing alternatives not present, and
then harassing the wavering young
mind with persuasive propositions,
rapidly developes a halting, fretful,
back-stitch sort of temper, always
wishing it had done the other thing.
The old-fashioned method was to
compel a child to eat “ what was set
before him,” all of it, quite regardless
of his personal taste or constitutional
limitations.
Nothing but palpable
nausea convinced these obdurate
parents of earlier generations that
there were some things the little
victim could not eat. This was a
foolish and cruel method. Children
differ widely in digestive power and
preference, and their tastes are marked
and sensitive. Eating what he does
not like is far more painful to a child
than to an adult. But his tastes and
limitations can be discovered without
concentrating his own attention on
them. It is bad to treat a child’s
tastes with less consideration than
those of older human beings ; but
there is no reason why they should
be treated with more. The simple
lesson can be taught of eating what
he likes and leaving what he dislikes
without vociferous proclamation of
these preferences ; and, if he really
thinks of something else he would
like to have for dinner, teach him to
ask for it for another time. He can
readily understand that cooking takes
time, and extra dishes cannot be
served at a moment’s notice.
A family is usually composed of
several persons, all of whom should
be treated with justice.
If it is
reduced to two only—if there is only
mother and child to decide between—
the decision should be fairly balanced.
The practical issues of daily life are
almost always open to a child’s under
standing.
Mamma, we will say, is reading.
Mabel is busy with doll’s dressmaking.
“ O mamma! will you please g'et
me the scissors?”
“ Can you not get them as easily,
dear ?”
“ I don’t know just where they are,
and I’ve been fussing ever so long
with this yoke ; and now I’ve got it
just right, and I’m afraid, if I put it
down, I’ll forget again !”
Mamma looks at the flushed, earnest
little face, lays her book down, and
gets the scissors.
Again.
Mamma is stuffing the
turkey.
“ Mabel, will you please
bring me down the largest needle on
my cushion?”
“ Oh, but, mamma, I’m so busy
with my paints 1”
“Yes ; but you are upstairs already,’
and my hands are in the stuffing.
Please hurry, dear.”
Mabel brings the needle promptly^
She knows that mamma is considerate
of her, and she is considerate of
mamma.
It is by no means necessary to
argue over every little service, but a
few test cases keep in mind the idea
of justice. If what a child wants will
give more pleasure to the child than
trouble to the adult, do it. If it is
more trouble to the adult than pleasure
to the child, do not do it ; and let
the child understand, first, last, and
always, the balance of human rights.
I knew a girl of thirteen who had
not yet learned to keep herself covered
at night. She slept with her mother ;
and, if she wakened chilly, she would
murmur, without opening her eyes,
“Mother, cover me up!” And her
mother would do it. This was unfair
to the child. It allowed her to corm
mit a gross injustice ; and her mother
was “ compounding a felony,” as it
were, in indulging her. The child
was already awake, and quite capable
of pulling up the blankets. There
was no reason why her tired mother
should lose sleep for the purpose«
The practical way to exhibit this
would be for the mother to waken
the child with the same demand. A
few applications would be sufficient.
�TOO MUCH CONSIDERA TION
If verbal remonstrance was preferred
(usually an inferior method), the
mother might quietly reply : “ By no
means. You are perfectly able to
do it. It is not fair to waken me for
that. I do not get to sleep again as
quickly as you do, and am tired next
day.” A child already reasonably
trained would easily see the force of
that argument.
A big boy is persistently late to
breakfast. This annoys his mother
at the time, and delays her work
afterwards. She saves and keeps hot
various viands for him, taking many
extra steps ; and her day’s work is
rendered a little more difficult. If
the breakfast hour is that most con
venient to the family needs, simply
explain to the boy that breakfast is
at such a time only ; that he will be
called in due season ; and that, if he
is not down within the given time, he
will find no breakfast whatsoever.
This course, firmly followed, works
like a charm. Most people dislike
going without breakfast. A child
should have sufficient sleep, of course ;
but, if his hours are reasonable, there
is no justice in incommoding the
working mother for the sake of a
little natural laziness.
With very little children we ingeni
ously manage to ignore some of their
really important questions and actions,
and at the same time to let them
trample on our ears and brains with
senseless iteration of unnecessary
words.
A small boy is eating his supper,
while his mother puts littlesister tobed.
“Mother!” he bawls. “Mother!
Mo-o-ther !”
At last she leaves her task to come
to him, he still shouting ; and this is
his communication : “ Mother ! This
is baker’s bread !”
“Yes, dear,” says the too tender
mamma, and goes back again.
That child should have been met,
not with anger or punishment, but
with very simple sarcasm and protest.
63
“Yes, that is baker’s bread—and
that is a plate—and that is a spoon. I
knew all these things when I arranged
your supper. Do you think it is fair to
call me downstairs just to say that?”
The bubbling fluency of a child’s
mind, the tendency to repetition and
sometimes foolishness, is natural
enough, and not to be blamed ; but
we should help the child to outgrow
it instead of submitting to his weari
some reiterance.
“But, my dear, you said that before. I
understand. Now do not say it again.”
To say, “Yes, dear,” a dozen times
to the same question or statement is
not strengthening to the child’s mental
habits. Similarly, when a child asks
palpably foolish questions—foolish by
his own standard—he needs not con
sideration, but mild ridicule. And, if
he can answer his own question, let
him : it is no kindness to do all his
work. Children are not benefited by
a too soft and yielding environment,
nor do they always love best those
who treat them with too much con
sideration. Fairness, not severity
nor constant concession, is what a
child appreciates. If we behave fairly
to the child (as we would to a grown
person), giving to him the healthy
reaction of common justice, we help
him to live easily and rightly in the
world before him.
Even love is open to measurement
by results. The love we have for our
children is not developed in us as a
pleasurable exercise, but is distinctly
for the child’s benefit. “ The maternal
sacrifice ” is what our scientific friends
call it. In studying early forms of
life, we find the mother sacrificing
everything for the good of the young,
from which we draw the general
inference that it is for the good of
the young to have the mother sacri
fice everything. More discriminating
study will show us a great difference
in maternal methods. Where the
mother’s loss is the gain of the
young, she cheerfully submits to it;
�64
TOO MUCH CONSIDERATION
but where the young is not benefited
by her loss, we do not find it.
The eggs of the hen are carefully
brooded by the mother ; the eggs of
the frog are left floating on the water
in suitable places. There is no special
virtue in the hen’s brooding, or vice
in the frog’’s neglect ; the mother
does what is necessary for the young.
The mother cat licks her little ones
elaborately, and teaches them to make
their toilettes similarly. The cow
licks the calf for a while, but gives it
no instructions in washing its ears
with its paws.
The mother-love is essential to the
best care of the young, and therefore
it is given us. It is the main current
of race preservation, and the basis of
all other love-development on the
higher grades. But it is not, there
fore, an object of superstitious venera
tion, and in itself invariably right.
The surrender of the mother to the
child is often flatly injurious, if carried
to excess. To put it in the last
extreme, suppose the mother so
utterly sacrifices herself to the child
as to break down and die. She then
robs the child of its mother, which is
an injury. Suppose she so sacrifices
herself to the child as to cut off her
own proper rest, recreation, and
development. She thus gives the
child an exhausted and inferior mother,
which is an injury to him. There are
cases, perhaps, where it might be a
mother’s duty to die for her child ;
but, in general, it is more advan
tageous to live for him. The “ un
selfish devotion ” of the mother we
laud to the skies, without stopping
to consider its effect on the child.
This error is connected with our
primitive religious belief in the doc
trine of sacrifice—one of those early
misconceptions of a great truth.
It is necessary for the good of
humanity that the interests of the one
be subordinate to the interests of the
many ; but it does not follow that an
indiscriminate surrender of one’s own
interests always benefits society. On
the contrary, a steady insistence on
the rights of the individual is essential
to the integrity of the social structure
and its right working’s. So it is
necessary for the good of the child
that the interests of the mother be
subordinated to his interests, but it
does not follow that her indiscrimi
nate surrender of personal interests
always benefits him. On the contrary,
a too self-sacrificing mother tends to
develop a selfish, short-sighted, lowgrade personality in the growing life
she seeks to benefit, where her honest
maintenance of her own individual
rights would have had a very healthy
effect. Not what the child wishes,
nor what the mother wishes, is the
standard of measurement, but what is
really beneficial to the child. If the
mother is frankly and clearly un
selfish in their daily intercourse, and
then as frankly and clearly demands
her own share of freedom and con
sideration, the child gets a fairer
view of human rights than if he
simply absorbs his mother as a
natural victim.
Little Mary has a visitor. Her
mother is most polite and entertain
ing, is with them when they desire it,
and lets them alone when they prefer.
Then her mother has a visitor.
“ Mary,” she says, “ I am to have
company this week. I shall of course
have to give a good deal of time and
attention to my friend, as you did to
Hattie when she was here. So you
must not feel badly if you do not see
as much of mamma as usual.”
There must be the previous polite
conduct of mamma to point to. The
childish mind needs frequent and con
spicuous proof that mamma is for
getting herself for his pleasure ; and
then he should be rationally called upon
to forget himself for her pleasure,
when it is plainly fair and necessary.
The beautiful principles of kinder
garten teaching are frequently mis
applied in the too conciliatory and
�nniigpFiìiiii.iwii. i t
aSGK
TOO MUCH CONSIDERA TION
self-denying methods of. the wellmeaning mamma. Kindness, polite
ness, constant love, and all due con
sideration, the child should have; but
justice is as important to him as
affection. It must always be remem
bered that the mother’s love is not an
end in itself, nor the expression of it
a virtue in itself. It is to be measured,
like every other natural function, by
its use.
When a child is reared in an atmo
sphere of unreasoning devotion and
constant surrender, he grows up to
expect it, and to carry a sense of
grievance if he does not get it. The
natural tendency of the mother to love
her own young is strong in us—
the maternal passion ; but, like all
passions, it needs conscientious and
rational restraint. The human soul
has grown to such a stage of develop
ment that we are capable of loving
and serving great numbers of people.
The woman, who is still confined to
the same range of interests which
occupied her in the earliest grades of
human life, inherits her share of this
socially developed power of loving,
and concentrates it all upon her own
immediate family.
Like an ever-enlarging burningglassj still focussed upon one spot,
the healthy, natural affection of the
animal mother for its young has
grown to what is really an immense
social affection, too large for one
family to sustain profitably. The
child will get a far more just and
healthful idea of human relation when
he finds himself lifted and led on by a
mother whose life has a purpose of its
own, than when he finds himself
encompassed and overwhelmed by a
mother who has no other object or
interest than himself.
The whole question has to be con
stantly measured by comparing it with
the rest of life. Are our methods
with children those which best fit
men and women for doing their share
to maintain and develop human life ?
65
Does not the most casual survey of
life to-day show people practising
much amiability and devotion at
home, strenuously loving their own
immediate families and friends, and
most markedly deficient in that
general love for one another which is
not only the main commandment of
our religion, but the plainest necessity
for social progress ? And is not this
deficiency to be accounted for, not by
any inability on our part for social
devotion—for every day’s list of acci
dents shows the common fund of
heroism and self-sacrifice to be large
—but by the training which makes
it the habit of our lives to love and
serve only those nearest to us ?
The mother is the strongest forma
tive influence in the child’s life. If
he sees that she thinks only of him,
lives only for him, what is he to learn
by it? To think only of himself? Or
only of her ? Or only of his children ?
Does the best care of a child require
the concentrated and unremittent
devotion of an entire mother?
A larger intelligence applied to the
subject may show us that there are
better ways of serving our children
than those we now follow. The
woman who grows up in the practice
of considering the needs of people in
general, and of so ordering her life as
to benefit them, will find a new power
and quality in her love for her own
dear ones. With that widening of
the soul-range of the mother will
come a capacity to judge the child as
one of the people of the world, besides
being her own especially beloved. A
study of what all children need will
help her to understand what her own
child needs far more accurately than
when she thinks of him as the only
one. The continuous application of
the mother to the child is not so
advantageous as the quality of her
companionship and influence, and her
sacrificial devotion too often weakens
his sense of justice and makes him
selfish.
E
�66
SIX MO THERS
XI.
