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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:34:26 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10398-0.txt b/10398-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d88f0e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/10398-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4075 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10398 *** + +The American Child + +by Elizabeth Mccracken + +With Illustrations from photographs by Alice Austin + +1913 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: COMPANIONS AND FRIENDS] + + +to My Father And Mother + + + + +PREFACE + + +The purpose of this preface is that of every preface--to say "thank +you" to the persons who have helped in the making of the book. + +I would render thanks first of all to the Editors of the "Outlook" for +permission to reprint the chapters of the book which appeared as +articles in the monthly magazine numbers of their publication. + +I return thanks also to Miss Rosamond F. Rothery, Miss Sara Cone Bryant, +Miss Agnes F. Perkins, and Mr. Ferris Greenslet. Without the help and +encouragement of all of these, the book never would have been written. + +Finally, I wish to say an additional word of thanks to my physician, Dr. +John E. Stillwell. Had it not been for his consummate skill and untiring +care after an accident, which, four years ago, made me a year-long +hospital patient, I should never have lived to write anything. + +E. McC. + +CAMBRIDGE, January, 1913 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + + I. THE CHILD AT HOME + II. THE CHILD AT PLAY +III. THE COUNTRY CHILD + IV. THE CHILD IN SCHOOL + V. THE CHILD IN THE LIBRARY + VI. THE CHILD IN CHURCH + CONCLUSION + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +COMPANIONS AND FRIENDS +THREE SMALL GIRLS +THE BOY OF THE HOUSE +"DID YOU PLAY IT THIS WAY?" +THE DEAR DELIGHTS OF PLAYING ALONE +"THE CHILDREN--THEY ARE SUCH DEARS" +A SMALL COUNTRY BOY +ARRAYED IN SPOTLESS WHITE +THEY PAINT PICTURES AS A REGULAR PART OF THEIR SCHOOL ROUTINE +THEY DO SO MANY THINGS! +THEY HAVE SO MANY THINGS! +THE STORY HOUR IN THE CHILDREN'S ROOM +THE CHILDREN'S EDITION +IN THE INFANT CLASS +"DO YOU LIKE MY NEW HYMN?" +CHILDREN GO TO CHURCH + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +One day several years ago, when Mr. Lowes Dickinson's statement that he +had found no conversation and--worse still--no conversationalists in +America was fresh in our outraged minds, I happened to meet an English +woman who had spent approximately the same amount of time in our country +as had Mr. Lowes Dickinson. "What has been your experience?" I anxiously +asked her. "Is it true that we only 'talk'? Can it really be that we +never 'converse'?" + +"Dear me, no!" she exclaimed with gratifying fervor. "You are the most +delightful conversationalists in the world, on your own subject--" + +"Our own subject?" I echoed. + +"Certainly," she returned; "your own subject, the national subject,--the +child, the American child. It is possible to 'converse' with any +American on that subject; every one of you has something to say on it; +and every one of you will listen eagerly to what any other person says +on it. You modify the opinions of your hearers by what you say; and you +actually allow your own opinions to be modified by what you hear said. +If that is conversation, without a doubt you have it in America, and +have it in as perfect a state as conversation ever was had anywhere. But +you have it only on that subject. I wonder why," she went on, half- +musingly, before I could make an attempt to persuade her to qualify her +rather sweeping assertion. "It may be because you do so much for +children, in America. They are always on your mind; they are hardly ever +out of your sight. You are forever either doing something for them, or +planning to do something for them. No wonder the child is your one +subject of conversation. You do so _very_ much for children in America," +she repeated. + +Few of us will agree with the English woman that the child, the American +child, is the only subject upon which we converse. Certainly, though, it +is a favorite subject; it may even not inaptly be called our national +subject. Whatever our various views concerning this may chance to be, +however, it is likely that we are all in entire agreement with regard to +the other matter touched upon by the English woman,--the pervasiveness +of American children. Is it not true that we keep them continually in +mind; that we seldom let them go quite out of sight; that we are always +doing, or planning to do, something for them? What is it that we would +do? And why is it that we try so unceasingly to do it? + +It seems to me that we desire with a great desire to make the boys and +girls do; that all of the "_very_ much" that we do for them is done in +order to teach them just that--to do. It is a large and many-sided and +varicolored desire, and to follow its leadings is an arduous labor; but +is there one of us who knows a child well who has not this desire, and +who does not cheerfully perform that labor? Having decided in so far as +we are able what were good to do, we try, not only to do it ourselves, +in our grown-up way, but so to train the children that they, too, may do +it, in their childish way. The various means that we find most helpful +to the end of our own doing we secure for the children,--adapting them, +simplifying them, and even re-shaping them, that the boys and girls may +use them to the full. + +There is, of course, a certain impersonal quality in a great deal of +what we, in America, do for children. It is not based so much on +friendship for an individual child as on a sense of responsibility for +the well-being of all childhood, especially all childhood in our own +country. But most of what we do, after all, we do for the boys and girls +whom we know and love; and we do it because they are our friends, and we +wish them to share in the good things of our lives,--our work and our +play. To what amazing lengths we sometimes go in this "doing for" the +children of our circles! + +One Saturday afternoon, only a few weeks ago, I saw at the annual +exhibit of the State Board of Health, a man, one of my neighbors, with +his little eight-year old boy. The exhibit consisted of the customary +display of charts and photographs, showing the nature of the year's work +in relation to the milk supply, the water supply, the housing of the +poor, and the prevention of contagious diseases. My neighbor is not a +specialist in any one of these matters; his knowledge is merely that of +an average good citizen. He went from one subject to the other, studying +them. His boy followed close beside him, looking where his father +looked,--if with a lesser interest at the charts, with as great an +intentness at the photographs. As they made their way about the room +given over to the exhibit, they talked, the boy asking questions, the +father endeavoring to answer them. + +The small boy caught sight of me as I stood before one of the charts +relating to the prevention of contagious diseases, and ran across the +room to me. "What are _you_ looking at?" he said. "That! It shows how +many people were vaccinated, doesn't it? Come over here and see the +pictures of the calves the doctors get the stuff to vaccinate with +from!" + +"Isn't this an odd place for a little boy on a Saturday afternoon?" I +remarked to my neighbor, a little later, when the boy had roamed to the +other side of the room, out of hearing. + +"Not at all!" asserted the child's father. "He was inquiring the other +day why he had been vaccinated, why all the children at school had been +vaccinated. Just before that, he had asked where the water in the tap +came from. This is just the place for him right now! It isn't odd at all +for him to be here on a Saturday afternoon. It is much odder for _me_" +he continued with a smile. "I'd naturally be playing golf! But when +children begin to ask questions, one has to do something about answering +them; and coming here seemed to be the best way of answering these +newest questions of my boy's. I want him to learn about the connection +of the state with these things; so he will be ready to do his part in +them, when he gets to the 'voting age.'" + +"But can he understand, yet?" I ventured. + +"More than if he hadn't seen all this, and heard about what it means," +my neighbor replied. + +It is not unnatural, when a child asks questions so great and so far- +reaching as those my neighbor's small boy had put to him, that we should +"do something about answering them,"--something as vivid as may be +within our power. But, even when the queries are of a minor character, +we still bestir ourselves until they are adequately answered. + +"Mamma," I heard a little girl inquire recently, as she fingered a scrap +of pink gingham of which her mother was making "rompers" for the baby of +the family, "why are the threads of this cloth pink when you unravel it +one way, and white when you unravel it the other?" + +The mother was busy; but she laid aside her sewing and explained to the +child about the warp and the woof in weaving. + +"I don't _quite_ see why _that_ makes the threads pink one way and white +the other," the little girl said, perplexedly, when the explanation was +finished. + +"When you go to kindergarten, you will," I suggested. + +"But I want to know now," the child demurred. + +The next day I got for the little girl at a "kindergarten supply" +establishment a box of the paper woofs and warps, so well-known to +kindergarten pupils. Not more than three or four days elapsed before I +took them to the child; but I found that her busy mother had already +provided her with some; pink and white, moreover, among other colors; +and had taught the little girl how to weave with them. + +"She understands, _now_, why the threads of pink gingham are pink one +way and white the other!" the mother observed. + +"Why did you go to such trouble to teach her?" I asked with some +curiosity. + +"Well," the mother returned, "she will have to buy gingham some time. +She will be a grown-up 'woman who spends' some day; and she will do the +spending the better for knowing just what she is buying,--what it is +made of, and how it is made!" + +It is no new thing for fathers and mothers to think more of the future +than of the present in their dealings with their boys and girls. Parents +of all times and in all countries have done this. It seems to me, +however, that American fathers and mothers of to-day, unlike those of +any other era or nation, think, in training their children, of what one +might designate as a most minutely detailed future. The mother of whom I +have been telling wished to teach her little girl not only how to buy, +but how to buy gingham; and the father desired his small boy to learn +not alone that his state had a board of health, but that he might hope +to become a member of a particular department of it. + +We occasionally hear elderly persons exclaim that children of the +present day are taught a great many things that did not enter into the +education of their grandparents, or even of their parents. But, on +investigation, we scarcely find that this is the case. What we discover +is that the children of to-day are taught, not new lessons, but the old +lessons by a new method. Sewing, for example: little girls no longer +make samplers, working on them the letters of the alphabet in "cross- +stitch"; they learn to do cross-stitch letters, only they learn not by +working the entire alphabet on a square of linen merely available to +"learn on," but by working the initials of a mother or an aunt on a +"guest towel," which later serves as a Christmas or a birthday gift of +the most satisfactory kind! Perhaps one of the best things we do for the +little girls of our families is to teach them to take their first +stitches to some definite end. Certainly we do it with as conscientious +a care as ever watched over the stitches of the little girls of old as +they made the faded samplers we cherish so affectionately. + +The brothers of these little girls learned carpentry, when they were old +enough to handle tools with safety. The boys of to-day also learn it; +some of them begin long before they can handle any tools with safety, +and when they can handle no tool at all except a hammer. As soon as they +wish to drive nails, they are allowed to drive them, and taught to drive +them to some purpose. I happened not a great while ago to pass the day +at the summer camp of a friend of mine who is the mother of a small boy, +aged five. My friend's husband was constructing a rustic bench. + +The little boy watched for a time; then, "Daddy, _I_ want to put in +nails," he said. + +"All right," replied his father; "you may. Just wait a minute and I'll +let you have the hammer and the nails. Your mother wants some nails in +the kitchen to hang the tin things on. If she will show you where she +wants them, I'll show you how to put them in." + +This was done, with much gayety on the part of us all. When the small +boy, tutored by his father, had driven in all the required nails, he +lifted a triumphant face to his mother. "There they are!" he exclaimed. +"Now let's hang the tin things on them, and see how they look!" + +The boy's father did not finish the rustic bench that day. When a +neighboring camper, who stopped in to call toward the end of the +afternoon, expressed surprise at his apparent dilatoriness, and asked +for an explanation, the father simply said, "I did mean to finish it to- +day, but I had to do something for my boy instead." + +One of the things we grown-ups do for children that has been rather +severely criticized is the lavishing upon them of toys,--intricate and +costly toys. "What, as a child, I used to _pretend_ the toys I had, +were, the toys my children have now, _are_!" an acquaintance of mine was +saying to me recently. "For instance," she went on, "I had a box with a +hole in one end of it; I used to pretend that it was a camera, and +pretend to take pictures with it! I cannot imagine my children doing +that! They have real cameras and take real pictures." + +The camera would seem to be typical of the toys we give to the children +of to-day; they can do something with it,--something real. + +The dearest treasure of my childhood was a tiny gold locket, shaped, and +even engraved, like a watch. Not long ago I was showing it to a little +girl who lives in New York. "I used to pretend it _was_ a watch," I +said; "I used to pretend telling the time by it." + +She gazed at it with interested eyes. "It is very nice," she observed +politely; "but wouldn't you have liked to have a _real_ watch? _I_ have +one; and I _really_ tell the time by it." + +"But you cannot pretend with it!" I found myself saying. + +"Oh, yes, I can," the little girl exclaimed in surprise; "and I do! I +hang it on the cupola of my dolls' house and pretend that it is the +clock in the Metropolitan Tower!" + +The alarmists warn us that what we do for the children in the direction +of costly and complicated toys may, even while helping them do something +for themselves, mar their priceless simplicity. Need we fear this? Is it +not likely that the "real" watches which we give them that they may +"really" tell time, will be used, also, for more than one of the other +simple purposes of childhood? + +The English woman said that we Americans did so much, so _very_ much, +for the children of our nation. There have been other foreigners who +asserted that we did _too_ much. Indubitably, we do a great deal. But, +since we do it all that the children may learn to do, and, through +doing, to be, can we ever possibly do too much? "It is possible to +converse with any American on the American child," the English woman +said. Certainly every American has something to say on that subject, +because every American is trying to do something for some American +child, or group of children, to do much, _very_ much. + + + + +I + + + +THE CHILD AT HOME + + +In one of the letters of Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, to her mother, +Queen Victoria, she writes: "I try to give my children in their home +what I had in my childhood's home. As well as I am able, I copy what you +did." + +There is something essentially British in this point of view. The +English mother, whatever her rank, tries to give her children in their +home what she had in her childhood's home; as well as she is able, she +copies what her mother did. The conditions of her life may be entirely +different from those of her mother, her children may be unlike herself +in disposition; yet she still holds to tradition in regard to their +upbringing; she tries to make their home a reproduction of her mother's +home. + +The American mother, whatever her station, does the exact opposite--she +attempts to bestow upon her children what she did not possess; and she +makes an effort to imitate as little as possible what her mother did. +She desires her children to have that which she did not have, and for +which she longed; or that which she now thinks so much better a +possession than anything she did have. Her ambition is to train her +children, not after her mother's way, but in accordance with "the most +approved modern method." This method is apt, on analysis, to turn out to +be merely the reverse side of her mother's procedure. + +I have an acquaintance, the mother of a plump, jolly little tomboy of a +girl; which child my acquaintance dresses in dainty embroideries and +laces, delicately colored ribbons, velvet cloaks, and feathered hats. +These garments are not "becoming" to the little girl, and they are a +distinct hindrance to her hoydenish activities. They are not what she +ought to have, and, moreover, they are not what she wants. + +"I wish I had a middy blouse, and some bloomers, and an aviation cap, +and a sweater, and a Peter Thompson coat!" I heard her say recently to +her mother: "the other children have them." + +"Children are never satisfied!" her mother exclaimed to me later, when +we were alone. "I spend so much time and money seeing that she has nice +clothes; and you hear what she thinks of them!" + +"But, for ordinary wear, for play, wouldn't the things she wants be more +comfortable?" I ventured. "You dress her so beautifully!" I added. + +"Well," said my acquaintance in a gratified tone, "I am glad you think +so. _I_ had _no_ very pretty clothes when I was a child; and I always +longed for them. My mother didn't believe in finery for children; and +she dressed us very plainly indeed. I want my little girl to look as I +used to wish _I_ might look!" + +"But she doesn't care how she looks--" I began. + +"I know," the child's mother sighed. "I can _see_ how _her_ little girls +will be dressed!" + +Can we not all see just that? And doubtless the little girls of this +beruffled, befurbelowed tomboy--dressed in middy blouses, and bloomers, +and aviation caps, and sweaters, and Peter Thompson coats, or their +future equivalents--will wish they had garments of a totally different +kind; and _she_ will be exclaiming, "Children are never satisfied!" + +If this principle on the part of mothers in America in providing for +their children were confined to such superficialities as their clothing, +no appreciable harm--or good--would come of it. But such is not the +case; it extends to the uttermost parts of the child's home life. + +Only the other day I happened to call upon a friend of mine during the +hour set aside for her little girl's piano lesson. The child was +tearfully and rebelliously playing a "piece." Her teacher, a musician of +unusual ability, guided her stumbling fingers with conscientious +patience and care. A child of the least musical talent would surely have +responded in some measure to such excellent instruction. My friend's +little girl did not. When the lesson was finished, she slipped from the +piano stool with a sigh of intense relief. + +She started to run out of doors; but her mother detained her. "You may +go to your room for an hour," she said, gently but gravely, "and stay +there all alone. That will help you to remember to try harder tomorrow +to have a good music lesson." And the child, more tearful, more +rebellious than before, crept away to her room. + +"When I was her age I didn't like the work involved in taking music +lessons any better than she does," my friend said. "So my mother didn't +insist upon my taking them. I have regretted it all my life. I love +music; I always loved it--I loved it even when I hated practising and +music lessons. I wish my mother had made me keep at it, no matter how +much I objected! Well, I shall do it with _my_ daughter; she'll thank me +for it some day." + +I am not so sure that her daughter will. Her music-teacher agrees with +me. "The child has no talent whatever," she told me. "It is a waste of +time for her to take piano lessons. Her mother now--_she_ has a real +gift for it! I often wish _she_ would take the lessons!" + +American mothers are no more prone to give their children what they +themselves did not have than are American fathers. The man who is most +eager that his son should have a college education is not the man who +has two or three academic degrees, but the man who never went to college +at all. The father whose boys are allowed to be irregular in their +church attendance is the father who, as a boy, was compelled to go to +church, rain or shine, twice on every Sunday. + +In the more intimate life of the family the same principle rules. The +parents try to give to the children ideals that were not given to them; +they attempt to inculcate in the children habits that were not +inculcated in themselves. + +I know a family in which are three small girls, between whom there is +very little difference in age. These children all enjoy coming to take +tea with me. For convenience, I should naturally invite them all on the +same afternoon. + +Both their father and mother, however, have requested me not to do this. +"Do ask them one at a time on different days," they said. + +"Of course I will," I assented. "But--why?" I could not forbear +questioning. + +"When I was a child," the mother of the three little girls explained, "I +was never allowed to accept an invitation unless my younger sister was +invited, too. I was fond of my sister; but I used to long to go +somewhere sometime by myself! My husband had the same experience--his +brother always had to be invited when he was, or he couldn't go. Our +children shall not be so circumscribed!" + +There is not much danger for them, certainly, in that direction. Yet I +rather think they would enjoy doing more things together. One day, not a +great while ago, I chanced to meet all three of them near a tearoom. I +asked them--perforce all of them--to go in with me and partake of ice +cream. As we sat around the table, the oldest of the three glanced at +the other two with a friendly smile. "It is nice--all of us having ice +cream with you at the same time," she remarked, and her younger sisters +enthusiastically agreed. + +To be sure, they are nearer the same age and they are more alike in +their tastes than their mother and her sister, or their father and his +brother. Perhaps their parents needed to take their pleasures singly; +they seem able quite happily to take theirs in company. + +I have another friend, who was brought up in a household in which, as +she says, "individuality" was the keynote. In her own home the keynote +is "the family." She encourages her children to "do things together." +Furthermore, she and her husband habitually participate in their +children's occupations to a greater degree than any other parents I have +ever seen. + +[Illustration: THREE SMALL GIRLS] + +Their friends usually entertain these children "as a family"; but not +long ago, happening to have only two tickets to a concert, I asked one, +and just one, of the little girls of this household to attend it with +me. She accepted eagerly. During an intermission she looked up at me and +said, confidingly, "It is nice sometimes to do things not 'as a family,' +but just as one's self!" + +Then, for the first time, it occurred to me that she was the "odd one" +of her family. All its pleasures, all its interests, were not equally +hers. She needed sometimes to do things as herself. + +In matters of discipline, too, we find the same theory at work. Parents +who were severely punished as children do not punish their children at +all; and the most austere of parents are those who, when children, were +"spoiled." Almost regardless of the natures of their children, parents +deal with them, so far as discipline is concerned, as they themselves +were not dealt with. + +This implies no lack of love, no lack of respect, for the older +generation. On the contrary, it is the sign and symbol of a love, a +respect, so great as to permit of divergences of opinion and procedure, +in spite of differences of age. + +"I am not going to bring up the baby in the way I was brought up, mamma, +darling," I once heard a mother of a month-old baby (her first child) +say to the baby's grandmother. + +"Aren't you, dear?" replied the older lady, with a smile. "Why not?" + +"Oh," returned the daughter, "I want her to be better than I am. I think +if you'd brought me up conversely from the way you did, I'd have been a +much more worth-while person." + +She spoke very solemnly, but her mother only laughed, and then fondly +kissed her daughter and her granddaughter. "That is what I said to _my_ +mother when _you_ were a month old!" she said whimsically. + +Children in American homes, it might be supposed, would be affected by +such diversity in the theories of their parents and their grandparents +concerning their rearing. They might naturally be expected to "take +sides" with the one or the other; or, at any rate, to be puzzled or +disturbed by the principle of "contrariwiseness" governing their lives. +From their earliest years they are aware of it. The small girl very soon +learns that the real reason why she finds a gold bracelet in her +Christmas stocking is that mother "always wanted one, but grandma did +not approve of jewelry for children." The little boy quickly discovers +that his dog sleeps on the foot of his bed mainly because "father's dog +was never allowed even to come into the house. Grandpa was a doctor, and +thought dogs were not clean." + +This knowledge, so soon acquired, would seem to be a menace to family +unity; but it is not--even in homes in which the three generations are +living together. The children know what their grandparents wished for +their parents; they know what their parents wish for them; but, most of +all and best of all, they know what they wish for themselves. It is not +what their parents had, nor what their parents try to give them; it is +"what other children have." + +Perhaps all children are conventional; certainly American children are. +They wish to have what the other children of their acquaintance have, +they wish to do what those other children do. It is not because mother +wanted a bracelet, and never had it, that the little girl would have a +bracelet; it is because "the other girls have bracelets." Not on account +of the rules that forbade father's dog the house is the small boy happy +in the nightly companionship of his dog; he takes the dog to bed with +him for the reason that "the other boys' dogs sleep with them." + +Even unto honors, if they must carry them alone, children in America +would rather not be born. A little girl who lives in my neighborhood +came home from school in tears one day not long ago. Her father is a +celebrated writer. The school-teacher, happening to select one of his +stories to read aloud to the class, mentioned the fact that the author +of the story was the father of my small friend. + +"But why are you crying about it, sweetheart?" her father asked. "Do you +think it's such a bad story?" + +"Oh, no," the little girl answered; "it is a good enough story. But none +of the other children's fathers write stories! Why do _you_, daddy? It's +so peculiar!" + +It may be that all children, whatever their nationalities, are like this +little girl. We, in America, have a fuller opportunity to become +intimately acquainted with the minds of children than have the people of +any other nation of the earth. For more completely than any other people +do American fathers and mothers make friends and companions of their +children, asking from them, first, love; then, trust; and, last of all, +the deference due them as "elders." Any child may feel as did my small +neighbor about a "peculiar" father; only a child who had been his +comrade as well as his child would so freely have voiced her feeling. + +We all remember the little boy in Stevenson's poem, "My Treasures," +whose dearest treasure, a chisel, was dearest because "very few children +possess such a thing." + +Had he been an American child, that chisel would not have been a +"treasure" at all, unless all of the children possessed such a thing. + +Not only do the children of our Nation want what the other children of +their circle have when they can use it; they want it even when they +cannot use it. I have a little girl friend who, owing to an accident in +her infancy, is slightly lame. Fortunately, she is not obliged to depend +upon crutches; but she cannot run about, and she walks with a +pathetically halting step. + +One autumn this child came to her mother and said: "Mamma, I'd like to +go to dancing-school." + +"But, my dearest, I'm afraid--I don't believe--you could learn to dance +--very well," her mother faltered. + +"Oh, mamma, _I_ couldn't learn to dance _at all_!" the little girl +exclaimed, as if surprised that her mother did not fully realize this +fact. + +"Then, dearest, why do you want to go to dancing-school?" her mother +asked gently. + +"The other girls in my class at school are all going," the child said. + +Her mother was silent; and the little girl came closer and lifted +pleading eyes to her face. "_Please_ let me go!" she begged. "The others +are all going," she repeated. + +"I could not bear to refuse her," the mother wrote to me later. "I let +her go. I feared that it would only make her feel her lameness the more +keenly and be a source of distress to her. But it isn't; she enjoys it. +She cannot even try to learn to dance; but she takes pleasure in being +present and watching the others, to say nothing of wearing a 'dancing- +school dress,' as they do. This morning she said to her father: 'I can't +dance, Papa; but I can talk about it. I learn how at dancing-school. Oh, +I love dancing-school!'" + +Her particular accomplishment maybe of minute value in itself; but is +not her content in it a priceless good? If she can continue to enjoy +learning only to talk about the pleasures her lameness will not permit +her otherwise to share, her dancing-school lessons will have taught her +better things than they taught "the other children," who could dance. + +That mother was her little girl's confidential friend as well as her +mother. The child, quite unreservedly, told her what she wanted and why +she wanted it. It was no weak indulgence of a child's whim, but a +genuine respect for another person's rights as an individual--even +though that individual was merely a little child--that led that mother +to allow her daughter to have what she wanted. May not some subtle sense +of this have been the basis of the child's happiness in the fulfillment +of her desire? She _wanted_ to go to dancing-school because the other +children were going; but may she not have _liked_ going because she felt +that her mother understood and sympathized with her desire to go? + +A Frenchwoman to whom I once said that American parents treat their +children in many ways as though they were their contemporaries remarked, +"But does that not make the children old before their time?" + +So far from this, it seems, on the contrary, to keep the parents young +after their time. It has been truly said that we have in America fewer +and fewer grandmothers who are "sweet old ladies," and more and more who +are "charming elderly women." We hear less and less about the "older" +and the "younger" generations; increasingly we merge two, and even +three, generations into one. + +Only yesterday, calling upon a new acquaintance, I heard the four-year- +old boy of the house, mentioning his father, refer to him as "Henry." + +His grandmother smiled, and his mother said, casually: "When you speak +_of_ father, dear, it would be better to say, 'my father,' so people +will be sure to know whom you mean. You may have noticed that grandma +always says, 'my son,' and I always say 'my husband,' when _we_ speak of +him." + +"Does he call his father by his Christian name?" I could not resist +questioning, when the little boy had left the room. + +"Sometimes," replied the child's mother. + +"He hears so many persons do it, he can't see why he shouldn't. And +there really _is_ no reason. Soon enough he will find out that it isn't +customary and stop doing it." + +This is a far cry from the days when children were taught to address +their parents as "honored sir" and "respected madam." But, it seems to +me, the parents are as much honored and respected now as then; and--more +important still--both they and the children are, if not dearer, yet +nearer one another. + +In small as well as in large matters they slip into their parents' +places--neither encouraged nor discouraged, but simply accepted. +Companions and friends, they behave as such, and are treated in a +companionable and friendly manner. + +The other afternoon I dropped in at tea-time for a glimpse of an old +friend. + +Her little girl came into the room in the wake of the tea-tray. "Let +_me_ pour the tea," she said, eagerly. + +[Illustration: THE BOY OF THE HOUSE] + +"Very well," her mother acquiesced. "Be careful not to fill the cups too +full, so that they overflow into the saucers; and do not forget that the +tea is _hot_" she supplemented. + +The little girl had never poured the tea before, but her mother neither +watched her nor gave her any further directions. The child devoted +herself to her pleasant task. With entire ease and unconsciousness she +filled the cups, and made the usual inquiries as to "one lump, or two?" +and "cream or lemon?" + +"Isn't she rather young to pour the tea?" I suggested, when we were +alone. + +"I don't see why," my friend said. "There isn't any 'age limit' about +pouring tea. She does it for her dolls in the nursery; she might just as +well do it for us here. Of course it is hot; but she can be careful." + +There are few things in regard to the doing or the saying or the +thinking of which American parents apprehend any "age limit." Their +children are not "tender juveniles." They do not have a detached life of +their own which the parents "share," nor do the parents have a detached +life of their own which the children "share." There is the common life +of the home, to which all, parents and children, and often grandparents +too, contribute, and in which they all "share." + +This is the secret of that genuine satisfaction that so many of us +grown-ups in America find in the society of children, whether they are +members of our own families or are the children of our friends and +neighbors. + +A short time ago I had occasion to invite to Sunday dinner a little boy +friend of mine who is nine years old. Lest he _might_ feel his youth in +a household which no longer contains any nine-year-olds, I invited to +"meet him" two other boys, playmates of his, of about the same age. +There chanced also to be present a friend, a professor in a woman's +college, into whose daily life very seldom strays a boy, especially one +nine years old. + +"What interesting things have you been doing lately?" she observed to +the boy beside her in the pause which followed our settling of ourselves +at the table. + +"I have been seeing 'The Blue Bird,'" he at once answered. "Have _you_ +seen it?" he next asked. + +No sooner had she replied than he turned to me. "I suppose, of course, +_you've_ seen it," he said. + +"Not yet," I told him; "but I have read it--" + +"Oh, so have I!" exclaimed one of the other boys; "and I've seen it, +too. There is one act in the play that isn't in the book--'The Land of +Happiness' it is. My mother says she doesn't think Mr. Maeterlinck could +have written it; it is so different from the rest of the play." + +Those present, old and young, who had seen "The Blue Bird" debated this +possibility at some length. + +Then the boy who had introduced it said to me: "I wonder, when you see +it, whether _you'll_ think Mr. Maeterlinck wrote 'The Land of Happiness' +act, or not." + +"I haven't seen 'The Blue Bird,'" the third boy remarked, "but I've seen +the Coronation pictures." Whereupon we fell to discussing moving-picture +shows. + +During the progress of that dinner we considered many other subjects, +lighting upon them casually; touching upon them lightly; and--most +significant of all--discoursing upon them as familiars and equals. None +of us who were grown-up "talked down" to the boys, and certainly none of +the boys "talked up" to us. Each one of them at home was a "dear +partner" of every other member of the family, younger and older, larger +and smaller. Inevitably, each one when away from home became quite +spontaneously an equal shareholder in whatever was to be possessed at +all. + +A day or two after the Sunday of that dinner I met one of my boy guests +on the street. "I've seen 'The Blue Bird,'" I said to him; "and I'm +inclined to think that, if Mr. Maeterlinck did write the act 'The Land +of Happiness,' he wrote it long after he had written the rest of the +play. I think perhaps that is why it is so different from the other +acts." + +"Why, I never thought of that!" the boy cried, with absolute +unaffectedness. He appeared to consider it for a moment, and then he +said: "I'll tell my mother; she'll be interested." + +Foreign visitors of distinction not infrequently have accused American +children of being "pert," or "lacking in reverence," or "sophisticated." +Those of us who are better acquainted with the children of our own +Nation cannot concur in any of these accusations. Unhappily, there are +children in America, as there are children in every land, who _are_ +pert, and lacking in reverence, and sophisticated; but they are in the +small minority, and they are not the children to whom foreigners refer +when they make their sweeping arraignments. + +The most gently reared, the most carefully nurtured, of our children are +those usually seen by distinguished foreign visitors; for such +foreigners are apt to be guests of the families to which these children +belong. The spirit of frank _camaraderie_ displayed by the children they +mistake for "pertness"; the trustful freedom of their attitude toward +their elders they interpret as "lack of reverence"; and their eager +interest in subjects ostensibly beyond their years they misread as +"sophistication." + +It must be admitted that American small boys have not the quaint +courtliness of French small boys; that American little girls are without +the pretty shyness of English little girls. We are compelled to grant +that in America between the nursery and the drawing-room there is no +great gulf fixed. This condition of things has its real disadvantages +and trials; but has it not also its ideal advantages and blessings? +Coöperative living together, in spite of individual differences, is one +of these advantages; tender intimacy between persons of varying ages is +one of these blessings. + +A German woman on her first visit to America said to me, as we talked +about children, that, with our National habit of treating them as what +we Americans call "chums," she wondered how parents kept any authority +over them, and especially maintained any government _of_ them, and _for_ +them, without letting it lapse into a government _by_ them. + +"I should think that the commandment 'Children, obey your parents' might +be in danger of being overlooked or thrust aside," she said, "in a +country in which children and parents are 'chums,' as Americans say." + +That ancient commandment would seem to be too toweringly large to be +overlooked, too firmly embedded in the world to be thrust aside. It is a +very Rock of Gibraltar of a commandment. + +American parents do not relinquish their authority over their children. +As for government--like other wise parents, they aim to help it to +develop, as soon as it properly can, from a government of and for their +children into a government by them. Self-government is the lesson of +lessons they most earnestly desire to teach their children. + +Methods of teaching it differ. Indeed, as to methods of teaching their +children anything, American fathers and mothers have no fixed standard, +no homogeneous ideal. More likely than not they follow in this important +matter their custom in matters of lesser import--of employing a method +directly opposed to the method of their own parents, and employing it +simply because it is directly opposed. This is but too apt to be their +interpretation of the phrase "modernity in child nurture." But the +children learn the lesson. They learn the other great and fundamental +lessons of life, too, and learn them well, from these American fathers +and mothers who are so friendly and companionable and sympathetic with +them. + +Why should they not? There is no antagonism between love and law. +Parents are in a position of authority over their children; no risk of +the strength of that position is involved in a friendship between +parents and children anywhere. It is not remarkable that American +parents should retain their authority over their children. What is +noteworthy is that their children, less than any other children of the +civilized world, rebel against it or chafe under it: they perceive so +soon that their parents are governing them only because they are not +wise enough to govern themselves; they realize so early that government, +by some person or persons, is the estate in common of us all! + +One day last summer at the seashore I saw a tiny boy, starting from the +bath-house of his family, laboriously drag a rather large piece of +driftwood along the beach. Finally he carefully deposited it in the sand +at a considerable distance from the bath-house. + +"Why did you bring that big piece of wood all the way up here?" I +inquired as he passed me. + +"My father told me to," the child replied. + +"Why?" I found myself asking. + +"Because I got it here; and it is against the law of this town to take +anything from this beach, except shells. Did you know that? I didn't; my +father just 'splained it to me." + +American fathers and mothers explain so many things to their children! +And American children explain quite as great a number of things to their +parents. They can; because they are not only friends, but familiar +friends. We have all read Continental autobiographies, of which the +chapters under the general title "Early Years" contained records of +fears based upon images implanted in the mind and flourishing there-- +images arising from some childish misapprehension or misinterpretation +of some ordinary and perfectly explainable circumstance. "I was afraid +to pass a closed closet alone after dark," one of these says. "I had +heard of 'skeletons in closets'; I knew there were none in our closets +in the daytime, but I couldn't be sure that they did not come to sleep +in them at night; and I was too shy to inquire of my parents. What +terrors I suffered! I was half-grown before I understood what a +'skeleton in a closet' was." + +An American child would have discovered what one was within five minutes +after hearing it first mentioned, provided he had the slightest interest +in knowing. No American child is too shy to inquire of his parents +concerning anything he may wish to know. Shyness is a veil children wear +before strangers; in the company of their intimates they lay it aside-- +and forget it. In the autobiographies of Americans we shall not find +many accounts of childish terrors arising from any reserve in the +direction of asking questions. In American homes there are no closets +whose doors children are afraid to pass, or to open, even after dark. + +"American children are all so