SIX MOTHERS
Broad-minded mothers of this time
are keenly interested in child-study,
in that all too familiar and yet
unknown field of “ infant psycho
logy. ” They are beginning to recog
nise not only the salient’fact that “all
children are different,” but the equally
important one that all children have
points in common.
The need of union and discussion
among mothers is resulting in the
mothers’ clubs and parents’ con
gresses, which form so noble an
example of the progressive thought.
But so far, with all the kindly
interest and keen desire for improved
methods of child-culture, the mother
has to return and grapple with her
individual problem alone.
Here are one or two simple and
practical suggestions, the careful pur
suance of which, with some clear
record of proceedings, would not
only be of immediate assistance to
the mothers concerned, but to all the
other mothers yet to be aroused to
the importance of such action.
Let us suppose six mothers, to take
a very low number—six mothers in
one town, one village, or one city,
even in the open country, so that
they could reach each other easily ;
six mothers, who were' friends and
“social equals,” and who were wil
ling to admit the deficiencies, of
our general present methods of child
culture, and also willing to improve
those methods. It is permissible
for each mother to imagine that her
own methods are superior to those
of the other mothers, as this will give
her a beautiful sense of helpfulness in
allowing these superior methods to be
observed and studied by the less able,
A conscious sense of inferiority is
also no obstacle, for a mother having
that feeling would be eager to im
prove by study of the better ways.
These six mothers divide the work
ing days of the week among them,
agreeing that each shall on her chosen
day take charge of the children of the
other five. This might be for a part
of the day or the whole day, as is
thought best—let us suppose it merely
for the afternoon ; and it could be
limited, as desired, to children of a
certain age, and still further reduced,
as a mild beginning, to one child
apiece from each family.
This would give, as a minimum,
five extra children on one afternoon a
week to each mother. The maximum
would be of course uncertain ; but, if
all the children of each mother were
thus to go visiting for any part of the
day, it would give to each one day in
which that larger responsibility was
undertaken, and five days free. There
would remain Sunday, in which
each family, complete, would be at
home.
Now let us take a hypothetical case,
and suppose that our six mothers, with
considerable trepidation, have chosen
one child apiece that they were willing
to entrust for the afternoon to the
watchful care of these familiar friends.
The children, be it rigidly insisted, are
to know nothing whatever of the pur
poses or methods involved. All that
little Johnny Black knows is that Mrs.
White has asked him to come over on
Monday afternoon and play with Alice
and Billy White, and some other chil
dren that he knows, too; that presently
Mrs. Green has them come to her
house on Tuesday, and Mrs, Brown
�SIX MOTHERS
on Wednesday ; that his mamma lets
them all come and play with him on
Thursday—in short, that his after
noons have become full and rich and
pleasantly exciting-, like some wonder
ful procession of parties.
“Not like regular parties, either,”
Johnny would explain. “You don’t
have to dress up—much—just be
clean, to begin with. And they don’t
have ice-cream and macaroons—only
just milk and crackers when you get
hungry ; and—well, ’tisn’t so much
regular games and p’r’aps dancin’—
like a party—we just play. And Mrs.
White, or whichever one ’tis, she
generally has some nice young lady
in with her; and they sort of keep
things going—as if ’twas a real party.
It’s nicer some ways, I think.”
“ And which place do you like best,
Johnny ?”
“ Oh, I do’ know ! Billy White has
the biggest yard. But Jim Grey has
the best swing ; and there’s a pond at
Susy Green’s—a real pond—and no
thing but girls live there ! Then it’s
lots of fun when they come to our
house, ’cause I can show ’em my
rabbits and make Jack do all his
tricks.”
Yes, the children all enjoy it. It
means variety, it means company, it
means a wider and closer acquaint
ance and all the benefits of wellchosen association and larger environ
ment. It fills a part of the day.
There is no more aimless asking,
“What shall I do now?” with the
vague response, “ Oh, run away and
play ! ” or the suggestion of some wellworn amusement.
It means, too, a little more sense of
“ company manners ” and behaviour,
and, on the other hand, abetter appre
ciation of home life.
And to the mother—what good
will this do her ?
Each mother would have one day in
the week in which to observe children
carefully—not her own specially beloved
children, but just children, ns such,
67
Her observation and care should be
absolutely unobtrusive ; the moment
the little ones knew they were being
watched, the value of the plan would
be greatly impaired ; and, to stop at a
minor detail, from the palpable neces
sity for doing this work without the
child’s consciousness, mothers would
learn to cover the machinery of govern
ment at home. It is one of our
grossest and most frequent errors in
the management of children that we
openly discuss our efforts and failures.
They know that we are struggling to
produce certain results in their beha
viour, usually in a futile manner.
With, however, a large and definite
purpose resting so absolutely on the
child’s unconsciousness, more wisdom
in this line would soon develop.
The mother who now says, “What
would you do with a child like that ?”
or “ I’m sure I don’t know what to do
with that child!” before the child in
question, would soon perceive that
such an attitude in an educator does
not produce confidence in the object
of the education. Quietly and un
ostentatiously, and often with the
assistance of some keen girl-friend,
these mothers would soon learn to
observe accurately, to generalise care
fully, to deduce cautiously, and then
to put the deduction into practice and
observe the results.
As beginners, pioneers, they should
make their first steps very modestly.
For the first season some one trait
should be chosen for study—say self
control or courage or consideration of
others. Having decided on their line
of observation, let each mother make
a little note of how high each child in
the group stands in this line.
How much self-control has my
Johnny, as measured by his age, as
compared with others of his age ?
When did I first notice self-control
in Johnny? When have I seen it
greatest ? Does he gain in it ? What
should be done to help Johnny gain in
self-control? And then go over the
E 3
�68
SIX MOTHERS
same questions with regard to the
other children.
Then, with self-control as the
characteristic, the natural develop
ment and best education of which
they wish to study, the afternoon
parties begin. At first the children
might be left absolutely free to play
in ordinary lines. Then, after the
first observations were recorded, deli
cate experiments could be introduced,
and their results added to the record.
It is very difficult for the individual
mother rightly to estimate her own
children. “ Every crow thinks her
babe the blackest.”
Yet the character of the child is
forming without regard to any fond
prejudice or too severe criticism ; and
his life’s happiness depends on his
interaction with people in general,
not simply with beloved ones at home.
The measure of Johnny’s self-control
may not seem important to the parental
love which covers or the parental force
which compels ; but to Johnny’s after
life its importance is pre-eminent.
When one sits for a portrait to a fond
and familiar friend, and sees all fond
ness and familiarity die out from the
eyes of the artist, feels one’s per
sonality sink into a mass of “ values,”
it brings a strange sense of chill
remoteness. So, no doubt, to the
mother heart the idea of calmly esti
mating Johnny’s self-control and com
paring it with Jim Grey’s seems cold
enough. To have Mrs. Grey estimate
it—and perhaps (terrible thought!) to
estimate it as less than Jim’s—this is
hard, indeed.
Yet this is precisely what is to be
obtained in such a combination as
this, and in no other way—the value
of an outside observer, through Mrs.
Grey’s estimate.
Nobody’s opinion alters facts. The
relative virtues of Johnny and Jim
remain unchanged, no matter what
their respective mothers think or what
their irrespective mothers think. But
each mother will derive invaluable
side-lights from the other mother’s
point of view.
Each opinion must be backed with
illustration. Instances of observed
behaviour must be massed before any
judgment has value.
“ I think your Jim is so brave, Mrs.
Grey. When the children were with
me the other day, the cow got loose ;
and the girls all ran. Some boys ran,
too ; and Jimmy drove her back into
the cow-yard.”
“But Jimmy was the oldest,” says
Mrs. White. “ Perhaps, if he’d been
as young as my Billy, he wouldn’t
have been so brave.”
“ And he is afraid of the dark,” says
Mrs. Brown. “At my house he
wouldn’t go into the back cellar after
apples, even with the other children.
Isn’t he afraid of the dark, Mrs.
Grey ?”
Mrs. Grey admits this, but cites
instances to show courage in other
directions. And always five dispas
sionate observers to the one deeply
loving and prejudiced.
If it should happen that Jimmy is
generally admitted brave beyond his
years, with the one exception of fear
ing darkness, and that exception
traceable to a nurse-maid’s influence,
the mother of Jimmy is rejoiced ; and
a strong light is thrown on the nurse
question. If it prove that by general
opinion there is a lack of courage
such as should belong to his years,
there is cause for special study and
special action in this line.
Most
valuable of all, the habit of observing
a child’s behaviour as an expression
of character is formed.
The six mothers would of course
meet to compare notes, preferably in
evenings, when children were all in
bed and fathers could be present ;
and the usual difficulty of leaving
home in‘the evening could be met in
such an important case as this by
engaging some suitable person to
come in for an hour or two and stay
with the sleeping little ones.
�MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID
69
All such details would have to be this would be a stimulus and help to
arranged according to personal and uncounted thousands of ungrouped
local conditions ; but the end to be mothers who are struggling on alone.
It is by such effort as this, such
attained is of such enormous value
that considerable effort is justified in interchange of view and combined
reaching it. Even in the beginning study, and the slowly accumulating
a usefulness would be found in the record of established facts, that
united interest, the mutual helpfulness humanity progresses in any line of
of the combined women, drawn to similar work—in floriculture or horti
gether by the infinite and beautiful culture or agriculture, or what you
possibilities of their great work. In will ; and this greatest of all our
the light of other eyes, they would labours, humaniculture, sadly lacks
see their own children in new lights, the application of the true social law
and, by careful following of agreed —that in union is strength.
The child needs not only love, but
lines of treatment, soon learn with
some finality what would and what wisdom and justice ; and these grow
best in the human soul through com
would not be useful in a given case.
The observations and experiments bination.
of one earnest group of mothers like
XII.
MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID
“The trouble with these household
problems which vex women so much
is that we do not give our minds to
them sufficiently,” said earnest little
Mrs. Blythe. “Now I mean to give
my mind to this nurse-maid problem,
and work it out.”
It is high time that somebody did.
And it is not only on my own account:
this is something which affects us all
—all who have nurse-maids, that is.
I suppose the mothers without nurse
maids have their problems too : but
I must consider mine now.
Now, what is the matter with the
nurse-maid ? She does not suit me.
She has palpable faults and deficien
cies. I want a better nurse-maid.
So far I have trusted to the law of
supply and demand to produce her,
but it does not seem to work. I
demand her, just as I have demanded
a better housemaid for some, time ;
but the supply is not forthcoming.
So now I mean to think it out, and
see if I cannot find a way to the
invention, discovery, or manufacture
of a better nurse-maid. And I mean
to be very clear and logical in my
thinking about it, so as to come out
in the end with proof. I want to
prove what is the matter with the
nurse-maid, and how to make her
better.
In the first place, what are my
objections to the nurse-maid now?
She is careless and irresponsible.
She is ignorant. She is ill-mannered.
She is often deceitful. I can’t trust
her.
Now, it doesn’t seem right that my
child should be placed in the care of
�70
MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID
an ignorant, ill-mannered, careless,
and irresponsible person—even if not
also untrustworthy—does it ? And it
does not relieve me of the care as it
ought. I have to take care of the
child and the nurse-maid too. What
I want is a careful, responsible, wise,
well-mannered, honourable young
girl.
She ought to have special
training too.
It is really dreadful
the way these ignorant girls under
take to care for children. We need
schools—training schools—and diplo
mas.
They could have practice
classes on the children of the poor—
or in institutions ; and yet that idea
does not quite suit me either. My
child is very individual and peculiar,
and I don’t believe that practising on
poor children would fit a nurse-maid
to take care of my child. But nice
people would not want their children
to be practised on. They would have
to take the poor ones : it would do
them good, anyway. They get no care
now ; their mothers are shockingly
ignorant and neglectful.
But, after all, I don’t have to
arrange the training schools. I only
know that she ought to have special
training, and it ought to be practical
as well as theoretical; and that means
practising on some children some
where, somehow. And they certainly
would have to be poor, because rich
people would not let their children go
to be practised on. Maybe the poor
people would not either.
Then it
would have to be orphans, I guess,
combining nurse-training schools with
orphan asylums, and foundlings, too.
Well now, these nurse-maids would
go to these training schools to im
prove themselves, would they ! Come
to think of it, they only go to nursing
because they need the pay ; and, even
if the training schools were free,
they’d have to wait longer for their
money. And, if they got no more
with training than without, they
would not go, I’m afraid. We should
certainly have to pay them more
trained than untrained. That is per
fectly logical, I’m sure.
And, of
course, that would be an obstacle.
If' the training schools were not free,
we should have to pay them more yet
—enough to make it worth while to
study the business of caring for chil
dren. A short course might do—six
months or a year.
I’ve heard my mother say that she
knew something about taking care of
children by the time Charley was
born.
But that was—well, I was
eight, and I’m the third—that was
about twelve years.
Oh, but she
wasn’t in a training school ! That
would teach them faster.
There
would be more children to practise
on. Let me see: if it took my mothef
twelve years to learn by practising on
five children (Charley was the fifth—
four children), how many children
would it take to learn on in one year ?
I’ll get John to do that for me : I’m
not good at figures.
Besides, it’s
different—altogether different; for my
mother was a mother, so she knew
how, to begin with, and nurse-maids
are not. So—to be strictly logical—
it ought to take nurse-maids longer,
I’m afraid. The training schools will
have to be free : I’m pretty sure of
that.
And that means public or
private endowment. We might as
well think it all out clearly.
Should it be added to the public
school system—open to all girls—
perhaps compulsory?
Why not?
Why wouldn’t it be a good thing for
all girls to know something of the
care of children ? But could we do
that ? Public schools are in politics ;
and that is awful. It would take for
ever to get it that way; and my child
wants a nurse-maid now !
Private
endowment, I guess. So many rich
people want to help the masses. This
would furnish employment, raise
wages, and give us nurse-maids. I’m
sure it would appeal to any phil
anthropist.
Yes, some rich person must endow
�MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID
things now. I know ever so many
a training school for nurses that young mothers who are taking child
sounds like hospitals; for child-nurses study now ; and about nutrition, too.
—that sounds like wet-nurses; tor
But the trouble is they can’t depend
nurse-maids—why need they be maids,
on the nurses to carry out instruc
though ? Well, if they were married, tions. If they were only trustworthy I
they would have children of their own, Will the training schools make them
of course, and couldn’t take care of honourable ? I suppose so. . They
ours. One would think, though, that
would get some sense of the impor
motherhood would give them more tance and dignity of their work. They
experience—that they would know
would be graded and marked, ot
how to care for children better. But,
course, in their diplomas, so that one
then, they wouldn’t want to leave
their own children to take care of could pick out the dependable ones ;
and that would gradually elevate the
ours. And they couldn’t take care of
them together.
A mother would standard. The trouble is, of course,
when they go out. Children must be
naturally do more for her own : she
out of doors ; and, in cities where we
wouldn’t be fair.
have no yards, they cannot be under
A training school for nurse-maids.
the mother’s eye, so they must be out
After all, “ maid ” does not mean with the nurse-maid. That’s perfectly
“unmarried” in this connection . it
logical. Then there are the other
means simply “servant.” And “nurse”
nurse-maids. One cannot keep them
comes from the time when mere
nursing was all that was required a isolated : that’s out of the question.
And if they have admirers, as they
kind of a survival of old customs. do, of course—young girls always
How these things do open up, when
will have admirers, and training
one thinks about them ! Why “ nurse
schools will not alter that—why, it
maid ” at all ? Why not have a new they meet their admirers, it has a
and attractive name ? That would help
tendency to make them careless.
make them go to the training school,
That is natural. We must allow for
too.
such things. And it is a perfectly
Nurse, nursing—it isn’t nursing our
children want. They are not sick, natural temptation to. take the baby
to see their own families.. We forbid
and they don’t stay babies all the
it, of course ; but I admit that it is a
time they need this person. What
is it that our children need? Of temptation. And there are all those
course, they do need direct, personal awful risks of diseases and things.
Now, if' their families were nicer
care; and, when they are babies,
people and lived in nicer places—but
they need real “ nursing ”—just some
body to—to—well, they have to be then they wouldn’t want to be nurse
maids I But if the training school
fed—and that only needs a knowledge
raises wages and standards, that will
of infant physiology and nutrition ;
have an effect on the class of people
to keep the bottles clean, of course,
and be very accurate, and follow who take up the work.
It certainly is the noblest, most
directions. They don’t need to know
beautiful, most important work in the
so much, after all : the doctor tells
world—the training of children. I
what to give it to eat, and what not
to. And the mother understands the wonder why our own girls do not
child’s needs 1 Still, even for babies, take it up—our college girls., But
then, of course, they wouldn’t be
they need some kind of training—the
“nurse-maids.” Perhaps, if it had
nurses, I mean—not the mothers:
.
it is divinely implanted in the mother. another name—
Now let me think, and be fair.
And, then, mothers are studying these
�72
MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID
Would I want my sister Jessie to be
a. nurse-maid? She is taking a
kindergarten course, and we all
approve of that: it does help one so
in all those problems that perplex a
mother! But, if she went to Mrs.
MacAdoo’s as a nurse-maid------ The
MacAdoos are nice people, too ; and
the children are as nice as any I know.
They have a Swedish nurse-maid now
-a big, hearty, wholesome-looking
girl, but stupid. WLy, she cannot
answer the simplest questions Harold
asks, hardly; and he’s always asking
them. Jessie has him in the kinder
garten where she is. I don’t mean
that she’s the principal, but she is
training there ; and she tells me what
a bright child he is, and what stupid
things Christine has told him. And
you see he has Jessie only three hours
a day, and Christine all the time he’s
awake. . Jessie is taking a special
course in infant psychology, and she
says Christine is doing him a world
of harm. But she is so good-natured
and faithful that they keep her. They
don’t realise that her being stupid is
any harm to the children, I suppose.
But, if Jessie had him all the time,
Harold certainly would develop more
rationally and more easily. And yet
I am sure Jessie would not take
Christine’s place. You see we visit
the MacAdoos, and it would be so
awkward. Now, I think—logically—
I am approaching a—I forget the
name of it, but it’s a thing there’s no
way out of.
We would like our nurse-maids to
be ladies, but ladies are not willing to
be nurse-maids. Now, will the training
school make ladies—or, at least, partial
ladies—of our nurse-maids? And, if
it does, will that make them disin
clined to be nurse-maids ? Or can
we arrange the position of the nurse
maid so that ladies will be willing to
take it ? What is the real difference
between Jessie’s position and Chris
tine’s? Why, Jessie has ' a lot of
children come to her part of the time ; |
and Christine has a few children, and
goes to them all the time. And Jessie
has or will have when she’s graduated
and has a kindergarten of her own,
as I daresay she will-—she has control
of the children while they are with
her, and can carry out principles.
The mothers even consult her some
times.
But Christine has to carry out the
mother’s orders. She does what she
is told or ought to. No, Jessie never
would be willing to take Mrs.
MacAdoo’s orders about the children.
Mrs. MacAdoo is exceptionally stupid
about children, I do think.
She
doesn’t think Christine’s telling them
stories about things to frighten them
is any harm—says they’ll outgrow it.
And anybody who knows anythingof infant psychology knows how
dangerous it is to frighten children.
And yet, of course, to be perfectly
fair, I wouldn’t want a nurse-maid to
dictate to me about my child. It is
out of the question—absolutely.
Why, it would destroy the mother’s
influence and authority altogether !
And—come to think of it—I suppose
a trained nurse-maid would have
views of her own, and they might
conflict with the mother’s-----Now, where I have got to so far—
it is beautiful, thinking things out
clearly—we want our children taken
care of by ladies, honourable, intelli
gent, educated, refined, and specially
trained for the business. I’m quite
certain about that. Like Jessie, for
instance. She is just born for it-—always did love children, and knew
how to manage them from the time
she was a little girl. And she’s study
ing all the science of it and practising
in the kindergarten—on the same kind
of children, too. Jessie is the ideal.
It is really wonderful to see her with
them. They love her, and they do
what she says, too; but she never
seems to be making them do anything;
they just do it. Those MacAdoos
behave very much better with her
�MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID
than they do with their mother. I
believe most of the children do, for
that matter.
Except little Cassie
Wells. She has the most devoted
mother I ever saw. It is a lesson to
us all. She never lets her out of her
sight, I do believe. Often comes to
the kindergarten, just to be with her.
And, you see, Cassie just depends on
her for everything ; and nobody else
can do anything with her. It is
beautiful—such absolute dependence
and absorption. Yes, as I said, Jessie
is the ideal. But, then, Jessie is not
a nurse-maid, and never would be.
Of course, if there was any way
that Jessie could have the children
with her and have her way with them, as
she does in the kindergarten------ But
you can’t do that with little children ;
you cannot separate the child from its
mother ! When they are older, they
go to school, of course ; and, when
they are older yet, they go to college,
and so on. But the little child needs
its mother every hour. And, as its
mother cannot possibly give it every
hour, we have to have the nurse-maid.
If mothers had no other claims, then,
of course, you would have the highest
ideal relation. Cassie Wells’s mother
has given up everything else. She
doesn’t go out with her husband at
all. Says that society has no claim
beside that of the child. Of course,
he stays at home with her—mostly.
I’m sure a man ought to value his
wife’s society more than any other,
especially when she is such a devoted
mother. She takes all the periodicals
about children, and reads all the
books ; and then she modifies it all
to suit her particular child. I never
knew any mother so conscientiously
given up to the care of a child. She
really talks of nothing else. *And,
when that child is sick—and she is
extremely delicate and always having
dangerous illnesses—her mother is
simply glued to her bedside ; they
can’t drag her away. It . is a pity
that the child is not better material ;
73
for she isn’t particularly bright, nor
very well behaved, I think. But, then,
her mother is doing everything that
can be done.
Jessie says that child is being
mothered too much—that she needs
more freedom and an impartial out
side management. But, then, Jessie
is a good deal of a theorist; and,
after all, she isn’t a mother. Nothing
can really equal the mother’s care for
her own child I Still, we simply can’t
do it—all of us—as families increase.
We owe something to our husbands,
I am sure ; and we have our social
duties ; and our health is not always
equal to such a strain. No, the
mother must have help; and that
means the nurse-maid. It’s no use
talking about Jessie. Even if she
would do it, there’s not enough of her
to go round 1 We never can expect
that “ faculty with children ” in every
body ; they simply don’t have it.
Most girls don’t care much for chil
dren, nor know anything about them.
Of course, after they become mothers
it is different. Then it all comes to
them.
Now, if nurse-maids could be
mothers first------ But I argued that
out before. If they were, they wouldn’t
be mothers of our children; and
motherhood only teaches how to do
what is best for one’s own children.
Besides, we couldn’t hire them then,
because we would not separate
mothers from their own children;
and, if they had their children and
ours, too, they would not treat them
fairly. And we would not want them
brought up with ours, either. No,
they’ve got to be “maid,” that’s sure.
Now, the average young girl does
not know or care much about children.
Therefore she has to be trained.
(What a comfort it is to be really
logical !) And, as there is no place
to train them now, we have got to
make a place. It all comes round to
the training school for nurse-maids.
That’s the logical outcome.
�74
MEDITATIONS ON THE NURSE-MAID
Again, since we must have private
nurse-maids under our orders—really
a servant—we cannot expect ladies to
take such positions. And—this ought
co be bracketed with that last—since we
cannot, of course, pay more than so
much, that is against ladies doing it,
too. Some people can, I know.
Jessie told me of a very nice girl she
knew, a classmate in college and a
trained kindergartner, who was unable
to get such a position as she wanted,
and took a place with some very rich
people as a sort of lady nurse-teacher
to the children. But she said it was
perfectly horrid, especially in travel
ling, having to eat with servants and
be treated as such. I can see that it
would take a kind of heroism, and we
cannot really count on heroic nurse
maids. No, it has to be from the
lower classes that we take our nurse
maids. I think that is proved. The
average employer sjmply couldn’t pay
them enough to attract a higher class
of labour. These are really questions
of political economy in part, you see.
The ordinary young girl of 'the
lower classes—that is the raw mate
rial of our nurse-maid. Naturally, she
is ill-mannered or unmannered, and
careless and ignorant, and all those
things. Therefore, we must train
her. In order to do that we must
first provide the training school, and,
second, make her go to it. Now I
wonder how we could do that. The
higher wages would be an object, of
course ; that would have to be insisted
on. And we might “ create a senti
ment.” That’s it! That’s what we
must do—create a sentiment!