different!" an Englishman complained to me +not long ago; "as different as their several homes. One can make no +statement about them that is conclusive." + +But can one not? To be sure, they do vary, and their homes vary too; but +in one great, significant, fundamental particular they are all alike. In +American homes the parents not only love their children, and the +children their parents; their "way of loving" is such that one may say +of them, "Their souls do bear an equal yoke of love." They and their +parents are "chums." + + + + +II + + + +THE CHILD AT PLAY + + +Not long ago I happened to receive in the same mail three books on home +games, written by three different American authors, and issued by three +separate publishing-houses. In most respects the books were dissimilar; +but in one interesting particular they were all alike: the games in them +were so designed that, though children alone could play them well, +children and grown-ups together could play them better. No one of the +several authors suggested that he had any such theory in mind when +preparing his book; each one simply took it for granted that his "home +games" would be played by the entire household. Would not any of us in +America, writing a book of this description, proceed from precisely the +same starting-point? + +We all recollect the extreme amazement in the Castle of Dorincourt +occasioned by the sight of the Earl playing a "home game" with Little +Lord Fauntleroy. No American grandfather thus engaged would cause the +least ripple of surprise. Little Lord Fauntleroy, we recall, had been +born in America, and had lived the whole ten years of his life with +Americans. He had acquired the habit, so characteristic of the children +of our Nation, of including his elders in his games. Quite naturally, on +his first day at the Castle, he said to the Earl, "My new game--wouldn't +you like to play it with me, grandfather?" The Earl, we remember, was +astonished. He had never been in America! + +American grown-ups experience no astonishment when children invite them +to participate in their play. We are accustomed to such invitations. To +our ready acceptance of them the children are no less used. "Will you +play with us?" they ask with engaging confidence. "Of course we will!" +we find ourselves cordially responding. + +I chanced, not a great while ago, to be ill in a hospital on Christmas +Day. Toward the middle of the morning, during the "hours for visitors," +I heard a faint knock at my door. + +Before I could answer it the door opened, and a little girl, her arms +full of toys, softly entered. + +"Did you say 'Come in'?" she inquired. + +Without waiting for a reply, she carefully deposited her toys on the +nurse's cot near her. Then, closing the door, she came and stood beside +my bed, and gazed at me in friendly silence. + +"Merry Christmas!" I said. + +"Oh, Merry Christmas!" she returned, formally, dropping a courtesy. + +She was a sturdy, rosy-cheeked child, and, though wearing a fluffy white +dress and slippers, she looked as children only look after a walk in a +frosty wind. Clearly, she was not a patient. + +"Whose little girl are you?" I asked. + +"Papa's and mamma's," she said promptly. + +"Where are they?" I next interrogated. + +"In papa's room--down the hall, around the corner. Papa is sick; only, +he's better now, and will be all well soon. And mamma and I came to see +him, with what Santa Claus brought us." + +"I see," I commented. "And these are the things Santa Claus brought +you?" I added, indicating the toys on the cot. "You have come, now, to +show them to me?" + +Her face fell a bit. "I came to play at them with you," she said. "Your +nurse thought maybe you'd like to, for a while. Are you too sick to +play?" she continued, anxiously; "or too tired, or too busy?" + +How seldom are any of us too sick to play; or too tired, or too busy! "I +am not," I assured my small caller. "I should enjoy playing. What shall +we begin with?" I supplemented, glancing again toward the toy-bestrewn +cot. + +"Oh, there are ever so many things!" the little girl said. "But," she +went on hesitatingly, "_your_ things--perhaps you'd like--might I look +at them first?" + +Most evident among these things of mine was a small tree, bedizened, +after the German fashion, with gilded nuts, fantastically shaped +candies, and numerous tiny boxes, gayly tied with tinsel ribbons. +"What's in the boxes--presents or jokes?" the little girl questioned. +"Have you looked?" + +"I hadn't got that far, when you came," I told her; "but I rather +_think_--jokes." + +"_I'd_ want to _know_" she suggested. + +When I bade her examine them for me, she said: "Let's play I am Santa +Claus and you are a little girl. I'll hand you the boxes, and you open +them." + +We did this, with much mutual enjoyment. The boxes, to my amusement and +her delight, contained miniature pewter dogs and cats and dolls and +dishes. "Why," my little companion exclaimed, "they aren't _jokes_; they +are _real presents_! They will be _just_ right to have when _little_ +children come to see you!" + +When the last of the boxes had been opened and my other less juvenile +"things" surveyed, the child turned to her own treasures. "There are the +two puzzles," she said, "and there is the big doll that can say 'Papa' +and 'Mamma,' and there is the paper doll, with lovely patterns and +pieces to make more clothes out of for it, and there is a game papa just +_loved_. Perhaps you'd like to play _that_ best, too, 'cause you are +sick, too?" she said tentatively. + +I assented, and the little girl arranged the game on the table beside my +bed, and explained its "rules" to me. We played at it most happily until +my nurse, coming in, told my new-made friend that she must "say 'Good- +bye' now." + +My visitor at once collected her toys and prepared to go. At the door +she turned. "Good-bye," she said, again dropping her prim courtesy. "I +have had a very pleasant time." + +"So have I!" I exclaimed. + +And I had had. "She was so entertaining," I said to my nurse, "and her +game was so interesting!" + +"It is not an uncommon game," my nurse remarked, with a smile; "and she +is just an ordinary, nice child!" + +America is full of ordinary, nice children who beguile their elders into +playing with them games that are not uncommon. How much "pleasant time" +is thereby spent! + +"Where do American children learn to expect grown people to play with +them?" an Englishwoman once asked me. "In the kindergarten?" + +Undoubtedly they do. In no country except Germany is the kindergarten so +integral a part of the national life as it is in America. In our cities, +rich and poor alike send their children to kindergartens. Not only in +the public and the private schools, but also in the social settlements, +and even in the Sunday-schools, we have kindergarten departments. In the +rural schools the teachers train the little "beginners" in accordance +with kindergarten principles. Even to places far away from any schools +at all the kindergarten penetrates. Only yesterday I saw a book, written +by a kindergartner, dedicated to "mothers on the rolling prairie, the +far-off rancho, the rocky island, in the lonely light-house, the +frontier settlement, the high-perched mining-camp," who, distant indeed +from school kindergartens and their equipment, might wish help in making +out of what materials they have well-equipped home kindergartens. + +"Come, let us play with the children," the apostles of Froebel teach us. +And, "Come, let us ask the grown-ups to play with us," they would seem +unconsciously to instruct the children. + +One autumn a friend of mine, the mother of a three-year-old boy and of a +daughter aged sixteen, said to me: "This is my daughter's first term in +the high school; she will need my help. My boy is just at the age when +it takes all the spare time I have to keep him out of mischief; how +shall I manage?" + +"Send the boy to kindergarten," I advised. "He is ready to go; and it +will be good for him. He will bring some of the 'occupations' home with +him; and they will keep him out of mischief for you." + +She sent the boy to a little kindergarten in the neighborhood. + +About two months later, I said to her, "I suppose the kindergarten has +solved the problem of more spare time for your daughter's new demands +upon you?" + +"Well--in a way," she replied, dubiously. "It gives me the morning free; +but--" + +"Doesn't the boy bring home any 'occupations'?" I interposed. + +My friend laughed. "Yes," she said; "he certainly does! But he doesn't +want to 'occupy' himself alone with them; he wants _all_ of us to do it +with him! We have become quite expert at 'weaving,' and 'folding,' and +'sewing'! But, on the other hand," she went on, "he isn't so much +trouble as he was. He wants us to play with him more, but he plays more +intelligently. We take real pleasure in joining in his games, and-- +actually--in letting him share ours." + +This little boy, now five years old, came to see me the other day. + +"What would you like to do?" I asked, when we had partaken of tea. +"Shall we put the jig-saw puzzle together; or should you prefer to have +me tell you a story?" + +"Tell me a story," he said at once; "and then I'll tell you one. And +then _you_ tell another--and then _I'll_ tell another--" He broke off, +to draw a long breath. "It's a game," he continued, after a moment. "We +play it in kindergarten." + +"Do you enjoy telling stories more than hearing them told?" I inquired, +when we had played this game to the extent of three stories on either +side. + +"No," my little boy friend replied. "I like hearing stories told more +than anything. But _that_ isn't a game; that's just being-told-stories. +The _game_ is taking-turns-telling-stories." He enunciated each phrase +as though it were a single word. + +His mother had spoken truly when she said that her little boy had +learned to play intelligently. He had learned, also, to include his +elders in his games on equal terms. Small wonder that they took real +pleasure in playing with him. + +The children cordially welcome us to their games. They ask us to be +children with them. As heartily, they would have us bespeak their +company in our games; they are willing to try to be grown-up with us. + +I was visiting a family recently, in which there is but one small child, +a boy of eight. One evening we were acting charades. Divided into camps, +we chose words in turn, and in turn were chosen to superintend the +"acting-out" of the particular word. It happened that the word +"Psychical-research," and the turn of the eight-year-old boy to be +stage-manager coincided. Every one in his camp laughed, but no one so +much as remotely suggested that the word or the stage-manager be +changed. + +"What does it mean, 'Psychical-research'?" the boy made question. + +We laughed still more, but we genuinely tried to make the term +comprehensible to the child's mind. + +This led to such prolonged and lively argument that the little stage- +manager finally observed: "I don't see how it _can_ mean _all_ that all +of you say. Can't we let the whole-word act of it go, and act out the +rest? We can, you know--'Sigh,' 'kick,' 'all'; and 're' (like in music, +you know), and 'search!'" + +"Oh, no," we demurred; "we must do it properly, or not at all!" + +"Well, then," said the boy, in a quaintly resigned tone of voice, "talk +to me about it, until I know what it is!" + +In spite of hints from the other camp not to overlap the time allotted +us, in the face of messages from them to hurry, regardless of their +protests against our dilatoriness, we did talk to that little eight- +year-old boy about "Psychical-research" until he understood its meaning +sufficiently to plan his final act. "If he is playing with us, then he +_is_ playing with us," his father somewhat cryptically remarked; "and he +must know the details of the game." + +This playing with grown-ups does not curtail the play in which children +engage with their contemporaries. There are games that are distinctly +"children's games." We all know of what stuff they are made, for most of +us have played them in our time--running-games, jumping-games, shouting- +games. By stepping to our windows nearly any afternoon, we may see some +of them in process. But we shall not be invited to participate. At best, +the children will pause for a moment to ask, "Did you play it this way?" + +Very likely we did not. Each generation plays the old games; every +generation plays them in a slightly new way. The present generation +would seem to play them with a certain self-consciousness; without that +_abandon_ of an earlier time. + +A short while ago I happened to call upon a friend of mine on an +afternoon when, her nursemaid being "out," she was alone with her +children--a boy of seven and a girl of five. I found them together in +the nursery; my friend was sewing, and the children were playing +checkers. Apparently, they were entirely engrossed in their game. +Immediately after greeting me they returned to it, and continued it with +seeming obliviousness of the presence of any one excepting themselves. +But when their mother, in the course of a few moments, rose, and said to +me: "Let's go down to the library and have tea," both the children +instantly stopped playing--though one of them was in the very thick of +"taking a king"--and cried, "Oh, don't go; stay with us!" + +[ILLUSTRATION: "DID YOU PLAY IT THIS WAY?"] + +"My dears," my friend said, "you don't need us; you have your game. +Aren't you happy with it?" + +"Why, yes," the little girl admitted; "but we want you to see us being +happy!" + +Only to-day, as I came up my street, a crowd of small children burst +upon me from behind a hedge; and, shouting and gesticulating, surrounded +me. Their faces were streaked with red, and blue, and yellow lines, +applied with crayons; feathers of various domestic kinds ornamented +their hats and caps, and they waved in the air broken laths, presumably +gifts from a builder at work in the vicinity. + +"We are Indians!" they shrieked; "wild Indians! See our war-paint, and +feathers, and tomahawks! We hunt the pale face!" + +While I sought about for an appropriate answer to make, my little +neighbors suddenly became calm. + +"Don't we children have fun?" one of them questioned me. "You like to +see us having fun, don't you?" + +I agreed, and again their war-whoops began. They followed me to my door +in a body. Inside I still heard them playing, but with lessened din. +Several times during the afternoon, hearing their noise increase, I +looked out; each time I saw that the arrival of another grown-up pale +face was the occasion of the climactic moment in the game. In order to +be wild Indians with perfect happiness the small players demanded an +appreciative audience to see them being happy. + +Some of us in America are prone to deprecate in the children of our +Nation this pleased consciousness of their own enjoyment, this desire +for our presence as sympathetic onlookers at those of their games in +which we cannot join. We must not allow ourselves to forget that it is a +state of mind fostered largely by our National habit of treating +children as familiars and equals. Our satisfaction in their pleasures we +mention in their hearing. If they are aware that we like to see them +"being happy," it is because we have told them, and told them +repeatedly. We do not, as in a former time, "spell some of our words" in +their company, in order that they may not know all we say. On the +contrary, we pronounce all our words with especial clearness, and even +define such as are obscure, that the children not only may, but must, +fully understand us when we speak "before them." Unquestionably this +takes from the play of the children self-forgetfulness of one kind, but +sometimes it gives to them self-forgetfulness of another, a rarer kind. + +I know a family of children, lovers of games which involve running +races. Several years ago one of the boys of this family died. Since his +death the other children run no more races. + +"We like running races just as much," one of the girls explained to me +one evening, as we sat by the fire and talked about her dead brother; +"but, you know, _he_ always liked them best, because he generally won. +He loved to have mother see him winning. He was always getting her to +come and watch him do it. And mother liked it, and used to tell other +people about it. We don't run races now, because it might remind mother +too much." + +No matter how joyously American children may play with their elders, or +with their contemporaries, whatever enhancement their satisfaction in +play with one another may gain from the presence of grown-up spectators, +they are not likely to become so dependent upon the one, nor so self- +conscious by reason of the other, that they will relinquish--or, worse +still, never know--the dear delights of "playing alone." Games played in +company may be the finest prose--they are yet prose; games played alone +are pure poetry. The children of our Nation are not without that +imagination which, on one day or another, impels a child to wander, +"lonely as a cloud," along the path of dreamful, solitary play. + +How often a child who, to our eyes, appears to be doing nothing +whatever, is "playing alone" a delectable game! Probably, only once in a +hundred times, and then, by the merest accident, do we discover what +that game is. + +Among my child friends there is a little boy who takes great pleasure in +seeing dramas acted. One spring day I took him to an open-air +presentation of "As You Like It." + +The comedy was charmingly given in a clearing in a beautiful private +park. Orlando had "real" trees and hawthorns and brambles upon which to +hang his verses; and he made lavish use of them. + +The fancy of my small friend was quite captivated by what he called +"playing hide-and-go-seek with poems." "What fun he has, watching her +find them and not letting her know he hid them!" he exclaimed. + +Later in the season I went to spend a few days at the country home of +his parents. Early one morning, from my window, I espied the little boy, +stealthily moving about under the trees in the adjacent apple orchard. + +At breakfast he remarked to me, casually, "It's nice in the orchard--all +apple blossoms." + +"Will you go out there with me?" I asked. + +"P'aps not to-day," he made reply. "But," he hazarded, "you could go by +yourself. It's nice," he repeated; "all apple blossoms. Get close to the +trees, and smell them." + +It was a pleasant plan for a May morning. + +I lost no time in putting it into practice. Involuntarily I sought that +corner of the orchard in which I had seen my small friend. Mindful of +his counsel, I got close to the apple blossoms and smelled them. As I +did so I noticed a crumpled sheet of paper in a crotch of one of the +trees. I no sooner saw it than I seized it, and, smoothing it out, read, +written in a primary-school hand:-- + +"The rose is red, +The violet blue, +Sugar is sweet, +And so are you." + +Need I say that I had scarcely read this before I entered upon an +exhaustive search among the other trees? My amused efforts were well +rewarded. Between two flower-laden branches I descried another "poem," +in identical handwriting:-- + +"A birdie with a yellow bill +Hopped upon the window-sill, +Cocked his shining eye and said +'Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!'" + +In a tiny hollow I found still another, by the same hand:-- + +"'T was brillig, and the slithy toves + Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; +All mimsy were the borogoves, + And the mome raths outgrabe." + +As I went back to the house, bearing my findings, I met my little boy +friend. He tried not to see what I carried. + +"I gathered these from the apple trees," I said, holding out the verses. +"They are poems." + +He made no motion to take the "poems." His eyes danced. But neither then +did he say nor since has he said that the verses were his; that he was +the Orlando who had caused them to grow upon the trees. + +Another child of my acquaintance, a little girl, I discovered in an even +sweeter game for "playing alone." She chanced to call upon me one +afternoon just as I was taking from its wrappings an _édition de luxe_ +of "Pippa Passes." Her joy in the exquisite illustrations with which the +book was embellished even exceeded mine. + +"Is the story in the book as lovely as the pictures?" she queried. + +"Yes," I assured her. + +Then, at her urgent request, I told her the tale of the "little black- +eyed pretty singing Felippa"; of her "single day," and of her singing +that "righted all again" on that holiday in Asolo. + +The child was silent for a moment after I had finished the story. "Do +you like it?" I inquired. + +"Um--yes," she mused. "Let me look at the pictures some more," she +asked, with sudden eagerness. + +I handed her the book, and she pored over it for a long time. "The +houses then were not like the houses now--were they?" she said; "and the +people dressed in funny clothes." + +The next Saturday, at an early hour, I heard beneath my window a +childish voice singing a kindergarten song. I peeped out. There stood my +little friend. I was careful to make no sound and to keep well in the +shadow. The small girl finished her song, and softly ran away. + +"Your little girl serenaded me the other morning," I said to her mother +when I saw her a few days afterward. The child had shown so slight an +interest in anything in my book except the pictures that I did not yet +connect her singing with it. + +"You, too!" exclaimed the little girl's mother. "She evidently serenaded +the entire neighborhood! All day Saturday, her only holiday, she went +around, singing under various windows! I wonder what put the idea into +her head." + +"Did you ask her?" I questioned, with much curiosity. + +"Yes," answered the child's mother; "but she only smiled, and looked +embarrassed, so I said nothing further. She seemed to want to keep her +secret, the dear baby! So I thought I'd let her!" + +And I--I, too, kept it. "Yes, do let her," was all I said. + +American children, when "playing alone," impersonate the heroes and +heroines of the dramas they see, or the stories they are told, or the +books they read (how much more often they must do it than we suspect our +memories of our own childish days will teach us), but when they play +together, even when they "play at books that they have read," they +seldom "pretend." A group of small boys who have just read "Robin Hood" +do not say: "Wouldn't it be fun to play that _we_ are Robin Hood and his +Merry Men, and that our grove is Sherwood Forest?" They are more apt to +say: "It would be good sport for _us_--shooting with bows and arrows. We +might get some, and fix up a target somewhere and practise." The circle +of little girls who have read "Mary's Meadow" do not propose that they +play at being Mary. They decide instead upon doing, in their own proper +persons, what Mary did in hers. They can play together, the children of +our Nation, but they seem unable to "pretend" together. They are perhaps +too self-conscious. + +It is a significant circumstance that yearly there are published in +America a large number of books for children telling them "how to make" +various things. A great part of their play consists in making something +--from a sunken garden to an air-ship. + +I recently had a letter from a boy in which he said: "The boys here are +getting wireless sets. We have to buy part of the things; but we make as +many of them as we can." + +And how assiduously they attempt to make as many as they can of the +other things we grown-ups make! They imitate our play; and, in a spirit +of play, they contrive to copy to its last and least detail our work. If +we play golf or tennis, they also play these games. Are we painters of +pictures or writers of books, they too aspire to paint or to write! + +It cannot be denied that we encourage the children in this "endless +imitation." We not only have diminutive golf sticks and tennis rackets +manufactured for their use as soon as they would play our games; when +they show signs of toying with our work, we promptly set about providing +them with the proper means to that end. + +One of our best-known magazines for children devotes every month a +considerable number of its pages to stories and poems and drawings +contributed by children. Furthermore, it offers even such rewards as we +grown-up writers and painters are offered for "available" products. +Moreover, the young contributors are instructed in the intricacies of +literary and artistic etiquette. They are taught how to prepare +manuscripts and drawings for the editorial eye. The "rules" given these +children are identical with the regulations governing well-conducted +grown-up writers and artists--excepting that the children are commanded +to "state age," and "have the contribution submitted indorsed as wholly +original!" + +It is a noteworthy fact that hundreds of children in America send in +contributions, month after month, year after year, to this magazine. +Even more significant is it that they prepare these contributions with +all the conscientious care of grown-up writers or painters to whom +writing or painting is the chiefest reality of life. So whole-heartedly +do the children play at being what their elders are! + +[Illustration: THE DEAR DELIGHTS OF PLAYING ALONE] + +An Italian woman once asked me, "The American children--what do they +employ as toys?" + +I could only reply, "Almost anything; almost everything!" + +When we are furthest from seeing the toy possibilities of a thing, they +see it. I have among my treasures a libation cup and a _ushabti_ +figurine--votive offerings from the Temple of Osiris, at Abydos. + +A short time ago a little boy friend of mine lighted upon them in their +safe retreat. "What are these?" he inquired. + +"They came from Egypt--" I began. + +"Oh, _really_ and _truly_?" he cried. "_Did_ they come from the Egypt in +the poem-- + +"'Where among the desert sands +Some deserted city stands, +There I'll come when I'm a man +With a camel caravan; +And in a corner find the toys +Of the old Egyptian boys'?" + +He spent a happy hour playing with the libation cup and the _ushabti_-- +trophies of one of the most remarkable explorations of our era. I did +not tell him what they were. He knew concerning them all he needed to +know--that they could be "employed as toys." Perhaps the very tiniest of +the "old Egyptian boys" had known only this, too. + +"Little girls do not play with dolls in these days!" is a remark that +has been made with great frequency of late years. Those of us who have +many friends among little girls often wonder what is at the basis of +this rumor. There have always been girls who did not care for dolls. In +the old-fashioned story for girls there was invariably one such. In +"Little Women," as we all recall, it was Jo. No doubt the persons who +say that little girls no longer play with dolls count among their +childish acquaintances a disproportionate number of Jos. Playing with +dolls would seem to be too fundamentally little-girlish ever to fall +into desuetude. + +"Girls, as well as boys, play with dogs in these days!" is another +plaintive cry we often hear. But were there ever days when this was not +the case? From that far-off day when Iseult "had always a little brachet +with her that Tristram gave her the first time that ever she came into +Cornwell," to the time when Dora cuddled Jip, even down to our own day, +when the heroine of "Queed" walks forth with her Behemoth, girls both in +fact and in fiction have played with dogs; played with them no less than +boys. This proclivity on the part of the little girls of our Nation is +not distinctively American, nor especially childish, nor particularly +girl-like; it is merely human. + +In few activities do the children of our Nation reveal what we call the +"American sense of humor" so clearly as in their play. Slight ills, and +even serious misfortunes, they instinctively endeavor to lift and carry +with a laugh. It would be difficult to surpass the gay heroism to which +they sometimes attain. + +Most of us remember the little hunchbacked boy in "Little Men" who, when +the children played "menagerie," chose the part of the dromedary. +"Because," he explained, "I have a hump on my back!" + +Among my acquaintances there is a little girl who is blind. One day I +invited her to go picnicking with a party of normal children, one of +whom was her elder sister. She was accustomed to the company of children +who could see, and she showed a ready disposition to join in the games +of the other picnickers. Her sister stayed close beside her and guarded +and guided her. + +"Let's play blind man's buff," one of the children heedlessly suggested +after a long course of "drop-the-handkerchief." + +The other children with seeing eyes instantly looked at the child who +was sightless, and whispered, "Ssh! You'll hurt her feelings!" + +But the little blind girl scrambled eagerly to her feet. "Yes," she +said, brightly; "let's play blind man's buff! _I_ can be 'It' _all_ the +time!" + +There is a phrase that has been very widely adopted by Americans. +Scarcely one of us but uses it--"playing the game." Our highest +commendation of a man or a woman has come to be, "He plays the game," or +"She plays the game." Another phrase, often upon our lips, is "according +to the rules of the game." We Americans talk of the most sacred things +of life in the vocabulary of children at play. May not this be because +the children of our Nation play so well; so much better than we grown- +ups do anything? + + + + +III + + + +THE COUNTRY CHILD + + +One spring, not long ago, a friend of mine, knowing that I had a desire +to spend the summer in the "real country," said to me, "Why don't you go +to a farm somewhere in New England? Nothing could be more 'really +countrified' than that! You would get what you want there." + +Her advice rather appealed to my fancy. I at once set about looking for +a New England farmhouse in which I might be received as a "summer +boarder." Hearing of one that was situated in a particularly healthful +and beautiful section of New England, I wrote to the woman who owned and +operated it, telling her what I required, and asking her whether or no +she could provide me with it. "Above all things," I concluded my letter, +"I want quiet." + +Her somewhat lengthy reply ended with these words: "The bedroom just +over the music-room is the quietest in the house, because no one is in +the music-room excepting for a social hour after supper. I can let you +have that bedroom." + +My friend had said that nothing was so "really countrified" as a New +England farm. But a "music-room," a "social hour after supper!" The +terms suggested things distinctly urban. + +I sent another letter to the woman to whom this amazing farmhouse +belonged. "I am afraid I cannot come," I wrote. "I want a simpler +place." Then, yielding to my intense curiosity, I added: "Are many of +your boarders musical? Is the music-room for their use?" + +"No place could be simpler than this," she answered, by return mail. "I +don't know whether any of my boarders this year will be musical or not. +Some years they have been. The music-room isn't for my boarders, +especially; it is for my niece. She is very musical, but she doesn't get +much time for practising in the summer." + +She went on to say that she hoped I would decide to take the bedroom +over the music-room. I did. I had told her that, above all things, I +desired quiet; but, after reading her letters, I think I wished, above +all things, to see the music-room, and the niece who was musical. + +"She will probably be a shy, awkward girl," one of my city neighbors +said to me; "and no doubt she will play 'The Maiden's Prayer' on a +melodeon which will occupy one corner of the back sitting-room. You will +see." + +In order to reach the farm it was necessary not only to take a journey +on a train, but also to drive three miles over a hilly road. The little +station at which I changed from the train to an open two-seated carriage +in waiting for me was the usual rural village, with its one main street, +its commingled post-office and dry-goods and grocery store, and its +small white meeting-house. + +The farm, as we approached it, called to mind the pictures of old New +England farms with which all of us are familiar. The house itself was +over a hundred years old, I afterward learned; and had for that length +of time "been in the family" of the woman with whom I had corresponded. + +She was on the broad doorstone smiling a welcome when, after an hour's +drive, the carriage at last came to a stop. Beside her was her niece, +the girl whom I had been so impatient to meet. She was neither shy nor +awkward. + +"Are you tired?" she inquired. "What should you like to do? Go to your +room or rest downstairs until supper-time? Supper will be ready in about +twenty minutes." + +"I'd like to see the music-room," I found myself saying. + +"Oh," exclaimed the girl, her face brightening, "are you musical? How +nice!" + +As she spoke she led the way into the music-room. It was indeed a back +sitting-room. Its windows opened upon the barnyard; glancing out, I saw +eight or ten cows, just home from pasture, pushing their ways to the +drinking-trough. I looked around the little room. On the walls were +framed photographs of great composers, on the mantelshelf was a +metronome, on the centre-table were two collections of classic piano +pieces, and in a corner was,--not a melodeon,--but a piano. The maker's +name was on it--a name famous in two continents. + +"Your aunt told me you were musical," I said to the girl. "I see that +the piano is your instrument." + +"Yes," she assented. "But I don't play very well. I haven't had many +lessons. Only one year with a really good teacher." + +"Who was your teacher?" I asked idly. I fully expected her to say, "Some +one in the village through which you came." + +"Perhaps you know my teacher," she replied; and she mentioned the name +of one of the best pianists and piano teachers in New England. + +"Most of the time I've studied by myself," she went on; "but one year +auntie had me go to town and have good lessons." + +At supper this girl waited on the table, and after supper she washed the +dishes and made various preparations for the next morning's breakfast. +Then she joined her aunt and the boarders, of whom there were nine, on +the veranda. + +"I should so like to hear you play something on the piano," I said to +her. + +She at once arose, and, followed by me, went into the music-room, which +was just off the veranda. "I only play easy things," she said, as she +seated herself at the piano. + +Whereupon she played, with considerable skill, one of Schumann's simpler +compositions, one of Schubert's, and one of Grieg's. Then, turning +around on the piano-stool, she asked me, "Do you like Debussy?" + +I thought of what my neighbor had prophesied concerning "The Maiden's +Prayer." Debussy! And this girl was a country girl, born and bred on +that dairy farm, educated at the little district school of the vicinity; +and, moreover, trained to take a responsible part in the work of the +farm both in winter and in summer. Her family for generations had been +"country people." + +It was not surprising that she had made the acquaintance of Debussy's +music; nor that she had at her tongue's end all the arguments for and +against it. Her music-teacher was, of course, accountable for this. What +was remarkable was that she had had the benefit of that particular +teacher's instruction; that, country child though she was, she had been +given exactly the kind, if not the amount, of musical education that a +city child of musical tastes would have been given. + +My neighbor had predicted a shy, awkward girl, a melodeon, and "The +Maiden's Prayer." One of our favorite fallacies in America is that our +country people are "countrified." Nothing could be further from the +truth, especially in that most important matter, the up-bringing of +their children. Country parents, like city parents, try to get the best +for their children. That "best" is very apt to be identical with what +city parents consider best. Circumstances may forbid their giving it to +their children as lavishly as do city parents; conditions may force them +to alter it in various ways in order to fit it to the needs of boys and +girls who live on a farm, and not on a city street; but in some sort +they attempt to obtain it, and, having obtained it, to give it to their +children. + +[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN--THEY ARE SUCH DEARS!"] + +They are as ambitious for the education of their children as city +parents; and to an amazing extent they provide for them a similar +academic training. An astonishing proportion of the students in our +colleges come from country homes, in which they have learned to desire +collegiate experience; from country schools, where they have received +the preparation necessary to pass the required college entrance +examinations. Surrounded, as we in cities are, by schools especially +planned, especially equipped, to make children ready for college, we may +well wonder how country children in rural district schools, with their +casual schedules and meagre facilities, are ever so prepared. By +visiting even a few district schools we may in part discover. + +I happened, not a great while ago, to spend an autumn month on a farm in +a very sparsely settled section of New Hampshire. + +One morning at breakfast, shortly after Labor Day, my landlady said: +"School opens next week. The teacher is coming here to board for the +winter. I expect her to-day." + +"Where does she come from?" I asked. + +"From Smith College," the farmer replied, unexpectedly. "This is her +second year of teaching our school." + +The school-teacher arrived late in the afternoon. My landlady was +"expecting" her; so was I, no less eagerly. + +"Why were you interested in me?" she inquired, when, on further +acquaintance, I confessed this to her. + +"Because, with a training that fits you for work in a carefully graded +school or a college, you chose to teach here. Why did you?" + +"For three reasons," she answered. "Country life is better for my health +than city life; the people around here are thoroughly awake to the +importance of education; and the children--they are such dears! You must +see them when school opens." + +I did see them then. Also, I saw them before that time. When the news of +their teacher's arrival reached them, they came "by two, and threes, and +fuller companies" to welcome her. They ranged in age from a boy and a +girl of fifteen to two little girls of six. Each and every one was +rapturously glad to see the teacher; they all brought her small gifts, +and all of them bore messages from their homes, comprising a score of +invitations to supper, the loan of a tent for the remainder of the mild +weather, and the offer of a "lift" to and from school on stormy days. + +The teacher accepted these tributes as a matter of course. She was +genuinely glad to see her old pupils. In her turn, she sent messages to +their several homes, and gave into the children's hands tokens she had +purposely gathered together for them. "We'll meet on Monday at the +school-house," she finally said; and the children, instantly responding +to the implied suggestion, bade her good-bye, and went running down the +dusty road. Each one of them lived at least a mile away; many of them +more than two miles. + +On Monday I accompanied the teacher to school. The school-house was a +small, one-roomed, wooden building. It contained little besides a few +rows of desks and benches for the children, two or three maps, and +blackboards, a tiny closet filled with worn books, the teacher's desk, +and a coal stove. But it had windows on three sides, and was set down in +the midst of a grassy meadow bordered with a stone wall. + +There were fourteen pupils. They were all assembled in the school-yard +when we arrived. The boys were playing baseball, and the girls, perched +on the stone wall, were watching them. The moment they saw the teacher +boys and girls alike came to escort her to her place in the school- +house. When she was in it, they took their own places--those they had +occupied during the former term. There was one "new" pupil, a small boy. +He had been so frequently a "visiting scholar" the previous year that +his newness was not very patent. There was a desk that he also claimed +as his. + +"We will sing 'America,'" were the words with which the teacher +commenced the new school year, "and then we will go on with our work, +beginning where we left off in the spring." + +We hear a great deal at the present time concerning the education of the +"particular child." In the very best of our private schools in the city +each pupil is regarded as a separate and distinct individual, and taught +as such. This ideal condition of things prevailed in that little +district school in the farming region of New Hampshire. That teacher had +fourteen pupils; practically, she had fourteen "grades." Even when it +happened that two children were taught the same lesson, each one was +taught it individually. + +"They are all so different!" the teacher said, when I commented upon the +difference of her methods with the various children. "That boy, who +hopes to go to college and then teach, needs to get one thing from his +history lesson; and that girl, who intends to be a post-office clerk as +soon as she finishes school, needs to get something else." + +She did not aim to prepare her pupils for college. The district school +was only a "grammar school." There was a high school in the nearest +village, which was three miles away; she made her pupils ready for +entrance into that. In order to attend the high school, more than one +child in that neighborhood, year after year, in sunshine and storm, +walked two and three miles twice daily. Many a child who lived still +farther away was provided by an interested father with a horse and a +conveyance with which to make the two journeys a day. No wonder the +teacher of that district school felt that the people in the neighborhood +were "thoroughly awake to the importance of education"! + +As for the children--she had said that they were "such dears!" They +were. I remember, in particular, two; a brother and sister. She was +eight years old, and he was nine. They were inseparable companions. On +bright days they ran to school hand in hand. When it rained, they +trudged along the muddy road under one umbrella. + +The school-teacher had taught the little girl George Eliot's poem +"Brother and Sister." She could repeat it word for word, excepting the +line, "I held him wise." She always said that, "I hold him tight." This +"piece" the small girl "spoke" on a Friday afternoon. The most winning +part of her altogether lovely recitation was the smile with which she +glanced at her brother as she announced its title. He returned her +smile; when she finished her performance, he led the applause. + +Before the end of my visit I became very intimate with that brother and +sister. I chanced to be investigating the subject of "juvenile books." + +"What books have you?" I inquired of the little girl. + +"Ever so many of all kinds," she replied. "Come to our house and look at +them," she added cordially. + +Their house proved to be the near-by farm. One of the best in that +section, it was heated with steam and furnished with running water and +plumbing. It had also a local and long-distance telephone. The brother +and sister were but two of a family of seven children. Their father, who +was a member of the school committee, and their mother, who was a +graduate of a city high school, were keenly interested in, and, +moreover, very well informed on, the subject of pedagogy. They had read +a great number of books relating to it, and were in the habit of +following in the newspapers the procedures of the National Education +Association's Conventions. + +"Your children have a large number of exceedingly good books!" I +exclaimed, as I looked at the many volumes on a day appointed for that +purpose by the mother of the family. "I wish all children had as fine a +collection!" + +"Country children _must_ have books," she replied, "if