But it’s no use doing anything till
we’ve got the school. And I worked
that out as having to be done by
private endowment. That involves
agitation, of course; and we must
set about it. We can get teachers in
plenty, there is so much interest in
child-study now; and it will be a
splendid thing for the lower classes to
take their young girls and train them
thoroughly in the theory of child
culture. It will make them so much
better mothers afterwards, when they
do marry, after spending some years
in taking care of our children—putting
their theories in practice ! But wait.
That looks queer. Looks as if the
rich people were furnishing elaborate
instruction free to young women of
the lower classes, and then paying
them good wages for practising on
the children of the upper classes, so
that the poor women might be better
mothers afterwards.
I must have made a mistake some
where.
I’m going to reverse that
position, and see how it would work.
Suppose young girls of the upper
classes took elaborate instruction in
child-culture, and then practised on
the children of the lower classes, in
order to be better mothers afterwards.
That seems more satisfactory, some
how ; yet it means a lot of work. It
would do our girls good—I can see
that—and do the children of the
lower classes good, and, no doubt,
make the girls better mothers.
Besides, I’m wasting time—“ arguing
in a circle,” John would say ; for that
upper-class-girl hypothesis wouldn’t
give us nurse-maids. Now, where
was I? Mothers have to have help—
i.e., nurse-maids. These have to be
private servants at low wages : there
fore, ladies would not do it. There
fore, we must have our children taken
care of by girls from the lower
classes.
They are not suitable
persons to take care of children as
they stand : therefore, we must train
them.
Now, I mean really to work for
this thing—to create a sentiment.
I’ll begin early in the autumn, as
soon*as we get back. And I’m so
glad I’m going to have such a lovely
summer to make me fit for it. You
see, I’m very much pulled down.
Little John has been such a care, and
the nurse-maids I’ve had have been so
unreliable. Why, the child has been
�CHILDREN AND SERVANTS
sick again and again just through
their carelessness. I’m sure of it.
And mother said I simply must go
away and build up, for the child’s own
sake ; and John agreed with her—for
once.
And there’s such a lovely
arrangement for the summer; nothing
ever happened more conveniently.
You see, Jessie is such an enthusiast
about children. And she has planned
to be at home this summer. Our
home is perfectly lovely, anyway, and
very healthy—quite in the country,
and yet within easy reach of town.
They’re going to have the Summer
School of Child-study there at Seabay
this year, and Jessie has several of
her class visiting her. And she said,
in her solemn, funny way, that they
must have specimens to work onfirst-class specimens 1
She insisted
on little John, of course, and she’s
persuaded Clara and George to let her
have their three for a while ; and the
little MacAdoos are to be there, too.
It will be a regular picnic for the
children.
It took a long time to
bring me round to it. But, then, it’s
my own lovely home. I know how
healthy it is. And mother will be
there. And one of Jessie’s friends is
a doctor, and in a children’s hospital,
too. She ought to‘see that every
thing is right for their health. So, if
they are happy in that lovely old
75
place, and healthy and well taught
and safe, why, I suppose I can leave.
Of course, I wouldn’t for anything
on earth but health. Mrs. Wells was
perfectly horrified when I told her.
They asked Cassie, too; but she
wouldn’t hear of it. She said nothing
but death should ever separate her
from her child. And, dear me, Cassie
looked so white that it really seemed
as if it would. She made me feel
guilty again ; but John can’t come to
any harm with my mother’s expe
rience and Jessie’s knowledge and
natural talent. That’s the main thing.
Jessie always cared more for children
than I did—except little John, of
course. They’ve fixed the place up
on purpose for children.
Such
arrangements for bathing and digging
and mud-pieing and gardening, and so
on, you never saw. There is some
thing for those chicks to do all the
blessed time, and these nice girls—•
my own friends—to be with them
every minute.
You see, they take
turns and relieve each other, so they
are always fresh for the children.
And then, being so enthusiastic and
scientific, it isn’t drudgery to them.
They are studying all the time. And
how glad I shall be to get back in the
fall!
Then I can work up that
training school for nurse-maids.
XIII.
CHILDREN AND SERVANTS
In the growing discontent with our
present methods of household service,
while we waver between long-held
prejudice, old and dear, and the
irresistible pressure of new conditions,
it is worth while to weigh well the
relation between this present method
of house-service and our present
method of child-culture.
The home is the place in which we
�76
CHILDREN AND SERVANTS
rear young children. It is also the
place in which we perform certain
kinds of labour, mainly cooking,
cleaning, and sewing. In the vast
majority of our homes, fully ninetenths of them, as shown by the
United States Census Report, giving
the number of domestic servants in
proportion to the number of families,
these industries are carried on by the
mother. She is the domestic servant.
In the remaining one-tenth of our
homes the labour is performed by
hired servants, the maid-of-all-work
still greatly predominating.
The
questions here suggested for con
sideration are : first, Is a mother,
who is also a house-servant, able to
supply proper conditions and care to
young children ? And, .second, Is the
company of domestic servants other
than their mothers, and constant
association with their industries, a
desirable condition for the education
of young children ?
It is, of course, difficult to consider
with any clearness of perception facts
which have been always familiar.
The association of child and servant
is so old that it makes no impression
on our consciousness. It will, per
haps, bring out the relation more
vividly to change the sex of the
servant. Suppose a man is left with
boys to educate. Suppose he engages
a tutor for his boys. He is willing to
pay well for a man with the proper
ability, character, and training to
come and benefit his children by
instruction and association. Would
such a man be willing to engage a
tutor who was also a janitor ? Would
he be willing to spare the time
required to fill a janitor’s position
from the time required to fill the
tutor’s position ? Or would he be
willing to engage a man who had so
little fitness for the profession of
tutor as to be content to act as
janitor also ?
Again, in sending his boys to
school to be educated, would a man
be willing to have that school also
run as a restaurant, a laundry, and a
tailor shop? Would he think these
industries and the society of the
persons engaged in them good educa
tional influences ? It is clear that a
man would not be willing to do these
things. Yet all men cheerfully entrust
their children during their most im
pressionable years to the society and
care of domestic servants and the con
stant association with domestic indus
tries. In most cases the servant is
also the mother. In other cases the
servant is not the mother. In either
case the child grows up in association
with domestic servants and service.
Let us not too readily conclude
that this is an evil, but examine it
carefully, in its physical and psychical
effects. Physically, the child is born
into a certain kind of shop or factory.
The conditions of any labour in the
home are particularly open to criti
cism; oursweating-shop investigations
show that in glaring instance. Inti
mate association with a trade, and
especially a dirty or dangerous one,
does not seem advantageous to a
child’s health and progress. In nine
homes out of ten the child is directly
associated with the trades of his
mother, who is a cook, a laundress, a
cleaner in general; and the baby is
early accustomed to the fumes and
heat of the kitchen, to grease and
ashes and dust, to all the kitchen
work, laundry-work, chamber-work,
and endless miscellaneous industries
of his mother. In the other tenth of
our homes the child grows up a little
removed, but not far, from these
same industries. They go on under his
eyes none the less, but with a certain
ban upon them, as servants’ work.
Any mother and housewife knows
the complications continually arising
between children and servants. Early
associations are deep and lasting.
Domestic servants are not, as a rule,
either at all trained in the right treat
ment of children or in such personal
�CHILDREN AND SERVANTS
development of character and manners
as would make them desirable com
panions for the young. Yet com
panions they are—incessant, intimate,
unavoidable. The formative influence
of a nurse-maid or of a maid-of-allw'ork is of varying weight in different
cases, but always a factor in the child’s
development. The education of a
child consists in every impression
received by the growing brain, not
merely those received when we are
instructing it. We might give an
hour a day to careful instruction in
good manners ; we might ourselves
be models of propriety ; but, if the
child is also in the society of con
spicuously ill-mannered persons every
day, an effect will surely be produced
by them.
It may be suggested that an end is
to be attained through exhibiting the
deficiencies of servants, and exhorting
the child to despise them, as the
Spartans used the Helots for an awful
example; but, even if this were gained,
there would follow with it a spirit of
scorn and contempt for fellow-crea
tures most injurious to true social
development.
A little child should be surrounded
with the best influences of all sorts,
and with behaviour not to avoid, but
to imitate. The long period of imma
turity, which is one of our human
distinctions, has its value in the accu
mulated improvements which may be
built into the race in that time. It is
a period of enrichment, of clear growth.
To expose the young to disadvanta
geous conditions, especially the very
young, is a method of education find
ing no precedent in nature and no
justification in reason. The adult,
with developed powers, may find in
some degree of difficulty a stimulus to
further effort; and, if confronted with
injurious conditions, may strive the
harder to escape or change them.
But the new person, the child, has no
background. He can make no com
parisons. He accepts his first environ
77
ment unquestioningly as “ the world ” ;
it is all the world he knows. For the
very reason that we were all born and
reared in the domestic factory, we find
it hard to imagine any other conceiv
able surroundings for a young human
being to meet life in. We have
accepted it without dream of criticism.
Yet in physical conditions alone the
household industries furnish a large
and constant element of danger to the
child. A most casual retrospect of
the accidents common to childhood,
which so shock us in the daily Press,
shows this with startling clearness.
Children suffer from accidents by fire,
by boiling water, by sharp instru
ments, by injurious substances taken
into the stomach. The industry of
cooking alone involves the free use of
fire, a constant succession of hot pro
ducts, many sharp instruments for
cutting and stabbing, and various
food elements healthful in combina
tion, but often injurious when taken
separately by one ignorant of their
nature. The kitchen and the laundry
are responsible for many horrible and
sudden deaths among young children,
and many more painful accidents.
Given the essential ignorance and
as essential experiments of childhood,
and we may well wonder how it has
so long seemed good to us to bring
up our babies among such large
chances of danger. If we reared them
in stables^ we should expect them to
be kicked occasionally ; if we placed
them in saw-mills, we should look for
some deficit in fingers ; and a child in
a cook-shop has his steady average
risk of injury by fire, steel, or poison;
in the laundry the added chance of
drowning. Apart from these main
sources of danger, he finds in sweep
ing, dusting, and all the uncounted
activities of household toil much that
is detrimental to health and safety.
To avoid these dangers our first
effort has been to train the child to a
prompt and instant obedience, such
as conditions of imminent danger and
�78
CHILDREN AND SERVANTS
military rule alone can justify, and
also to check his natural and most
valuable tendency to investigate and
experiment. The labours of the
household must go on; economic
laws are peremptory ; and the servant,
who is educating the baby so uncon
sciously, cannot stop work to explain
or illustrate.
On the contrary, the very presence
of the child is inimical to the proper
performance of these imperative indus
tries ; and the flushed and hurried
servant cries: “ Run away now.
Mamma’s busy!” Where is the child
to run to ? This is home. When is
mamma not busy ? To perform pro
perly the household labour of an
average family, which is of five
persons in an average house, say, of
six rooms, takes ten hours a day
of swift, intelligent, skilled labour.
During what part of this time can the
household labourer give due attention
to the child ? Or is it sufficient
education to watch a servant at work,
and to help a little when one is old
enough ?
If the industries involved were
properly divided, specialised,, and
developed, much that is valuable
might be gathered from their obser
vation, and from guarded experiment,
by children who are old enough. A
child can receive valuable instruction
in a woollen-mill or a blacksmith
shop, but it does not follow that
these places are suitable as nurseries.
The lack of any true educational
value in the position is sufficiently
shown by the ceaseless centuries of
ignorance in these very trades. All
women, for all time, reared in this
intimate association with domestic
service and domestic servants, have
failed to work out any better grade
of performance than that which still
furnishes the staple of conversation
among them.
It is quite evident, from the results
so painfully visible around us, that
the education of our children by
house-servants
developes
neither
general intelligence nor special pro
ficiency. The intellectual progress of
humanity has shown close connection
with the extension of industry in
larger lines, with a growing speciali
sation, a wider distribution, and, of
course, with the beautiful growth in
special methods of education. But
this kitchen education, though we
have enjoyed its advantages for so
long, does not seem to show good
results.
The educational value of the mother
seems not to be in proportion to her
occupation as a house-servant, but
the reverse. It would seem that our
children grow in intelligence and good
behaviour rather in spite of the
domestic industries than because of
them. Any mother who is awake to
the limitless possibilities of child
culture, and who begins to work out
some well-considered plan for its
pursuance, knows the ceaseless inter
ruptions of her efforts, and the per
emptory monopolisation of her time,
by the demands of household labour.