they are going to +be educated _at all._ City children can _see_ things, and learn about +them that way. Country children have to read about them if they are to +know about them." + +The books were of many types--poetry, fiction, historical stories, +nature study, and several volumes of the "how to make" variety. All of +these were of the best of their several kinds--identical with the books +found in the "Children's Room" in any well-selected public library. Some +of them had been gifts to the children from "summer boarders," but the +majority had been chosen and purchased by their parents. + +"We hunt up the names of good books for children in the book review +departments of the magazines," the mother said. + +When I asked what magazines, she mentioned three. Two she and her +husband "took"; the other she borrowed monthly from a neighbor, on an +"exchange" basis. + +No other children in that region were so abundantly supplied with books; +but all whom I met liked to read. Their parents, in most cases unable to +give them numerous books, had, in almost every instance, taught them to +love reading. + +One boy with whom I became friends had a birthday while I was in the +neighborhood. I had heard him express a longing to read "The Lays of +Ancient Rome," which neither he nor any other child in the vicinity +possessed, so I presented him with a copy of it. + +"Would you mind if I gave it to the library?" he asked. "Then the other +children around could read it, too." + +"The library!" I exclaimed. + +"Oh, I don't mean the one down in the village," he hastened to explain. +"I mean the one here, near us. Haven't you been to it?" + +When he found that I had not, he offered to go with me to see it. It +turned out to be a "lean-to" in a farmhouse that was in a rather central +position with relation to the surrounding farms. The library consisted +of about two hundred volumes. The librarian was an elderly woman who +lived in the house. One was allowed, she told me, to take out as many +books as one wished, and to keep them until one had finished reading +them. + +"Do you want to take out any?" she inquired. + +After examining the four or five shelves that comprised the library, I +wanted to take out at least fifty. The books, especially the "juvenile +books," were those of a former generation. Foremost among them were the +"Rollo Books," "Sandford and Merton," Mary Howitt's "Story-Book," and +"The Parents' Assistant." + +"Who selected the books?" I asked. + +"Nobody exactly _selected_ them," the librarian said. "Every one around +here gave a few from their collections, so's we could have a near-to +library--principally on account of the children. I live most convenient +to every one hereabouts; so I had shelves put up in my lean-to for +them." + +News travels very rapidly indeed in the country. My boy friend told some +of the other children that I was reading the _oldest_ books in the +library. "She takes them out by the armfuls," I overheard him remark. + +No doubt he made more comments that I did not overhear; for one morning +a small girl called to see me, and, after a few preliminaries, said, "If +you are through with 'The Fairchild Family,' may I have it? You like it +awfully much, don't you?" + +Not only in the secular teaching of their children do thoughtful country +parents, in common with careful fathers and mothers living elsewhere, +try to obtain the best means and to use them to the best ends; in the +religious instruction of their children they make a similar attempt. +They are not content to let their children learn entirely at home, to +depend solely upon parental guidance. The church, and even the Sunday +school, are integral parts in the up-bringing of the most happily +situated country children. The little white meeting-houses in the small +rural villages are familiar places to the country child--joyously +familiar places, at that. The only weekly outing that falls to the lot +of the younger children of country parents is the Sunday trip to church +and Sunday school. + +What do they get from it? Undoubtedly, very much what city children +receive from the church and the Sunday school--in quantity and in +quality. There is a constant pleasure from the singing; an occasional +glimmer of illumination from the sermon; and an unfailing delight from +the Bible stories. We can be reasonably sure that _all_ children get +thus much from the habitual church and Sunday-school attendance. Some, +irrespective of city or country environment, glean more. + +A small country boy of my acquaintance brought from Sunday school one of +the most unique versions of a Scriptural passage with which I have ever +met. "Did you go to church this morning?" I inquired of him, one Sunday +afternoon, when, catching a glimpse of me under the trees near his home, +he came, as he explained, to "pass the time of day" with me. + +"Yes," he answered; "and I went to Sunday school, too." + +"And what was your lesson about?" I asked. + +"Oh, about the roses--" + +"Roses?" I interrupted, in surprise. + +"Yes," the little boy went on; "the roses--you know--in the gardens." + +"I don't remember any Sunday-school lesson about them," I said. + +"But there _is_ one; we had it to-day. The roses, they made the children +have good manners. Then, one day, the children were greedy; and their +manners were bad. Don't you know about it?" he added anxiously. + +He was but five years old. I told him about Moses; I explained +painstakingly just who the Children of Israel were; and I did my best to +point out clearly the difference between manna and manners. He listened +with seeming understanding; but the next day, coming upon me as I was +fastening a "crimson rambler" to its trellis, he inquired solemnly, "Can +the roses make children have good manners, _yet_?" + +Country children are taught, even as sedulously as city children, the +importance of good manners! On the farm, as elsewhere, the small left +hand is seized in time by a mother or an aunt with the well-worn words, +"Shake hands with the _right_ hand, dear." "If you please," as promptly +does an elder sister supplement the little child's "Yes," on the +occasion of an offer of candy from a grown-up friend. The proportion of +small boys who make their bows and of little girls who drop their +courtesies is much the same in the country as it is in the city. + +[Illustration: A SMALL COUNTRY BOY] + +In the matter of clothes, too, the country mother, like any other mother +in America, wishes her children to be becomingly attired, in full accord +with such of the prevailing fashions as seem to her most suitable. In +company with the greater portion of American mothers, she devotes +considerable time and strength and money to the wardrobes of her boys +and girls. The result is that country children are dressed strikingly +like city children. Their "everyday" garments are scarcely +distinguishable from the "play clothes" of city children; their "Sunday" +clothes are very similar to the "best" habiliments of the boys and girls +who do not live in the country. + +We have all read, in the books of our grandmothers' childhood, of the +children who, on the eve of going to visit their city cousins, were much +exercised concerning their wearing apparel. "_Would_ the pink frock, +with the green sash, be _just_ what was being worn to parties in the +city?" the little girl of such story-books fearfully wondered. "Will +boys of my age be wearing short trousers _still_?" the small boy +dubiously queried. Invariably it transpired that pink frocks and green +sashes, if in fashion at all, were _never_ seen at parties; and that +_long_ trousers were absolutely essential, from the point of view of +custom, for boys of our hero's age. Many woes were attendant upon the +discovery that these half-suspected sumptuary laws were certain facts. + +No present-day country boy and girl, coming from the average home to the +house of city cousins, would need to feel any such qualms. Should they, +five minutes' inspection of the garments of those city cousins would +relieve their latent questionings. They would see that, to the casual +eye, they and their cousins were dressed in the same type of raiment. + +How could they fail to be? A large crop of "fashion magazines" +flourishes in America. The rural free delivery brings them to the very +doors of the farmhouse. By the use of mail orders the mother on the farm +can obtain whatever materials the particular "fashion magazine" to which +she is a subscriber advises, together with paper patterns from which she +can cut anything, from "jumpers" to a "coat for gala occasions." + +The approved clothes of all American children in our time are so +exceedingly simple in design that any woman who can sew at all can +construct them; and, in the main, the materials of which they are made +are so inexpensive that even the farmer whose income is moderate in size +can afford to supply them. A clergyman who had worked both in city and +in country parishes once told me that he attributed the marked increase +in ease and grace of manner--and, consequently, in "sociability"--among +country people to-day, as compared with country people of his boyhood, +very largely to the invention of paper patterns. + +"Rural folk dressed in a way peculiar to themselves then," he said; "now +they dress like the rest of the world. It is curious," he went on, +reflectively, "but human beings, as a whole, seem unable not to be +awkward in their behavior if their costumes can possibly be +differentiated otherwise than by size!" + +It is another queer fact that normal persons would seem to require +"best" clothes. They share the spirit of Jess, in "A Window in Thrums." +"But you could never wear yours, though ye had ane," said Hendry to her +about the "cloak with beads"; "ye would juist hae to lock it awa in the +drawers." "Aye," Jess retorted, "but I would aye ken it was there." + +I have an acquaintance who is not normal in this matter. She scorns +"finery," whether for use or for "locking awa." One summer she and I +spent a fortnight together on a Connecticut farm. During the week the +farmer and his wife, as well as their two little children, a girl and a +boy, wore garments of dark-colored denim very plainly made. The children +were barefooted. + +"These people have sense," my acquaintance observed to me on the first +day of our sojourn; "they dress in harmony with their environment." + +I was silent, realizing that, if Sunday were a fine day, she might feel +compelled to modify her approbation. On Saturday night the farmer asked +if we should care to accompany the family to church the next morning. +Both of us accepted the invitation. + +Sunday morning, as I had foreseen, when the family assembled to take its +places in the "three-seater," the father was in "blacks," with a +"boiled" shirt; the mother, a pretty dark-eyed, dark-haired young woman, +a pleasant picture in the most every-day of garments, was a charming +sight, in a rose-tinted wash silk and a Panama hat trimmed with black +velvet. As for the boy and the girl, they were arrayed in spotless +white, from their straw hats even to their canvas shoes. The hands of +the farmer and his son were uncovered; but the mother and her little +daughter wore white lisle gloves. They also carried parasols--the +mother's of the shade of her dress, the girl's pale blue. No family in +America could possibly have looked more "blithe and bonny" than did that +one in "Sunday" clothes, ready for church. + +The face of my acquaintance was a study. + +In it were mingled surprise and disapproval. Both these elements became +more pronounced when we were fairly in the meeting-house. All the men, +women, and children there assembled were also in "Sunday" clothes. + +My acquaintance has the instinct of the reformer. Hardly were we settled +in the "three-seater," preparatory to returning home after the service, +when she began. "Do you make your own clothes?" she inquired of the +farmer's wife. + +"Yes," was the reply; "and the children's, too." + +"Isn't there a great deal of work involved in the care of such garments +as you are all wearing to-day?" she further pursued. + +"I suppose there is the usual amount," the other woman said, dryly. + +"Then, why do you do it--living in the country, as you do?" + +"There is no reason why people shouldn't dress nicely, no matter where +they happen to live," was the answer. "During the week we can't; but on +Sunday we can, and do, and ought--out of respect to the day," she +quaintly added. + +[Illustration: ARRAYED IN SPOTLESS WHITE] + +The city is not a mere name to American country children. Increased +train facilities, the improvement in the character of country roads +brought about by the advent of the automobile, and the extension of the +trolley system have done much to mitigate the isolation of rural +communities. The farmer and his wife can avail themselves of the +advantages to be found in periodical trips to the nearest city. Like +other American parents, they invite their children to share their +interests. The boys and girls are included in the jauntings to the city. + +I once said to a little girl whom I met on a farm in Massachusetts: "You +must come soon and stay with me in the city from Saturday until Monday. +We will go to the Art Museum and look at the pictures." + +"Oh," she cried, joyously, "I'd _love_ to! Every time we go to town, and +there is a chance, mother and I go to the Museum; we both like the +pictures so much." + +This little girl, when she was older, desired to become a kindergartner. +There was a training-school in the near-by city. She could not afford to +go to and fro on the train, but there was a trolley. The journey on the +trolley occupied three hours, but the girl took it twice daily for two +years. + +"Doesn't it tire you?" I asked her. + +"Oh, somewhat," she admitted; "but I was already used to it. We usually +traveled to town on it when I was small." + +"Countrified" is not the word to apply to American farmers and their +families. One might as aptly employ it when describing the people of +England who live on their "landed estates." Ignorance and dullness and +awkwardness we shall not often find among country children. The boys and +girls on the farms are as well informed, as mentally alert, and as +attractive as children in any other good homes in America. + +We all know Mr. James Whitcomb Riley's poem, "Little Cousin Jasper." The +country boy in it, we recall, concluded his reflections upon the happier +fortune of the boy from the "city" of Rensselaer with these words: + +"Wishst our town ain't like it is!-- +Wishst it's ist as big as his! +Wishst 'at _his_ folks they'd move _here_, +An' _we'd_ move to Rensselaer!" + +Only last summer I repeated this poem to a little girl whose home was a +farm not far from a house at which I was stopping. + +"But," she said, in a puzzled tone of voice, "no place is as big as the +country! Look!" she exclaimed, pointing to the distant horizon; "it's so +big it touches the edge of the sky! No city is _that_ big, is it?" + + + + +IV + + + +THE CHILD IN SCHOOL + + +An elderly woman was talking to me not long ago about her childhood. + +"No, my dear, I did not have a governess," she said, in answer to my +questionings. "Neither did I attend the public schools, though I lived +in the city. I went to a private school. The pupils in it were the girls +of the little social circle to which my parents belonged. There were +perhaps twenty of us in all. And there were three teachers; one for the +'first class,' one for the 'second class,' and a French-German-music- +and-drawing-teacher-in-one for both classes." + +"And what did you study?" I asked. + +"Besides French, German, music, and drawing?" my elderly friend mused. +"Well, we had the three R's; and history, English and American, and +geography, and deportment. I think that was all." + +"And you liked it?" I ventured. + +"Yes, my dear, I did," replied my friend, "though I used to pretend that +I didn't. I sometimes even 'played sick' in order to be allowed to stay +home from school. Children then, as now, thought they ought to 'hate to +go to school.' I believe most of them did, too. I happened to be a +'smart' child; so I liked school. I suppose 'smart' children still do." + +A "smart" child! In my mind's eye I can see my elderly friend as one, +sitting at the "head" of her class, on a long, narrow bench, her eyes +shining with a pleased consciousness of "knowing" the lesson, her cheeks +rosy with expectation of the triumph sure to follow her "saying" of it, +her lips parted in an eagerness to begin. Can we not all see her, that +"smart" child of two generations ago? + +As for her lesson, can we not hear it with our mind's ear? In +arithmetic, it was the multiplication table; in English history, the +names of the sovereigns and the dates of their reigns; in geography, the +capitals of the world; in deportment--ah, in deportment, a finer lesson +than any of our schools teach now! These were the lessons. Indeed, my +elderly friend has told me as much. "And not easy lessons, either, my +dear, nor easily learned, as the lessons of schoolchildren seem to be +to-day. We had no kindergartens; the idea that lessons were play had not +come in; to us lessons were work, and hard work." + +My friend gave a little sigh and shook her head ever so slightly as she +concluded. It was plain that she deprecated modern educational methods. +"Schools have changed," she added. + +And has not the attitude of children toward going to school changed even +more? Do many of them "hate to go"? Do any of them at all think they +"ought to hate to go"? Is a single one "smart" in the old-time sense of +the word? + +A winter or two ago I was recovering from an illness in a house which, +by great good fortune, chanced to be situated on a suburban street +corner, not only near a large public school, but directly on the main +route of the children going to and from it. My chief pleasure during +that shut-in winter was watching those children. Four times a day--at +half-past eight, at half-past twelve, at half-past one, and at half-past +three--I would take the window to see them going by. They were of many +ages and sizes; from the kindergarten babies to the boys and girls of +the ninth grade. None of them could possibly have been described as +"creeping like snail unwillingly to school." As a usual thing, they came +racing pell-mell down the three streets that converged at my corner; +after school they as tumultuously went racing up, homeward. I never +needed to consult the clock in order not to miss seeing the children. +When I heard from outside distant sounds of laughing and shouting, I +knew that a school session had just ended--or was about to begin. Which, +I could only tell by noting the time. The same joyous turmoil heralded +the one as celebrated the other. Clearly, these children, at least, did +not "hate to go to school"! + +One of them, a little boy of nine, a friend and near neighbor of mine, +liked it so well that enforced absence from it constituted a punishment +for a major transgression. "Isn't your boy well?" I inquired of his +mother when she came to call one evening. "A playmate of his who was +here this afternoon told me that he had not been in school to-day." + +"Oh, yes, he is perfectly well!" my friend exclaimed. "But he is being +disciplined--" + +"Disciplined?" I said. "Has he been so insubordinate as that in school?" + +"Not in school," the boy's mother said; "at home." Then, seeing my +bewilderment, she elucidated. "When he is _very_ naughty at home, I keep +him out of school. It punishes him more than anything else, because he +loves to go to school." + +Another aspect of the subject presented itself to my mind. "I should +think he would fall behind in his studies," I commented. + +"Oh, no," she replied; "he doesn't. Children don't fall behind in their +studies in these days," she added. "They don't get a chance. Every +single lesson they miss their teachers require them to 'make up.' When +my boy is absent for a day, or even for only half a day, his teacher +sees that he 'makes up' the lessons lost before the end of the week. +When I was a child, and happened to be absent, no teacher troubled about +_my_ lost lessons! _I_ did all the troubling! I laboriously 'made them +up'; the thought of examination days coming along spurred me on." + +Those examination days! How amazed, almost amused, our child friends are +when we, of whose school-days they were such large and impressive +milestones, describe them! A short time ago I was visiting an old +schoolmate of mine. "Tell me what school was like when you and mother +went," her little girl of ten besought me. + +So I told her. I dwelt upon those aspects of it differing most from +school as she knows it--the "Scholarship Medal," the "Prize for Bible +History," and the other awards, the bestowal of which made "Commencement +Morning" of each year a festival unequaled, to the pupils of "our" +school, by any university commencement in the land, however many and +brilliant the number of its recipients of "honorary degrees." I touched +upon the ease with which even the least remarkable pupil in that school +could repeat the Declaration of Independence and recount the "causes" of +the French Revolution. Finally, I mentioned our examination days--six in +January, six more in June. + +"What did you do on them?" inquired the little girl. + +"Will you listen to that?" demanded her mother. "Ten years old--and she +asks what we did on examination days! This is what it means to belong to +the rising generation--not to know, at ten, anything about examination +days!" + +"What _did_ you do on them?" the little girl persisted. + +"We had examinations," I explained. "All our books were taken away, and +we were given paper and pen and ink--" + +"And three hours for each examination," my friend broke in. "We had one +in the morning and another in the afternoon." + +"Yes," I went on. "One morning we would have a grammar examination. +Twenty questions would be written on the blackboard by our teacher, and +we would write the answers--in three hours. On another morning, or on +the afternoon of that same day, we might have an arithmetic examination. +There would be twenty questions, and three hours to answer them in, just +the same." + +"Do you understand, dear?" said the little girl's mother. "Well, well," +she went on, turning to me before the child could reply, "how this talk +brings examination days back to my remembrance! What excitement there +was! And how we worked getting ready for them! I really think it was a +matter of pride with us to be so tired after our last examination of the +week that we had to go to bed and dine on milk toast and a soft-boiled +egg!" + +The little girl was looking at us with round eyes. + +"Does it all sound very queer?" I asked. + +"The going to bed does," she made reply; "and the milk toast and the egg +for dinner, and the working hard. The examinations sound something like +the tests we have, _They_ are questions to write answers to, but we +don't think much about them. I don't believe any of the girls or boys go +to bed afterwards, or have milk toast and eggs for dinner--on purpose +because they have had a test!" + +She was manifestly puzzled. "Perhaps it is because we have tests about +every two weeks, and not just in January and June," she suggested. + +She did not seem disposed to investigate further the subject of her +mother's and my school-days. In a few moments she ran off to her play. + +When she was quite out of hearing her mother burst into a hearty laugh. +"Poor child!" she exclaimed. "She thinks we and our school were very +curious. I wonder why," she continued more seriously, "we did take +examinations, and lessons, too, so weightily. Children don't in these +days. The school-days of the week are so full of holiday spirit for them +that, actually, Saturday is not much of gala day. Think of what Saturday +was to _us_! What glorious times we had! Why, Saturday was _Saturday_, +to us! Do you remember the things we did? You wrote poems and I painted +pictures, and we read stories, and 'acted' them. Then, we had our +gardens in the spring, and our experiments in cake-baking in the winter. +My girls do none of these things on Saturday. The day is not to them +what it was to us. I wonder what makes the difference." + +[Illustration: THEY PAINT PICTURES AS A REGULAR PART OF THEIR SCHOOL +ROUTINE] + +I had often wondered; but these reflections of my old schoolmate gave me +an inkling of what the main difference is. To us, school had been a +place in which we learned lessons from books--books of arithmetic, books +of grammar, or other purely academic books. For five days of the week +our childish minds were held to our lessons; and our lessons, without +exception, dealt with technicalities--parts of speech, laws of +mathematics, facts of history, definitions of the terms of geography. +Small marvel that Saturday was a gala day to us. It was the one "week +day" when we might be unacademic! + +But children of the present time have no such need of Saturday. They +write poems, and paint pictures, and read stories, and "act" them, and +plant gardens, and even bake cake, as regular parts of their school +routine. The schools are no longer solely, or even predominantly, +academic. As for technicalities, where are they in the schools of to- +day? As far in the background as the teachers can keep them. Children do +not study grammar now; they are given "language work." It entails none +of the memorizing of "rules," "exceptions," and "cautions" that the +former study of grammar required. History would seem to be learned +without that sometime laying hold of "dates." Geography has ceased to be +a matter of the "bounding" of states and the learning of the capitals of +the various countries; it has become the "story of the earth." And +arithmetic--it is "number work" now, and is all but taught without the +multiplication tables. How could Saturday be to the children of to-day +what it was to the children of yesterday? + +My old schoolmate's little girl had spoken of "tests." In my school-days +we called such minor weekly or fortnightly matters as these, "reviews." +We regarded them quite as lightly as my small friend looked upon her +"tests." Examinations--they were different, indeed. Twice a year we were +expected to stretch our short memories until they neatly covered a +series of examination papers, each composed of twenty questions, +relating to fully sixteen weeks' accumulation of accurate data on the +several subjects--fortunately few--we had so academically been studying. +It is little wonder that children of the present day are not called upon +to "take" such examinations; not only the manner of their teaching, but +the great quantity of subjects taught, make "tests" of frequent +occurrence the only practicable examinations. + +"Children of the present time learn about so many things!" sighed a +middle-aged friend of mine after a visit to the school which her small +granddaughter attended. "What an array of subjects are brought to their +notice, from love of country to domestic science! How do their young +minds hold it?" + +I am rather inclined to think that their young minds hold it very much +as young minds of one, two, or three generations ago held it. After all, +what subjects are brought to the notice of present-day children that +were not called to the attention of children of former times? The +difference would seem to be, not that the children of to-day learn about +more things than did the children of yesterday, but that they learn +about more things in school. Love of country--were we not all taught +that by our fathers as early and as well as the children are taught it +to-day by their teachers? And domestic science--did not mothers teach +that, not only to their girls, but to their boys also, with a degree of +thoroughness not surpassed even by that of the best of modern domestic +science teachers? The subjects to be brought to the notice of children +appear to be so fixed; the things to be learned by them seem to be so +slightly alterable! It is only the place of instruction that has +shifted. Such a quantity of things once taught entirely at home are now +taught partly at school. + +It is the fashion, I know, to deplore this. "How dreadful it is," we +hear many a person exclaim, "that things that used to be told a child +alone at its mother's knee are now told whole roomfuls of children +together in school!" + +Certainly it would be "dreadful" should the fact that children are +taught anything in school become a reason to parents for ceasing to +teach them that same thing at home. So long as this does not happen, +ought we not to rejoice that children are given the opportunity of +hearing in company from their teachers what they have already heard +separately from their fathers and mothers? A boy or a girl who has heard +from a father or a mother, in intimate personal talk, of the beauty of +truth, the beauty of purity, the beauty of kindness, is fortified in an +endeavor to hold fast to these things by hearing a teacher speak of them +in a public, impersonal way. + +Indeed, is not this unity between the home and the school the great and +unique fact in the education of the children of the present time? They +are taught at home, as children always have been, and doubtless always +will be, an "array of subjects"; and they are taught at school, as +children perhaps never before were, other aspects of very nearly all the +matters touched upon in that "array." My old schoolmate said that +Saturday had lost the glory it wore in her school-days and mine; but it +seems to me that what has actually occurred is that the five school-days +of the week have taken on the same glory. The joys we had only on +Saturday children have now on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, +Friday, _and_ Saturday! + +It is inevitable, I suppose, that they should handle our old delights +with rather a professional grasp. One day recently a little girl, a new +acquaintance, came to see me. I brought out various toys, left over from +my childhood, for her amusement--a doll, with the trunk that still +contained her wardrobe; an autograph album, with "verses" and sketches +in it; and a "joining map," such as the brother of Rosamond of the +Purple Jar owned. + +[Illustration: THEY DO SO MANY THINGS!] + +My small caller occupied herself with these for a flattering length of +time, then she said: "You played with these--what else did you play +with?" + +"I made paper-boats," I replied; "and sailed them. I will show you how," +I added. + +She watched me with interest while I folded and refolded a sheet of +writing-paper until it became a boat. + +"There!" I said, handing it to her. + +"Have you any more, paper you can spare?" she questioned. + +"Of course," I said. "Should you like me to make you more boats?" + +"I'll make some things for _you_" she remarked, "if you will let me have +the paper." + +I offered her the freedom of the writing-paper drawer; and, while I +looked on, she folded and refolded with a practiced hand, until the +table beside us was covered, not only with boats compared with which +mine was as a dory to an ocean liner, but also with a score of other +pretty and somewhat intricate paper toys. + +"Who taught you to make all these lovely things?" I asked. + +"My teacher," answered the small girl. "We all do it, in my room at +school, every Friday." + +They do so many things! Their grown-up friends are hard put to it to +find anything novel to do with, or for, them. Not long ago a little boy +friend of mine was ill with scarlet fever. His "case" was so light that +the main problem attached to it was that of providing occupation for the +child during the six weeks of quarantine in one room. Remembering the +pleasure I had taken as a child in planting seeds on cotton in a glass +of water and watching them grow at a rate almost equal to that of Jack's +beanstalk, I made a similar "little garden" and sent it to the small +boy. + +"It was lots of fun, having it," he said, when, quite well, he came to +see me. "It grew so fast--faster than the others." + +"What others?" I queried. + +"At school," he explained. "We have them at school; and they grow fast, +but the one you gave me grew faster. Was that because it was in a little +glass instead of a big bowl?" + +I could not tell him. We had not had them at school in my school-days in +a big bowl. They had been out-of-school incidents, cultivated only in +little glasses. + +They have so many things at school, the children of to-day! If many of +these things have been taken from the home, they have only been taken +that they may, as it were, be carried back and forth between the home +and the school. + +I have a friend, the mother of an only child, a boy of eight. Her +husband's work requires that the family live in a section of the city +largely populated by immigrants. The one school in the vicinity is a +large public school. When my friend's little boy reached the "school +age," he, perforce, was entered at this school. + +"You are an American," his father said to him the day before school +opened; "not a foreigner, like almost every child you will find at +school. Remember that." + +"He doesn't understand what you mean when you talk to him about being an +American," the boy's mother said the next morning as we all watched the +child run across the street to the school. "How could he, living among +foreigners?" + +One day, about two months later, the small boy's birthday being near at +hand, his father said to him, "If some one were planning to give you +something, what should you choose to have it?" + +"A flag," the boy said instantly; "an American flag! _Our_ flag!" + +"Why?" the father asked, almost involuntarily. + +"To salute," the child replied. "I've learned how in school--what to say +and what to do. Americans do it when they love their country--like you +told me to," he added, eagerly. "Our teacher says so. She's taught us +all how to salute the flag. I told her I was an American, not a +foreigner like the other children. And she said they could be Americans, +too, if they wanted to learn how. So they are going to." + +The small boy got his flag. The patriotism taught at home and the +patriotism taught at school, diverse at other points, met and mingled at +that one most fundamental point. + +In former days children did not quote their teachers much at home, nor +their parents much at school. They do both in these days; occasionally +with comic results. A little girl of my acquaintance whose first year at +school began less than a month ago has, I observed only yesterday, +seemed to learn as her introductory lesson to pronounce the words +"either" and "neither" quite unmistakably "[=a]ther" and "n[=a]ther." + +"This is an amazing innovation," I said to her mother. "How did she ever +happen to think of it?" + +"Ask her," said her mother plaintively. + +I did inquire of the little girl. "Whom have you heard say '[=a]ther' +and 'n[=a]ther'?" + +"Nobody," she unexpectedly answered. + +"Then how did you learn to say it?" + +"Uncle Billy told me to--" + +This uncle is an instructor of English in one of our most famous +colleges. "My _dear_ child," I protested, "you must have misunderstood +him!" + +"Oh, no," she affirmed earnestly. "You see, papa and mamma say 'eether' +and 'neether,' and my school-teacher says 'eyether' and 'nyether.' I +told papa and mamma, and they said to say them the way my teacher did; +and I told my teacher, and she said to say them the way papa and mamma +did! I couldn't say them two ways at once; and I didn't know which one +way to say them. So Uncle Billy told me, if _he_ were doing it, _he_ +wouldn't worry about it; _he_ would say them '[=a]ther' and +'n[=a]ther'!" + +She is a very little girl, only seven; and she has not yet rounded out +her first month of school. I suppose before she has been in school a +full term she will have discovered the impracticability of her uncle's +method of settling the vexed question as to the pronunciation of +"either" and "neither." Very likely she will decide to say them +"eyether" and "nyether," as her teacher does. + +It takes the children so short a time to elevate the teacher to the rank +of final arbiter in their intellectual world. So soon, they follow her +footsteps in preference to any others along the ways of education. Not +only do they pronounce words as she pronounces them; in so far as they +are able, they define words as she defines them. In due course, they are +a bit fearful of any knowledge obtained otherwise than as she teaches +them to obtain it. Is there one of us who has attempted to help a child +with "home lessons" who has not been obliged to reckon with this fact? +Have we not worked out a problem in "bank discount," for instance, for a +perplexed youthful mathematician, only to be told, hesitatingly, "Ye-es, +you have got the right answer, but that isn't the way my teacher does +bank discount. Don't you know how to do it as she does?" Or, with a +young Latin "beginner" in the house, have we not tried to bring order +out of chaos with respect to the "Bellum Gallicum" by translating, "All +Gaul is divided into three parts," to be at once interrupted by, "Our +teacher translates that, 'Gaul is, _as a whole_, divided into three +parts.'" If we would assist the children of our immediate circles at all +with their "home lessons," we must do it exactly after the manner and +method ordained by their teachers. + +This condition of things ought not to be displeasing to us, for the +reason that, in the main, we have ourselves brought it to pass. The +children, during their first days at school, are loyally ready to force +the views of their fathers and their mothers, and their uncles and +aunts, upon their teachers; and their teachers are tactfully ready to +effect a compromise with them. But, before very long, our reiterated, +"Your teacher knows; do as she says," has its effect. The teacher +becomes the child's touchstone in relation to a considerable number of +the "array of subjects" taught in a present-day school. School-teachers +in America prepare themselves so carefully for their duties, train +themselves to such a high order of skill in their performance, it is but +just that those of us who are not teachers should abdicate in their +favor. + +However, since we are all very apt to be in entire accord with the +children's teachers in all really vital matters, our position of second +place in the minds of the boys and girls with regard to the ways of +doing "bank discount" or translating "_Gallia est omnes divisa in partes +tres_" is of small account. At least, we have a fuller knowledge of +their own relations with these mathematical and Latinic things than our +grandparents had of our parents' lessons. And the children's teachers +know more about our relations to the subjects taught than the teachers +of our fathers and mothers knew respecting the attitudes of our +grandfathers and grandmothers toward the curriculum of that earlier +time. For the children of to-day, unlike the children of a former time, +talk at home about school and talk at school about home. Almost +unconsciously, this effects an increasingly cooperative union between +home and school. + +"We are learning 'Paul Revere's Ride,' in school," I heard a small girl +who lives in Boston say recently to her mother. + +"Are you, darling?" the mother replied. "Then, shouldn't you like to go +some Saturday and see the church where the lanterns were hung?" + +So much did the child think she would like to go that her mother took +her the next Saturday. + +"You saw the very steeple at which Paul Revere looked that night for the +lanterns!" I said, when, somewhat later, I happened to be again at that +child's home. + +"Twice," she replied. "I told my teacher that mother had taken me, so +she took all of us in my room at school on the next Saturday." + +Perhaps the most significant influence of the American home upon the +American school is to be found in the regular setting apart of an hour +of the school-day once, or twice, or even three times a week, as a story +hour; and the filling of that hour with the stories, read or told, that +in earlier times children never so much as heard mentioned at school by +their teachers. It is indeed a pleasant thought that in school-rooms +throughout the land boys and girls are hearing about the Argonauts, and +the Knights of the Round Table, and the Crusaders; to say nothing of +such famous personages in the story world as Cinderella, and the +Sleeping Beauty, and Hop-O'-My-Thumb. The home story hour is no less +dear because there is a school story hour too. + +The other afternoon I stopped in during the story hour to visit a room +in the school of my neighborhood. The teacher told the story of Pandora +and the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur. A small friend of mine is a +member of the "grade" which occupies that room. At the end of the +session she walked home with me. + +"Tell me a story?" she asked, when, sitting cozily by the fire, we were +having tea. + +"What one should you like?" I inquired. "The story of Clytie, perhaps, +or--" + +"I'd like to hear the one about Pandora--" + +"But you have just heard it at school!" I exclaimed. + +"I know," she said; "but I'd like to hear you tell it." + +When I had told it, she begged me to tell another. Again I suggested +various tales in my repertory. But she refused them all. "Tell about the +man, and the dragon, and the ball of string, and the lady--" she began. + +And once more when I interposed, reminding her that she had just heard +it, she once more said, "Yes; but I'd like to hear it again." + +Some of the children whom I have in mind as I write go to private +schools and some of them go to public schools. It has not seemed to me +that the results obtained by the one type of school are discernibly +different from those produced by the other. In the private school there +are fewer pupils than in the public school; and they are more nearly +alike from the point of view of their parents' material wealth than are +the pupils in a public school. They are also "Americans," and not +"foreigners," as are so many of the children in city public schools, and +even in the public schools of many suburbs and villages. Possibly owing +to their smaller numbers, they receive more individual attention than +the pupils of the public school; but, so far as my rather extensive and +intimate acquaintance with children qualifies me to judge, they learn +the same lessons, and learn them with equal thoroughness. We hear a +great deal about the differences between public and private schools, and +certainly there are differences; but the pupils of the public and the +private schools are very much alike. It is considerably easier to +distinguish a public from a private school than it is to tell a public- +school child from a private-school child. + +[Illustration: THEY HAVE SO MANY THINGS!] + +There are many arraignments of our American schools, whether public or +private; and there are many persons who shake their heads over our +American school-children. "The schools are mere drilling-places," we +hear, "where the children are all put through the same steps." And the +children--what do we hear said of them? "They do not work at their +lessons as children of one, two, or three generations ago did," is the +cry; "school is made so pleasant for them!" + +Unquestionably our American schools and our American school-children +have their faults. We must try to amend both. Meanwhile, shall we not be +grateful that the "steps" through which the children are put are such +excellent ones; and shall we not rejoice that school is made so +"pleasant" for the boys and girls that, unlike the children of one, two, +or three generations ago, they like to go to school? + + + + +V + + + +THE CHILD IN THE LIBRARY + + +One day, not long ago, a neighbor of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, +of honored memory, was talking to me about him. Among the score of +charming anecdotes of the dear Colonel that she told me, there was one, +the most delightful of all, that related to the time-worn subject of the +child in the library. "As a family, we were readers," she said. "The +importance of reading had been impressed upon our minds from our +earliest youth. All of us liked to read, excepting one sister, younger +than I. She cared little for it; and she seldom did it. I was a mere +child, but so earnestly had I always been told that children who did not +read would grow up ignorant that I worried greatly over my sister who +would not read. At last I unburdened my troubled mind to Colonel +Higginson. 