So far, with true womanly patience—
a patience which ceased to be a virtue
some years ago—she has accepted the
condition as inevitable, and plodded
on, consoling herself with a “ day
unto day” philosophy, and with “doing
the best she could ”; and many
moralists consoled
her,
saying,
“Blessed be drudgery!” Drudgery
has a certain value, no doubt. It
developes certain characteristics—
namely, those of a competent and
contented drudge. The question
raised here is merely whether this
kind of work and the characteristics
developed by it are suitable educa
tional associations for young children.
What are the qualities developed
by house-service ? Let us suppose
that we are all, fathers as well as
mothers, occupied solely in household
labour. The effect may be studied
from one point of view in those
countries where there are more men-
�CHILDREN AND SERVANTS
servants than with us, and where the
profession is sometimes followed for
generations. The typical character
of a butler or footman, a parlour
maid, cook, or general servant, may
be traced through all personal varia
tion. Given any sort of person, and
put him or her through a lifetime of
domestic service, and certain charac
teristics appear, modified to. a large
degree by personality, but typical none
the less.
This palpable result of house-service
is familiar to us all, and not desired in
ourselves or our children. Admitting
all personal good qualities in the indi
vidual servant, that in his bearing
which distinguishes it from the bearing
we call “ soldierly ” or “ gentlemanly,”
or even “business-like,” is the natural
result of his form of labour—of
personal domestic service. Where
the purpose of action is to serve one
individual or a very few individuals—
and this not so much in ministering
to general needs as in catering to
personal tastes—those who thus labour
are checked in development by the
measure of the tastes they serve.
That is the restrictive tendency,
resisted according to personal power
and ability, but always producing
some result. A race of men who
were one and all contented to be
butlers and footmen would not give
as noble a fatherhood as the world
needs ; and a race of women who are
contented to be cooks and house
maids do not give as noble a mother
hood as the world needs.
Sharp exception will, no doubt, be
taken to the use of the word “servant”
to designate the nine out of ten women
who “do their own work.” There is
a difference, we freely admit. They
do the same work in the same way,
but they have different motives. They
do it from a sense of duty, oft-times,
instead of a desire for wages ; for
they get no wages. They do it simply
because they have to, sometimes,
fueling it to be merely a disagreeable
79
necessity. They do it from a more
direct self-interest than the servant,
as well as from a greater self-sacrifice.
Few, very few women love it, and
continue to do it a day beyond the
time when their husbands can afford
to hire another woman.
Whatever the “moral quality” of
intention and the value of one’s “ frame
of mind,” the reactive effect of one’s
daily labour is inexorable. No matter
how high and holy the purpose of the
toiling house-wife, no matter whether
she glories in her task or hates it, her
brain is daily modified by its kind of
exercise as surely as her fingers are
greased by the dish-water, cracked by
the soap-suds, and made callous by the
broom. The amount of labour and
care required to run a household com
fortably is not small. It takes no
mean intelligence to administer a
home. So does it require intelligence,
labour, and care to run a retail dry
goods shop or a railroad train. The
point to study is whether this par
ticular species of labour and care is
conducive to the best child-culture.
Can the average woman successfully
manage the mingled industries of her
household and the education of her
children ? It may be replied at once,
with some triumph, “Yes, she does 1”
To which wé merely rejoin, “ Does
she?” We know that the household
industries are carried on in some
fashion; and that children grow up
amid them (such of them as do not
die), and are—when grown—the kind
of people we see about us.
People did live and rear children
in caves, in tents, in huts, in feudal
castles. It is a question not of the
bare possibility of maintaining the
race, but of the relative advantages
of methods of culture. Our rate of
infant mortality is shamefully large,
and due mainly to what physicians
term “preventable diseases.” It is
quite open to discussion whether
those diseases are not often traceable to
the insanitary conditions of household
�8o
CHILDREN AND SERVANTS
labour, and their continued pre
valence to the limitations of the
kitchen-bred intellects of nine-tenths
of our mothers.
No human being, be she never so
much a mother, can be in two places
at once, or do full justice to several
varied functions with one distracted
brain. That the mother comes so
near it in many cases is a splendid
tribute to the power of love ; that she
fails in such degree is no reproach to
her, so long as she is unable to alter
the industrial conditions under which
her motherhood is restricted.
Now that economic progress makes
it possible to introduce new and
wide improvements, the mother does
become responsible if she fails to see
and take advantage of the change.
Our complex and ill-developed house
hold labours tend to produce certain
special mental capacities in those who
perform them. The housewife must
hold in mind the entire contents of
the home—all its furnishing, decora
tions, utensils, and supplies. She
must keep a running account of stock
and make good the incessant and irre
gular deficiencies of linen-closet, ward
robe, cupboard, and pantry, as well
as the wear and tear on the machinery
and furnishings. This developes one
order of brain—the administrative.
The house-servant must exhibit skill
in several distinct trades, and a swift
facility for disconnecting the mind and
readjusting it as promptly. This
developes another order of brain—the
executive—the development seriously
hindered in special perfection by the
attendant facility for disconnection.
Neither of these mental powers is that
of the educator, especially the educator
of babies.
The capacity for subtle, long-con
tinued, nicely-balanced observation in
lines of psychic development; the
ever-present, delicate sympathy which
knows the moment to suggest and the
hour to refrain—these mental attri
butes belong neither to the adminis
trative nor to the executive ability.
We find in the maternal dealings with
children, when conspicuously efficient,
precisely what should be expected of
the expert manager and skilful servant.
The children are well managed and
well served, but they are not well
educated.
When the mother—the housewife
mother, the servant-mother—begins
to look into educational processes, she
is appalled. It is easy to show her,
if she has a clear and at all educated
mind, what conditions would be best
for babies, what kind of observation
and treatment ; but she knows full
well that she cannot furnish these
conditions. She has neither place,
time, strength, skill, nor training for
this delicate and careful method.
Her work, her daily, hourly, inexor
able work, fills the place, consumes
the time, exhausts the strength, does
not develop the skill, and prevents
the training of the educator. Many
mothers do not even recognise the
possibility of better methods, and
strenuously resent the suggestion that
they are not doing all that could be
done.
They resent even the kindergarten,
many of them. The relatively slow
progress of the kindergarten method
is as good a proof as could be offered
of the lack of educational perception
among mothers. They are willing to
“ serve ” their children endlessly, wait
on them, wash, sweep, and cook for
them. They are willing to “ manage ”
their children carefully and conscien
tiously, and do not recognise the need
of better educational treatment for
babies. This attitude is a perfectly
natural result of the reaction of the
absorbing household industries on the
mind of the mother. Her interest is
eager and alert in all that concerns
the material management of the family,
from wall-paper and carpets to some
new variety of hose-supporter, down
to the least detail of decoration on an
embroidered muslin cap for the baby.
�CHILDREN AND SERVANTS
In any matter of greater beauty or
economy, or in some cases of sanitary
improvement, the housewife-mother’s
mind is open. In indefatigable zeal
in direct service—no task too difficult,
too long, too tedious—the servant
mother’s hand is ever-ready. But the
same devoted, loving, conscientious
mother will fail appallingly to keep in
touch with the mind-growth of the
baby; will often neglect and even
seriously injure its development in
what is, after all, the main field of
human life. The young human being
needs far more than to be fed and
clothed and waited on, however
lovingly ; or even than to be taught
in schools in a few set lines of study.
We have made splendid progress in
external things, in material forms and
methods of production and distribu
tion. We have travelled far and deep
in scientific study, climbed high in art,
and grown through grand religions.
Our one great need—a need that
grows daily greater in the vivid light
of these swift-moving years—is for a
better kind of people. The progress
in human character does not keep
pace with our external improvement.
We are not trained in the right
management of our own faculties;
and come out. of “ the home ” into
“ the world ” well fed enough, well
dressed enough, but with such un
kempt, unbuttoned, dangling strings
of neglected character as bespeak
the orphan soul.
Ask any mother to describe her
children’s complexion, costume, and
tastes in eating. She will do it glibly,
profusely, and with feeling. Johnny
would never touch meat till he was
ten ; Maud would eat nothing else ;
Jessie could never bear potatoes.
Maud was very near-sighted. She
had early taken her to an oculist.
She would probably have to wear
glasses always. Jessie was so hard
on shoes. She used two pairs to
Maud’s one—even worse than Johnny.
Now ask her to describe the distinc
81
tive mental characteristics of each, at
what age they developed, and what
measures she has taken from year to
year to check Jessie’s personal vanity,
to increase Maud’s courage, to develop
patience in Johnny. Ask her what
she has tried for croup, and she will
discourse freely. Ask her what she
has tried for the gradual reduction of
self-consciousness, and she looks
puzzled.
The human race is capable of
beautiful development in character, as
we see in occasional instances. That
such beautiful development is largely
assisted by right education, especially
in the very first years, is proven by a
thousand experiments. That most of
us grow up without any intelligent
psychic training, without wise atten
tion and skilful care in soul-growth,
is but too evident. Better education
for the young of the human race, that
education which the child never knows
of, but which surrounds him with
helpful influences from his first con
sciousness, is an imperative need.
Some attempt at this work is made
by all conscientious mothers, and
wonderful success is sometimes
attained by a mother of special
genius for child-culture (and who, by
the way, is seldom distinguished as
a housekeeper) ; but our general
average in humaniculture is low.
Nothing in the range of human effort
is more important than the right
education of children, which means
the improvement of the race. The
first years are of special value, the
first influences and associations of
pre-eminent importance.
If the household industries are
incompatible with the best child
culture, they should be withdrawn
from the household, specialised and
professionalised, like all the other
industries once considered essentially
domestic. When a broader intelli
gence is brought to bear on our
infancy, when we do not grow up
under the unavoidable assumption
�82
MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
that the principal business of life is furnish skilled labour by the hour;
to “ keep house,” there will be a better the “ Prepared Food Association ” is
chance for the growth of those civic solving another problem. The way
virtues so pitifully lacking in us now. out of these household difficulties is
So many marks of progress in these opening fast. It needs only a fuller
lines are now evident that any intel recognition among women of the
ligent woman can see the way open value of this change to bring it in
before her. The public laundry is with greater rapidity and success.
sapping the foundations of our For the sake of our children let us
domestic industry; the “ Domestic free the home from its archaic
Service Bureau ” is beginning to industries.
XIV.
MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
We use the word “ natural ” in many
senses—sometimes with warm ap
proval, as indicating that which is
best; sometimes with disapproval, as
low and discreditable.
“ Natural affection ” is one familiar
phrase, and “ unnatural monster ”
another, which show a firm belief in
the rightness of the working laws of
the universe.
On the other hand, the whole story
of human development lies in changing
those conditions and habits which
were once natural to the slow,
laborious, hard-won advantages of
civilisation. “The natural man,” or
man “in a state of nature,” is a
remote ancestor; and we do not
allow unchecked freedom to animal
passions and appetites among us on
the ground that they are “natural.”
It is natural to take revenge for
injuries ; it is natural to eat too
much ; it is natural to be too careless
in youth and too cautious in old age.
“ Natural ” means according to the
laws of nature; and the laws of
nature have a wide and long range.
In applying the word to any one
creature, we have to limit it by time
and circumstance. It is natural for
an absolutely wild creature, which
has never seen man, not to be afraid
of him. It is natural for the same
creature, when hunted, to fear man,
and shun him. If long tamed, like
the cat and dog, it is natural to come
trustfully to the well-known friend.
Nature is essentially changeful. Its
laws remain the same, but the inter
action of those laws produces ever
varying results. The “ nature ” of
any given creature varies with its
circumstances—give it time—as in
the above case of the dog and cat;
but the whole scale of behaviour is
“ natural ” in its place and time. “A
state of nature ” is not a period with
an exact date, nor any one grade of
conduct. That conduct which is most
advantageous to a creature under
given circumstances is natural. The
only conduct which is “ unnatural ”
would be that which was exhibited
in contradiction to the laws of nature,
if such were possible.
In this sense an ascetic life is
unnatural, as meaning destruction to
�MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
the individual and race ; but, in the
sense that the ascetic fondly believes
he is acting for his ultimate benefit,
his conduct is “natural,” after all.
A wild rose is “ natural,” a garden
rose or hot-house rose is “ cultivated,”
a velvet rose on a bonnet is “ artificial.”
Yet it is as natural for man to cultivate
and imitate for his own good pleasure
as for a bee to store honey. When
we were in what we usually call a
“state of nature,” we did not keep
clean, wear clothes, go to school or
to church.
Yet cleanliness and
clothing, education and religion, are
natural products of “human nature.”
When we apply the word to human
conduct, we ought to be clear in our
own minds as to whether we mean
“ natural —i.e., primitive, uncivilised,
savage—or natural—suited to man’s
present character and conditions.
Primitive man did not send his
children to school, but we do not
consider it unnatural that we do send
ours. Primitive woman carried her
naked baby in her arms; modern
woman pushes her much-dressed infant
in a perambulator. But there is
nothing unnatural in preferring the
perambulator. It is natural to do
what is easiest for the mother and
best for the baby; and our modern
skill and intelligence, our knowledge
and experience, are as natural to us
as ignorance, superstition, and ferocity
were to our primal ancestors.
With this in mind, let us look at
the use of the term “ natural ” as
applied to mothers. What sort of
mother do we praise as natural, and
what sort do we blame as “unnatural”?
Is our term used with reference to a
period of development, “ natural ”
motherhood
meaning
primitive,
savage motherhood? Or is it used
with reference to the exercise of that
intelligence, acquired knowledge and
skill, and array of conveniences, which
are natural to civilised man to-day ?
I think it will be found that in most
cases we unconsciously use it in the
83
first sense, natural meaning merely
primitive or even animal, and with
but too good reason, if we study the
behaviour we are describing.
Motherhood is pre-eminently a
“ natural ” function in both senses.
It might almost be called the natural
function, as reproduction seems to be
more important in the evolution of
species than even self-preservation.
It would seem as if the instinct of
self-preservation were given merely to
keep the creatures alive for purposes
of reproduction ; for, when the two
forces come into conflict, the repro
ductive instinct is the stronger.
The reproductive functions are per
formed by both male and female; but,
as the species developes and more
conscious effort is applied to the great
task, the female has the larger share.
In furnishing nutrition to the young,
order mammalia gives the entire task
to the mother ; and their care, pro
tection, and defence are mainly hers.
With the human species, in propor
tion to its development, the scales
have turned the other way. With us
the father furnishes food, shelter, and
protection, save for the first period of
suckling. In many cases the mother
fails even to provide this assuredly
“ natural ” contribution to the child’s
nourishment. This would be a good
opportunity to call her “unnatural”;
but, if she is sufficiently assiduous
with the bottle or wet-nurse, we do
not. Beyond that period the human
mother merely waits upon and watches
her children in the shelter provided
by the father, and administers to them
such food, clothing, and other supplies
as he furnishes.
Her educational office, too, has
largely passed from her, owing to the
encroachments of the school and
kindergarten. She still moulds their
morals and manners as far as she is
able, and has command of their edu
cation during the earliest and most
important years.
Now, is it “natural” for a mother
F 2
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MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
to take no part in getting food for
children? If ever there was a natural
function pertaining to motherhood,
that seems to be one. If we use the
word in its primitive sense, she cer
tainly is “ an unnatural mother ” for
relinquishing this primal duty. But,
if we use it in the other sense, she is
quite natural in accepting the condi
tions of civilised life as far as they are
advantageous to the child.
Is it
“ natural ” for a mother to submit her
children to the instruction of other
extra-maternal persons, or to call the
doctor when they are sick, engage the
dentist to fill their teeth, and hire
persons to help take care of them ?
These things are not primitive surely,
but neither are they “unnatural.”
The “ nature ” of motherhood is to
provide what is best for the child ;
and the multiplied services and facili
ties of our socially developed lives are
as natural to us as our smooth white
skins, once “ naturally ” brown and
shaggy.
In all fair thinking, speaking, and
writing, we should decide clearly upon
our meaning, and see that it would
be very unnatural for modern women
to behave as was natural to primitive
women.
The main duty remains the same—
to benefit the child.
Methods and
materials are open to choice and
change. Motherhood is as open to
criticism as any other human labour
or animal function.
Free study,
honest criticism and suggestion, con
scientious experiment in new lines—
by these we make progress. Why
not apply study, criticism, suggestion,
and experiment to motherhood, and
make some progress there ?
“ Progress in motherhood ” is a
strange phrase to most of us. We
would as soon speak of progress in
digestion.
That shows how we persist in con
founding the physical functions of
reproduction with the elaborate pro
cesses that follow ; and yet we do not
apply our scornful term of “ unnatural
mother ” to the weak, unhealthy
woman who cannot compete with
a cow in this stage of mother
hood. We should think fairly one
way or the other. Success in the
physical functions of maternity we
shall do well to keep up to a level
with the performance of the “ lower
animals.” The ensuing processes are
the ones open to progress.
No bottle is as good as the breast.
“You cannot improve on nature!”
But you can improve in methods of
clothing, feeding in later years, house
and school building, teaching, and
every other distinctly human process.
If the human mother does not com
pare favourably with other animals in
the physical processes of reproduction,
she is therein “unnatural.” If she
does not keep up with the opportuni
ties of her race and time in all the
ensuing care of the child, she is therein
unnatural.
Such care and culture
as was natural to give a cave-baby
would be unnatural to-day. Is not the
average mother of to-day too prone
to content herself with a very lowgrade performance of a modern
mother’s duties, on the plea that her
methods
are “ natural ”—namely,
primitive?
The grade of “ care ” given by the
mother of to-day is too often exactly
that of the mother of many thousand
years ago. We depend almost alto
gether on what is known as “ the
maternal instinct,” which is a “natural
instinct,” to be sure, just as it is a
natural instinct for the male to fight.
The right education of a child to-day
requires more than instinct to produce
the best results. Because we have
not used the helpful influences of
association, study, and experience in
this most important labour of life, we
keep our progress as a living species
far below the level of our progress in
material improvements.
When anything is said of improving
the human stock, we instantly think
�MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
of the methods of breeders of cattle,
and are at once convinced of the
undesirability and impossibility, of
applying- any such means to humanity.
But there remain open to us two
immense avenues of improvement,
both free to mothers. One is the
mother’s modifying influence upon
the race through selection—that duty
of wise choice of a superior father
for her children, which is “ natural ”
enough to the lower animals, but
which we agree to ignore in the
bringing up of our young women.
Careful and conscientious training to
this end would have a great effect
upon the race.
This does not mean the self-con
scious forcing of a young heart to
marry a “superior” man without the
blessed leading of true love, but such
open knowledge of what constituted
an inferior or positively injurious man
as would lower the likelihood of nice
girls loving the undesirables.
The other and far more practical
road of racial advance is in improving
the environment of our young children,
both materially and psychically, by
the intelligent co-ordinate action of
mothers. If we improve the indi
vidual as far as possible, it is better
not to meddle too much with the
subtle forces which lead to mating.
These processes are not cerebral, and
ought not to be made self-conscious.
But educational processes are con
scious, and should be studied.
The “ natural ” mother gives no
thought to her approaching duties
during youth. The animals do not,
the savages do not, and our charming
young girls do not. Is it not time for
us to show a generation of mothers
sufficiently “ unnatural ” to give honest
thought and study to the great duty
which lies before them ? Clear-headed,
intelligent girls, as yet unhampered
by the blind brute instinct of maternal
passion, might be able to plan together
for the good of the child, as they
never would be able to plan separately
85
for the good of their own individual
children.
A year or two of thorough study
and practice in the arts and sciences
of child-culture would soon convince
the girl as to whether she was adapted
to be an educator of little children or
merely a mother. I say “merely a
mother” in this rather derogatory
way, alluding to the process.of bearing
young and perhaps suckling them.
This is an essentially physical function,
common to all the higher animals,
and usually fulfilled by them much
better than by us. The continuous
and subtle processes of education
which come after, and the wise care
required for the physical health and
comfort of the child, do not come
“naturally” to every mother. It is
here that the skill and training are
needed. Maternity is one thing, and
education another.
It cannot be too strongly reiterated
that maternal love does, not neces
sarily include wisdom. It is “natural ”
for every mother to love her children,
but it does not follow that she knows
what is best for them. The animal
mother does know by instinct; and
we, content to take our pattern of
motherhood from the beasts, have
imagined that we needed nothing
more.
The individual animal has the neces
sary knowledge of its kind lodged in
each specimen. One bear, lion, or
sheep can teach its young all that
any of them know, and care for them
one as well as another.
There is an immense difference
between this “ natural ” condition, and
ours, where individuals differ so widely
in wisdom, and where the material
conditions essential to the good of
the child are not open to every mother
to select from as instinct dictates, and
procure according to her individual
skill, but are produced by us collec
tively, and only to be secured by com
bined intelligence. For our mothers
to insure good conditions for their
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MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
children requires more than maternal
instinct.
The “ natural ” mother of to-day is
reared without an inkling- of what
lies before her; and no pre-acting
instinct warns her of the effect of her
girlhood’s wasted opportunities. She
marries still by “instinct,” which
often leads her astray ; or, when she
uses her conscious reason, it is
g-enerally in lines of financial advan
tage, irrespective of the to-be-father’s
health or character. She fulfils the
physical functions of maternity rather
reluctantly and with poor success,
being frequently much the worse for
the performance, and then rather
boasting of her enfeebled condition,
as if it was in some mysterious way a
credit to her.
Then she brings to the care and
education of her children merely her
rudiments of maternal instinct—an
instinct so far painfully lacking in wise
prevision of the event and preparation
for it.
Where failing health or “ social
duties” or any other causes prevent
her constant attendance on the child,
the rich mother hires a low-class
woman to take care of him ; and, if
the poor woman has too much work
to be able to attend constantly upon
the child, she gets along as she indi
vidually can without taking much care
of him. Or, if she is of that small
class who do really “take care of”
their children personally, the care she
gives is the mere chance outcome of
her personal character and conditions,
and may or may not be beneficial.
All this conduct we call “natural,”
and see no blame in it. We assume
that every mother knows how to care
for her children ; and, if we only see
her keeping at it incessantly, we never
criticise the methods or results. That
is not, in general, a charge against
motherhood.
We do criticise indi
vidual cases very freely, yet make
no deduction from our own wide
observations.
Now let us picture an “unnatural ”
mother. As a young girl, she thought
fully considers her approaching duties.
She says to herself: “I am to be a
mother ; to contribute my personal
share to the improvement of humanity
by bringing into the world someone
better than I am. I must do all I can
to be better personally, in character
and physique, for the child’s sake.
Whatever I may be able to do for it
afterwards, I will give it good endow
ment at birth.” And then this un
natural young girl proceeds to train
herself in all right living, avoiding
anything in dress or food or late hours
that might injure her health, because
she hopes to be a mother some day.
She studies child-culture eagerly,
hoping that she may be fit for the
splendid work, but is disappointed
here perhaps, having a strong musical
temperament, or a good head for busi
ness, or capacity for prompt and
skilful manual labour, but not the
faculties that go to make the good
educator.
This is a blow, for she considers
the training of little children as the
highest work on earth; but she recog
nises that only about one in twenty
has the requisite capacity ; and the
knowledge gained in her careful study
in these lines shows her the impor
tance of giving children the best con
ditions, which involves association
with those specially erjdowed with the
teacher’s power. So she studies her
own profession cheerfully, resolved to
make good progress there, to be a
mother her children can be proud of,
and to be able to guarantee them all
they need. She loves and marries,
led by the deepest force in organic
life, but governed by a clear and
conscious wisdom even here. If she
has the misfortune to be attracted to
a man diseased or immoral or defec
tive, she will not accept him, for the
sake of her children. But marry she
will, for this is the law of life ; and
the exceptions go to extinction. This
�MOTHERS. NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
fair woman, vigorous and beautiful,
with her well-trained body, clear
mind, and tender spirit of mother-love
waiting within her, would not go
unloved. She marries. She bears
healthy, beautiful children,
and
nourishes them at her proud and
loving breast.
She has provided
beforehand for their care and training,
knowing from the study and expe
rience she has given the subject, and
the reading she has kept up, what are
now the best obtainable conditions.