'She doesn't like to read; she doesn't read,' I confided. 'I +am afraid she will grow up ignorant; and then she will be ashamed! And +think how we shall feel!' The Colonel considered my words in silence for +a time. Then he said: 'There is a large and finely selected library in +your house; don't be disturbed regarding your sister, my dear. She will +not grow up ignorant. You see, she is exposed to books! She is certain +to get something of what is in them!'" + +Colonel Higginson's neighbor went on to say that from that day she was +no longer haunted by the fear that her sister, because she did not read, +would grow up ignorant. Are many of us in that same condition of feeling +with respect to the children of our acquaintance, even after we have +provided them with as excellent a library as had that other child in +which they may be "exposed to books"? On the contrary, so solicitous are +we that, having furnished to the best of our knowledge the best books, +we do not rest until we are reasonably sure that the children are, not +simply getting something from them, but getting it at the right times +and in the right ways. And everything and every one conspires to help +us. Publishers issue volumes by the dozen with such titles as "The +Children's Reading" and "A Guide to Good Reading" and "Golden Books for +Children." The librarian of the "children's room" in many a library sets +apart a certain hour of each week or each month for the purpose of +telling the children stories from the books that we are all agreed the +children should read, hoping by this means to inspire the boys and girls +to read the particular books for themselves. No effort is regarded as +too great if, through it, the children seem likely to acquire the habit +of using books; using them for work, and using them for recreation. + +Certainly our labors in this direction on behalf of the children are +amply rewarded. Not only are American children of the present time fond +of reading--most children of other times have been that; they have a +quite remarkable skill and ease in the use of books. + +A short while ago, spending a spring week-end with a friend who lives in +the country, I chanced to see a brilliant scarlet bird which neither my +hostess nor I could identify. "It was a redbird, I suppose," I said, in +mentioning it later to a city acquaintance. + +"What _is_ a redbird?" she asked. "Is it a cardinal, or a tanager, or +something still different?" + +"I don't know," I replied. "Perhaps," I added, turning to her little +girl often who was in the room, "_you_ know; children learn so much +about birds in their 'nature study.'" + +"No," the child answered; "but," she supplemented confidently, "I can +find out." + +Several days afterward she came to call. "Do you remember _exactly_ the +way that red bird you saw in the country looked?" she inquired, almost +as soon as we met. + +"Just red, I think," I said. + +"Not with black wings?" she suggested. + +"I hardly think so," I answered. + +"P'aps it had a few _white_ feathers in its wings?" she hinted. + +"I believe not," I said. + +"Then," she observed, with an air of finality, "it was a cardinal +grosbeak; and the other name for that _is_ redbird; so you saw a +redbird. The scarlet tanager is red, too, but it has black wings, and it +isn't called a redbird; and the crossbill is red, with a few _white_ +feathers, and _it_ isn't called a redbird either. Only the cardinal +grosbeak is. That was what you saw," she repeated. + +"And who told you all this?" I queried. + +"Nobody," the little girl made reply. "I looked it up in the library." + +She was only ten. "How did you look it up?" I found myself asking. + +"First," she explained, "I picked out the birds on the bird charts that +were red. The charts told their names. Then I got out a bird book, and +looked till I found where it told about those birds." + +"Do you look up many things in the library?" I questioned. + +"Oh, yes," the child replied. + +"And do you always find them?" I continued. + +"Not always by myself," she confessed. "Everything isn't as easy to look +up as birds. But when I can't, there is always the librarian, and she +helps; and when she is helping, 'most _anything_ gets found!" + +The public library of my small friend's city, not being the library I +habitually used, was only slightly familiar to me. Not long after I had +been so earnestly assured that the scarlet bird I had seen was a +redbird, I made occasion to go to the library in which the information +had been gathered. It was such a public library as may be seen in very +nearly every small city in the United States. Built of stone; lighted +and heated according to the most approved modern methods; divided into +"stack-rooms" and "reading-rooms" and "receiving-rooms"--it was that +"typical American library" of which we are, as we should be, so proud. I +did not ask to be directed to the "children's room"; I simply followed a +group of children who had come into the building with me. + +The "children's room," too, was "typical." It was a large, sunny place, +furnished with low bookcases, small tables, and chairs. Around two +walls, above the shelves, were pictures of famous authors, and +celebrated scenes likely to be known to children. At one end of the room +the bird charts of which I had so interestingly heard were posted, +together with flower charts and animal charts, of which I had not been +told. At the other end was the desk of the librarian, who so helped +young investigators that, when she helped, _anything_ got found. + +I seated myself at the little table nearest her desk. She smiled, but +she said nothing. Neither did I say anything. The time of day was just +after school; the librarian was too much occupied to talk to a stray +visitor. I remained for fully an hour; and during that hour a steady +stream of children passed in and out of the room. Some of them selected +books, and, having obtained them, departed; others stayed to read, and +others walked softly about, examining the pictures and charts. All of +them, whatever their various reasons for coming to the library, began or +ended their visits in conference with the librarian. They spoke just +above a whisper, as befitted the place, but I was near enough to hear +all that was said. + +"We want to give a play at school the last day before Christmas +vacation," said one small girl; "is there a good one here?" + +The librarian promptly recommended and put into the child's hands a +little volume entitled "Fairy Tales a Child Can Read and Act." + +A boy, entering rather hurriedly, asked, "Could I have a book that tells +how to make a wireless set--and have it quick, so I can begin to-day +before dark?" + +It was not a moment before the librarian found for him a book called +"Wireless Telegraphy for Amateurs and Students." + +Another boy, less on pleasure bent, petitioned for a "book about Abraham +Lincoln that will tell things to put in a composition on him." And a +girl, at whose school no Christmas play was apparently to be given, +asked for "a piece of poetry to say at school just before Christmas." +For these two, as for all who preceded or followed them, the librarian +had help. + +"How wonderful, how unique!" exclaimed an Italian friend to whom I +related the experiences of that afternoon hour in the "children's room" +in the library of that small city. + +But it seems to me that the wonderful thing about it is that it is not +unique; that in almost any "children's room" in almost any public +library in America practically the same condition prevails. Not only are +"children's rooms" of a very fine order to be found in great numbers; +but children's librarians, as sympathetic and as capable as the +librarian of my small friend's library, in as great numbers, are in +charge of those rooms. So recognized a profession has theirs come to be +that, connected with one of the most prominent libraries in the country, +there is a "School for Children's Librarians." + +The "children's librarians" do not stop at assisting them in choosing +books. The story hour has come to be as important in the "children's +rooms" as it is now in the school, as it has always been in the home. +Telling stories to children has grown to be an art; there is more than +one text-book laying down its "principles and laws." Many a librarian is +also an accomplished story-teller, and in an increasing number of +libraries there is a story hour in the "children's rooms." Beyond +question, we in America have taken every care that our public libraries +shall mean something more to the boys and girls than places in which +they are merely "exposed to books." + +American children read; it is doubtful whether any other children in the +world read so much or so intelligently. In our public libraries we plan +with such completeness for their reading that they can scarcely escape +becoming readers! At home we keep constantly in mind the great +importance of inculcating in them a love of books and a wontedness in +their use. To so many of their questionings we reply by advising, "Get a +book about it from the library." So many of the fundamental lessons of +life we first bring to their attention by putting into their hands books +treating of those lessons written by experts--written, moreover, +expressly for parents to give to their boys and girls to read. + +A few days ago I received a letter from a mother saying: "Do you know of +a book on hygiene that I can give to my children to read--a book on that +subject _for_ children?" + +Within reach of my hand I had such a book, entitled "The Child's Day," a +simply, but scientifically, written little volume, telling children what +to do from the hour of rising until the hour of retiring, in order to +keep well and strong, able to do good work at school, and to enjoy as +good play after school. It was a book that a child not only could read +with profit, but would read with pleasure. + +At about the same time a father said to me: "Is there any book written +for children about good citizenship--a sort of primer of civics, I mean? +I require something of that kind for my boy." + +A book to meet that particular need, too, was on my book-shelves. +"Lessons for Junior Citizens," it is called. In the clearest, and also +the most charming, form it tells the boys and girls about the +government, national and local, of their country, and teaches them their +relation to that government. + +It is safe to say that there is practically no subject so mature that it +is not now the theme of a book, or a score of books, written especially +for children. Every one of the numerous publishing houses in the United +States issues yearly as many good volumes of this particular type as are +submitted. A century ago a new writer was most likely to win the +interest of a publisher by sending him a manuscript subtitled, "A +Novel." At the present time a beginner can more quickly awaken the +interest of a publisher by submitting a manuscript the title of which +contains the words, "For Children." + +"Authors' editions" of books we have long had offered us by publishers; +"_éditions de luxe_" too; and "limited editions of fifty copies, each +copy numbered." These are all old in the world of books. What is new, +indeed, is the "children's edition." We have it in many shapes, from +"Dickens for Children" to "The Children's Longfellow." These volumes +find their way into the "children's rooms" of all our public libraries; +and, quite as surely, they help to fill the "children's bookcases" in +the private libraries to be found in a large proportion of American +homes. For no public library can take the place in the lives of the +children of a private library made up of their "very own" books. The +public library may, however, often have a predominant share in +determining the selection of those "very own" books. The children wish +to possess such books as they have read in the "children's room." + +Sometimes a child has still another similar reason for wishing to own a +certain book. Only the other day I had a letter from a boy to whom I had +sent a copy of "The Story of a Bad Boy." "I am glad to have it," he +said. "The library has it, and father has it. I like to have what the +library and father have." + +Parents buy books for their children in very much the proportions that +parents bought them before the land was dotted with public libraries. +Indeed, they buy books in larger proportions, for the reason that there +are so many more books to be bought! The problem of the modern father or +mother is not, as it once was, to discover a volume likely to interest +the children; but, from among the countless volumes offered for sale, +all certain to interest the children, to choose one, two, or three that +seem most excellent where all are so good. A mother of a few generations +ago whose small boy was eager to read tales of chivalry simply gave him +"Le Morte D'Arthur"; there was no "children's edition" of it, no "Boy's +King Arthur," no "Tales of the Round Table." The father whose little +girl desired to read for herself the stories of Greece he had told her +put into her hands Bulfinch's "Age of Fable"; he could not, as can +fathers to-day, give her Kingsley's rendering, or Hawthorne's, or Miss +Josephine Preston Peabody's. Like the father of Aurora Leigh,-- + +"He wrapt his little daughter in his large +Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no." + +At the present time we do not often see a child wrapped in a large man's +doublet of a book; even more seldom do we see a father careless if it +fit or no. What we plainly behold is that doublet, cut down, and most +painstakingly fitted to the child's little mind. + +Unquestionably the children lose something by this. The great books of +the world do not lend themselves well to making over. "Tales from +Shakespeare" are apt to leave out Shakespeare's genius, and "Stories +from Homer" are not Homer. In cutting the doublet to fit, the most +precious part of the fabric is in danger of being sacrificed. + +But whatever the children lose when they are small, they find again when +they come to a larger growth. Most significant of all, when they find +it, they recognize it. A little girl who is a friend of mine had read +Lambs' "Tales." The book had been given to her when she was eight years +old. She is nine now. One day, not long ago, she was lingering before my +bookcases, taking out and glancing through various volumes. Suddenly she +came running to me, a copy of "As You Like It" in her hand. "This story +is in one of my books!" she cried. + +"Yes," I said; "your book was written from this book, and some of those +other little red books there with it in the bookcase." + +The child went back to the bookcase. She took down all the other volumes +of Shakespeare, and, sitting on the rug with them, she spent an utterly +absorbed hour in turning over their leaves. Finally she scrambled to her +feet and set the books back in their places. "I've found which stories +in these books are in my book, too," she remarked. "Mine are easier to +read," she added; "but yours have lovely talk in them!" + +Had she not read Lambs' "Tales" at eight I am not certain she would have +ventured into the wide realms of Shakespeare at nine, and tarried there +long enough to discover that in those realms there is "lovely talk." + +Occasionally, to be sure, the children insist upon books being easy to +read, and refuse to find "lovely talk" in them if they are not. It was +only a short time ago that I read to a little boy Browning's "Pied Piper +of Hamelin." When I had finished there was a silence. "Do you like it?" +I inquired. + +"Ye-es," replied my small friend; "it's a nice story, but it's nicer in +my book than in yours. I'll bring it next time I come, so you can read +it." + +He did. The story was told in prose. It began, "There was once a town, +named Hamelin, and there were so many rats in it that the people did not +know what to do." Certainly this is "easier to read" than the forty-two +lines which the poem uses to make an identical statement regarding the +town named Hamelin. My little friend is only six. I hope that by the +time he is twelve he will think the poem is as "nice" as, if not "nicer" +than, the story in his book. At least he may be impelled by the memory +of his pleasure in his book to turn to my book and compare the two +versions of the tale. + +The children of to-day, like the children of former days, read because +they find in books such stuff as dreams are made of; and, in common with +the children of all times, they must needs make dreams. Like the boys +and girls of most eras, they desire to make also other, more temporal, +things. To aid them in this there are books in quantities and of +qualities not even imagined by the children of a few generations ago. +The book the title of which begins with the words "How to Make" is +perhaps the most distinctive product of the present-day publishing +house. No other type of book can so effectively win to a love for +reading a child who seems indifferent to books; who, as a boy friend of +mine used to say, "would rather hammer in nails than read." The "How to +Make" books tell such a boy how to hammer in nails to some purpose. I +happened to see recently a volume called "Boys' Make-at-Home Things." +With much curiosity I turned its pages,--pages illustrated with pictures +of the make-at-home things of the title,--glancing at directions for +constructing a weather-vane, a tent, a sled, and a multitude of smaller +articles. I thought of my boyfriend. "Do you think he would care to have +the book?" I inquired of his mother over the telephone. + +"Well, I _wish_ he would care to have _any_ book!" she replied. "If you +want to _try_ this one--" She left the sentence unfinished, unless a +sigh may be regarded as a conclusion. + +I did try the book. "This will tell you how to have fun with your +tools," I wrote, when I sent it to the boy. + +Except for a laconic note of thanks, I heard nothing from my young +friend about the book. One day last week I chanced to see his mother. +"What do you think I am doing this afternoon?" she said. "I am getting a +_book_ for my son, at his own request! He is engrossed in that book you +sent him. He is making some of the things described in it. But he wants +to make something _not_ mentioned in it, and he actually asked me to see +if I could find a book that told how!" + +"So he likes books better now?" I commented. + +"Well--I asked him if he did," said the boy's mother; "and he said he +didn't like '_booky_' books any better, but he liked this kind, and +always would have, if he'd known about them!" + +Whether my boy friend will learn early to love "booky" books is a bit +doubtful perhaps; certainly, however, he has found a companion in one +kind of book. He has made the discovery quickly, too; for he has had +"Boys' Make-at-Home Things" less than a month. + +It was an easy matter for that boy's mother to get for her son the +particular book he desired. She lives in a city; at least three large +public libraries are open to her. As for book-shops, there are more +within her reach than she could possibly visit in the course of a week, +much less in an afternoon. + +The mothers who live in the country cannot so conveniently secure the +books their boys and girls may wish or need. I know one woman, the +mother of two boys, living in the country, who has to exercise +considerable ingenuity to provide her sons with books of the "How to +Make" kind. There is no public library within available distance of the +farmhouse which is her home, and she and her husband cannot afford to +buy many books for their children. The boys, moreover, like so great a +variety of books that, in order to please them, it is not necessary to +select a book that is not "booky." Their parents are lovers of great +literature. "I cannot bring myself to buy a book about how to make an +aeroplane, for instance," their mother said to me one day, "when there +are so many wonderful books they have not read, and would enjoy reading! +Since I must limit my purchase of books, I really think I ought to +choose only the _real_ books for the boys; and yet they want to make +things with their hands, like other boys, and there is no way to teach +them how except through books. My husband has no time for it, and there +is no one else to show them." + +The next summer I went to spend a few days with my friend in the +country. The morning after my arrival her boys proposed to take me "over +the place." At the lower edge of the garden, to which we presently came, +there was a little brook. Across it was a bridge. It was plainly to be +seen that this bridge was the work of the boys. "How very nice it is!" I +remarked. + +"We made it," the older of the boys instantly replied. + +"Who showed you how?" I queried, wondering, as I spoke, if my friend +had, after all, changed her mind with respect to the selection of books +for her children, and chosen one "How to Make" volume. + +"It told how in a book," the younger boy said; "a Latin book father +studied out of when he was a boy. There was a picture of the bridge; and +on the pages in the back of the book the way to make it was all written +out in English--father had done it when he was in school. It was a long +time before we could _quite_ see how to do it; but mother helped, and +the picture showed how, and father thought we could do it if we kept at +it. And it is really a good bridge--you can walk across on it." + +When the boys and I returned to the house my friend greeted me with a +merry smile. As soon as we were alone she exclaimed, "I have _so_ wanted +to write to you about our bridge, patterned on Caesar's! But the boys +are so proud of it, they like to 'surprise' people with it--not because +it is like a bridge Caesar made, but because it is a bridge they have +made themselves!" + +[Illustration: THE CHILDREN'S EDITION] + +Another friend of mine, the mother of a little girl, has had a different +problem, centring around the necessity of books for children, to solve. +She, too, lives in the country, and her little girl is a pupil at the +neighboring district school. During a visit in the city home of a cousin +the small girl had been a spectator at the city child's "school play," +which happened to consist of scenes from "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." +When she returned home, she wished to have such an entertainment in her +school. "Dearest," her mother said, "we have no books of plays children +could act." + +"Couldn't we do the one they did at Cousin Rose's school?" was the next +query. "Papa says we have _that_." + +"I am afraid not," her mother demurred. "Ask your teacher." + +The child approached her teacher on the subject. "No," the teacher said +decisively. "'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' is too long and too hard. Read +it, and you'll see. But," she sagely added, "if you can find anything +that is suitable, and can persuade the other children to act in it, I +will help you all I can." + +That evening, at home, the little girl read "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." +"Mamma," she suddenly cried, as she neared the end, "my teacher says +this is too long and too hard for us children to do. But we _could_ do +the play that the people _in it_ do--don't you think? It is _very_ +short, and all the children will like it because it is about poor +Pyramus and Thisbe, that we have all read about in school. It isn't +_just_ the same as the way it was in the story we read; but it is about +them--and the wall, and the lion, and everything! Don't you think we +could do it? They did the fairy part when I saw it at Cousin Rose's +school, and not this at all. But couldn't _we_?" + +"I did not like to discourage her," my friend said when she related the +tale to me. "_All_ the other children were willing and eager to do it, +so her teacher couldn't refuse, after what she had said, to help them. I +helped with the rehearsals, too, and I doubt if the teacher or I ever +laughed so much in all our lives as we did at that time--when there were +no children about! The children were so sweet and serious over their +play! They acted it as they would have acted a play on the subject of +Pyramus and Thisbe written especially for them. _They_ weren't funny. +No; they were perfectly lovely. What was so irresistibly comic, of +course, was the difference between their performance and one's +remembrance of regular performances of it--to say nothing of one's +thoughts as to what Shakespeare would have said about it. How those +children will laugh when they are grown up! They will have something to +laugh at that will last them a lifetime. But _poor_ Shakespeare!" + +I did not echo these final words of my friend. For does not Shakespeare +rather particularly like to bless us with the laugh that lasts a +lifetime, even if--perhaps especially if--it be at our own expense? + +Books are such integral parts of the lives of present-day children, +especially in America. Their elders appreciate, as possibly the grown- +ups of former times did not quite so fully appreciate, the importance of +books in the education of the boys and girls. It may even be that we +over-emphasize it a bit. We send the children to the book-shelves for +help in work and for assistance in play. In effect, we say to them, +"Read, that you may be able to mark, learn, and inwardly digest." It is +only natural that the boys and girls should read for a hundred reasons, +instead of for the one reason of an older day--the pursuit of happiness +in the mere reading itself. "How can you sit idly reading a book when +there are so many useful things you might be doing?" was the question +often put to the children of yesterday by their elders. To-day we feel +that the children can hardly do anything likely to prove more useful +than reading a book. Is not this because we have taught them, not only +to read, but to read for a diversity of reasons? + +American children are so familiarly at home in the world of books, it +should not surprise us to find them occasionally taking rather a +practical, everyday view of some of the things read. A little girl +friend of mine chanced to begin her reading of Shakespeare during a +winter when her grown-up relatives were spending a large portion of +their leisure going to see stage representations of Shakespeare's plays. +She therefore heard considerable conversation about the plays, and about +the persons acting the chief rôles in them. It happened that "As You +Like It" was one of the comedies being acted. The little girl was +invited to go to see it. "Who is going to be Orlando?" she inquired; she +had listened to so much talk about who "was," or was "going to be," the +various persons in the several dramas! + +"But," she objected, when she was informed, "I think I've heard you say +he is not very tall. Orlando was _such_ a tall man!" + +"Was he?" I ventured, coming in at that moment. "I don't remember that +about him. Who told you he was tall?" + +"Why, it is in the book!" she exclaimed. + +Every one present besought her to mention where. + +"Don't you remember?" she said incredulously. "He says Rosalind is just +as high as his heart; that wouldn't be _quite_ up to his shoulder. And +she says she is _more than common_ tall! So he must have been +_'specially_ tall. Don't you remember?" she asked again, looking +perplexedly at our blank faces. + +There are so many bonds of understanding between American children of +the present time and their grown-up relatives and friends. Is not one of +the best of these that which has come out of our national impulse toward +giving the boys and girls the books we love, "cut small"; and showing +them how to read those books as we read the larger books from which they +are made? "What kinds of books do American children read?" foreigners +inquire. We are able to reply, "The same kinds that grown-up Americans +read." "And why do they read them?" may be the next question. Again we +can answer, "For much the same reasons that the grown-ups read them." +"How do they use the libraries?" might be the next query. Still we could +say, "As grown people use them." And if yet another query, "Why?" be +put, we might reply, "Because, unlike any other children in the world, +American children are almost as completely 'exposed to books' as are +their elders." + + + + +VI + + + +THE CHILD IN CHURCH + + +Within the past few months, I have had the privilege of looking over the +answers sent by men and women--most of them fathers and mothers--living +in many sections of the United States, in response to an examination +paper containing among other questions this one: "Should church-going on +the part of children be compulsory or voluntary?" In almost every case +the answer was, "It should be voluntary." In practically all instances +the reason given was, "Worship, like love, is at its best only when it +is a free-will offering." + +It was not a surprise to read again and again, in longer or in shorter +form, such an answer, based upon such a reason. The religious liberty of +American children of the present day is perhaps the most salient fact of +their lives. Without doubt, the giving to them of this liberty is the +most remarkable fact in the lives of their elders. No grown people were +ever at any time willingly allowed to exercise such freedom in matters +pertaining to religion as are the children of our nation at the present +time. Not only is churchgoing not compulsory; religion itself is +voluntary. + +A short while ago a little girl friend of mine was showing me her +birthday gifts. Among them was a Bible. It was a beautiful book, bound +in soft crimson leather, the child's name stamped on it in gold. + +"And who gave you this?" I asked. + +"Father," the little girl replied. "See what he has written in it," she +added, when the shining letters on the cover had been duly appreciated. + +I turned to the fly-leaf and read this: + +"To my daughter on her eighth birthday from her father. + + "'I give you the end of a golden string: + Only wind it into a ball,-- + It will lead you in at Heaven's gate + Built in Jerusalem's wall.'" + +"Isn't it lovely?" questioned the child, who had stood by, waiting, +while I read. + +"Yes," I agreed, "very lovely, and very new." + +Her mother, who was listening, smiled slowly. "My father gave me a Bible +on my birthday, when I was seven"--she began. + +"O mother," interrupted her little girl, "what did grandfather write in +it?" + +"Go and look," her mother said. "You will find it on the table by my +bed." + +The child eagerly ran out of the room. In a few moments she returned, +the Bible of her mother's childhood in her hands. It also was a +beautiful book; bound, too, in crimson leather, and with the name of its +owner stamped on it in gold. And on the fly-leaf was written,-- + +"To my daughter, on her seventh birthday, from her father." + +Beneath this, however, was inscribed no modern poetry, but + +"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days +come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no +pleasure in them." + +[Illustration: IN THE INFANT CLASS] + +The little girl read it aloud. "It sounds as though you wouldn't be +happy if you _didn't_ remember, mother," she said, dubiously. + +"Well, darling," her mother replied, "and so you wouldn't." + +The child took her own Bible and read aloud the verse her father had +written. "But, mother, this sounds as though you _would_ be happy if you +_did_ remember." + +"And so you will, dear," her mother made reply. "It is the same thing," +she added. + +"Is it?" the little girl exclaimed in some surprise. "It doesn't _seem_ +quite the same." + +The child did not press the question. She left us, to return her +mother's Bible to its wonted place. When she came back, she resumed the +exhibiting of her birthday gifts where it had been interrupted. But +after she had gone out to play I said to her mother, "Are they _quite_ +the same--the text in your Bible and the lines in hers?" + +"It _is_ rather a long way from Solomon to William Blake, isn't it?" she +exclaimed. + +"But I really don't see much difference. The same thing is said, only in +the one case it is a command and in the other it is an impelling +suggestion." + +"Isn't that rather a great deal of difference?" I ventured. + +"No, I think not," she said, meditatively. "Of course, I admit," she +supplemented, "that the idea of an impelling suggestion appeals to the +imagination more than the idea of a command. But that's the _only_ +difference." + +It seems to me that this "only" difference is at the very foundation of +the religious training of the children of the present day in our +country. We do our best to awaken their imaginations, to put to them +suggestions that will impel, to say to them the "same thing" that was +said to the children of more austere times about remembering their +Creator; but so to say it that they feel, not that they will be unhappy +if they do not remember, but that they will be happy if they do. It is +the love of God rather than the fear of God that we would have them +know. + +Is it not, indeed, just because we do so earnestly desire that they +should learn this that we leave them so free with regard to what we call +their spiritual life? "Read a chapter in your Bible every day, darling," +I recently heard a mother say to her little girl on the eve of her first +visit away from home without her parents. "In Auntie's house they don't +have family prayers, as we do, so you won't hear a chapter read every +day as you do at home." + +"What chapters shall I read, mamma?" the child asked. + +"Any you choose, dear," the mother replied. + +"And when in the day?" was the next question. "Morning or night?" + +"Just as you like, dearest," the mother answered. + +But there is a religious liberty beyond this. To no one in America is it +so readily, so sympathetically, given as to a child. We are all familiar +with the difficulties which attend a grown person, even in America, +whose convictions necessitate a change of religious denomination. Such a +situation almost invariably means distress to the family, and to the +relinquished church of the person the form of whose faith has altered. +In few other matters is so small a measure of liberty understandingly +granted a grown person, even in America. But when a child would turn +from one form of belief to another, how differently the circumstance is +regarded! + +One Sunday, not long ago, visiting an Episcopal Sunday-school, I saw in +one of the primary classes a little girl whose parents, as I was aware, +were members of the Baptist Church. + +"Is she a guest?" I asked her teacher. + +"Oh, no," she replied; "she is a regular member of the Sunday-school; +she comes every Sunday. She was christened at Easter; I am her +godmother." + +"But don't her father and mother belong to the Baptist Church?" I +questioned. + +"Yes," said the child's Sunday-school teacher. "But she came to church +one Sunday with some new playmates of hers, whose parents are +Episcopalians, to see a baby christened. Then her little friends told +her how they had all been christened, as babies; and when she found that +she hadn't been, she wanted to be. So her father and mother let her, and +she comes to Sunday-school here." + +"Where does she go to church?" I found myself inquiring. + +"To the Baptist Church, with her father and mother," was the reply. "She +asked them to let her come to Sunday-school here; but it never occurred +to her to think of going to church excepting with them." + +Somewhat later I chanced to meet the child's mother. It was not long +before she spoke to me concerning her little girl's membership in the +Episcopal Sunday-school. "What were her father and I to do?" the mother +said. "We didn't feel justified in standing in her way. She wanted to be +christened; it seemed to mean something real to her--" she broke off. +"What _were_ we to do?" she repeated. "It would be a dreadful thing to +check a child's aspiration toward God! Of course she is only a little +girl, and she wanted to be like the others. Her father and I thought of +that, naturally. But--" Again she stopped. "One can never tell," she +went on, "what is in the mind of a child, nor what may be happening to +its spirit. Samuel was a very little child when God spoke to him," she +concluded, simply. + +Quite as far as that mother, has another mother of my acquaintance let +her little girl go along the way of religious freedom. One day I went +with her and the child to an Italian jewelry shop. Among the things +there was a rosary of coral and silver. The little girl, attracted by +its glitter and color, seized it and slipped it over her head. "Look, +mother," she said, "see this lovely necklace!" + +Her mother gently took it from her. "It isn't a necklace," she +explained; "it is called a rosary. You mustn't play with it; because it +is something some people use to say their prayers with." + +The child's mother is of Scotch birth and New England upbringing. The +little girl has been accustomed to a form of religion and to an attitude +toward the things of religion that are beautiful, but austerely +beautiful. She is an imaginative child; and she caught eagerly at the +poetical element thus, for the first time, associated with prayer. "Tell +me how!" she begged. + +When next I was in the little girl's bedroom, I saw the coral and silver +rosary hanging on one of the head-posts of her bed. "Yes, my dear," her +mother explained to me, "I got the rosary for her. She wanted it--'to +say my prayers with,' she said; so I got it. After all, the important +thing is that she says her prayers." + +Among my treasures I have a rosary, brought to me from the Holy Land. I +have had it for a long time, and it has hung on the frame of a +photograph of Bellini's lovely Madonna. This little girl has always +liked that picture, and she has often spoken to me about it. But she had +never mentioned the rosary, which not only is made of dark wood, but is +darker still with its centuries of age. One day after the rosary of pink +coral and bright silver had been given her she came to see me. Passing +through the room where the Madonna is, she stopped to look at it. At +once she exclaimed, "_You_ have a rosary!" + +"Yes," I said; "it came from the Holy Land." I took it down, and put it +into her hands. "It has been in Bethlehem," I went on, "and in +Jerusalem. It is very old; it belonged to a saint--like St. Francis, who +was such friends with the birds, you remember." + +"I suppose the saint used it to say his prayers with?" the little girl +observed. Then, the question evidently occurring to her for the first +time, she asked, eagerly, "What prayers did he say, do you think?" + +When I had in some part replied, I said, this question indeed occurring +to me for the first time, "What prayers do you say?" + +"Oh," she replied, instantly, "I say, 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' +and 'God bless' all the different ones at home, and in other places, +that I know. I say all that; and it takes all the beads. So I say, 'The +Lord is my Shepherd' last, for the cross." She was silent for a moment, +but I said nothing, and she went on. "I know 'In my Father's house are +many mansions,' and 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels.' +I might say them sometimes instead, mightn't I?" + +I told this to one of my friends who is a devout Roman Catholic. "It +shows," she said, "what the rosary can do for religion!" + +But it seemed to me that it showed rather what religion could do for the +rosary. Had the child's mother, Scotch by birth, New England by +breeding, not been a truly religious woman she would not have bade her +little girl handle with reverence the emblem of a faith so unlike her +own; she would not have said, "Don't play with it." As for the small +girl, had she never learned to "say prayers," she would not have desired +the rosary to say them "with." And it was not the silver cross hanging +on her rosary that influenced her to "say last," for it, the best psalm +and "spiritual song" she knew; it was the understanding she had been +given by careful teaching of the meaning of that symbol. Above all, had +the little girl, after being taught to pray, not been left free to pray +as her childish heart inclined, that rosary would scarcely have found a +place on the head-post of her small bed. + +It may be for the very reason that the children are not compelled to +think and to feel in the things of religion as their parents do that +fathers and mothers in America so frankly tell their boys and girls +exactly what they do think and just how they do feel. The children may +not ever understand the religious experiences through which their +parents are passing, but they often know what those experiences are. +Moreover, they sometimes partake of them. + +Among my child friends there is a little girl, an only child, whose +father died not a great while ago. The little girl had always had a +share in the joys of her parents. It surprised no one who knew the +family that the mother in her grief turned to the child for comfort; and +that together they bore their great bereavement. Indeed, so completely +did this occur that the little girl for a time hardly saw any one +excepting her mother and her governess. After a suitable interval, an +old friend of the family approached the mother on the subject. "Your +little girl is only eight years old," she said, gently. "Oughtn't she +perhaps to go to see her playmates, and have them come to see her, +again, now?" + +The mother saw the wisdom of the suggestion. The child continued to +spend much of her time with her mother, but she gradually resumed her +former childish occupations. She had always been a gregarious little +girl; once more her nursery was a merry, even an hilarious, place. + +One Saturday a short time ago she was among the six small guests invited +to the birthday luncheon of another little girl friend of mine. Along +with several other grown-ups I had been invited to come and lend a hand +at this festivity. I arrived just as the children were going into the +dining-room, where the table set forth for their especial use, and +bright with the light of the seven candles on the cake, safely placed in +the centre, awaited them. They climbed into their chairs, and then all +seven of them paused. "Mother," said the little girl of the house, "who +shall say grace?" + +"_I_ can!" + +"Let _me_!" + +"I _always_ do at home!" + +These and other exclamations were made before the mother could reply. +When she was able to get a hearing, she suggested, "I think each one of +you might, since you all can and would like to." + +"You say it first," said one of the children to her little hostess, +"because it is your birthday." + +At a nod from her mother, the little girl said the Selkirk grace:-- + +"Some hae meat and canna eat, + And some wad eat that want it; +But we hae meat and we can eat, + And sae the Lord be thankit." + +Then another small girl said her grace, which was Herrick's:-- + +"Here a little child I stand, +Heaving up my either hand; +Cold as paddocks though they be, +Here I lift them up to Thee, +For a benison to fall +On our meat and on us all +Amen." + +The next little girl said Stevenson's:-- + +"It is very nice to think +The world is full of meat and drink, +And little children saying grace +In every Christian kind of place." + +The succeeding little guests said the dear and familiar "blessing" of so +many children:-- + +"For what we are about to receive, O Lord, make us truly thankful." + +My little friend into whose life so grievous a sorrow had come was the +last to say her grace. It was the poem of Miss Josephine Preston Peabody +entitled "Before Meat:-- + +"Hunger of the world. +When we ask a grace +Be remembered here with us, +By the vacant place. + +"Thirst with nought to drink, +Sorrow more than mine, +May God some day make you laugh, +With water turned to wine!" + +There was a silence when she finished, among the children as well as +among the grown persons present. "I don't _quite_ understand what your +grace means," the little girl of the house said at last to her small +guest. + +"It means that I still have my mamma, and she still has me," replied the +child. "Some people haven't anybody. It means that; and it means we ask +God to let them have Him. My mamma told me, when she taught it to me to +say instead of the grace I used to say when we had my papa." + +The little girl explained with the simple seriousness and sweetness so +characteristic of the answers children make to questions asked them +regarding things in any degree mystical. The other small girls listened +as sweetly and as seriously. Then, with one accord, they returned to the +gay delights of the occasion. They were a laughing, prattling, eagerly +happy little party, and of them all not one was more blithe than the +little girl who had said grace last. + +The child's intimate companionship with her mother in the sorrow which +was her sorrow too had not taken from her the ability for participation +in childish happiness, also hers by right. Was not this because the +companionship was of so deep a nature? The mother, in letting her little +girl share her grief, let her share too the knowledge of the source to +which she looked for consolation. Above all, she not only told her of +heavier sorrows; she told her how those greater griefs might be +lightened. Children in America enter into so many of the things of their +parents' lives, is it not good that they are given their parts even in +those spiritual things that are most near and sacred? + +I have among my friends a little boy whose father finds God most surely +in the operation of natural law. Indeed, he has often both shocked and +distressed certain of his neighbors by declaring it to be his belief +that nowhere else could God be found. "His poor wife!" they were wont to +exclaim; "what must she think of such opinions?" And later, when the +little boy was born, "That unfortunate baby!" they sighed; "how will his +mother teach him religion when his father has these strange ideas?" That +the wife seemed untroubled by the views of her husband, and that the +baby, as he grew into little-boyhood, appeared very similar to other +children as far as prayers and Bible stories and even attendance at +church were concerned, did not reassure the disturbed neighbors. For the +child's father continued to express--if possible, more decidedly--his +disquieting convictions. "Evidently, though," said one neighbor, "he +doesn't put such thoughts into the head of his child." + +Apparently he did not. I knew the small boy rather intimately, and I was +aware that his father, after the custom of most American parents, took +the child into his confidence with regard to many other matters. The +little boy was well acquainted with his father's political belief, for +example. I had had early evidence of this. But it was not until a much +later time, and then indirectly, that I saw that the little boy was +possessed too of a knowledge of his father's religious faith. + +[Illustration: "DO YOU LIKE MY NEW HYMN?"] + +I was ill in a hospital a year or two ago, and the little boy came with +his mother to see me. A clergyman happened to call at the same time. It +was Sunday, and the clergyman suggested to my small friend that he say a +psalm or a hymn for me. + +"My new one, that daddy has just taught me?" the child inquired, turning +to his mother. + +She smiled at him. "Yes, dearest," she said gently. + +The little boy came and stood beside my bed, and, in a voice that +betokened a love and understanding of every line, repeated Mrs. +Browning's lovely poem:-- + +"They say that God lives very high! + But if you look above the pines, +You cannot see our God. And why? + +"And if you dig down in the mines, + You never see Him in the gold, +Though from Him all that's glory shines. + +"God is so good, He wears a fold + Of heaven and earth across His face-- +Like secrets kept, for love, untold. + +"But still I feel that His embrace + Slides down, by thrills, through all things made, +Through sight and sound of every place: + +"As if my tender mother laid + On my shut lids, her kisses' pressure, +Half-waking me at night; and said, + 'Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?'" + +Beyond question the clergyman had expected a less unusual selection than +this; but he smiled very kindly at the little boy as he said the +beautiful words. At the conclusion he merely said, "You have a good +father, my boy." + +"Do you like my new hymn?" the child asked me. + +"Yes," I replied. "Did your father tell you what it means?" I added, +suddenly curious. + +"No," said my small friend; "I didn't ask him. You see," he +supplemented, "it tells _itself_ what it means!" + +The things of religion so often to the children tell themselves what +they mean! Only the other day I heard a little girl recounting to her +young uncle, learned in the higher criticism, the story of the Creation. + +"Just only _six days_ it took God to make _everything_" she said; "think +of that!" + +"My dear child," remonstrated her uncle, "_that_ isn't the point at all +--the _amount_ of time it required! As a matter of fact, it took +thousands of years to make the world. The word 'day' in that connection +means a certain period of time, not twenty-four hours." + +"Oh!" cried the little girl, in disappointment; "that takes the +wonderfulness out of it!" + +"Not at all," protested her young uncle. "And, supposing it did, can you +not see that the world could not have been made in six of _our_ days?" + +"Why," said the child, in surprise, "I should think it could have been!" + +"For what reason?" her uncle asked, in equal amazement. + +"Because God was doing it!" the child exclaimed. + +Her uncle did not at once reply. When he did, it was to say, "You are +right about _that_, my dear." + +Sometimes it happens that a child finds in our careful explanation of +the meaning of a religious belief or practice a different or a further +significance than we have indicated. I once had an especially striking +experience of this kind. + +I was visiting a family in which there were several children, cared for +by a nurse of the old-fashioned, old-world type. She was a woman well +beyond middle age, and of a frank and simple piety. There was hardly a +circumstance of daily life for which she was not ready with an +accustomed ejaculatory prayer or thanksgiving. One day I chanced to +speak to her of a mutual friend, long dead. "God rest her soul!" said +the old nurse, in a low tone. + +"Why did she say that?" the little four-year-old girl of the house asked +me. "I never heard her say that before!" + +"It is a prayer that some persons always say when speaking of any one +who is dead; especially any one they knew and loved," I explained. + +Later in the day, turning over a portfolio of photographs with the +little girl, I took up a picture of a fine, faithful-eyed dog. "Whose +dog is this?" I asked. "What a good one he is!" + +"He was ours," replied the child, "and he was very good; we liked him. +But he is dead now--" She paused as if struck by a sudden remembrance. +Then, "God rest his soul!" she sighed, softly. + +Most of the answers I read in response to the question, "Should +churchgoing on the part of children be compulsory or voluntary?" did not +end with the brief statement that it should be voluntary, and the reason +why; a considerable number of them went on to say: "The children should +of course be inspired and encouraged to go. They should be taught that +it is a privilege. Their Sunday-school teachers and their minister, as +well as their parents, can help to make them wish to go." + +Certainly their Sunday-school teachers and ministers can, and do. The +answers I have quoted took for granted the attendance of children at +Sunday-school. Not one of them suggested that this was a matter +admitting of free choice on the part of the children. "But it isn't," +declared an experienced Sunday-school teacher who is a friend of mine +when I said this to her. "Going to Sunday-school isn't worship; it is +learning whom to worship and how. Naturally, children go, just as they +go to week-day school, whether they like to or not; I must grant," she +added by way of amendment, "that they usually do like to go!" + +Our Sunday-schools have become more and more like our week-day schools. +The boys and girls are taught in them whom to worship and how, but they +are taught very much after the manner that, in the week-day schools, +they are instructed concerning secular things. That custom, belonging to +a time not so far in the past but that many of us remember it, of +consigning the "infant class" of the Sunday-school to any amiable young +girl in the parish who could promise to be reasonably regular in meeting +it does not obtain at the present day. Sunday-school teachers are +trained, and trained with increasing care and thoroughness, for their +task. + +[Illustration: CHILDREN GO TO CHURCH] + +Readiness to teach is no longer a sufficient credential. The amiable +young girl must now not only be willing to teach, she must also be +willing to learn how to teach. In the earlier time practically any well- +disposed young man of the congregation who would consent to take charge +of a class of boys was eagerly allotted that class without further +parley. This, too, is not now the case. The young man, before beginning +to teach the boys, is obliged to prepare himself somewhat specifically +for such work. In my own parish the boys' classes of the Sunday-school +are taught by young men who are students in the Theological School of +which my parish church is the chapel. In an adjacent parish the "infant +class" is in charge of an accomplished kindergartner. Surely such +persons are well qualified to help to inspire and to encourage the +children to regard churchgoing as a privilege, and to make them wish to +go! + +And the minister! I am inclined to think that the minister helps more +than any one else, except the father and mother, to give the children +this inspiration, this encouragement. Children go to church now, when +churchgoing is voluntary, quite as much as they went when it was +compulsory. They learn very early to wish to go; they see with small +difficulty that it is a privilege. Their Sunday-school teachers might +help them, even their parents might help them, but, unless the minister +helped them, would this be so? + +There are so many ways in which the minister does his part in this +matter of the child's relation to the church, and to those things for +which the church stands. They are happily familiar to us through our +child friends: the "children's service" at Christmas and at Easter; the +"talks to children" on certain Sundays of the year. These are some of +them. And there are other, more individual, more intimate ways. + +The other day a little girl who is a friend of mine asked me to make out +a list of books likely to be found in the "children's room" of the near- +by public library that I thought she would enjoy reading. On the list I +put "The Little Lame Prince," the charming story by Dinah Mulock. Having +completed the list, I read it aloud to the little girl. When I reached +Miss Mulock's book, she interrupted me. + +"'The Little Lame Prince,' did you say? Is that in the library? I +thought it was in the Bible." + +"The Bible!" I exclaimed. + +"Yes," the child said, in some surprise; "don't you remember? He was +Jonathan's little boy--Jonathan, that was David's friend--David, that +killed the giant, you know." + +I at once investigated. The little girl was quite correct. "Who told you +about him?" I inquired. + +"Our minister," she replied. "He read it to me and some of the other +children." + +This, too, a bit later, I investigated. I found that the minister had +not read the story as it is written in the Bible, but a version of it +written by himself especially for this purpose and entitled "The Little +Lame Prince." + +At church, as elsewhere, the children of our nation are quick to +observe, and to make their own, opportunities for doing as the grown-ups +do. When occasion arises, they slip with cheerful and confiding ease +into the places of their elders. + +One Sunday, last summer, I chanced to attend a church in a little +seaside village. When the moment arrived for taking up the collection, +no one went forward to attend to that duty. I was told afterward that +the man who always did it was most unprecedentedly absent. There were a +number of other men in the rather large congregation, but none of them +stirred as the clergyman stood waiting after having read several +offertory sentences. I understood afterward that they "felt bashful," +not being used to taking up the collection. The clergyman hesitated for +a moment, and then read another offertory sentence. As he finished, a +little boy not more than nine years old stepped out of a back pew, where +he was sitting with his mother, and, going up to the clergyman, held out +his hand for the plate. The clergyman gravely gave it to him, and the +child, without the slightest sign of shyness, went about the church +collecting the offerings of the congregation. This being done, he, with +equal un-self-consciousness, gave the plate again to the clergyman and +returned to his seat beside his mother. + +"Did you tell him to do it?" I inquired of the mother, later. + +"Oh, no," she answered; "he asked me if he might. He said he knew how, +he saw it done every Sunday, and he was sure the minister would let +him." + +American children of the present day are surer than the children of any +other nation have ever been that their fathers and their mothers and +their ministers will allow them liberty to do in church, as well as with +respect to going to church, such things as they know how to do, and +eagerly wish to do. In our national love and reverence for childhood we +willingly give the children the great gift that we give reluctantly, or +not at all, to grown people--the liberty to worship God as they choose. + + + +CONCLUSION + + +We are a child-loving nation; and our love for the children is, for the +most part, of the kind which Dr. Henry van Dyke describes as "true love, +the love that desires to bestow and to bless." The best things that we +can obtain, we bestow upon the children; with the goodliest blessings +within our power, we bless them. This we do for them. And they,--is +there not something that they do for us? It seems to me that there is; +and that it is something incalculably greater than anything we do, or +could possibly do, for them. More than any other force in our national +life, the children help us to work together toward a common end. A child +can unite us into a mutually trustful, mutually cordial, mutually active +group when no one else conceivably could. + +A few years ago, I was witness to a most striking example of this. I +went to a "ladies' day" meeting of a large and important men's club that +has for its object the study and the improvement of municipal +conditions. The city of the club has a nourishing liquor trade. The club +not infrequently gives over its meetings to discussions of the "liquor +problem";--discussions which, I have been told, had, as a rule, resolved +themselves into mere argumentations as to license and no-license, +resulting in nothing. By some accident this "ladies' day" meeting had +for its chief speaker a man who is an ardent believer in and supporter +of no-license. For an hour he spoke on this subject, and spoke +exceedingly well. When he had finished, there ensued that random play of +question and answer that usually follows the presiding officer's, "We +are now open to discussion." The chief speaker had devoted the best +efforts of his mature life to bringing about no-license in his home +city; the subject was to him something more than a topic for a +discussion that should lead to no practical work in the direction of +solving the "liquor problem" in other cities. He tried to make that club +meeting something more vital than an exchange of views on license and +no-license. With the utmost earnestness, he attempted to arouse a living +interest in the "problem," and, of course, to make converts to his own +belief as to the most effective solution of it. + +Finally, some one said, "Isn't _any_ liquor sold in your city? Your law +keeps it from being sold publicly, but privately,--how about that?" + +"I cannot say," the chief speaker replied. "The law may occasionally be +broken,--I suppose it is. But," he added, "I can tell you this,--we have +no drunkards on our streets. I have a boy,--he is ten years old, and he +has never seen a drunken man in his life. How about the boys of the +people of this city, of this audience?" + +The persons in that audience looked at the chief speaker; they looked at +each other. There followed such a serious, earnest, frank discussion of +the "liquor problem" as had never before been held either in that club, +or, indeed, in any assembly in that city. Since that day, that club has +not only held debates on the "liquor problem" of its city; it has tried +to bring about no-license. The chief speaker of that meeting was far +from being the first person who had addressed the organization on that +subject; neither was he the first to mention its relation to childhood +and youth; but he was the very first to bring his own child, and to +bring the children of each and every member of the association who had a +child into his argument. With the help of the children, he prevailed. + +One of my friends who is a member of that club said to me recently, "It +was the sincerity of the speaker of that 'ladies' day' meeting that won +the audience. I really must protest against your thinking it was his +chance reference to his boy!" + +"But," I reminded him, "it was not until he made that 'chance reference' +to his boy that any one was in the least moved. How do you explain +that?" + +"Oh," said my friend, "we were not sure until then that he was in dead +earnest--" + +"And then you were?" I queried. + +"Why, yes," my friend replied. "A man doesn't make use of his child to +give weight to what he is advocating unless he really does believe it is +just as good as he is arguing that it is." + +"So," I persisted, "it _was_, after all, his 'chance reference' to his +boy--" + +"If you mean that nothing practical would have come of his speech, +otherwise,--yes, it was!" my friend allowed himself to admit. + +Another friend who happened to be present came into the conversation at +this point. "Suppose he had had no child!" she suggested. "Any number of +perfectly sincere persons, who really believe that what they are +advocating is just as good as they argue it is, have no children," she +went on whimsically; "what about them? Haven't they any chance of +winning their audiences when they speak on no-license,--or what not?" + +Those of us who are in the habit of attending "welfare" meetings of one +kind or another, from the occasional "hearings" before various +committees of the legislature, to the periodic gatherings of the +National Education Association, and the National Conference of Charities +and Correction, know well that, when advocating solutions of social +problems as grave as and even graver than the "liquor problem," the most +potent plea employed by those speakers who are not fathers or mothers +begins with the words, "You, who have children." My friend who had said +that a man did not make use of his child to give weight to his arguments +unless he had a genuine belief in that for which he was pleading might +have gone further; he might have added that neither do men and women +make such a use of other people's children excepting they be as +completely sincere,--provided that those men and women love children. +And we are a nation of child-lovers. + +It is because we love the children that they do for us so great a good +thing. It is for the reason that we know them and that they know us that +we love them. We know them so intimately; and they know us so +intimately; and we and they are such familiar friends! The grown people +of other nations have sometimes, to quote the old phrase, "entered into +the lives" of the children of the land; we in America have gone +further;--we have permitted the children of our nation to enter into our +lives. Indeed, we have invited them; and, once in, we have not deterred +them from straying about as they would. The presence of the children in +our lives,--so closely near, so intimately dear!--unites us in grave and +serious concerns,--unites us to great and significant endeavors; and +unites us even in smaller and lighter matters,--to a pleasant +neighborliness one with another. However we may differ in other +particulars, we are all alike in that we are tacitly pledged to the +"cause" of children; it is the desire of all of us that the world be +made a more fit place for them. And, as we labor toward the fulfillment +of this desire, they are our most effectual helpers. + +In our wider efforts after social betterment, they help us. Because of +them, we organize ourselves into national, and state, and municipal +associations for the furtherance of better living,--physical, mental, +and moral. Through them, we test each other's sincerity, and measure +each other's strength, as social servants. In our wider efforts this is +true. Is it not the case also when the field of our endeavors is +narrower? + +Several years ago, I chanced to spend a week-end in a suburban town, the +population of which is composed about equally of "old families," and of +foreigners employed in the factory situated on the edge of the town. I +was a guest in the home of a minister of the place. Both he and his wife +believed that the most important work a church could do in that +community was "settlement" work. "Home-making classes for the girls," +the minister's wife reiterated again and again; and, "Classes in +citizenship for the boys," her husband made frequent repetition, as we +discussed the matter on the Saturday evening of my visit. + +"Why don't you have them?" I inquired. + +"We have no place to have them in," the minister replied. "Our parish +has no parish-house, and cannot afford to build one." + +"Then, why not use the church?" I ventured. + +"If you knew the leading spirits in my congregation, you would not ask +that!" the minister exclaimed. + +"Have you suggested it to them?" I asked. + +"Suggested!" the minister and his wife cried in chorus. "_Suggested_!" + +"I have besought them, I have begged them, I have implored them!" the +minister continued. "It was no use. They are conservatives of the +strictest type; and they cannot bring themselves even to consider +seriously a plan that would necessitate using the church for the meeting +of a boys' political debating club, or a girls' class in marketing." + +"Churches are so used, in these days!" I remarked. + +"Yes," the minister agreed; "but not without the sympathy and +coöperation of the leading members of the congregation!" + +That suburban town is not one to which I am a frequent visitor. More +than a year passed before I found myself again in the pleasant home of +the minister. "I must go to my Three-Meals-a-Day Club," my hostess said +shortly after my arrival on Saturday afternoon. "Wouldn't you like to go +with me?" + +"What is it, and where does it meet?" I asked. + +"It is a girls' housekeeping class," answered the minister's wife; "and +it meets in the church." + +"The church?" I exclaimed. "So the 'leading spirits' have agreed to +having it used for 'settlement' work! How did you win them over?" + +"We didn't," she replied; "they won themselves over,--or rather the +little children of one of them did it." + +When I urged her to tell me how, she said, "We are invited to that +'leading spirit's' house to dinner to-morrow; and you can find out for +yourself, then." + +It proved to bean easy thing to discover. "I am glad to see that, since +you have no parish-house, you are using your church for parish-house +activities," I made an early occasion to say to our hostess, after +dinner, on the Sunday. "You were not using it in that way when I was +here last; it is something very new, isn't it?" + +"It is, my dear," said our hostess,--one of those of his flock whom the +minister had described as "conservatives of the strictest type"; "'very +new' are the exact words with which to speak of it!" + +"How did it happen?" I asked. + +She smiled. "Our minister and his wife declare that my small son and +daughter are mainly responsible for it!" she said. "They began to attend +the public school this autumn,--they had, up to that time, been taught +at home. You know what the population of this town is,--half foreign. +Even in the school in this district, there are a considerable number of +foreigners. I don't know why it is, when they have so many playmates in +their own set, that my children should have made friends, and such close +friends, with some of those foreign children! But they did. And not +content with bringing them here, they wanted to go to their homes! Of +course, I couldn't allow that. I explained to my boy and girl as well as +I was able; I told them those people did not know how to live properly; +that they might keep their children clean, because they wouldn't be +permitted to send them to school unless they did; but their houses were +dirty, and their food bad. And what do you think my children said to me? +They said, 'Mother, have they _got_ to have their houses dirty? Have +they _got_ to have bad food? Couldn't _they_ have things nice, as _we_ +have?' It quite startled me to hear my own children ask me such things; +it made me think. I told my husband about it; it made him think, too. +You know, we are always hearing that, if we _are_ going to try to +improve the living conditions of the poor, we must 'begin with the +children,'--begin by teaching them better ways of living. Our minister +and his wife have all along been eager to teach these foreign children. +We have no place to teach them in, except our church. It was rather a +wrench for my husband and me,--giving our approval to using a church for +a club-house. But we did it. And we secured the consent of the rest of +the congregation,--we told them what our children had said. We were not +the only ones who thought the children had, to use an old-fashioned +theological term, 'been directed' in what they had said!" she concluded. + +The children had said nothing that the minister had not said. Was it not +less what they had said than the fact of their saying it that changed +the whole course of feeling and action in that parish? + +On the days when it is our lot to share in doing large tasks, the +children help us. What of the days which bring with them only a "petty +round of irritating concerns and duties?" Do they not help us then, too? + +In a house on my square, there lives a little girl, three years old, +who, every morning at about eight o'clock, when the front doors of the +square open, and the workers come hurrying down their steps, appears at +her nursery window,--open except in very stormy weather. "Good-bye!" she +calls to each one, smiling, and waving her small hand, "good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" we all call back, "good-bye!" We smile, too, and wave a hand +to the little girl. Then, almost invariably, we glance at each other, +and smile again, together. Thus our day begins. + +We are familiar with the thought of our devotion to children. As +individuals, and as a nation, our services to the children of our land +are conspicuously great. "You do so much for children, in America!" It +is no new thing to us to hear this exclamation. We have heard, we hear +it so often! All of us know that it is true. We are coming to see that +the converse is equally true; that the children do much for us, do more +than we do for them; do the best thing in the world,--make us who are so +many, one; keep us, who are so diverse, united; help us, whether our +tasks be great or small, to "go to our labor, smiling." + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10398 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d49956d --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10398 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10398) diff --git a/old/10398-8.txt b/old/10398-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef24605 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10398-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4499 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The American Child, by Elizabeth McCracken + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The American Child + +Author: Elizabeth McCracken + +Release Date: December 7, 2003 [eBook #10398] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN CHILD*** + + +E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +The American Child + +by Elizabeth Mccracken + +With Illustrations from photographs by Alice Austin + +1913 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: COMPANIONS AND FRIENDS] + + +to My Father And Mother + + + + +PREFACE + + +The purpose of this preface is that of every preface--to say "thank +you" to the persons who have helped in the making of the book. + +I would render thanks first of all to the Editors of the "Outlook" for +permission to reprint the chapters of the book which appeared as +articles in the monthly magazine numbers of their publication. + +I return thanks also to Miss Rosamond F. Rothery, Miss Sara Cone Bryant, +Miss Agnes F. Perkins, and Mr. Ferris Greenslet. Without the help and +encouragement of all of these, the book never would have been written. + +Finally, I wish to say an additional word of thanks to my physician, Dr. +John E. Stillwell. Had it not been for his consummate skill and untiring +care after an accident, which, four years ago, made me a year-long +hospital patient, I should never have lived to write anything. + +E. McC. + +CAMBRIDGE, January, 1913 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + + I. THE CHILD AT HOME + II. THE CHILD AT PLAY +III. THE COUNTRY CHILD + IV. THE CHILD IN SCHOOL + V. THE CHILD IN THE LIBRARY + VI. THE CHILD IN CHURCH + CONCLUSION + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +COMPANIONS AND FRIENDS +THREE SMALL GIRLS +THE BOY OF THE HOUSE +"DID YOU PLAY IT THIS WAY?" +THE DEAR DELIGHTS OF PLAYING ALONE +"THE CHILDREN--THEY ARE SUCH DEARS" +A SMALL COUNTRY BOY +ARRAYED IN SPOTLESS WHITE +THEY PAINT PICTURES AS A REGULAR PART OF THEIR SCHOOL ROUTINE +THEY DO SO MANY THINGS! +THEY HAVE SO MANY THINGS! +THE STORY HOUR IN THE CHILDREN'S ROOM +THE CHILDREN'S EDITION +IN THE INFANT CLASS +"DO YOU LIKE MY NEW HYMN?" +CHILDREN GO TO CHURCH + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +One day several years ago, when Mr. Lowes Dickinson's statement that he +had found no conversation and--worse still--no conversationalists in +America was fresh in our outraged minds, I happened to meet an English +woman who had spent approximately the same amount of time in our country +as had Mr. Lowes Dickinson. "What has been your experience?" I anxiously +asked her. "Is it true that we only 'talk'? Can it really be that we +never 'converse'?" + +"Dear me, no!" she exclaimed with gratifying fervor. "You are the most +delightful conversationalists in the world, on your own subject--" + +"Our own subject?" I echoed. + +"Certainly," she returned; "your own subject, the national subject,--the +child, the American child. It is possible to 'converse' with any +American on that subject; every one of you has something to say on it; +and every one of you will listen eagerly to what any other person says +on it. You modify the opinions of your hearers by what you say; and you +actually allow your own opinions to be modified by what you hear said. +If that is conversation, without a doubt you have it in America, and +have it in as perfect a state as conversation ever was had anywhere. But +you have it only on that subject. I wonder why," she went on, half- +musingly, before I could make an attempt to persuade her to qualify her +rather sweeping assertion. "It may be because you do so much for +children, in America. They are always on your mind; they are hardly ever +out of your sight. You are forever either doing something for them, or +planning to do something for them. No wonder the child is your one +subject of conversation. You do so _very_ much for children in America," +she repeated. + +Few of us will agree with the English woman that the child, the American +child, is the only subject upon which we converse. Certainly, though, it +is a favorite subject; it may even not inaptly be called our national +subject. Whatever our various views concerning this may chance to be, +however, it is likely that we are all in entire agreement with regard to +the other matter touched upon by the English woman,--the pervasiveness +of American children. Is it not true that we keep them continually in +mind; that we seldom let them go quite out of sight; that we are always +doing, or planning to do, something for them? What is it that we would +do? And why is it that we try so unceasingly to do it? + +It seems to me that we desire with a great desire to make the boys and +girls do; that all of the "_very_ much" that we do for them is done in +order to teach them just that--to do. It is a large and many-sided and +varicolored desire, and to follow its leadings is an arduous labor; but +is there one of us who knows a child well who has not this desire, and +who does not cheerfully perform that labor? Having decided in so far as +we are able what were good to do, we try, not only to do it ourselves, +in our grown-up way, but so to train the children that they, too, may do +it, in their childish way. The various means that we find most helpful +to the end of our own doing we secure for the children,--adapting them, +simplifying them, and even re-shaping them, that the boys and girls may +use them to the full. + +There is, of course, a certain impersonal quality in a great deal of +what we, in America, do for children. It is not based so much on +friendship for an individual child as on a sense of responsibility for +the well-being of all childhood, especially all childhood in our own +country. But most of what we do, after all, we do for the boys and girls +whom we know and love; and we do it because they are our friends, and we +wish them to share in the good things of our lives,--our work and our +play. To what amazing lengths we sometimes go in this "doing for" the +children of our circles! + +One Saturday afternoon, only a few weeks ago, I saw at the annual +exhibit of the State Board of Health, a man, one of my neighbors, with +his little eight-year old boy. The exhibit consisted of the customary +display of charts and photographs, showing the nature of the year's work +in relation to the milk supply, the water supply, the housing of the +poor, and the prevention of contagious diseases. My neighbor is not a +specialist in any one of these matters; his knowledge is merely that of +an average good citizen. He went from one subject to the other, studying +them. His boy followed close beside him, looking where his father +looked,--if with a lesser interest at the charts, with as great an +intentness at the photographs. As they made their way about the room +given over to the exhibit, they talked, the boy asking questions, the +father endeavoring to answer them. + +The small boy caught sight of me as I stood before one of the charts +relating to the prevention of contagious diseases, and ran across the +room to me. "What are _you_ looking at?" he said. "That! It shows how +many people were vaccinated, doesn't it? Come over here and see the +pictures of the calves the doctors get the stuff to vaccinate with +from!" + +"Isn't this an odd place for a little boy on a Saturday afternoon?" I +remarked to my neighbor, a little later, when the boy had roamed to the +other side of the room, out of hearing. + +"Not at all!" asserted the child's father. "He was inquiring the other +day why he had been vaccinated, why all the children at school had been +vaccinated. Just before that, he had asked where the water in the tap +came from. This is just the place for him right now! It isn't odd at all +for him to be here on a Saturday afternoon. It is much odder for _me_" +he continued with a smile. "I'd naturally be playing golf! But when +children begin to ask questions, one has to do something about answering +them; and coming here seemed to be the best way of answering these +newest questions of my boy's. I want him to learn about the connection +of the state with these things; so he will be ready to do his part in +them, when he gets to the 'voting age.'" + +"But can he understand, yet?" I ventured. + +"More than if he hadn't seen all this, and heard about what it means," +my neighbor replied. + +It is not unnatural, when a child asks questions so great and so far- +reaching as those my neighbor's small boy had put to him, that we should +"do something about answering them,"--something as vivid as may be +within our power. But, even when the queries are of a minor character, +we still bestir ourselves until they are adequately answered. + +"Mamma," I heard a little girl inquire recently, as she fingered a scrap +of pink gingham of which her mother was making "rompers" for the baby of +the family, "why are the threads of this cloth pink when you unravel it +one way, and white when you unravel it the other?" + +The mother was busy; but she laid aside her sewing and explained to the +child about the warp and the woof in weaving. + +"I don't _quite_ see why _that_ makes the threads pink one way and white +the other," the little girl said, perplexedly, when the explanation was +finished. + +"When you go to kindergarten, you will," I suggested. + +"But I want to know now," the child demurred. + +The next day I got for the little girl at a "kindergarten supply" +establishment a box of the paper woofs and warps, so well-known to +kindergarten pupils. Not more than three or four days elapsed before I +took them to the child; but I found that her busy mother had already +provided her with some; pink and white, moreover, among other colors; +and had taught the little girl how to weave with them. + +"She understands, _now_, why the threads of pink gingham are pink one +way and white the other!" the mother observed. + +"Why did you go to such trouble to teach her?" I asked with some +curiosity. + +"Well," the mother returned, "she will have to buy gingham some time. +She will be a grown-up 'woman who spends' some day; and she will do the +spending the better for knowing just what she is buying,--what it is +made of, and how it is made!" + +It is no new thing for fathers and mothers to think more of the future +than of the present in their dealings with their boys and girls. Parents +of all times and in all countries have done this. It seems to me, +however, that American fathers and mothers of to-day, unlike those of +any other era or nation, think, in training their children, of what one +might designate as a most minutely detailed future. The mother of whom I +have been telling wished to teach her little girl not only how to buy, +but how to buy gingham; and the father desired his small boy to learn +not alone that his state had a board of health, but that he might hope +to become a member of a particular department of it. + +We occasionally hear elderly persons exclaim that children of the +present day are taught a great many things that did not enter into the +education of their grandparents, or even of their parents. But, on +investigation, we scarcely find that this is the case. What we discover +is that the children of to-day are taught, not new lessons, but the old +lessons by a new method. Sewing, for example: little girls no longer +make samplers, working on them the letters of the alphabet in "cross- +stitch"; they learn to do cross-stitch letters, only they learn not by +working the entire alphabet on a square of linen merely available to +"learn on," but by working the initials of a mother or an aunt on a +"guest towel," which later serves as a Christmas or a birthday gift of +the most satisfactory kind! Perhaps one of the best things we do for the +little girls of our families is to teach them to take their first +stitches to some definite end. Certainly we do it with as conscientious +a care as ever watched over the stitches of the little girls of old as +they made the faded samplers we cherish so affectionately. + +The brothers of these little girls learned carpentry, when they were old +enough to handle tools with safety. The boys of to-day also learn it; +some of them begin long before they can handle any tools with safety, +and when they can handle no tool at all except a hammer. As soon as they +wish to drive nails, they are allowed to drive them, and taught to drive +them to some purpose. I happened not a great while ago to pass the day +at the summer camp of a friend of mine who is the mother of a small boy, +aged five. My friend's husband was constructing a rustic bench. + +The little boy watched for a time; then, "Daddy, _I_ want to put in +nails," he said. + +"All right," replied his father; "you may. Just wait a minute and I'll +let you have the hammer and the nails. Your mother wants some nails in +the kitchen to hang the tin things on. If she will show you where she +wants them, I'll show you how to put them in." + +This was done, with much gayety on the part of us all. When the small +boy, tutored by his father, had driven in all the required nails, he +lifted a triumphant face to his mother. "There they are!" he exclaimed. +"Now let's hang the tin things on them, and see how they look!" + +The boy's father did not finish the rustic bench that day. When a +neighboring camper, who stopped in to call toward the end of the +afternoon, expressed surprise at his apparent dilatoriness, and asked +for an explanation, the father simply said, "I did mean to finish it to- +day, but I had to do something for my boy instead." + +One of the things we grown-ups do for children that has been rather +severely criticized is the lavishing upon them of toys,--intricate and +costly toys. "What, as a child, I used to _pretend_ the toys I had, +were, the toys my children have now, _are_!" an acquaintance of mine was +saying to me recently. "For instance," she went on, "I had a box with a +hole in one end of it; I used to pretend that it was a camera, and +pretend to take pictures with it! I cannot imagine my children doing +that! They have real cameras and take real pictures." + +The camera would seem to be typical of the toys we give to the children +of to-day; they can do something with it,--something real. + +The dearest treasure of my childhood was a tiny gold locket, shaped, and +even engraved, like a watch. Not long ago I was showing it to a little +girl who lives in New York. "I used to pretend it _was_ a watch," I +said; "I used to pretend telling the time by it." + +She gazed at it with interested eyes. "It is very nice," she observed +politely; "but wouldn't you have liked to have a _real_ watch? _I_ have +one; and I _really_ tell the time by it." + +"But you cannot pretend with it!" I found myself saying. + +"Oh, yes, I can," the little girl exclaimed in surprise; "and I do! I +hang it on the cupola of my dolls' house and pretend that it is the +clock in the Metropolitan Tower!" + +The alarmists warn us that what we do for the children in the direction +of costly and complicated toys may, even while helping them do something +for themselves, mar their priceless simplicity. Need we fear this? Is it +not likely that the "real" watches which we give them that they may +"really" tell time, will be used, also, for more than one of the other +simple purposes of childhood? + +The English woman said that we Americans did so much, so _very_ much, +for the children of our nation. There have been other foreigners who +asserted that we did _too_ much. Indubitably, we do a great deal. But, +since we do it all that the children may learn to do, and, through +doing, to be, can we ever possibly do too much? "It is possible to +converse with any American on the American child," the English woman +said. Certainly every American has something to say on that subject, +because every American is trying to do something for some American +child, or group of children, to do much, _very_ much. + + + + +I + + + +THE CHILD AT HOME + + +In one of the letters of Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, to her mother, +Queen Victoria, she writes: "I try to give my children in their home +what I had in my childhood's home. As well as I am able, I copy what you +did." + +There is something essentially British in this point of view. The +English mother, whatever her rank, tries to give her children in their +home what she had in her childhood's home; as well as she is able, she +copies what her mother did. The conditions of her life may be entirely +different from those of her mother, her children may be unlike herself +in disposition; yet she still holds to tradition in regard to their +upbringing; she tries to make their home a reproduction of her mother's +home. + +The American mother, whatever her station, does the exact opposite--she +attempts to bestow upon her children what she did not possess; and she +makes an effort to imitate as little as possible what her mother did. +She desires her children to have that which she did not have, and for +which she longed; or that which she now thinks so much better a +possession than anything she did have. Her ambition is to train her +children, not after her mother's way, but in accordance with "the most +approved modern method." This method is apt, on analysis, to turn out to +be merely the reverse side of her mother's procedure. + +I have an acquaintance, the mother of a plump, jolly little tomboy of a +girl; which child my acquaintance dresses in dainty embroideries and +laces, delicately colored ribbons, velvet cloaks, and feathered hats. +These garments are not "becoming" to the little girl, and they are a +distinct hindrance to her hoydenish activities. They are not what she +ought to have, and, moreover, they are not what she wants. + +"I wish I had a middy blouse, and some bloomers, and an aviation cap, +and a sweater, and a Peter Thompson coat!" I heard her say recently to +her mother: "the other children have them." + +"Children are never satisfied!" her mother exclaimed to me later, when +we were alone. "I spend so much time and money seeing that she has nice +clothes; and you hear what she thinks of them!" + +"But, for ordinary wear, for play, wouldn't the things she wants be more +comfortable?" I ventured. "You dress her so beautifully!" I added. + +"Well," said my acquaintance in a gratified tone, "I am glad you think +so. _I_ had _no_ very pretty clothes when I was a child; and I always +longed for them. My mother didn't believe in finery for children; and +she dressed us very plainly indeed. I want my little girl to look as I +used to wish _I_ might look!" + +"But she doesn't care how she looks--" I began. + +"I know," the child's mother sighed. "I can _see_ how _her_ little girls +will be dressed!" + +Can we not all see just that? And doubtless the little girls of this +beruffled, befurbelowed tomboy--dressed in middy blouses, and bloomers, +and aviation caps, and sweaters, and Peter Thompson coats, or their +future equivalents--will wish they had garments of a totally different +kind; and _she_ will be exclaiming, "Children are never satisfied!" + +If this principle on the part of mothers in America in providing for +their children were confined to such superficialities as their clothing, +no appreciable harm--or good--would come of it. But such is not the +case; it extends to the uttermost parts of the child's home life. + +Only the other day I happened to call upon a friend of mine during the +hour set aside for her little girl's piano lesson. The child was +tearfully and rebelliously playing a "piece." Her teacher, a musician of +unusual ability, guided her stumbling fingers with conscientious +patience and care. A child of the least musical talent would surely have +responded in some measure to such excellent instruction. My friend's +little girl did not. When the lesson was finished, she slipped from the +piano stool with a sigh of intense relief. + +She started to run out of doors; but her mother detained her. "You may +go to your room for an hour," she said, gently but gravely, "and stay +there all alone. That will help you to remember to try harder tomorrow +to have a good music lesson." And the child, more tearful, more +rebellious than before, crept away to her room. + +"When I was her age I didn't like the work involved in taking music +lessons any better than she does," my friend said. "So my mother didn't +insist upon my taking them. I have regretted it all my life. I love +music; I always loved it--I loved it even when I hated practising and +music lessons. I wish my mother had made me keep at it, no matter how +much I objected! Well, I shall do it with _my_ daughter; she'll thank me +for it some day." + +I am not so sure that her daughter will. Her music-teacher agrees with +me. "The child has no talent whatever," she told me. "It is a waste of +time for her to take piano lessons. Her mother now--_she_ has a real +gift for it! I often wish _she_ would take the lessons!" + +American mothers are no more prone to give their children what they +themselves did not have than are American fathers. The man who is most +eager that his son should have a college education is not the man who +has two or three academic degrees, but the man who never went to college +at all. The father whose boys are allowed to be irregular in their +church attendance is the father who, as a boy, was compelled to go to +church, rain or shine, twice on every Sunday. + +In the more intimate life of the family the same principle rules. The +parents try to give to the children ideals that were not given to them; +they attempt to inculcate in the children habits that were not +inculcated in themselves. + +I know a family in which are three small girls, between whom there is +very little difference in age. These children all enjoy coming to take +tea with me. For convenience, I should naturally invite them all on the +same afternoon. + +Both their father and mother, however, have requested me not to do this. +"Do ask them one at a time on different days," they said. + +"Of course I will," I assented. "But--why?" I could not forbear +questioning. + +"When I was a child," the mother of the three little girls explained, "I +was never allowed to accept an invitation unless my younger sister was +invited, too. I was fond of my sister; but I used to long to go +somewhere sometime by myself! My husband had the same experience--his +brother always had to be invited when he was, or he couldn't go. Our +children shall not be so circumscribed!" + +There is not much danger for them, certainly, in that direction. Yet I +rather think they would enjoy doing more things together. One day, not a +great while ago, I chanced to meet all three of them near a tearoom. I +asked them--perforce all of them--to go in with me and partake of ice +cream. As we sat around the table, the oldest of the three glanced at +the other two with a friendly smile. "It is nice--all of us having ice +cream with you at the same time," she remarked, and her younger sisters +enthusiastically agreed. + +To be sure, they are nearer the same age and they are more alike in +their tastes than their mother and her sister, or their father and his +brother. Perhaps their parents needed to take their pleasures singly; +they seem able quite happily to take theirs in company. + +I have another friend, who was brought up in a household in which, as +she says, "individuality" was the keynote. In her own home the keynote +is "the family." She encourages her children to "do things together." +Furthermore, she and her husband habitually participate in their +children's occupations to a greater degree than any other parents I have +ever seen. + +[Illustration: THREE SMALL GIRLS] + +Their friends usually entertain these children "as a family"; but not +long ago, happening to have only two tickets to a concert, I asked one, +and just one, of the little girls of this household to attend it with +me. She accepted eagerly. During an intermission she looked up at me and +said, confidingly, "It is nice sometimes to do things not 'as a family,' +but just as one's self!" + +Then, for the first time, it occurred to me that she was the "odd one" +of her family. All its pleasures, all its interests, were not equally +hers. She needed sometimes to do things as herself. + +In matters of discipline, too, we find the same theory at work. Parents +who were severely punished as children do not punish their children at +all; and the most austere of parents are those who, when children, were +"spoiled." Almost regardless of the natures of their children, parents +deal with them, so far as discipline is concerned, as they themselves +were not dealt with. + +This implies no lack of love, no lack of respect, for the older +generation. On the contrary, it is the sign and symbol of a love, a +respect, so great as to permit of divergences of opinion and procedure, +in spite of differences of age. + +"I am not going to bring up the baby in the way I was brought up, mamma, +darling," I once heard a mother of a month-old baby (her first child) +say to the baby's grandmother. + +"Aren't you, dear?" replied the older lady, with a smile. "Why not?" + +"Oh," returned the daughter, "I want her to be better than I am. I think +if you'd brought me up conversely from the way you did, I'd have been a +much more worth-while person." + +She spoke very solemnly, but her mother only laughed, and then fondly +kissed her daughter and her granddaughter. "That is what I said to _my_ +mother when _you_ were a month old!" she said whimsically. + +Children in American homes, it might be supposed, would be affected by +such diversity in the theories of their parents and their grandparents +concerning their rearing. They might naturally be expected to "take +sides" with the one or the other; or, at any rate, to be puzzled or +disturbed by the principle of "contrariwiseness" governing their lives. +From their earliest years they are aware of it. The small girl very soon +learns that the real reason why she finds a gold bracelet in her +Christmas stocking is that mother "always wanted one, but grandma did +not approve of jewelry for children." The little boy quickly discovers +that his dog sleeps on the foot of his bed mainly because "father's dog +was never allowed even to come into the house. Grandpa was a doctor, and +thought dogs were not clean." + +This knowledge, so soon acquired, would seem to be a menace to family +unity; but it is not--even in homes in which the three generations are +living together. The children know what their grandparents wished for +their parents; they know what their parents wish for them; but, most of +all and best of all, they know what they wish for themselves. It is not +what their parents had, nor what their parents try to give them; it is +"what other children have." + +Perhaps all children are conventional; certainly American children are. +They wish to have what the other children of their acquaintance have, +they wish to do what those other children do. It is not because mother +wanted a bracelet, and never had it, that the little girl would have a +bracelet; it is because "the other girls have bracelets." Not on account +of the rules that forbade father's dog the house is the small boy happy +in the nightly companionship of his dog; he takes the dog to bed with +him for the reason that "the other boys' dogs sleep with them." + +Even unto honors, if they must carry them alone, children in America +would rather not be born. A little girl who lives in my neighborhood +came home from school in tears one day not long ago. Her father is a +celebrated writer. The school-teacher, happening to select one of his +stories to read aloud to the class, mentioned the fact that the author +of the story was the father of my small friend. + +"But why are you crying about it, sweetheart?" her father asked. "Do you +think it's such a bad story?" + +"Oh, no," the little girl answered; "it is a good enough story. But none +of the other children's fathers write stories! Why do _you_, daddy? It's +so peculiar!" + +It may be that all children, whatever their nationalities, are like this +little girl. We, in America, have a fuller opportunity to become +intimately acquainted with the minds of children than have the people of +any other nation of the earth. For more completely than any other people +do American fathers and mothers make friends and companions of their +children, asking from them, first, love; then, trust; and, last of all, +the deference due them as "elders." Any child may feel as did my small +neighbor about a "peculiar" father; only a child who had been his +comrade as well as his child would so freely have voiced her feeling. + +We all remember the little boy in Stevenson's poem, "My Treasures," +whose dearest treasure, a chisel, was dearest because "very few children +possess such a thing." + +Had he been an American child, that chisel would not have been a +"treasure" at all, unless all of the children possessed such a thing. + +Not only do the children of our Nation want what the other children of +their circle have when they can use it; they want it even when they +cannot use it. I have a little girl friend who, owing to an accident in +her infancy, is slightly lame. Fortunately, she is not obliged to depend +upon crutches; but she cannot run about, and she walks with a +pathetically halting step. + +One autumn this child came to her mother and said: "Mamma, I'd like to +go to dancing-school." + +"But, my dearest, I'm afraid--I don't believe--you could learn to dance +--very well," her mother faltered. + +"Oh, mamma, _I_ couldn't learn to dance _at all_!" the little girl +exclaimed, as if surprised that her mother did not fully realize this +fact. + +"Then, dearest, why do you want to go to dancing-school?" her mother +asked gently. + +"The other girls in my class at school are all going," the child said. + +Her mother was silent; and the little girl came closer and lifted +pleading eyes to her face. "_Please_ let me go!" she begged. "The others +are all going," she repeated. + +"I could not bear to refuse her," the mother wrote to me later. "I let +her go. I feared that it would only make her feel her lameness the more +keenly and be a source of distress to her. But it isn't; she enjoys it. +She cannot even try to learn to dance; but she takes pleasure in being +present and watching the others, to say nothing of wearing a 'dancing- +school dress,' as they do. This morning she said to her father: 'I can't +dance, Papa; but I can talk about it. I learn how at dancing-school. Oh, +I love dancing-school!'" + +Her particular accomplishment maybe of minute value in itself; but is +not her content in it a priceless good? If she can continue to enjoy +learning only to talk about the pleasures her lameness will not permit +her otherwise to share, her dancing-school lessons will have taught her +better things than they taught "the other children," who could dance. + +That mother was her little girl's confidential friend as well as her +mother. The child, quite unreservedly, told her what she wanted and why +she wanted it. It was no weak indulgence of a child's whim, but a +genuine respect for another person's rights as an individual--even +though that individual was merely a little child--that led that mother +to allow her daughter to have what she wanted. May not some subtle sense +of this have been the basis of the child's happiness in the fulfillment +of her desire? She _wanted_ to go to dancing-school because the other +children were going; but may she not have _liked_ going because she felt +that her mother understood and sympathized with her desire to go? + +A Frenchwoman to whom I once said that American parents treat their +children in many ways as though they were their contemporaries remarked, +"But does that not make the children old before their time?" + +So far from this, it seems, on the contrary, to keep the parents young +after their time. It has been truly said that we have in America fewer +and fewer grandmothers who are "sweet old ladies," and more and more who +are "charming elderly women." We hear less and less about the "older" +and the "younger" generations; increasingly we merge two, and even +three, generations into one. + +Only yesterday, calling upon a new acquaintance, I heard the four-year- +old boy of the house, mentioning his father, refer to him as "Henry." + +His grandmother smiled, and his mother said, casually: "When you speak +_of_ father, dear, it would be better to say, 'my father,' so people +will be sure to know whom you mean. You may have noticed that grandma +always says, 'my son,' and I always say 'my husband,' when _we_ speak of +him." + +"Does he call his father by his Christian name?" I could not resist +questioning, when the little boy had left the room. + +"Sometimes," replied the child's mother. + +"He hears so many persons do it, he can't see why he shouldn't. And +there really _is_ no reason. Soon enough he will find out that it isn't +customary and stop doing it." + +This is a far cry from the days when children were taught to address +their parents as "honored sir" and "respected madam." But, it seems to +me, the parents are as much honored and respected now as then; and--more +important still--both they and the children are, if not dearer, yet +nearer one another. + +In small as well as in large matters they slip into their parents' +places--neither encouraged nor discouraged, but simply accepted. +Companions and friends, they behave as such, and are treated in a +companionable and friendly manner. + +The other afternoon I dropped in at tea-time for a glimpse of an old +friend. + +Her little girl came into the room in the wake of the tea-tray. "Let +_me_ pour the tea," she said, eagerly. + +[Illustration: THE BOY OF THE HOUSE] + +"Very well," her mother acquiesced. "Be careful not to fill the cups too +full, so that they overflow into the saucers; and do not forget that the +tea is _hot_" she supplemented. + +The little girl had never poured the tea before, but her mother neither +watched her nor gave her any further directions. The child devoted +herself to her pleasant task. With entire ease and unconsciousness she +filled the cups, and made the usual inquiries as to "one lump, or two?" +and "cream or lemon?" + +"Isn't she rather young to pour the tea?" I suggested, when we were +alone. + +"I don't see why," my friend said. "There isn't any 'age limit' about +pouring tea. She does it for her dolls in the nursery; she might just as +well do it for us here. Of course it is hot; but she can be careful." + +There are few things in regard to the doing or the saying or the +thinking of which American parents apprehend any "age limit." Their +children are not "tender juveniles." They do not have a detached life of +their own which the parents "share," nor do the parents have a detached +life of their own which the children "share." There is the common life +of the home, to which all, parents and children, and often grandparents +too, contribute, and in which they all "share." + +This is the secret of that genuine satisfaction that so many of us +grown-ups in America find in the society of children, whether they are +members of our own families or are the children of our friends and +neighbors. + +A short time ago I had occasion to invite to Sunday dinner a little boy +friend of mine who is nine years old. Lest he _might_ feel his youth in +a household which no longer contains any nine-year-olds, I invited to +"meet him" two other boys, playmates of his, of about the same age. +There chanced also to be present a friend, a professor in a woman's +college, into whose daily life very seldom strays a boy, especially one +nine years old. + +"What interesting things have you been doing lately?" she observed to +the boy beside her in the pause which followed our settling of ourselves +at the table. + +"I have been seeing 'The Blue Bird,'" he at once answered. "Have _you_ +seen it?" he next asked. + +No sooner had she replied than he turned to me. "I suppose, of course, +_you've_ seen it," he said. + +"Not yet," I told him; "but I have read it--" + +"Oh, so have I!" exclaimed one of the other boys; "and I've seen it, +too. There is one act in the play that isn't in the book--'The Land of +Happiness' it is. My mother says she doesn't think Mr. Maeterlinck could +have written it; it is so different from the rest of the play." + +Those present, old and young, who had seen "The Blue Bird" debated this +possibility at some length. + +Then the boy who had introduced it said to me: "I wonder, when you see +it, whether _you'll_ think Mr. Maeterlinck wrote 'The Land of Happiness' +act, or not." + +"I haven't seen 'The Blue Bird,'" the third boy remarked, "but I've seen +the Coronation pictures." Whereupon we fell to discussing moving-picture +shows. + +During the progress of that dinner we considered many other subjects, +lighting upon them casually; touching upon them lightly; and--most +significant of all--discoursing upon them as familiars and equals. None +of us who were grown-up "talked down" to the boys, and certainly none of +the boys "talked up" to us. Each one of them at home was a "dear +partner" of every other member of the family, younger and older, larger +and smaller. Inevitably, each one when away from home became quite +spontaneously an equal shareholder in whatever was to be possessed at +all. + +A day or two after the Sunday of that dinner I met one of my boy guests +on the street. "I've seen 'The Blue Bird,'" I said to him; "and I'm +inclined to think that, if Mr. Maeterlinck did write the act 'The Land +of Happiness,' he wrote it long after he had written the rest of the +play. I think perhaps that is why it is so different from the other +acts." + +"Why, I never thought of that!" the boy cried, with absolute +unaffectedness. He appeared to consider it for a moment, and then he +said: "I'll tell my mother; she'll be interested." + +Foreign visitors of distinction not infrequently have accused American +children of being "pert," or "lacking in reverence," or "sophisticated." +Those of us who are better acquainted with the children of our own +Nation cannot concur in any of these accusations. Unhappily, there are +children in America, as there are children in every land, who _are_ +pert, and lacking in reverence, and sophisticated; but they are in the +small minority, and they are not the children to whom foreigners refer +when they make their sweeping arraignments. + +The most gently reared, the most carefully nurtured, of our children are +those usually seen by distinguished foreign visitors; for such +foreigners are apt to be guests of the families to which these children +belong. The spirit of frank _camaraderie_ displayed by the children they +mistake for "pertness"; the trustful freedom of their attitude toward +their elders they interpret as "lack of reverence"; and their eager +interest in subjects ostensibly beyond their years they misread as +"sophistication." + +It must be admitted that American small boys have not the quaint +courtliness of French small boys; that American little girls are without +the pretty shyness of English little girls. We are compelled to grant +that in America between the nursery and the drawing-room there is no +great gulf fixed. This condition of things has its real disadvantages +and trials; but has it not also its ideal advantages and blessings? +Coöperative living together, in spite of individual differences, is one +of these advantages; tender intimacy between persons of varying ages is +one of these blessings. + +A German woman on her first visit to America said to me, as we talked +about children, that, with our National habit of treating them as what +we Americans call "chums," she wondered how parents kept any authority +over them, and especially maintained any government _of_ them, and _for_ +them, without letting it lapse into a government _by_ them. + +"I should think that the commandment 'Children, obey your parents' might +be in danger of being overlooked or thrust aside," she said, "in a +country in which children and parents are 'chums,' as Americans say." + +That ancient commandment would seem to be too toweringly large to be +overlooked, too firmly embedded in the world to be thrust aside. It is a +very Rock of Gibraltar of a commandment. + +American parents do not relinquish their authority over their children. +As for government--like other wise parents, they aim to help it to +develop, as soon as it properly can, from a government of and for their +children into a government by them. Self-government is the lesson of +lessons they most earnestly desire to teach their children. + +Methods of teaching it differ. Indeed, as to methods of teaching their +children anything, American fathers and mothers have no fixed standard, +no homogeneous ideal. More likely than not they follow in this important +matter their custom in matters of lesser import--of employing a method +directly opposed to the method of their own parents, and employing it +simply because it is directly opposed. This is but too apt to be their +interpretation of the phrase "modernity in child nurture." But the +children learn the lesson. They learn the other great and fundamental +lessons of life, too, and learn them well, from these American fathers +and mothers who are so friendly and companionable and sympathetic with +them. + +Why should they not? There is no antagonism between love and law. +Parents are in a position of authority over their children; no risk of +the strength of that position is involved in a friendship between +parents and children anywhere. It is not remarkable that American +parents should retain their authority over their children. What is +noteworthy is that their children, less than any other children of the +civilized world, rebel against it or chafe under it: they perceive so +soon that their parents are governing them only because they are not +wise enough to govern themselves; they realize so early that government, +by some person or persons, is the estate in common of us all! + +One day last summer at the seashore I saw a tiny boy, starting from the +bath-house of his family, laboriously drag a rather large piece of +driftwood along the beach. Finally he carefully deposited it in the sand +at a considerable distance from the bath-house. + +"Why did you bring that big piece of wood all the way up here?" I +inquired as he passed me. + +"My father told me to," the child replied. + +"Why?" I found myself asking. + +"Because I got it here; and it is against the law of this town to take +anything from this beach, except shells. Did you know that? I didn't; my +father just 'splained it to me." + +American fathers and mothers explain so many things to their children! +And American children explain quite as great a number of things to their +parents. They can; because they are not only friends, but familiar +friends. We have all read Continental autobiographies, of which the +chapters under the general title "Early Years" contained records of +fears based upon images implanted in the mind and flourishing there-- +images arising from some childish misapprehension or misinterpretation +of some ordinary and perfectly explainable circumstance. "I was afraid +to pass a closed closet alone after dark," one of these says. "I had +heard of 'skeletons in closets'; I knew there were none in our closets +in the daytime, but I couldn't be sure that they did not come to sleep +in them at night; and I was too shy to inquire of my parents. What +terrors I suffered! I was half-grown before I understood what a +'skeleton in a closet' was." + +An American child would have discovered what one was within five minutes +after hearing it first mentioned, provided he had the slightest interest +in knowing. No American child is too shy to inquire of his parents +concerning anything he may wish to know. Shyness is a veil children wear +before strangers; in the company of their intimates they lay it aside-- +and forget it. In the autobiographies of Americans we shall not find +many accounts of childish terrors arising from any reserve in the +direction of asking questions. In American homes there are no closets +whose doors children are afraid to pass, or to open, even after dark. + +"American children are all so different!" an Englishman complained to me +not long ago; "as different as their several homes. One can make no +statement about them that is conclusive." + +But can one not? To be sure, they do vary, and their homes vary too; but +in one great, significant, fundamental particular they are all alike. In +American homes the parents not only love their children, and the +children their parents; their "way of loving" is such that one may say +of them, "Their souls do bear an equal yoke of love." They and their +parents are "chums." + + + + +II + + + +THE CHILD AT PLAY + + +Not long ago I happened to receive in the same mail three books on home +games, written by three different American authors, and issued by three +separate publishing-houses. In most respects the books were dissimilar; +but in one interesting particular they were all alike: the games in them +were so designed that, though children alone could play them well, +children and grown-ups together could play them better. No one of the +several authors suggested that he had any such theory in mind when +preparing his book; each one simply took it for granted that his "home +games" would be played by the entire household. Would not any of us in +America, writing a book of this description, proceed from precisely the +same starting-point? + +We all recollect the extreme amazement in the Castle of Dorincourt +occasioned by the sight of the Earl playing a "home game" with Little +Lord Fauntleroy. No American grandfather thus engaged would cause the +least ripple of surprise. Little Lord Fauntleroy, we recall, had been +born in America, and had lived the whole ten years of his life with +Americans. He had acquired the habit, so characteristic of the children +of our Nation, of including his elders in his games. Quite naturally, on +his first day at the Castle, he said to the Earl, "My new game--wouldn't +you like to play it with me, grandfather?" The Earl, we remember, was +astonished. He had never been in America! + +American grown-ups experience no astonishment when children invite them +to participate in their play. We are accustomed to such invitations. To +our ready acceptance of them the children are no less used. "Will you +play with us?" they ask with engaging confidence. "Of course we will!" +we find ourselves cordially responding. + +I chanced, not a great while ago, to be ill in a hospital on Christmas +Day. Toward the middle of the morning, during the "hours for visitors," +I heard a faint knock at my door. + +Before I could answer it the door opened, and a little girl, her arms +full of toys, softly entered. + +"Did you say 'Come in'?" she inquired. + +Without waiting for a reply, she carefully deposited her toys on the +nurse's cot near her. Then, closing the door, she came and stood beside +my bed, and gazed at me in friendly silence. + +"Merry Christmas!" I said. + +"Oh, Merry Christmas!" she returned, formally, dropping a courtesy. + +She was a sturdy, rosy-cheeked child, and, though wearing a fluffy white +dress and slippers, she looked as children only look after a walk in a +frosty wind. Clearly, she was not a patient. + +"Whose little girl are you?" I asked. + +"Papa's and mamma's," she said promptly. + +"Where are they?" I next interrogated. + +"In papa's room--down the hall, around the corner. Papa is sick; only, +he's better now, and will be all well soon. And mamma and I came to see +him, with what Santa Claus brought us." + +"I see," I commented. "And these are the things Santa Claus brought +you?" I added, indicating the toys on the cot. "You have come, now, to +show them to me?" + +Her face fell a bit. "I came to play at them with you," she said. "Your +nurse thought maybe you'd like to, for a while. Are you too sick to +play?" she continued, anxiously; "or too tired, or too busy?" + +How seldom are any of us too sick to play; or too tired, or too busy! "I +am not," I assured my small caller. "I should enjoy playing. What shall +we begin with?" I supplemented, glancing again toward the toy-bestrewn +cot. + +"Oh, there are ever so many things!" the little girl said. "But," she +went on hesitatingly, "_your_ things--perhaps you'd like--might I look +at them first?" + +Most evident among these things of mine was a small tree, bedizened, +after the German fashion, with gilded nuts, fantastically shaped +candies, and numerous tiny boxes, gayly tied with tinsel ribbons. +"What's in the boxes--presents or jokes?" the little girl questioned. +"Have you looked?" + +"I hadn't got that far, when you came," I told her; "but I rather +_think_--jokes." + +"_I'd_ want to _know_" she suggested. + +When I bade her examine them for me, she said: "Let's play I am Santa +Claus and you are a little girl. I'll hand you the boxes, and you open +them." + +We did this, with much mutual enjoyment. The boxes, to my amusement and +her delight, contained miniature pewter dogs and cats and dolls and +dishes. "Why," my little companion exclaimed, "they aren't _jokes_; they +are _real presents_! They will be _just_ right to have when _little_ +children come to see you!" + +When the last of the boxes had been opened and my other less juvenile +"things" surveyed, the child turned to her own treasures. "There are the +two puzzles," she said, "and there is the big doll that can say 'Papa' +and 'Mamma,' and there is the paper doll, with lovely patterns and +pieces to make more clothes out of for it, and there is a game papa just +_loved_. Perhaps you'd like to play _that_ best, too, 'cause you are +sick, too?" she said tentatively. + +I assented, and the little girl arranged the game on the table beside my +bed, and explained its "rules" to me. We played at it most happily until +my nurse, coming in, told my new-made friend that she must "say 'Good- +bye' now." + +My visitor at once collected her toys and prepared to go. At the door +she turned. "Good-bye," she said, again dropping her prim courtesy. "I +have had a very pleasant time." + +"So have I!" I exclaimed. + +And I had had. "She was so entertaining," I said to my nurse, "and her +game was so interesting!" + +"It is not an uncommon game," my nurse remarked, with a smile; "and she +is just an ordinary, nice child!" + +America is full of ordinary, nice children who beguile their elders into +playing with them games that are not uncommon. How much "pleasant time" +is thereby spent! + +"Where do American children learn to expect grown people to play with +them?" an Englishwoman once asked me. "In the kindergarten?" + +Undoubtedly they do. In no country except Germany is the kindergarten so +integral a part of the national life as it is in America. In our cities, +rich and poor alike send their children to kindergartens. Not only in +the public and the private schools, but also in the social settlements, +and even in the Sunday-schools, we have kindergarten departments. In the +rural schools the teachers train the little "beginners" in accordance +with kindergarten principles. Even to places far away from any schools +at all the kindergarten penetrates. Only yesterday I saw a book, written +by a kindergartner, dedicated to "mothers on the rolling prairie, the +far-off rancho, the rocky island, in the lonely light-house, the +frontier settlement, the high-perched mining-camp," who, distant indeed +from school kindergartens and their equipment, might wish help in making +out of what materials they have well-equipped home kindergartens. + +"Come, let us play with the children," the apostles of Froebel teach us. +And, "Come, let us ask the grown-ups to play with us," they would seem +unconsciously to instruct the children. + +One autumn a friend of mine, the mother of a three-year-old boy and of a +daughter aged sixteen, said to me: "This is my daughter's first term in +the high school; she will need my help. My boy is just at the age when +it takes all the spare time I have to keep him out of mischief; how +shall I manage?" + +"Send the boy to kindergarten," I advised. "He is ready to go; and it +will be good for him. He will bring some of the 'occupations' home with +him; and they will keep him out of mischief for you." + +She sent the boy to a little kindergarten in the neighborhood. + +About two months later, I said to her, "I suppose the kindergarten has +solved the problem of more spare time for your daughter's new demands +upon you?" + +"Well--in a way," she replied, dubiously. "It gives me the morning free; +but--" + +"Doesn't the boy bring home any 'occupations'?" I interposed. + +My friend laughed. "Yes," she said; "he certainly does! But he doesn't +want to 'occupy' himself alone with them; he wants _all_ of us to do it +with him! We have become quite expert at 'weaving,' and 'folding,' and +'sewing'! But, on the other hand," she went on, "he isn't so much +trouble as he was. He wants us to play with him more, but he plays more +intelligently. We take real pleasure in joining in his games, and-- +actually--in letting him share ours." + +This little boy, now five years old, came to see me the other day. + +"What would you like to do?" I asked, when we had partaken of tea. +"Shall we put the jig-saw puzzle together; or should you prefer to have +me tell you a story?" + +"Tell me a story," he said at once; "and then I'll tell you one. And +then _you_ tell another--and then _I'll_ tell another--" He broke off, +to draw a long breath. "It's a game," he continued, after a moment. "We +play it in kindergarten." + +"Do you enjoy telling stories more than hearing them told?" I inquired, +when we had played this game to the extent of three stories on either +side. + +"No," my little boy friend replied. "I like hearing stories told more +than anything. But _that_ isn't a game; that's just being-told-stories. +The _game_ is taking-turns-telling-stories." He enunciated each phrase +as though it were a single word. + +His mother had spoken truly when she said that her little boy had +learned to play intelligently. He had learned, also, to include his +elders in his games on equal terms. Small wonder that they took real +pleasure in playing with him. + +The children cordially welcome us to their games. They ask us to be +children with them. As heartily, they would have us bespeak their +company in our games; they are willing to try to be grown-up with us. + +I was visiting a family recently, in which there is but one small child, +a boy of eight. One evening we were acting charades. Divided into camps, +we chose words in turn, and in turn were chosen to superintend the +"acting-out" of the particular word. It happened that the word +"Psychical-research," and the turn of the eight-year-old boy to be +stage-manager coincided. Every one in his camp laughed, but no one so +much as remotely suggested that the word or the stage-manager be +changed. + +"What does it mean, 'Psychical-research'?" the boy made question. + +We laughed still more, but we genuinely tried to make the term +comprehensible to the child's mind. + +This led to such prolonged and lively argument that the little stage- +manager finally observed: "I don't see how it _can_ mean _all_ that all +of you say. Can't we let the whole-word act of it go, and act out the +rest? We can, you know--'Sigh,' 'kick,' 'all'; and 're' (like in music, +you know), and 'search!'" + +"Oh, no," we demurred; "we must do it properly, or not at all!" + +"Well, then," said the boy, in a quaintly resigned tone of voice, "talk +to me about it, until I know what it is!" + +In spite of hints from the other camp not to overlap the time allotted +us, in the face of messages from them to hurry, regardless of their +protests against our dilatoriness, we did talk to that little eight- +year-old boy about "Psychical-research" until he understood its meaning +sufficiently to plan his final act. "If he is playing with us, then he +_is_ playing with us," his father somewhat cryptically remarked; "and he +must know the details of the game." + +This playing with grown-ups does not curtail the play in which children +engage with their contemporaries. There are games that are distinctly +"children's games." We all know of what stuff they are made, for most of +us have played them in our time--running-games, jumping-games, shouting- +games. By stepping to our windows nearly any afternoon, we may see some +of them in process. But we shall not be invited to participate. At best, +the children will pause for a moment to ask, "Did you play it this way?" + +Very likely we did not. Each generation plays the old games; every +generation plays them in a slightly new way. The present generation +would seem to play them with a certain self-consciousness; without that +_abandon_ of an earlier time. + +A short while ago I happened to call upon a friend of mine on an +afternoon when, her nursemaid being "out," she was alone with her +children--a boy of seven and a girl of five. I found them together in +the nursery; my friend was sewing, and the children were playing +checkers. Apparently, they were entirely engrossed in their game. +Immediately after greeting me they returned to it, and continued it with +seeming obliviousness of the presence of any one excepting themselves. +But when their mother, in the course of a few moments, rose, and said to +me: "Let's go down to the library and have tea," both the children +instantly stopped playing--though one of them was in the very thick of +"taking a king"--and cried, "Oh, don't go; stay with us!" + +[ILLUSTRATION: "DID YOU PLAY IT THIS WAY?"] + +"My dears," my friend said, "you don't need us; you have your game. +Aren't you happy with it?" + +"Why, yes," the little girl admitted; "but we want you to see us being +happy!" + +Only to-day, as I came up my street, a crowd of small children burst +upon me from behind a hedge; and, shouting and gesticulating, surrounded +me. Their faces were streaked with red, and blue, and yellow lines, +applied with crayons; feathers of various domestic kinds ornamented +their hats and caps, and they waved in the air broken laths, presumably +gifts from a builder at work in the vicinity. + +"We are Indians!" they shrieked; "wild Indians! See our war-paint, and +feathers, and tomahawks! We hunt the pale face!" + +While I sought about for an appropriate answer to make, my little +neighbors suddenly became calm. + +"Don't we children have fun?" one of them questioned me. "You like to +see us having fun, don't you?" + +I agreed, and again their war-whoops began. They followed me to my door +in a body. Inside I still heard them playing, but with lessened din. +Several times during the afternoon, hearing their noise increase, I +looked out; each time I saw that the arrival of another grown-up pale +face was the occasion of the climactic moment in the game. In order to +be wild Indians with perfect happiness the small players demanded an +appreciative audience to see them being happy. + +Some of us in America are prone to deprecate in the children of our +Nation this pleased consciousness of their own enjoyment, this desire +for our presence as sympathetic onlookers at those of their games in +which we cannot join. We must not allow ourselves to forget that it is a +state of mind fostered largely by our National habit of treating +children as familiars and equals. Our satisfaction in their pleasures we +mention in their hearing. If they are aware that we like to see them +"being happy," it is because we have told them, and told them +repeatedly. We do not, as in a former time, "spell some of our words" in +their company, in order that they may not know all we say. On the +contrary, we pronounce all our words with especial clearness, and even +define such as are obscure, that the children not only may, but must, +fully understand us when we speak "before them." Unquestionably this +takes from the play of the children self-forgetfulness of one kind, but +sometimes it gives to them self-forgetfulness of another, a rarer kind. + +I know a family of children, lovers of games which involve running +races. Several