Her home has been chosen with a
view to its proximity to the best baby
garden and child-home she knew,
where some of the teachers were old
friends of hers, and all were known by
reputation.
Having chosen a profession with a
view to the physical limitations of
motherhood, and prepared during her
plentiful time of waiting such arrange
ment of hours and substitutes as shall
enable her to meet the mother’s duties
properly, she takes a complete vaca
tion for the months that need it ; and
then gradually resumes her work for
part of the day, as her hours between
nursing the child lengthen. She goes
gladly to her work because she loves
it, is well trained for it, and by doing
it she serves her child. She comes
more gladly to the child, the deep
primal instinct coming out strongly ;
and at night the healthy little one
sleeps near her in the quiet home.
Between the hours of nursing, the
baby sleeps peacefully or wakes
happily, in the beautiful home that
his mother, and other mothers work
ing with her, have made for their
children ; and is watched and cared
for by the wise and tender women
who have proved their fitness for
this precious work.
His mother is not worried about
him. She knows that in that home
there is no possible danger, in that
trained care no least neglect; and
that, if any sudden illness smote him,
the visiting physician is there daily,
87
and others in instant call. This place
was made for babies, and is not in
charge of servants. She is at ease
about the child. Eagerly she goes to
him when work is done. No weari
ness, no anxious uncertainty, only the
glad, triumphant mother-love which
is content in knowing that the best
possible conditions are secured to
the child, and a constantly renewed
delight in its health and beauty and
good progress. Owing to her pre
vious study, she knows enough not
to undo the good effects by foolish
ness at home. She is in daily com
munication with the teachers—and
nurses and doctors, if necessary. She
does not lose touch with the little life.
Her untired affection surrounds him
always, and to the child she is pro
bably the most agreeable of the
several agreeable persons in whose
society he finds himself. Unless she
falls terribly below the common
standard, he will love her the best;
for the beautiful background of nurs
ing won and held his dawning affec
tion, and the sweet home-coming
every night is a constantly strength
ening tie.
Any clean, comfortable,
human home should be suitable for a
healthy child to sleep in ; but it is in
his impressionable day-time hours
that he needs more appropriate sur
roundings.
It will be seen that this unnatural
mother has her child in her own care
for sixteen hours out of the twentyfour, and during the eight hours of a
working day she herself places him
in what she knows to be better con
ditions than her own home could offer.
If she does chance to possess that
degree of educational genius essential
to the best care of young children,
her eight hours of work will be spent
in taking care of them, and the
remaining sixteen in still taking care
of her own. Thus the exceptional
mother, who is also an educator, will
have her own all the time ; and her
unusual ability will benefit many
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MOTHERS, NATURAL AND UNNATURAL
other little ones for part of the
time.
The “ natural ” mother, of course,
believes that her own care of her own
child is better than anyone else’s.
She can give no proof of this, and
would be very unwilling to submit to
any examination or competition. She
simply thinks she is the best educator
because she is a “mother.” The
sickness and death of her children, or
the accidents which happen to them,
or their inferior development and dis
agreeable behaviour, she never takes
as proof of her incompetence. Where
an experienced teacher could remove
half-a-dozen bad habits in as many
months without the child’s knowing
it, the mother scolds and spanks along
the years, or resignedly lets the small
people trample upon the rights of
their elders, in serene conviction that
her methods must be right; for is she
not their mother ?
The unnatural mother, who is
possessed of enough intelligence and
knowledge to recognise her own
deficiencies, gladly entrusts her chil
dren to superior care for part of the
time, and constantly learns by it her
self.
The mother-love, which is so far
strained by the difficulties of rearing
children in the home as frequently to
give way to irritability, weariness,
and even bad temper, would be kept
fresh and unworn by the eight-hour
rest; and the child would never learn
to despise his mother’s irascibility and
lack of self-control, as, unfortunately,
so many children do. To the child,
happy and busy in his day hours of
education, the home-coming would be
an ever new delight, and the home—
“ papa and mamma’s house ”—a lovely
place to respect and enjoy.
Many will wonder why the mother
is described as “working” during
eight hours. The able-bodied and
able-minded human being who does
not work is a contemptible object.
To take from the labour of others so
large a share of human products as
is necessary to our comfort to-dayf
and contribute nothing in return, is
the position of a devouring parasite.
Most women do work, hard and
long, at house-service. The “natural”
mother is content to mingle her
“ sacred duties ” of child-care with
the miscellaneous duties of a house
servant ; but the “ unnatural mother,”
for the sake of her children, refuses
to be the kitchen-maid, parlour-maid,
and chamber-maid of the world any
longer. She recognises that her real
duties are too important to be hindered
in their performance any longer by
these primitive inconveniences ; and,
with combined intelligence, she and
the others arrange their households
on a basis of organised professional
service, with skilled labour by the
hour, and so each has time to perform
some professional service herself, and
pay well for the better performance of
the “ domestic ” tasks.
This subject is treated in a special
volume on Women and Economics, but
here it is sufficient to present the
position of the mother, the “un
natural ” mother, who would refuse
to maintain any longer our grossly
defective system of household service
(either by herself or by a hired
woman), on the ground that it was
not conducive to the best development
of her children.
To those who for any reason prefer,
or are compelled by circumstances, to
pursue the profession of private
house-servant, it will, however, be
of inestimable advantage to have
their children taken out of the dirt
and danger, and placed in proper
conditions, while the mother follows
her profession at home. The natural
mother cares only for her own chil
dren. She loves and labours without
knowledge, and what experience she
gains by practising on her own chil
dren is buried with her. The un
natural mother cares for children—■
all of them—and knows that she can
�SOCIAL PARENTAGE
best serve her own by lifting the
standard of child-culture for all.
We have urgent need of the un
natural mother—the mother who has
added a trained intellect to a warm
89
heart ; and, when we have enough of
them, the rarest sound on earth will
be that now so pitifully common—the
crying of a little child.
XV.
SOCIAL PARENTAGE
The mother does her duty by her
children as best she can. The father
does his duty by his children. But
we do not do our duty by our chil
dren. The relation of the State to
the child is little thought of, much
less understood. We have discussed
it only as an alternative to the parental
relation, involving the removal of the
child from the home and family, and
the substitution of civic for domestic
care. Such a proposal naturally
excites the hot opposition of parental
love and instinct,
and cannot
stand. It has been tried more or
less thoroughly, as in Sparta, but
does not appeal to the human heart
or head, and is not in the least what is
here under discussion. The true rela
tion of the State to the child includes
the parental relation, and in no way
controverts the love and instinct
of those invaluable public function
aries.
It is not necessary, or in any way
desirable, for the State to remove the
, child from the parent.
Parents are
evolved for the purpose of rearing
children, and possess highly special
ised and urgent impulses in that
direction—far too useful forces to be
ignored.
But the civilised human parent lives
as part of an elaborate society — a
State ; and. as a member of the State,
he holds a new relation to his child,
she holds a new relation to her child ;
they, and they are the State, hold a
new relation to their children. This
is what we so generally ignore.
The individual parents do their
individual duty fairly well ; but the
collective parents, who constitute
society, fail shamefully in their col
lective duties.
What is a society ?
It is an organisation of human beings,
alive, complex, exquisitely developed
in co-ordinate inter-service. What is
it for ? It is for development, growth,
progress, like any other living thing.
How does a society improve ? By
combinations of individuals evolving
social processes which react favour
ably upon the individual constituents,
and develop in them better social
faculties. For instance, early combi
nations of individuals evolve low
forms of legal protection for the
citizens of the early State. Under
those protective enactments, citizens
grow up in comparative peace, and
become capable of enacting further
and superior laws.
In recent and particular instance,
our American forefathers established
a system of public education, under
which many citizens were developed
to a degree of intelligence sufficient
to see the need and the means of ex
tending and improving that education.
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SOCIAL PARENTAGE
Education is a social process, impos
sible—in any human degree—among
detached individuals.
The education of children is a dis
tinctly social process. Much of it
may be carried on by the parents, but
it is for social improvement and as
members of society that they do this.
Here is where our parents, who
constitute society, fail to see the
nature and extent of their work.
They have an exaggerated idea of
“ parental responsibility ” to the child,
and no idea at all of social responsi
bility to the child. That social de
velopment which has enlarged the
mind and soul of the beast-savage to
our present capacity for love and
service we still imagine to be purely
parental, and endeavour to con
centrate it all on our own children,
failing utterly in our duty to each
other’s children.
No such gross error can work good
results. This disproportionate con
centration of feeling on the individual
child, and neglect of the child in
general, produces a world full of
people with a congested family life,
full of morbid sensitiveness and
potential difficulty and suffering, and
a weak, ansemic social life, full of
mutual neglect and dereliction of
duty.
The well-known illustration of
education can be used again still
farther to show this. Suppose a
small community, wherein the parents
are all very anxious for the education
of their own children, and profoundly
indifferent to the education of any
body else’s children. Suppose these
parents all labour religiously to buy
books, pictures, statues, music, and
to have the best of tutors for their
own children.
It can be seen without much mathe
matical effort how inferior would be
the supplies purchasable by the indi
vidual parent’s funds compared to
those purchasable by their collective
funds.
Separately, they could not
compass a good teacher to each
family, nor good pictures, nor many
books and instruments, nor any
statuary and music to speak of.
Collectively and for less money, they
could have all these things in far
higher degree of excellence.
It is social parentage, such as we
have, which gives us the school as
we have it. It is the weakness and
irresponsibility of our social parentage
which leaves the school as it is, and
fails to push on to something far
fuller and better. What thought,
what care, what service, does the
average mother give to other people’s
children?
None.
She does not
imagine it to be her duty. She imagines
that her duty lies only towards her
own children, and that it is no faintest
fault of hers if other children suffer.
If she sees little ones visibly neglected
and injured, she merely blames their
individual parents, and gives no
further thought to the matter.
Now, once for all, what is the
advantage of living in a society
instead of living alone ? It is that we
do not have to spend all our time and
strength in very imperfectly taking
care of ourselves, as the separate
individual would be obliged to do,
but are more and more perfectly
taken care of by one another. We
all share in the advantages of living
together-—the protection not only of
numbers, but of our specialised
defenders, civil and military ; the vast
accumulations of knowledge and
skill acquired by many and trans
mitted to all ; the increasing measure
of mutual love, in which we thrive
and grow. The more perfectly a
society can distribute these advantages
to all its citizens, the more swiftly
and healthfully does it advance and
improve.
Public peace and safety, public
justice, public education, the public
hall, the public road, the public
library and gallery and museum and
bath — these are what react so
�SOCIAL PARENTAGE
favourably upon the individual, and
make better homes and citizens. The
father is, to some extent, awake to
the duties of social parentage ; the
mother, hardly at all. The difference
is this : the father serves his children
by means of serving other people ;
the mother serves her children
personally, with her own hands.
Suppose a number of families (we can
not call it a community, because it
would not be one) wherein the
fathers endeavoured to serve their
children personally with their own
hands only, each man building,
weaving, farming, fishing, black
smithing, making dishes and tools
and instruments, and trying in all
ways to meet the family needs himself
personally.
It will readily be seen how little
the families of these men would have.
The time, strength, and skill of one
man do not go far, if he tries to do
all things himself. Why do women
imagine that their time, strength, and
skill severally will serve better than
in combination? Why are they con
tent to give their children only what
they can do themselves alone, thus
depriving them of the rich possibilities
of civilised motherhood, combined,
collective, mutually helpful ?
The term “ city fathers,” and its
painful lack of companionship in city
mothers, shows the wide gulf between
the development of social parentage
in men and women. The accidents
to little children from electric and
cable cars are pitifully numerous.
What mother has taken any steps to
prevent these accidents ?
Indivi
dually, each tries to protect her own,
as does the animal or savage. Collec
tively, they do nothing ; yet it is the
lack of this collective motherhood
which makes our cities so unsafe for
children. The idea that, if each takes
care of her own, all will be cared for,
is as false for women as it is for men.
If each man took care of his own, and
not of the others, we should have no
91
soldiers, no policemen, no govern
ment, no society, only that social
chaos called anarchy.
Social health and progress demand
collective action, the largest mutual
ity, the care and service of all, which
is the only guarantee of safety and
prosperity to each. Our fatherhood
is, to a considerable degree, socialised.
Our motherhood is flatly anarchistic,
refusing all co-ordination.