years ago one of the boys of this family died. Since his +death the other children run no more races. + +"We like running races just as much," one of the girls explained to me +one evening, as we sat by the fire and talked about her dead brother; +"but, you know, _he_ always liked them best, because he generally won. +He loved to have mother see him winning. He was always getting her to +come and watch him do it. And mother liked it, and used to tell other +people about it. We don't run races now, because it might remind mother +too much." + +No matter how joyously American children may play with their elders, or +with their contemporaries, whatever enhancement their satisfaction in +play with one another may gain from the presence of grown-up spectators, +they are not likely to become so dependent upon the one, nor so self- +conscious by reason of the other, that they will relinquish--or, worse +still, never know--the dear delights of "playing alone." Games played in +company may be the finest prose--they are yet prose; games played alone +are pure poetry. The children of our Nation are not without that +imagination which, on one day or another, impels a child to wander, +"lonely as a cloud," along the path of dreamful, solitary play. + +How often a child who, to our eyes, appears to be doing nothing +whatever, is "playing alone" a delectable game! Probably, only once in a +hundred times, and then, by the merest accident, do we discover what +that game is. + +Among my child friends there is a little boy who takes great pleasure in +seeing dramas acted. One spring day I took him to an open-air +presentation of "As You Like It." + +The comedy was charmingly given in a clearing in a beautiful private +park. Orlando had "real" trees and hawthorns and brambles upon which to +hang his verses; and he made lavish use of them. + +The fancy of my small friend was quite captivated by what he called +"playing hide-and-go-seek with poems." "What fun he has, watching her +find them and not letting her know he hid them!" he exclaimed. + +Later in the season I went to spend a few days at the country home of +his parents. Early one morning, from my window, I espied the little boy, +stealthily moving about under the trees in the adjacent apple orchard. + +At breakfast he remarked to me, casually, "It's nice in the orchard--all +apple blossoms." + +"Will you go out there with me?" I asked. + +"P'aps not to-day," he made reply. "But," he hazarded, "you could go by +yourself. It's nice," he repeated; "all apple blossoms. Get close to the +trees, and smell them." + +It was a pleasant plan for a May morning. + +I lost no time in putting it into practice. Involuntarily I sought that +corner of the orchard in which I had seen my small friend. Mindful of +his counsel, I got close to the apple blossoms and smelled them. As I +did so I noticed a crumpled sheet of paper in a crotch of one of the +trees. I no sooner saw it than I seized it, and, smoothing it out, read, +written in a primary-school hand:-- + +"The rose is red, +The violet blue, +Sugar is sweet, +And so are you." + +Need I say that I had scarcely read this before I entered upon an +exhaustive search among the other trees? My amused efforts were well +rewarded. Between two flower-laden branches I descried another "poem," +in identical handwriting:-- + +"A birdie with a yellow bill +Hopped upon the window-sill, +Cocked his shining eye and said +'Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!'" + +In a tiny hollow I found still another, by the same hand:-- + +"'T was brillig, and the slithy toves + Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; +All mimsy were the borogoves, + And the mome raths outgrabe." + +As I went back to the house, bearing my findings, I met my little boy +friend. He tried not to see what I carried. + +"I gathered these from the apple trees," I said, holding out the verses. +"They are poems." + +He made no motion to take the "poems." His eyes danced. But neither then +did he say nor since has he said that the verses were his; that he was +the Orlando who had caused them to grow upon the trees. + +Another child of my acquaintance, a little girl, I discovered in an even +sweeter game for "playing alone." She chanced to call upon me one +afternoon just as I was taking from its wrappings an _édition de luxe_ +of "Pippa Passes." Her joy in the exquisite illustrations with which the +book was embellished even exceeded mine. + +"Is the story in the book as lovely as the pictures?" she queried. + +"Yes," I assured her. + +Then, at her urgent request, I told her the tale of the "little black- +eyed pretty singing Felippa"; of her "single day," and of her singing +that "righted all again" on that holiday in Asolo. + +The child was silent for a moment after I had finished the story. "Do +you like it?" I inquired. + +"Um--yes," she mused. "Let me look at the pictures some more," she +asked, with sudden eagerness. + +I handed her the book, and she pored over it for a long time. "The +houses then were not like the houses now--were they?" she said; "and the +people dressed in funny clothes." + +The next Saturday, at an early hour, I heard beneath my window a +childish voice singing a kindergarten song. I peeped out. There stood my +little friend. I was careful to make no sound and to keep well in the +shadow. The small girl finished her song, and softly ran away. + +"Your little girl serenaded me the other morning," I said to her mother +when I saw her a few days afterward. The child had shown so slight an +interest in anything in my book except the pictures that I did not yet +connect her singing with it. + +"You, too!" exclaimed the little girl's mother. "She evidently serenaded +the entire neighborhood! All day Saturday, her only holiday, she went +around, singing under various windows! I wonder what put the idea into +her head." + +"Did you ask her?" I questioned, with much curiosity. + +"Yes," answered the child's mother; "but she only smiled, and looked +embarrassed, so I said nothing further. She seemed to want to keep her +secret, the dear baby! So I thought I'd let her!" + +And I--I, too, kept it. "Yes, do let her," was all I said. + +American children, when "playing alone," impersonate the heroes and +heroines of the dramas they see, or the stories they are told, or the +books they read (how much more often they must do it than we suspect our +memories of our own childish days will teach us), but when they play +together, even when they "play at books that they have read," they +seldom "pretend." A group of small boys who have just read "Robin Hood" +do not say: "Wouldn't it be fun to play that _we_ are Robin Hood and his +Merry Men, and that our grove is Sherwood Forest?" They are more apt to +say: "It would be good sport for _us_--shooting with bows and arrows. We +might get some, and fix up a target somewhere and practise." The circle +of little girls who have read "Mary's Meadow" do not propose that they +play at being Mary. They decide instead upon doing, in their own proper +persons, what Mary did in hers. They can play together, the children of +our Nation, but they seem unable to "pretend" together. They are perhaps +too self-conscious. + +It is a significant circumstance that yearly there are published in +America a large number of books for children telling them "how to make" +various things. A great part of their play consists in making something +--from a sunken garden to an air-ship. + +I recently had a letter from a boy in which he said: "The boys here are +getting wireless sets. We have to buy part of the things; but we make as +many of them as we can." + +And how assiduously they attempt to make as many as they can of the +other things we grown-ups make! They imitate our play; and, in a spirit +of play, they contrive to copy to its last and least detail our work. If +we play golf or tennis, they also play these games. Are we painters of +pictures or writers of books, they too aspire to paint or to write! + +It cannot be denied that we encourage the children in this "endless +imitation." We not only have diminutive golf sticks and tennis rackets +manufactured for their use as soon as they would play our games; when +they show signs of toying with our work, we promptly set about providing +them with the proper means to that end. + +One of our best-known magazines for children devotes every month a +considerable number of its pages to stories and poems and drawings +contributed by children. Furthermore, it offers even such rewards as we +grown-up writers and painters are offered for "available" products. +Moreover, the young contributors are instructed in the intricacies of +literary and artistic etiquette. They are taught how to prepare +manuscripts and drawings for the editorial eye. The "rules" given these +children are identical with the regulations governing well-conducted +grown-up writers and artists--excepting that the children are commanded +to "state age," and "have the contribution submitted indorsed as wholly +original!" + +It is a noteworthy fact that hundreds of children in America send in +contributions, month after month, year after year, to this magazine. +Even more significant is it that they prepare these contributions with +all the conscientious care of grown-up writers or painters to whom +writing or painting is the chiefest reality of life. So whole-heartedly +do the children play at being what their elders are! + +[Illustration: THE DEAR DELIGHTS OF PLAYING ALONE] + +An Italian woman once asked me, "The American children--what do they +employ as toys?" + +I could only reply, "Almost anything; almost everything!" + +When we are furthest from seeing the toy possibilities of a thing, they +see it. I have among my treasures a libation cup and a _ushabti_ +figurine--votive offerings from the Temple of Osiris, at Abydos. + +A short time ago a little boy friend of mine lighted upon them in their +safe retreat. "What are these?" he inquired. + +"They came from Egypt--" I began. + +"Oh, _really_ and _truly_?" he cried. "_Did_ they come from the Egypt in +the poem-- + +"'Where among the desert sands +Some deserted city stands, +There I'll come when I'm a man +With a camel caravan; +And in a corner find the toys +Of the old Egyptian boys'?" + +He spent a happy hour playing with the libation cup and the _ushabti_-- +trophies of one of the most remarkable explorations of our era. I did +not tell him what they were. He knew concerning them all he needed to +know--that they could be "employed as toys." Perhaps the very tiniest of +the "old Egyptian boys" had known only this, too. + +"Little girls do not play with dolls in these days!" is a remark that +has been made with great frequency of late years. Those of us who have +many friends among little girls often wonder what is at the basis of +this rumor. There have always been girls who did not care for dolls. In +the old-fashioned story for girls there was invariably one such. In +"Little Women," as we all recall, it was Jo. No doubt the persons who +say that little girls no longer play with dolls count among their +childish acquaintances a disproportionate number of Jos. Playing with +dolls would seem to be too fundamentally little-girlish ever to fall +into desuetude. + +"Girls, as well as boys, play with dogs in these days!" is another +plaintive cry we often hear. But were there ever days when this was not +the case? From that far-off day when Iseult "had always a little brachet +with her that Tristram gave her the first time that ever she came into +Cornwell," to the time when Dora cuddled Jip, even down to our own day, +when the heroine of "Queed" walks forth with her Behemoth, girls both in +fact and in fiction have played with dogs; played with them no less than +boys. This proclivity on the part of the little girls of our Nation is +not distinctively American, nor especially childish, nor particularly +girl-like; it is merely human. + +In few activities do the children of our Nation reveal what we call the +"American sense of humor" so clearly as in their play. Slight ills, and +even serious misfortunes, they instinctively endeavor to lift and carry +with a laugh. It would be difficult to surpass the gay heroism to which +they sometimes attain. + +Most of us remember the little hunchbacked boy in "Little Men" who, when +the children played "menagerie," chose the part of the dromedary. +"Because," he explained, "I have a hump on my back!" + +Among my acquaintances there is a little girl who is blind. One day I +invited her to go picnicking with a party of normal children, one of +whom was her elder sister. She was accustomed to the company of children +who could see, and she showed a ready disposition to join in the games +of the other picnickers. Her sister stayed close beside her and guarded +and guided her. + +"Let's play blind man's buff," one of the children heedlessly suggested +after a long course of "drop-the-handkerchief." + +The other children with seeing eyes instantly looked at the child who +was sightless, and whispered, "Ssh! You'll hurt her feelings!" + +But the little blind girl scrambled eagerly to her feet. "Yes," she +said, brightly; "let's play blind man's buff! _I_ can be 'It' _all_ the +time!" + +There is a phrase that has been very widely adopted by Americans. +Scarcely one of us but uses it--"playing the game." Our highest +commendation of a man or a woman has come to be, "He plays the game," or +"She plays the game." Another phrase, often upon our lips, is "according +to the rules of the game." We Americans talk of the most sacred things +of life in the vocabulary of children at play. May not this be because +the children of our Nation play so well; so much better than we grown- +ups do anything? + + + + +III + + + +THE COUNTRY CHILD + + +One spring, not long ago, a friend of mine, knowing that I had a desire +to spend the summer in the "real country," said to me, "Why don't you go +to a farm somewhere in New England? Nothing could be more 'really +countrified' than that! You would get what you want there." + +Her advice rather appealed to my fancy. I at once set about looking for +a New England farmhouse in which I might be received as a "summer +boarder." Hearing of one that was situated in a particularly healthful +and beautiful section of New England, I wrote to the woman who owned and +operated it, telling her what I required, and asking her whether or no +she could provide me with it. "Above all things," I concluded my letter, +"I want quiet." + +Her somewhat lengthy reply ended with these words: "The bedroom just +over the music-room is the quietest in the house, because no one is in +the music-room excepting for a social hour after supper. I can let you +have that bedroom." + +My friend had said that nothing was so "really countrified" as a New +England farm. But a "music-room," a "social hour after supper!" The +terms suggested things distinctly urban. + +I sent another letter to the woman to whom this amazing farmhouse +belonged. "I am afraid I cannot come," I wrote. "I want a simpler +place." Then, yielding to my intense curiosity, I added: "Are many of +your boarders musical? Is the music-room for their use?" + +"No place could be simpler than this," she answered, by return mail. "I +don't know whether any of my boarders this year will be musical or not. +Some years they have been. The music-room isn't for my boarders, +especially; it is for my niece. She is very musical, but she doesn't get +much time for practising in the summer." + +She went on to say that she hoped I would decide to take the bedroom +over the music-room. I did. I had told her that, above all things, I +desired quiet; but, after reading her letters, I think I wished, above +all things, to see the music-room, and the niece who was musical. + +"She will probably be a shy, awkward girl," one of my city neighbors +said to me; "and no doubt she will play 'The Maiden's Prayer' on a +melodeon which will occupy one corner of the back sitting-room. You will +see." + +In order to reach the farm it was necessary not only to take a journey +on a train, but also to drive three miles over a hilly road. The little +station at which I changed from the train to an open two-seated carriage +in waiting for me was the usual rural village, with its one main street, +its commingled post-office and dry-goods and grocery store, and its +small white meeting-house. + +The farm, as we approached it, called to mind the pictures of old New +England farms with which all of us are familiar. The house itself was +over a hundred years old, I afterward learned; and had for that length +of time "been in the family" of the woman with whom I had corresponded. + +She was on the broad doorstone smiling a welcome when, after an hour's +drive, the carriage at last came to a stop. Beside her was her niece, +the girl whom I had been so impatient to meet. She was neither shy nor +awkward. + +"Are you tired?" she inquired. "What should you like to do? Go to your +room or rest downstairs until supper-time? Supper will be ready in about +twenty minutes." + +"I'd like to see the music-room," I found myself saying. + +"Oh," exclaimed the girl, her face brightening, "are you musical? How +nice!" + +As she spoke she led the way into the music-room. It was indeed a back +sitting-room. Its windows opened upon the barnyard; glancing out, I saw +eight or ten cows, just home from pasture, pushing their ways to the +drinking-trough. I looked around the little room. On the walls were +framed photographs of great composers, on the mantelshelf was a +metronome, on the centre-table were two collections of classic piano +pieces, and in a corner was,--not a melodeon,--but a piano. The maker's +name was on it--a name famous in two continents. + +"Your aunt told me you were musical," I said to the girl. "I see that +the piano is your instrument." + +"Yes," she assented. "But I don't play very well. I haven't had many +lessons. Only one year with a really good teacher." + +"Who was your teacher?" I asked idly. I fully expected her to say, "Some +one in the village through which you came." + +"Perhaps you know my teacher," she replied; and she mentioned the name +of one of the best pianists and piano teachers in New England. + +"Most of the time I've studied by myself," she went on; "but one year +auntie had me go to town and have good lessons." + +At supper this girl waited on the table, and after supper she washed the +dishes and made various preparations for the next morning's breakfast. +Then she joined her aunt and the boarders, of whom there were nine, on +the veranda. + +"I should so like to hear you play something on the piano," I said to +her. + +She at once arose, and, followed by me, went into the music-room, which +was just off the veranda. "I only play easy things," she said, as she +seated herself at the piano. + +Whereupon she played, with considerable skill, one of Schumann's simpler +compositions, one of Schubert's, and one of Grieg's. Then, turning +around on the piano-stool, she asked me, "Do you like Debussy?" + +I thought of what my neighbor had prophesied concerning "The Maiden's +Prayer." Debussy! And this girl was a country girl, born and bred on +that dairy farm, educated at the little district school of the vicinity; +and, moreover, trained to take a responsible part in the work of the +farm both in winter and in summer. Her family for generations had been +"country people." + +It was not surprising that she had made the acquaintance of Debussy's +music; nor that she had at her tongue's end all the arguments for and +against it. Her music-teacher was, of course, accountable for this. What +was remarkable was that she had had the benefit of that particular +teacher's instruction; that, country child though she was, she had been +given exactly the kind, if not the amount, of musical education that a +city child of musical tastes would have been given. + +My neighbor had predicted a shy, awkward girl, a melodeon, and "The +Maiden's Prayer." One of our favorite fallacies in America is that our +country people are "countrified." Nothing could be further from the +truth, especially in that most important matter, the up-bringing of +their children. Country parents, like city parents, try to get the best +for their children. That "best" is very apt to be identical with what +city parents consider best. Circumstances may forbid their giving it to +their children as lavishly as do city parents; conditions may force them +to alter it in various ways in order to fit it to the needs of boys and +girls who live on a farm, and not on a city street; but in some sort +they attempt to obtain it, and, having obtained it, to give it to their +children. + +[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN--THEY ARE SUCH DEARS!"] + +They are as ambitious for the education of their children as city +parents; and to an amazing extent they provide for them a similar +academic training. An astonishing proportion of the students in our +colleges come from country homes, in which they have learned to desire +collegiate experience; from country schools, where they have received +the preparation necessary to pass the required college entrance +examinations. Surrounded, as we in cities are, by schools especially +planned, especially equipped, to make children ready for college, we may +well wonder how country children in rural district schools, with their +casual schedules and meagre facilities, are ever so prepared. By +visiting even a few district schools we may in part discover. + +I happened, not a great while ago, to spend an autumn month on a farm in +a very sparsely settled section of New Hampshire. + +One morning at breakfast, shortly after Labor Day, my landlady said: +"School opens next week. The teacher is coming here to board for the +winter. I expect her to-day." + +"Where does she come from?" I asked. + +"From Smith College," the farmer replied, unexpectedly. "This is her +second year of teaching our school." + +The school-teacher arrived late in the afternoon. My landlady was +"expecting" her; so was I, no less eagerly. + +"Why were you interested in me?" she inquired, when, on further +acquaintance, I confessed this to her. + +"Because, with a training that fits you for work in a carefully graded +school or a college, you chose to teach here. Why did you?" + +"For three reasons," she answered. "Country life is better for my health +than city life; the people around here are thoroughly awake to the +importance of education; and the children--they are such dears! You must +see them when school opens." + +I did see them then. Also, I saw them before that time. When the news of +their teacher's arrival reached them, they came "by two, and threes, and +fuller companies" to welcome her. They ranged in age from a boy and a +girl of fifteen to two little girls of six. Each and every one was +rapturously glad to see the teacher; they all brought her small gifts, +and all of them bore messages from their homes, comprising a score of +invitations to supper, the loan of a tent for the remainder of the mild +weather, and the offer of a "lift" to and from school on stormy days. + +The teacher accepted these tributes as a matter of course. She was +genuinely glad to see her old pupils. In her turn, she sent messages to +their several homes, and gave into the children's hands tokens she had +purposely gathered together for them. "We'll meet on Monday at the +school-house," she finally said; and the children, instantly responding +to the implied suggestion, bade her good-bye, and went running down the +dusty road. Each one of them lived at least a mile away; many of them +more than two miles. + +On Monday I accompanied the teacher to school. The school-house was a +small, one-roomed, wooden building. It contained little besides a few +rows of desks and benches for the children, two or three maps, and +blackboards, a tiny closet filled with worn books, the teacher's desk, +and a coal stove. But it had windows on three sides, and was set down in +the midst of a grassy meadow bordered with a stone wall. + +There were fourteen pupils. They were all assembled in the school-yard +when we arrived. The boys were playing baseball, and the girls, perched +on the stone wall, were watching them. The moment they saw the teacher +boys and girls alike came to escort her to her place in the school- +house. When she was in it, they took their own places--those they had +occupied during the former term. There was one "new" pupil, a small boy. +He had been so frequently a "visiting scholar" the previous year that +his newness was not very patent. There was a desk that he also claimed +as his. + +"We will sing 'America,'" were the words with which the teacher +commenced the new school year, "and then we will go on with our work, +beginning where we left off in the spring." + +We hear a great deal at the present time concerning the education of the +"particular child." In the very best of our private schools in the city +each pupil is regarded as a separate and distinct individual, and taught +as such. This ideal condition of things prevailed in that little +district school in the farming region of New Hampshire. That teacher had +fourteen pupils; practically, she had fourteen "grades." Even when it +happened that two children were taught the same lesson, each one was +taught it individually. + +"They are all so different!" the teacher said, when I commented upon the +difference of her methods with the various children. "That boy, who +hopes to go to college and then teach, needs to get one thing from his +history lesson; and that girl, who intends to be a post-office clerk as +soon as she finishes school, needs to get something else." + +She did not aim to prepare her pupils for college. The district school +was only a "grammar school." There was a high school in the nearest +village, which was three miles away; she made her pupils ready for +entrance into that. In order to attend the high school, more than one +child in that neighborhood, year after year, in sunshine and storm, +walked two and three miles twice daily. Many a child who lived still +farther away was provided by an interested father with a horse and a +conveyance with which to make the two journeys a day. No wonder the +teacher of that district school felt that the people in the neighborhood +were "thoroughly awake to the importance of education"! + +As for the children--she had said that they were "such dears!" They +were. I remember, in particular, two; a brother and sister. She was +eight years old, and he was nine. They were inseparable companions. On +bright days they ran to school hand in hand. When it rained, they +trudged along the muddy road under one umbrella. + +The school-teacher had taught the little girl George Eliot's poem +"Brother and Sister." She could repeat it word for word, excepting the +line, "I held him wise." She always said that, "I hold him tight." This +"piece" the small girl "spoke" on a Friday afternoon. The most winning +part of her altogether lovely recitation was the smile with which she +glanced at her brother as she announced its title. He returned her +smile; when she finished her performance, he led the applause. + +Before the end of my visit I became very intimate with that brother and +sister. I chanced to be investigating the subject of "juvenile books." + +"What books have you?" I inquired of the little girl. + +"Ever so many of all kinds," she replied. "Come to our house and look at +them," she added cordially. + +Their house proved to be the near-by farm. One of the best in that +section, it was heated with steam and furnished with running water and +plumbing. It had also a local and long-distance telephone. The brother +and sister were but two of a family of seven children. Their father, who +was a member of the school committee, and their mother, who was a +graduate of a city high school, were keenly interested in, and, +moreover, very well informed on, the subject of pedagogy. They had read +a great number of books relating to it, and were in the habit of +following in the newspapers the procedures of the National Education +Association's Conventions. + +"Your children have a large number of exceedingly good books!" I +exclaimed, as I looked at the many volumes on a day appointed for that +purpose by the mother of the family. "I wish all children had as fine a +collection!" + +"Country children _must_ have books," she replied, "if they are going to +be educated _at all._ City children can _see_ things, and learn about +them that way. Country children have to read about them if they are to +know about them." + +The books were of many types--poetry, fiction, historical stories, +nature study, and several volumes of the "how to make" variety. All of +these were of the best of their several kinds--identical with the books +found in the "Children's Room" in any well-selected public library. Some +of them had been gifts to the children from "summer boarders," but the +majority had been chosen and purchased by their parents. + +"We hunt up the names of good books for children in the book review +departments of the magazines," the mother said. + +When I asked what magazines, she mentioned three. Two she and her +husband "took"; the other she borrowed monthly from a neighbor, on an +"exchange" basis. + +No other children in that region were so abundantly supplied with books; +but all whom I met liked to read. Their parents, in most cases unable to +give them numerous books, had, in almost every instance, taught them to +love reading. + +One boy with whom I became friends had a birthday while I was in the +neighborhood. I had heard him express a longing to read "The Lays of +Ancient Rome," which neither he nor any other child in the vicinity +possessed, so I presented him with a copy of it. + +"Would you mind if I gave it to the library?" he asked. "Then the other +children around could read it, too." + +"The library!" I exclaimed. + +"Oh, I don't mean the one down in the village," he hastened to explain. +"I mean the one here, near us. Haven't you been to it?" + +When he found that I had not, he offered to go with me to see it. It +turned out to be a "lean-to" in a farmhouse that was in a rather central +position with relation to the surrounding farms. The library consisted +of about two hundred volumes. The librarian was an elderly woman who +lived in the house. One was allowed, she told me, to take out as many +books as one wished, and to keep them until one had finished reading +them. + +"Do you want to take out any?" she inquired. + +After examining the four or five shelves that comprised the library, I +wanted to take out at least fifty. The books, especially the "juvenile +books," were those of a former generation. Foremost among them were the +"Rollo Books," "Sandford and Merton," Mary Howitt's "Story-Book," and +"The Parents' Assistant." + +"Who selected the books?" I asked. + +"Nobody exactly _selected_ them," the librarian said. "Every one around +here gave a few from their collections, so's we could have a near-to +library--principally on account of the children. I live most convenient +to every one hereabouts; so I had shelves put up in my lean-to for +them." + +News travels very rapidly indeed in the country. My boy friend told some +of the other children that I was reading the _oldest_ books in the +library. "She takes them out by the armfuls," I overheard him remark. + +No doubt he made more comments that I did not overhear; for one morning +a small girl called to see me, and, after a few preliminaries, said, "If +you are through with 'The Fairchild Family,' may I have it? You like it +awfully much, don't you?" + +Not only in the secular teaching of their children do thoughtful country +parents, in common with careful fathers and mothers living elsewhere, +try to obtain the best means and to use them to the best ends; in the +religious instruction of their children they make a similar attempt. +They are not content to let their children learn entirely at home, to +depend solely upon parental guidance. The church, and even the Sunday +school, are integral parts in the up-bringing of the most happily +situated country children. The little white meeting-houses in the small +rural villages are familiar places to the country child--joyously +familiar places, at that. The only weekly outing that falls to the lot +of the younger children of country parents is the Sunday trip to church +and Sunday school. + +What do they get from it? Undoubtedly, very much what city children +receive from the church and the Sunday school--in quantity and in +quality. There is a constant pleasure from the singing; an occasional +glimmer of illumination from the sermon; and an unfailing delight from +the Bible stories. We can be reasonably sure that _all_ children get +thus much from the habitual church and Sunday-school attendance. Some, +irrespective of city or country environment, glean more. + +A small country boy of my acquaintance brought from Sunday school one of +the most unique versions of a Scriptural passage with which I have ever +met. "Did you go to church this morning?" I inquired of him, one Sunday +afternoon, when, catching a glimpse of me under the trees near his home, +he came, as he explained, to "pass the time of day" with me. + +"Yes," he answered; "and I went to Sunday school, too." + +"And what was your lesson about?" I asked. + +"Oh, about the roses--" + +"Roses?" I interrupted, in surprise. + +"Yes," the little boy went on; "the roses--you know--in the gardens." + +"I don't remember any Sunday-school lesson about them," I said. + +"But there _is_ one; we had it to-day. The roses, they made the children +have good manners. Then, one day, the children were greedy; and their +manners were bad. Don't you know about it?" he added anxiously. + +He was but five years old. I told him about Moses; I explained +painstakingly just who the Children of Israel were; and I did my best to +point out clearly the difference between manna and manners. He listened +with seeming understanding; but the next day, coming upon me as I was +fastening a "crimson rambler" to its trellis, he inquired solemnly, "Can +the roses make children have good manners, _yet_?" + +Country children are taught, even as sedulously as city children, the +importance of good manners! On the farm, as elsewhere, the small left +hand is seized in time by a mother or an aunt with the well-worn words, +"Shake hands with the _right_ hand, dear." "If you please," as promptly +does an elder sister supplement the little child's "Yes," on the +occasion of an offer of candy from a grown-up friend. The proportion of +small boys who make their bows and of little girls who drop their +courtesies is much the same in the country as it is in the city. + +[Illustration: A SMALL COUNTRY BOY] + +In the matter of clothes, too, the country mother, like any other mother +in America, wishes her children to be becomingly attired, in full accord +with such of the prevailing fashions as seem to her most suitable. In +company with the greater portion of American mothers, she devotes +considerable time and strength and money to the wardrobes of her boys +and girls. The result is that country children are dressed strikingly +like city children. Their "everyday" garments are scarcely +distinguishable from the "play clothes" of city children; their "Sunday" +clothes are very similar to the "best" habiliments of the boys and girls +who do not live in the country. + +We have all read, in the books of our grandmothers' childhood, of the +children who, on the eve of going to visit their city cousins, were much +exercised concerning their wearing apparel. "_Would_ the pink frock, +with the green sash, be _just_ what was being worn to parties in the +city?" the little girl of such story-books fearfully wondered. "Will +boys of my age be wearing short trousers _still_?" the small boy +dubiously queried. Invariably it transpired that pink frocks and green +sashes, if in fashion at all, were _never_ seen at parties; and that +_long_ trousers were absolutely essential, from the point of view of +custom, for boys of our hero's age. Many woes were attendant upon the +discovery that these half-suspected sumptuary laws were certain facts. + +No present-day country boy and girl, coming from the average home to the +house of city cousins, would need to feel any such qualms. Should they, +five minutes' inspection of the garments of those city cousins would +relieve their latent questionings. They would see that, to the casual +eye, they and their cousins were dressed in the same type of raiment. + +How could they fail to be? A large crop of "fashion magazines" +flourishes in America. The rural free delivery brings them to the very +doors of the farmhouse. By the use of mail orders the mother on the farm +can obtain whatever materials the particular "fashion magazine" to which +she is a subscriber advises, together with paper patterns from which she +can cut anything, from "jumpers" to a "coat for gala occasions." + +The approved clothes of all American children in our time are so +exceedingly simple in design that any woman who can sew at all can +construct them; and, in the main, the materials of which they are made +are so inexpensive that even the farmer whose income is moderate in size +can afford to supply them. A clergyman who had worked both in city and +in country parishes once told me that he attributed the marked increase +in ease and grace of manner--and, consequently, in "sociability"--among +country people to-day, as compared with country people of his boyhood, +very largely to the invention of paper patterns. + +"Rural folk dressed in a way peculiar to themselves then," he said; "now +they dress like the rest of the world. It is curious," he went on, +reflectively, "but human beings, as a whole, seem unable not to be +awkward in their behavior if their costumes can possibly be +differentiated otherwise than by size!" + +It is another queer fact that normal persons would seem to require +"best" clothes. They share the spirit of Jess, in "A Window in Thrums." +"But you could never wear yours, though ye had ane," said Hendry to her +about the "cloak with beads"; "ye would juist hae to lock it awa in the +drawers." "Aye," Jess retorted, "but I would aye ken it was there." + +I have an acquaintance who is not normal in this matter. She scorns +"finery," whether for use or for "locking awa." One summer she and I +spent a fortnight together on a Connecticut farm. During the week the +farmer and his wife, as well as their two little children, a girl and a +boy, wore garments of dark-colored denim very plainly made. The children +were barefooted. + +"These people have sense," my acquaintance observed to me on the first +day of our sojourn; "they dress in harmony with their environment." + +I was silent, realizing that, if Sunday were a fine day, she might feel +compelled to modify her approbation. On Saturday night the farmer asked +if we should care to accompany the family to church the next morning. +Both of us accepted the invitation. + +Sunday morning, as I had foreseen, when the family assembled to take its +places in the "three-seater," the father was in "blacks," with a +"boiled" shirt; the mother, a pretty dark-eyed, dark-haired young woman, +a pleasant picture in the most every-day of garments, was a charming +sight, in a rose-tinted wash silk and a Panama hat trimmed with black +velvet. As for the boy and the girl, they were arrayed in spotless +white, from their straw hats even to their canvas shoes. The hands of +the farmer and his son were uncovered; but the mother and her little +daughter wore white lisle gloves. They also carried parasols--the +mother's of the shade of her dress, the girl's pale blue. No family in +America could possibly have looked more "blithe and bonny" than did that +one in "Sunday" clothes, ready for church. + +The face of my acquaintance was a study. + +In it were mingled surprise and disapproval. Both these elements became +more pronounced when we were fairly in the meeting-house. All the men, +women, and children there assembled were also in "Sunday" clothes. + +My acquaintance has the instinct of the reformer. Hardly were we settled +in the "three-seater," preparatory to returning home after the service, +when she began. "Do you make your own clothes?" she inquired of the +farmer's wife. + +"Yes," was the reply; "and the children's, too." + +"Isn't there a great deal of work involved in the care of such garments +as you are all wearing to-day?" she further pursued. + +"I suppose there is the usual amount," the other woman said, dryly. + +"Then, why do you do it--living in the country, as you do?" + +"There is no reason why people shouldn't dress nicely, no matter where +they happen to live," was the answer. "During the week we can't; but on +Sunday we can, and do, and ought--out of respect to the day," she +quaintly added. + +[Illustration: ARRAYED IN SPOTLESS WHITE] + +The city is not a mere name to American country children. Increased +train facilities, the improvement in the character of country roads +brought about by the advent of the automobile, and the extension of the +trolley system have done much to mitigate the isolation of rural +communities. The farmer and his wife can avail themselves of the +advantages to be found in periodical trips to the nearest city. Like +other American parents, they invite their children to share their +interests. The boys and girls are included in the jauntings to the city. + +I once said to a little girl whom I met on a farm in Massachusetts: "You +must come soon and stay with me in the city from Saturday until Monday. +We will go to the Art Museum and look at the pictures." + +"Oh," she cried, joyously, "I'd _love_ to! Every time we go to town, and +there is a chance, mother and I go to the Museum; we both like the +pictures so much." + +This little girl, when she was older, desired to become a kindergartner. +There was a training-school in the near-by city. She could not afford to +go to and fro on the train, but there was a trolley. The journey on the +trolley occupied three hours, but the girl took it twice daily for two +years. + +"Doesn't it tire you?" I asked her. + +"Oh, somewhat," she admitted; "but I was already used to it. We usually +traveled to town on it when I was small." + +"Countrified" is not the word to apply to American farmers and their +families. One might as aptly employ it when describing the people of +England who live on their "landed estates." Ignorance and dullness and +awkwardness we shall not often find among country children. The boys and +girls on the farms are as well informed, as mentally alert, and as +attractive as children in any other good homes in America. + +We all know Mr. James Whitcomb Riley's poem, "Little Cousin Jasper." The +country boy in it, we recall, concluded his reflections upon the happier +fortune of the boy from the "city" of Rensselaer with these words: + +"Wishst our town ain't like it is!