An earnest—hotly earnest—woman
once disputed this suggestion of
mutual service in motherhood, thus :
“When I make the bed for my child,
I put some of my personality between
the sheets. My child sleeps better if
I make his bed for him.” I gazed at
her calmly.
“ Does your child walk better if
you make his shoes for him ?” I asked.
It is a pretty sentiment that the
mother’s love in some mysterious way
makes all she does for the child
superior to what another could do.
But apply the test of fact. Can she,
with all her love, make as good a
shoe as the shoemaker, as good a
hair-brush, tooth-brush, tumbler, tea
cup, pie-plate, spoon, fork, or knife,
as the professional manufacturers
of these things? Does mother-love
teach her to be a good barber ? Can
she cut her darling’s hair so as to
make him happy ? Can she make a
good chair or table or bookor window?
How silly it is to imagine that this
“personality” inserted between the
sheets makes the bed more conducive
to healthy sleep than any other clean,
well-aired, well-made bed !
Let the mother put the child to bed
by all means, if she wishes. In . the
last sweet words and the good-night
kiss is truly the place for personality.
That is a mother’s place, and not a
tradesman’s. But there is no more
need for maternal personality between
the sheets of a bed than between the
leaves of a book or the bricks of a
wall.
In our pfirrow-mindedness we have
�92
SOCIAL PARENTAGE
assumed that to care for any other
children would mean to neglect our
own. As if the human heart, the
mother-heart, could love but one or
six, and not more ! As a matter of
fact, we neglect our own by not caring
for others. That is, we fail to take
those general measures for the pro
tection and development of all children
which would so greatly benefit our
particular children. Only to-day, at
last, we see in some advanced com
munities the mothers’ club and con
gress, the women’s civic associations,
and other forms of union for the im
provement of social conditions, all
helping to enlarge the application of
mother-love, and set that great force
free to bring on the better day for
children. These clubs and societies
are jeered at by the majority of
mothers, who proudly say that they
are too busy taking care of their
children to go to a mothers’ congress
and learn how.
Imagine, again, a majority of men,
each saying he was too busy teaching
his children to go to a school meeting
and plan for the education of them all!
It is nqt a shifting of duty that is
required—to cease to take care of
one’s own in order to take care of
others instead. So ingrained are our
primitive habits, so unable are we to
conceive of anything but the onewoman method, that our only idea
of change is a simple exchange of
responsibility. It is not exchang
ing that is needed, but an enlarg
ing, an embracing of the less in the
greater.
The mothers of the world are re
sponsible for the children of the world ;
the mothers of a nation for the children
of a nation ; the mothers of a city
for the children of a city. We may
ignore and deny this claim, but it is
there none the less; and, because we
do not do our duty as social parents,
a corrupt society injures our children
continually. The diseases of other
children infect ours. What have the
mothers ever done to prevent these
diseases ? They nurse their own sick
little ones religiously, and bury them
with tears; but what do they do
before or after to learn the cause and
prevention of these “ family afflic
tions,” to spread their information,
and enforce measures to put a stop
to them ? The bad habits of other
children affect ours—their ignorance,
their ill manners, their sins.
Our
children suffer individually from bad
social conditions, but cannot be saved
individually.
When the Philadelphia water supply
is so foul as to poison young and old,
mothers are responsible for not doing
their share to make the city water fit
for their families to drink. It is not
a private filter on a private faucet that
will do it, but public purity in the
public works.
In Boston, in 1899, the Society of
Collegiate Alumnae exposed a dis
gracefully insanitary condition in the
public schools—undisturbed filth in
cellar and vault, unwashed floors, a
slovenly neglect of the commonest
sanitary decency worthy of an Oriental
slum. Any mother in Boston would
have been filled with shame to have
such an exposure of her own private
housekeeping.
There is room for
shame at this exposure of their public
house-keeping, school house-keeping,
city-keeping.
Like an ostrich with his head in the
sand, the mother shuts herself up in
the home and imagines that she is safe
and hidden, acting as if “ the home ”
was isolated in space. That the home
is not isolated we are made painfully
conscious through its material con
nections— gas-pipes, water-pipes,
sewer-pipes, and electric wires—all
serving us well or ill according to
their general management.
Milk,
food, clothing, and all supplies brought
in bring health or disease according to
their general management. The mere
physical comfort of the home needs
collective action, to say nothing of
�SOCIAL PARENTAGE
the psychic connection in which we
all live, and where none is safe and
clean till all are safe and clean.
How far does the duty of the State
extend, and how much should be left
to individual responsibility ? This is
the working point to which this dis
cussion tends. A more serious socio
logical question could hardly be pro
pounded.
Seeing that progress is the law of
nature, that the human race is under
pressure of every force—conscious
and unconscious—to go on, to im
prove, to grow better, and that we, as
social beings, move forward through
social improvement, the main weight
of care seems to rest on society rather
than the individual. It is astonishing
to see how far this has gone already.
Whereas once the beast father and
mother were the only ones to protect
or serve the young, now society does
far more for the child than the parents.
The father does more than the mother,
and that by means of his social rela
tion. He provides for his child by
being a carpenter, lawyer, mason, .or
other social functionary. In this social
relation he is able to provide for it
the comfort and safety of a modern
society. Out of that relation he would
be able to provide for it only with
his bare hands alone, and less com
petent than the hardy savage.
We need not be alarmed at some
new overtures on the part of society,
if we but look at what society is doing
now. That we do not think of this is
due to our tradition that we “ take
care of ourselves.” We do not. No
civilised man “ takes care of himself.”
We take care of each other. But,
granting this to some degree, we have
heretofore supposed that the benefits
of civilisation belonged only to adults
—for that matter, only to adult
males !—and were to be distributed to
children through the individual parent.
Thus, if the parent was inferior, the
child was expected not only to inherit
his inferiority, but to suffer from it
93
always through inferior maintenance,
breeding, and education.
The gradual reaching out of society
to protect and care for the child is one
of the most interesting lines of his
toric development. The parent had
power to kill a child.
The State
denied the right, and protected the
child against the parent. The parent
had power to sell the child. The State
denied that. The parent might cast
off and neglect the child. The State
compels him to maintain it, if he can;
and, if not, the State supports the
child. The parent might teach the
child, have it taught, or leave it un
taught. Now the State orders that
the child must be taught, either at
home or at school, and furnishes the
school fee. So far the line of advance
has been from absolute parental con
trol to a steadily enlarging State
control, from absolute parental sup
port to more and more of State
support. The question of more or
less in present details may be de
bated indefinitely to no conclusion.
The principle is what we should
study.
The condition of childhood in our
human sense—the long period of immaturity—is a social condition. As
we advance in social relation, becom
ing more and more highly specialised,
the gulf between infancy and maturity
increases.
The young animal and
the adult animal are far more alike
than a Gladstone and his baby.
It does not take very long to mature
the group of faculties required for
maintaining individual life. It does
take long to mature the group of
faculties required to maintain social
life. To rear a man—i.e., an adult
male of genus homo—is no very diffi
cult task.
It is accomplished by
Bushmen, Hottentots, Eskimo, every
living kind of human creature. To
rear a physician, an engineer, a
chemist—this takes longer.
Inci
dentally, this is one reason why a
I girl’s “majority” is placed at eighteen,
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SOCIAL PARENTAGE
a boy’s at twenty-one. She is sup
posed to need only individual maturity
—physical maturity. He is supposed
to take more time to become a man,
because he is a member of society,
and so has to learn more things. It
is not a question of adolescence, of
physiological change.
The boy of
eighteen could be a father as well as
the girl a mother ; but he is not as
well able to take his social position,
to serve mankind in his craft, art,
trade, or profession. Note here the
early maturity and marriage of the
less developed grades of society,
filling those simpler social functions
which require less specialisation, and
the proportionate postponement of
this period in the more highly special
ised. Our long period of immaturity
is a social condition, and not an indi
vidual one. That we may reach the
full growth needed in the advanced
member of society, we must be minors
longer than would be necessary if we
were not members of society. The
exceeding childishness of the civilised
child is also a social condition.
The nearer we are to the animals,
the more capable and bright the very
little ones. In the Southern States of
America it was common to set a little
black child to take care of an older
white one: the pickaninny matures
much more rapidly. So, again, in our
own lower social grades the little chil
dren of the poor are sharper, better
able to care for themselves, than
children of the same age in more
developed classes. It is no proof of
greater intelligence in the adult. It
is retrogression—a mark of bad social
conditions.
Civilised society is responsible for
civilised childhood, and should meet
its responsibilities. The sweet con
fidence of a modern child, as com
pared to the alert suspicion of a baby
savage, shows what ages of social
safe-guarding have done.
In the
beautiful union of our civilised growth,
even so .far, we have made possible
the child ; and it is for us still further
to protect and develop this most ex
quisite social product—this greatest
social hope and power.
Society’s
relation to the child is impersonal. It
is not limited by parenthood. The
parental relation is lower, more
limited.
Parentally, we care only
for our own ; socially, we care for
all.
Parentally, we are animals ;
socially, we learn to love one
another. We become, approximately,
Christians.
Christianity is a social condition.
In our present degree of social
progress we produce, by our special
ised co-ordinate activities, that safe
and comfortable material environ
ment, those comparatively developed
virtues, which we call “civilisation.”
But, in applying this common product
to the advancement of the child—
which is our best and quickest way
to incorporate progress in the race
itself—we allow the incapacity of the
individual parent to limit the child’s
advantages. We deny to the child
the conditions necessary to his best
development, unless his particular
father is able to provide them. Our
theory here is that the father would
not work so hard if the State pro
vided for his child ; some thinkers
combating even the public school and
public library on this ground. This
is an outworn economic fallacy. The
inferior father cannot work beyond a
certain grade because he has not the
capacity ; and, if the child has only
the advantages the inferior father
can provide for him, he grows up to
be another inferior father and lowgrade worker. The most deadly
result of this foolish neglect of the
young citizen is seen in the ensuing
action of the biological law, “ Re
production is in inverse proportion
to specialisation.” Because we leave
the child to grow up unspecialised,
untrained, save for the puny efforts
of his single low-grade parent,
therefore he, in turn, helps to fill the
�SOCIAL PARENTAGE
world with very numerous and very
inferior progeny.
We are hampered by the rapid re
production of the very lowest classes
of society, weighted down by their
defects and limitations, forced to
wait—the most advanced of us—for
the great rear-guard of the population.
We must wait because a society is
alive, and includes all its members.
It cannot outstrip its own inferior
parts, however neglected and behind
hand they may be. And their numbers
—numbers resultant from, their low
condition—complicate the problem
hopelessly. That is, hopelessly on
this old fallacious notion that the
child can have no help from all the
strong, rich world, save what his
father and mother can filter through
their personal limitations. We are
beginning to change this by our efforts
at free public education. We shall
change it more and more as we grow
consciously awake to our true social
responsibility to the child.
We cannot afford to have one
citizen grow up below the standards
of common comfort, . health, and
general education. To the scared
cry, “ But, if you take the respon
sibility off these people, they will
simply flood the world with wretched
»
95
babies ! ” comes the answer of natural
law, “Improve the individual, and you
check this crude fecundity.” It is
because they are neglected and inferior
that they have so many children.
Make higher-class people of the chil
dren, and you check this constant
influx of low-grade life, and gradually
introduce a better-born population.
When the wise, beneficent parental
love of human society for its young
really does its duty, tenderly remov
ing obstructions from the path of all
our little ones, we shall give to them
those common human advantages
without which they cannot grow to
the happiness which is their right, the
usefulness which is their duty. All
parents who are able to do more for
their children would be free to do so,
as those who can afford private
schools, or educate their little ones at
home, are not compelled to send
them to the public schools.
As now society provides the school
for the young citizen, on the ground
of public advantage, without regard
to the inability of the parent, so we
must learn to provide a far richer and
more complete education, and all else
that the parent falls short in, because
it is necessary for the good of society,
and because we love our children.
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Concerning children
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins [1860-1935]
McMillan, Margaret
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 95 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Printed in double columns. First published: Boston, MA.: Small, Maynard, 1900. Published for the Rationalist Press Association. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Watts & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1907
Identifier
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G2431
N281
Subject
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Child rearing
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Concerning children), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Child Rearing
Child Rearing-Moral and Ethical Aspects
NSS