-- +Wishst it's ist as big as his! +Wishst 'at _his_ folks they'd move _here_, +An' _we'd_ move to Rensselaer!" + +Only last summer I repeated this poem to a little girl whose home was a +farm not far from a house at which I was stopping. + +"But," she said, in a puzzled tone of voice, "no place is as big as the +country! Look!" she exclaimed, pointing to the distant horizon; "it's so +big it touches the edge of the sky! No city is _that_ big, is it?" + + + + +IV + + + +THE CHILD IN SCHOOL + + +An elderly woman was talking to me not long ago about her childhood. + +"No, my dear, I did not have a governess," she said, in answer to my +questionings. "Neither did I attend the public schools, though I lived +in the city. I went to a private school. The pupils in it were the girls +of the little social circle to which my parents belonged. There were +perhaps twenty of us in all. And there were three teachers; one for the +'first class,' one for the 'second class,' and a French-German-music- +and-drawing-teacher-in-one for both classes." + +"And what did you study?" I asked. + +"Besides French, German, music, and drawing?" my elderly friend mused. +"Well, we had the three R's; and history, English and American, and +geography, and deportment. I think that was all." + +"And you liked it?" I ventured. + +"Yes, my dear, I did," replied my friend, "though I used to pretend that +I didn't. I sometimes even 'played sick' in order to be allowed to stay +home from school. Children then, as now, thought they ought to 'hate to +go to school.' I believe most of them did, too. I happened to be a +'smart' child; so I liked school. I suppose 'smart' children still do." + +A "smart" child! In my mind's eye I can see my elderly friend as one, +sitting at the "head" of her class, on a long, narrow bench, her eyes +shining with a pleased consciousness of "knowing" the lesson, her cheeks +rosy with expectation of the triumph sure to follow her "saying" of it, +her lips parted in an eagerness to begin. Can we not all see her, that +"smart" child of two generations ago? + +As for her lesson, can we not hear it with our mind's ear? In +arithmetic, it was the multiplication table; in English history, the +names of the sovereigns and the dates of their reigns; in geography, the +capitals of the world; in deportment--ah, in deportment, a finer lesson +than any of our schools teach now! These were the lessons. Indeed, my +elderly friend has told me as much. "And not easy lessons, either, my +dear, nor easily learned, as the lessons of schoolchildren seem to be +to-day. We had no kindergartens; the idea that lessons were play had not +come in; to us lessons were work, and hard work." + +My friend gave a little sigh and shook her head ever so slightly as she +concluded. It was plain that she deprecated modern educational methods. +"Schools have changed," she added. + +And has not the attitude of children toward going to school changed even +more? Do many of them "hate to go"? Do any of them at all think they +"ought to hate to go"? Is a single one "smart" in the old-time sense of +the word? + +A winter or two ago I was recovering from an illness in a house which, +by great good fortune, chanced to be situated on a suburban street +corner, not only near a large public school, but directly on the main +route of the children going to and from it. My chief pleasure during +that shut-in winter was watching those children. Four times a day--at +half-past eight, at half-past twelve, at half-past one, and at half-past +three--I would take the window to see them going by. They were of many +ages and sizes; from the kindergarten babies to the boys and girls of +the ninth grade. None of them could possibly have been described as +"creeping like snail unwillingly to school." As a usual thing, they came +racing pell-mell down the three streets that converged at my corner; +after school they as tumultuously went racing up, homeward. I never +needed to consult the clock in order not to miss seeing the children. +When I heard from outside distant sounds of laughing and shouting, I +knew that a school session had just ended--or was about to begin. Which, +I could only tell by noting the time. The same joyous turmoil heralded +the one as celebrated the other. Clearly, these children, at least, did +not "hate to go to school"! + +One of them, a little boy of nine, a friend and near neighbor of mine, +liked it so well that enforced absence from it constituted a punishment +for a major transgression. "Isn't your boy well?" I inquired of his +mother when she came to call one evening. "A playmate of his who was +here this afternoon told me that he had not been in school to-day." + +"Oh, yes, he is perfectly well!" my friend exclaimed. "But he is being +disciplined--" + +"Disciplined?" I said. "Has he been so insubordinate as that in school?" + +"Not in school," the boy's mother said; "at home." Then, seeing my +bewilderment, she elucidated. "When he is _very_ naughty at home, I keep +him out of school. It punishes him more than anything else, because he +loves to go to school." + +Another aspect of the subject presented itself to my mind. "I should +think he would fall behind in his studies," I commented. + +"Oh, no," she replied; "he doesn't. Children don't fall behind in their +studies in these days," she added. "They don't get a chance. Every +single lesson they miss their teachers require them to 'make up.' When +my boy is absent for a day, or even for only half a day, his teacher +sees that he 'makes up' the lessons lost before the end of the week. +When I was a child, and happened to be absent, no teacher troubled about +_my_ lost lessons! _I_ did all the troubling! I laboriously 'made them +up'; the thought of examination days coming along spurred me on." + +Those examination days! How amazed, almost amused, our child friends are +when we, of whose school-days they were such large and impressive +milestones, describe them! A short time ago I was visiting an old +schoolmate of mine. "Tell me what school was like when you and mother +went," her little girl of ten besought me. + +So I told her. I dwelt upon those aspects of it differing most from +school as she knows it--the "Scholarship Medal," the "Prize for Bible +History," and the other awards, the bestowal of which made "Commencement +Morning" of each year a festival unequaled, to the pupils of "our" +school, by any university commencement in the land, however many and +brilliant the number of its recipients of "honorary degrees." I touched +upon the ease with which even the least remarkable pupil in that school +could repeat the Declaration of Independence and recount the "causes" of +the French Revolution. Finally, I mentioned our examination days--six in +January, six more in June. + +"What did you do on them?" inquired the little girl. + +"Will you listen to that?" demanded her mother. "Ten years old--and she +asks what we did on examination days! This is what it means to belong to +the rising generation--not to know, at ten, anything about examination +days!" + +"What _did_ you do on them?" the little girl persisted. + +"We had examinations," I explained. "All our books were taken away, and +we were given paper and pen and ink--" + +"And three hours for each examination," my friend broke in. "We had one +in the morning and another in the afternoon." + +"Yes," I went on. "One morning we would have a grammar examination. +Twenty questions would be written on the blackboard by our teacher, and +we would write the answers--in three hours. On another morning, or on +the afternoon of that same day, we might have an arithmetic examination. +There would be twenty questions, and three hours to answer them in, just +the same." + +"Do you understand, dear?" said the little girl's mother. "Well, well," +she went on, turning to me before the child could reply, "how this talk +brings examination days back to my remembrance! What excitement there +was! And how we worked getting ready for them! I really think it was a +matter of pride with us to be so tired after our last examination of the +week that we had to go to bed and dine on milk toast and a soft-boiled +egg!" + +The little girl was looking at us with round eyes. + +"Does it all sound very queer?" I asked. + +"The going to bed does," she made reply; "and the milk toast and the egg +for dinner, and the working hard. The examinations sound something like +the tests we have, _They_ are questions to write answers to, but we +don't think much about them. I don't believe any of the girls or boys go +to bed afterwards, or have milk toast and eggs for dinner--on purpose +because they have had a test!" + +She was manifestly puzzled. "Perhaps it is because we have tests about +every two weeks, and not just in January and June," she suggested. + +She did not seem disposed to investigate further the subject of her +mother's and my school-days. In a few moments she ran off to her play. + +When she was quite out of hearing her mother burst into a hearty laugh. +"Poor child!" she exclaimed. "She thinks we and our school were very +curious. I wonder why," she continued more seriously, "we did take +examinations, and lessons, too, so weightily. Children don't in these +days. The school-days of the week are so full of holiday spirit for them +that, actually, Saturday is not much of gala day. Think of what Saturday +was to _us_! What glorious times we had! Why, Saturday was _Saturday_, +to us! Do you remember the things we did? You wrote poems and I painted +pictures, and we read stories, and 'acted' them. Then, we had our +gardens in the spring, and our experiments in cake-baking in the winter. +My girls do none of these things on Saturday. The day is not to them +what it was to us. I wonder what makes the difference." + +[Illustration: THEY PAINT PICTURES AS A REGULAR PART OF THEIR SCHOOL +ROUTINE] + +I had often wondered; but these reflections of my old schoolmate gave me +an inkling of what the main difference is. To us, school had been a +place in which we learned lessons from books--books of arithmetic, books +of grammar, or other purely academic books. For five days of the week +our childish minds were held to our lessons; and our lessons, without +exception, dealt with technicalities--parts of speech, laws of +mathematics, facts of history, definitions of the terms of geography. +Small marvel that Saturday was a gala day to us. It was the one "week +day" when we might be unacademic! + +But children of the present time have no such need of Saturday. They +write poems, and paint pictures, and read stories, and "act" them, and +plant gardens, and even bake cake, as regular parts of their school +routine. The schools are no longer solely, or even predominantly, +academic. As for technicalities, where are they in the schools of to- +day? As far in the background as the teachers can keep them. Children do +not study grammar now; they are given "language work." It entails none +of the memorizing of "rules," "exceptions," and "cautions" that the +former study of grammar required. History would seem to be learned +without that sometime laying hold of "dates." Geography has ceased to be +a matter of the "bounding" of states and the learning of the capitals of +the various countries; it has become the "story of the earth." And +arithmetic--it is "number work" now, and is all but taught without the +multiplication tables. How could Saturday be to the children of to-day +what it was to the children of yesterday? + +My old schoolmate's little girl had spoken of "tests." In my school-days +we called such minor weekly or fortnightly matters as these, "reviews." +We regarded them quite as lightly as my small friend looked upon her +"tests." Examinations--they were different, indeed. Twice a year we were +expected to stretch our short memories until they neatly covered a +series of examination papers, each composed of twenty questions, +relating to fully sixteen weeks' accumulation of accurate data on the +several subjects--fortunately few--we had so academically been studying. +It is little wonder that children of the present day are not called upon +to "take" such examinations; not only the manner of their teaching, but +the great quantity of subjects taught, make "tests" of frequent +occurrence the only practicable examinations. + +"Children of the present time learn about so many things!" sighed a +middle-aged friend of mine after a visit to the school which her small +granddaughter attended. "What an array of subjects are brought to their +notice, from love of country to domestic science! How do their young +minds hold it?" + +I am rather inclined to think that their young minds hold it very much +as young minds of one, two, or three generations ago held it. After all, +what subjects are brought to the notice of present-day children that +were not called to the attention of children of former times? The +difference would seem to be, not that the children of to-day learn about +more things than did the children of yesterday, but that they learn +about more things in school. Love of country--were we not all taught +that by our fathers as early and as well as the children are taught it +to-day by their teachers? And domestic science--did not mothers teach +that, not only to their girls, but to their boys also, with a degree of +thoroughness not surpassed even by that of the best of modern domestic +science teachers? The subjects to be brought to the notice of children +appear to be so fixed; the things to be learned by them seem to be so +slightly alterable! It is only the place of instruction that has +shifted. Such a quantity of things once taught entirely at home are now +taught partly at school. + +It is the fashion, I know, to deplore this. "How dreadful it is," we +hear many a person exclaim, "that things that used to be told a child +alone at its mother's knee are now told whole roomfuls of children +together in school!" + +Certainly it would be "dreadful" should the fact that children are +taught anything in school become a reason to parents for ceasing to +teach them that same thing at home. So long as this does not happen, +ought we not to rejoice that children are given the opportunity of +hearing in company from their teachers what they have already heard +separately from their fathers and mothers? A boy or a girl who has heard +from a father or a mother, in intimate personal talk, of the beauty of +truth, the beauty of purity, the beauty of kindness, is fortified in an +endeavor to hold fast to these things by hearing a teacher speak of them +in a public, impersonal way. + +Indeed, is not this unity between the home and the school the great and +unique fact in the education of the children of the present time? They +are taught at home, as children always have been, and doubtless always +will be, an "array of subjects"; and they are taught at school, as +children perhaps never before were, other aspects of very nearly all the +matters touched upon in that "array." My old schoolmate said that +Saturday had lost the glory it wore in her school-days and mine; but it +seems to me that what has actually occurred is that the five school-days +of the week have taken on the same glory. The joys we had only on +Saturday children have now on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, +Friday, _and_ Saturday! + +It is inevitable, I suppose, that they should handle our old delights +with rather a professional grasp. One day recently a little girl, a new +acquaintance, came to see me. I brought out various toys, left over from +my childhood, for her amusement--a doll, with the trunk that still +contained her wardrobe; an autograph album, with "verses" and sketches +in it; and a "joining map," such as the brother of Rosamond of the +Purple Jar owned. + +[Illustration: THEY DO SO MANY THINGS!] + +My small caller occupied herself with these for a flattering length of +time, then she said: "You played with these--what else did you play +with?" + +"I made paper-boats," I replied; "and sailed them. I will show you how," +I added. + +She watched me with interest while I folded and refolded a sheet of +writing-paper until it became a boat. + +"There!" I said, handing it to her. + +"Have you any more, paper you can spare?" she questioned. + +"Of course," I said. "Should you like me to make you more boats?" + +"I'll make some things for _you_" she remarked, "if you will let me have +the paper." + +I offered her the freedom of the writing-paper drawer; and, while I +looked on, she folded and refolded with a practiced hand, until the +table beside us was covered, not only with boats compared with which +mine was as a dory to an ocean liner, but also with a score of other +pretty and somewhat intricate paper toys. + +"Who taught you to make all these lovely things?" I asked. + +"My teacher," answered the small girl. "We all do it, in my room at +school, every Friday." + +They do so many things! Their grown-up friends are hard put to it to +find anything novel to do with, or for, them. Not long ago a little boy +friend of mine was ill with scarlet fever. His "case" was so light that +the main problem attached to it was that of providing occupation for the +child during the six weeks of quarantine in one room. Remembering the +pleasure I had taken as a child in planting seeds on cotton in a glass +of water and watching them grow at a rate almost equal to that of Jack's +beanstalk, I made a similar "little garden" and sent it to the small +boy. + +"It was lots of fun, having it," he said, when, quite well, he came to +see me. "It grew so fast--faster than the others." + +"What others?" I queried. + +"At school," he explained. "We have them at school; and they grow fast, +but the one you gave me grew faster. Was that because it was in a little +glass instead of a big bowl?" + +I could not tell him. We had not had them at school in my school-days in +a big bowl. They had been out-of-school incidents, cultivated only in +little glasses. + +They have so many things at school, the children of to-day! If many of +these things have been taken from the home, they have only been taken +that they may, as it were, be carried back and forth between the home +and the school. + +I have a friend, the mother of an only child, a boy of eight. Her +husband's work requires that the family live in a section of the city +largely populated by immigrants. The one school in the vicinity is a +large public school. When my friend's little boy reached the "school +age," he, perforce, was entered at this school. + +"You are an American," his father said to him the day before school +opened; "not a foreigner, like almost every child you will find at +school. Remember that." + +"He doesn't understand what you mean when you talk to him about being an +American," the boy's mother said the next morning as we all watched the +child run across the street to the school. "How could he, living among +foreigners?" + +One day, about two months later, the small boy's birthday being near at +hand, his father said to him, "If some one were planning to give you +something, what should you choose to have it?" + +"A flag," the boy said instantly; "an American flag! _Our_ flag!" + +"Why?" the father asked, almost involuntarily. + +"To salute," the child replied. "I've learned how in school--what to say +and what to do. Americans do it when they love their country--like you +told me to," he added, eagerly. "Our teacher says so. She's taught us +all how to salute the flag. I told her I was an American, not a +foreigner like the other children. And she said they could be Americans, +too, if they wanted to learn how. So they are going to." + +The small boy got his flag. The patriotism taught at home and the +patriotism taught at school, diverse at other points, met and mingled at +that one most fundamental point. + +In former days children did not quote their teachers much at home, nor +their parents much at school. They do both in these days; occasionally +with comic results. A little girl of my acquaintance whose first year at +school began less than a month ago has, I observed only yesterday, +seemed to learn as her introductory lesson to pronounce the words +"either" and "neither" quite unmistakably "[=a]ther" and "n[=a]ther." + +"This is an amazing innovation," I said to her mother. "How did she ever +happen to think of it?" + +"Ask her," said her mother plaintively. + +I did inquire of the little girl. "Whom have you heard say '[=a]ther' +and 'n[=a]ther'?" + +"Nobody," she unexpectedly answered. + +"Then how did you learn to say it?" + +"Uncle Billy told me to--" + +This uncle is an instructor of English in one of our most famous +colleges. "My _dear_ child," I protested, "you must have misunderstood +him!" + +"Oh, no," she affirmed earnestly. "You see, papa and mamma say 'eether' +and 'neether,' and my school-teacher says 'eyether' and 'nyether.' I +told papa and mamma, and they said to say them the way my teacher did; +and I told my teacher, and she said to say them the way papa and mamma +did! I couldn't say them two ways at once; and I didn't know which one +way to say them. So Uncle Billy told me, if _he_ were doing it, _he_ +wouldn't worry about it; _he_ would say them '[=a]ther' and +'n[=a]ther'!" + +She is a very little girl, only seven; and she has not yet rounded out +her first month of school. I suppose before she has been in school a +full term she will have discovered the impracticability of her uncle's +method of settling the vexed question as to the pronunciation of +"either" and "neither." Very likely she will decide to say them +"eyether" and "nyether," as her teacher does. + +It takes the children so short a time to elevate the teacher to the rank +of final arbiter in their intellectual world. So soon, they follow her +footsteps in preference to any others along the ways of education. Not +only do they pronounce words as she pronounces them; in so far as they +are able, they define words as she defines them. In due course, they are +a bit fearful of any knowledge obtained otherwise than as she teaches +them to obtain it. Is there one of us who has attempted to help a child +with "home lessons" who has not been obliged to reckon with this fact? +Have we not worked out a problem in "bank discount," for instance, for a +perplexed youthful mathematician, only to be told, hesitatingly, "Ye-es, +you have got the right answer, but that isn't the way my teacher does +bank discount. Don't you know how to do it as she does?" Or, with a +young Latin "beginner" in the house, have we not tried to bring order +out of chaos with respect to the "Bellum Gallicum" by translating, "All +Gaul is divided into three parts," to be at once interrupted by, "Our +teacher translates that, 'Gaul is, _as a whole_, divided into three +parts.'" If we would assist the children of our immediate circles at all +with their "home lessons," we must do it exactly after the manner and +method ordained by their teachers. + +This condition of things ought not to be displeasing to us, for the +reason that, in the main, we have ourselves brought it to pass. The +children, during their first days at school, are loyally ready to force +the views of their fathers and their mothers, and their uncles and +aunts, upon their teachers; and their teachers are tactfully ready to +effect a compromise with them. But, before very long, our reiterated, +"Your teacher knows; do as she says," has its effect. The teacher +becomes the child's touchstone in relation to a considerable number of +the "array of subjects" taught in a present-day school. School-teachers +in America prepare themselves so carefully for their duties, train +themselves to such a high order of skill in their performance, it is but +just that those of us who are not teachers should abdicate in their +favor. + +However, since we are all very apt to be in entire accord with the +children's teachers in all really vital matters, our position of second +place in the minds of the boys and girls with regard to the ways of +doing "bank discount" or translating "_Gallia est omnes divisa in partes +tres_" is of small account. At least, we have a fuller knowledge of +their own relations with these mathematical and Latinic things than our +grandparents had of our parents' lessons. And the children's teachers +know more about our relations to the subjects taught than the teachers +of our fathers and mothers knew respecting the attitudes of our +grandfathers and grandmothers toward the curriculum of that earlier +time. For the children of to-day, unlike the children of a former time, +talk at home about school and talk at school about home. Almost +unconsciously, this effects an increasingly cooperative union between +home and school. + +"We are learning 'Paul Revere's Ride,' in school," I heard a small girl +who lives in Boston say recently to her mother. + +"Are you, darling?" the mother replied. "Then, shouldn't you like to go +some Saturday and see the church where the lanterns were hung?" + +So much did the child think she would like to go that her mother took +her the next Saturday. + +"You saw the very steeple at which Paul Revere looked that night for the +lanterns!" I said, when, somewhat later, I happened to be again at that +child's home. + +"Twice," she replied. "I told my teacher that mother had taken me, so +she took all of us in my room at school on the next Saturday." + +Perhaps the most significant influence of the American home upon the +American school is to be found in the regular setting apart of an hour +of the school-day once, or twice, or even three times a week, as a story +hour; and the filling of that hour with the stories, read or told, that +in earlier times children never so much as heard mentioned at school by +their teachers. It is indeed a pleasant thought that in school-rooms +throughout the land boys and girls are hearing about the Argonauts, and +the Knights of the Round Table, and the Crusaders; to say nothing of +such famous personages in the story world as Cinderella, and the +Sleeping Beauty, and Hop-O'-My-Thumb. The home story hour is no less +dear because there is a school story hour too. + +The other afternoon I stopped in during the story hour to visit a room +in the school of my neighborhood. The teacher told the story of Pandora +and the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur. A small friend of mine is a +member of the "grade" which occupies that room. At the end of the +session she walked home with me. + +"Tell me a story?" she asked, when, sitting cozily by the fire, we were +having tea. + +"What one should you like?" I inquired. "The story of Clytie, perhaps, +or--" + +"I'd like to hear the one about Pandora--" + +"But you have just heard it at school!" I exclaimed. + +"I know," she said; "but I'd like to hear you tell it." + +When I had told it, she begged me to tell another. Again I suggested +various tales in my repertory. But she refused them all. "Tell about the +man, and the dragon, and the ball of string, and the lady--" she began. + +And once more when I interposed, reminding her that she had just heard +it, she once more said, "Yes; but I'd like to hear it again." + +Some of the children whom I have in mind as I write go to private +schools and some of them go to public schools. It has not seemed to me +that the results obtained by the one type of school are discernibly +different from those produced by the other. In the private school there +are fewer pupils than in the public school; and they are more nearly +alike from the point of view of their parents' material wealth than are +the pupils in a public school. They are also "Americans," and not +"foreigners," as are so many of the children in city public schools, and +even in the public schools of many suburbs and villages. Possibly owing +to their smaller numbers, they receive more individual attention than +the pupils of the public school; but, so far as my rather extensive and +intimate acquaintance with children qualifies me to judge, they learn +the same lessons, and learn them with equal thoroughness. We hear a +great deal about the differences between public and private schools, and +certainly there are differences; but the pupils of the public and the +private schools are very much alike. It is considerably easier to +distinguish a public from a private school than it is to tell a public- +school child from a private-school child. + +[Illustration: THEY HAVE SO MANY THINGS!] + +There are many arraignments of our American schools, whether public or +private; and there are many persons who shake their heads over our +American school-children. "The schools are mere drilling-places," we +hear, "where the children are all put through the same steps." And the +children--what do we hear said of them? "They do not work at their +lessons as children of one, two, or three generations ago did," is the +cry; "school is made so pleasant for them!" + +Unquestionably our American schools and our American school-children +have their faults. We must try to amend both. Meanwhile, shall we not be +grateful that the "steps" through which the children are put are such +excellent ones; and shall we not rejoice that school is made so +"pleasant" for the boys and girls that, unlike the children of one, two, +or three generations ago, they like to go to school? + + + + +V + + + +THE CHILD IN THE LIBRARY + + +One day, not long ago, a neighbor of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, +of honored memory, was talking to me about him. Among the score of +charming anecdotes of the dear Colonel that she told me, there was one, +the most delightful of all, that related to the time-worn subject of the +child in the library. "As a family, we were readers," she said. "The +importance of reading had been impressed upon our minds from our +earliest youth. All of us liked to read, excepting one sister, younger +than I. She cared little for it; and she seldom did it. I was a mere +child, but so earnestly had I always been told that children who did not +read would grow up ignorant that I worried greatly over my sister who +would not read. At last I unburdened my troubled mind to Colonel +Higginson. 'She doesn't like to read; she doesn't read,' I confided. 'I +am afraid she will grow up ignorant; and then she will be ashamed! And +think how we shall feel!' The Colonel considered my words in silence for +a time. Then he said: 'There is a large and finely selected library in +your house; don't be disturbed regarding your sister, my dear. She will +not grow up ignorant. You see, she is exposed to books! She is certain +to get something of what is in them!'" + +Colonel Higginson's neighbor went on to say that from that day she was +no longer haunted by the fear that her sister, because she did not read, +would grow up ignorant. Are many of us in that same condition of feeling +with respect to the children of our acquaintance, even after we have +provided them with as excellent a library as had that other child in +which they may be "exposed to books"? On the contrary, so solicitous are +we that, having furnished to the best of our knowledge the best books, +we do not rest until we are reasonably sure that the children are, not +simply getting something from them, but getting it at the right times +and in the right ways. And everything and every one conspires to help +us. Publishers issue volumes by the dozen with such titles as "The +Children's Reading" and "A Guide to Good Reading" and "Golden Books for +Children." The librarian of the "children's room" in many a library sets +apart a certain hour of each week or each month for the purpose of +telling the children stories from the books that we are all agreed the +children should read, hoping by this means to inspire the boys and girls +to read the particular books for themselves. No effort is regarded as +too great if, through it, the children seem likely to acquire the habit +of using books; using them for work, and using them for recreation. + +Certainly our labors in this direction on behalf of the children are +amply rewarded. Not only are American children of the present time fond +of reading--most children of other times have been that; they have a +quite remarkable skill and ease in the use of books. + +A short while ago, spending a spring week-end with a friend who lives in +the country, I chanced to see a brilliant scarlet bird which neither my +hostess nor I could identify. "It was a redbird, I suppose," I said, in +mentioning it later to a city acquaintance. + +"What _is_ a redbird?" she asked. "Is it a cardinal, or a tanager, or +something still different?" + +"I don't know," I replied. "Perhaps," I added, turning to her little +girl often who was in the room, "_you_ know; children learn so much +about birds in their 'nature study.'" + +"No," the child answered; "but," she supplemented confidently, "I can +find out." + +Several days afterward she came to call. "Do you remember _exactly_ the +way that red bird you saw in the country looked?" she inquired, almost +as soon as we met. + +"Just red, I think," I said. + +"Not with black wings?" she suggested. + +"I hardly think so," I answered. + +"P'aps it had a few _white_ feathers in its wings?" she hinted. + +"I believe not," I said. + +"Then," she observed, with an air of finality, "it was a cardinal +grosbeak; and the other name for that _is_ redbird; so you saw a +redbird. The scarlet tanager is red, too, but it has black wings, and it +isn't called a redbird; and the crossbill is red, with a few _white_ +feathers, and _it_ isn't called a redbird either. Only the cardinal +grosbeak is. That was what you saw," she repeated. + +"And who told you all this?" I queried. + +"Nobody," the little girl made reply. "I looked it up in the library." + +She was only ten. "How did you look it up?" I found myself asking. + +"First," she explained, "I picked out the birds on the bird charts that +were red. The charts told their names. Then I got out a bird book, and +looked till I found where it told about those birds." + +"Do you look up many things in the library?" I questioned. + +"Oh, yes," the child replied. + +"And do you always find them?" I continued. + +"Not always by myself," she confessed. "Everything isn't as easy to look +up as birds. But when I can't, there is always the librarian, and she +helps; and when she is helping, 'most _anything_ gets found!" + +The public library of my small friend's city, not being the library I +habitually used, was only slightly familiar to me. Not long after I had +been so earnestly assured that the scarlet bird I had seen was a +redbird, I made occasion to go to the library in which the information +had been gathered. It was such a public library as may be seen in very +nearly every small city in the United States. Built of stone; lighted +and heated according to the most approved modern methods; divided into +"stack-rooms" and "reading-rooms" and "receiving-rooms"--it was that +"typical American library" of which we are, as we should be, so proud. I +did not ask to be directed to the "children's room"; I simply followed a +group of children who had come into the building with me. + +The "children's room," too, was "typical." It was a large, sunny place, +furnished with low bookcases, small tables, and chairs. Around two +walls, above the shelves, were pictures of famous authors, and +celebrated scenes likely to be known to children. At one end of the room +the bird charts of which I had so interestingly heard were posted, +together with flower charts and animal charts, of which I had not been +told. At the other end was the desk of the librarian, who so helped +young investigators that, when she helped, _anything_ got found. + +I seated myself at the little table nearest her desk. She smiled, but +she said nothing. Neither did I say anything. The time of day was just +after school; the librarian was too much occupied to talk to a stray +visitor. I remained for fully an hour; and during that hour a steady +stream of children passed in and out of the room. Some of them selected +books, and, having obtained them, departed; others stayed to read, and +others walked softly about, examining the pictures and charts. All of +them, whatever their various reasons for coming to the library, began or +ended their visits in conference with the librarian. They spoke just +above a whisper, as befitted the place, but I was near enough to hear +all that was said. + +"We want to give a play at school the last day before Christmas +vacation," said one small girl; "is there a good one here?" + +The librarian promptly recommended and put into the child's hands a +little volume entitled "Fairy Tales a Child Can Read and Act." + +A boy, entering rather hurriedly, asked, "Could I have a book that tells +how to make a wireless set--and have it quick, so I can begin to-day +before dark?" + +It was not a moment before the librarian found for him a book called +"Wireless Telegraphy for Amateurs and Students." + +Another boy, less on pleasure bent, petitioned for a "book about Abraham +Lincoln that will tell things to put in a composition on him." And a +girl, at whose school no Christmas play was apparently to be given, +asked for "a piece of poetry to say at school just before Christmas." +For these two, as for all who preceded or followed them, the librarian +had help. + +"How wonderful, how unique!" exclaimed an Italian friend to whom I +related the experiences of that afternoon hour in the "children's room" +in the library of that small city. + +But it seems to me that the wonderful thing about it is that it is not +unique; that in almost any "children's room" in almost any public +library in America practically the same condition prevails. Not only are +"children's rooms" of a very fine order to be found in great numbers; +but children's librarians, as sympathetic and as capable as the +librarian of my small friend's library, in as great numbers, are in +charge of those rooms. So recognized a profession has theirs come to be +that, connected with one of the most prominent libraries in the country, +there is a "School for Children's Librarians." + +The "children's librarians" do not stop at assisting them in choosing +books. The story hour has come to be as important in the "children's +rooms" as it is now in the school, as it has always been in the home. +Telling stories to children has grown to be an art; there is more than +one text-book laying down its "principles and laws." Many a librarian is +also an accomplished story-teller, and in an increasing number of +libraries there is a story hour in the "children's rooms." Beyond +question, we in America have taken every care that our public libraries +shall mean something more to the boys and girls than places in which +they are merely "exposed to books." + +American children read; it is doubtful whether any other children in the +world read so much or so intelligently. In our public libraries we plan +with such completeness for their reading that they can scarcely escape +becoming readers! At home we keep constantly in mind the great +importance of inculcating in them a love of books and a wontedness in +their use. To so many of their questionings we reply by advising, "Get a +book about it from the library." So many of the fundamental lessons of +life we first bring to their attention by putting into their hands books +treating of those lessons written by experts--written, moreover, +expressly for parents to give to their boys and girls to read. + +A few days ago I received a letter from a mother saying: "Do you know of +a book on hygiene that I can give to my children to read--a book on that +subject _for_ children?" + +Within reach of my hand I had such a book, entitled "The Child's Day," a +simply, but scientifically, written little volume, telling children what +to do from the hour of rising until the hour of retiring, in order to +keep well and strong, able to do good work at school, and to enjoy as +good play after school. It was a book that a child not only could read +with profit, but would read with pleasure. + +At about the same time a father said to me: "Is there any book written +for children about good citizenship--a sort of primer of civics, I mean? +I require something of that kind for my boy." + +A book to meet that particular need, too, was on my book-shelves. +"Lessons for Junior Citizens," it is called. In the clearest, and also +the most charming, form it tells the boys and girls about the +government, national and local, of their country, and teaches them their +relation to that government. + +It is safe to say that there is practically no subject so mature that it +is not now the theme of a book, or a score of books, written especially +for children. Every one of the numerous publishing houses in the United +States issues yearly as many good volumes of this particular type as are +submitted. A century ago a new writer was most likely to win the +interest of a publisher by sending him a manuscript subtitled, "A +Novel." At the present time a beginner can more quickly awaken the +interest of a publisher by submitting a manuscript the title of which +contains the words, "For Children." + +"Authors' editions" of books we have long had offered us by publishers; +"_éditions de luxe_" too; and "limited editions of fifty copies, each +copy numbered." These are all old in the world of books. What is new, +indeed, is the "children's edition." We have it in many shapes, from +"Dickens for Children" to "The Children's Longfellow." These volumes +find their way into the "children's rooms" of all our public libraries; +and, quite as surely, they help to fill the "children's bookcases" in +the private libraries to be found in a large proportion of American +homes. For no public library can take the place in the lives of the +children of a private library made up of their "very own" books. The +public library may, however, often have a predominant share in +determining the selection of those "very own" books. The children wish +to possess such books as they have read in the "children's room." + +Sometimes a child has still another similar reason for wishing to own a +certain book. Only the other day I had a letter from a boy to whom I had +sent a copy of "The Story of a Bad Boy." "I am glad to have it," he +said. "The library has it, and father has it. I like to have what the +library and father have." + +Parents buy books for their children in very much the proportions that +parents bought them before the land was dotted with public libraries. +Indeed, they buy books in larger proportions, for the reason that there +are so many more books to be bought! The problem of the modern father or +mother is not, as it once was, to discover a volume likely to interest +the children; but, from among the countless volumes offered for sale, +all certain to interest the children, to choose one, two, or three that +seem most excellent where all are so good. A mother of a few generations +ago whose small boy was eager to read tales of chivalry simply gave him +"Le Morte D'Arthur"; there was no "children's edition" of it, no "Boy's +King Arthur," no "Tales of the Round Table." The father whose little +girl desired to read for herself the stories of Greece he had told her +put into her hands Bulfinch's "Age of Fable"; he could not, as can +fathers to-day, give her Kingsley's rendering, or Hawthorne's, or Miss +Josephine Preston Peabody's. Like the father of Aurora Leigh,-- + +"He wrapt his little daughter in his large +Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no." + +At the present time we do not often see a child wrapped in a large man's +doublet of a book; even more seldom do we see a father careless if it +fit or no. What we plainly behold is that doublet, cut down, and most +painstakingly fitted to the child's little mind. + +Unquestionably the children lose something by this. The great books of +the world do not lend themselves well to making over. "Tales from +Shakespeare" are apt to leave out Shakespeare's genius, and "Stories +from Homer" are not Homer. In cutting the doublet to fit, the most +precious part of the fabric is in danger of being sacrificed. + +But whatever the children lose when they are small, they find again when +they come to a larger growth. Most significant of all, when they find +it, they recognize it. A little girl who is a friend of mine had read +Lambs' "Tales." The book had been given to her when she was eight years +old. She is nine now. One day, not long ago, she was lingering before my +bookcases, taking out and glancing through various volumes. Suddenly she +came running to me, a copy of "As You Like It" in her hand. "This story +is in one of my books!" she cried. + +"Yes," I said; "your book was written from this book, and some of those +other little red books there with it in the bookcase." + +The child went back to the bookcase. She took down all the other volumes +of Shakespeare, and, sitting on the rug with them, she spent an utterly +absorbed hour in turning over their leaves. Finally she scrambled to her +feet and set the books back in their places. "I've found which stories +in these books are in my book, too," she remarked. "Mine are easier to +read," she added; "but yours have lovely talk in them!" + +Had she not read Lambs' "Tales" at eight I am not certain she would have +ventured into the wide realms of Shakespeare at nine, and tarried there +long enough to discover that in those realms there is "lovely talk." + +Occasionally, to be sure, the children insist upon books being easy to +read, and refuse to find "lovely talk" in them if they are not. It was +only a short time ago that I read to a little boy Browning's "Pied Piper +of Hamelin." When I had finished there was a silence. "Do you like it?" +I inquired. + +"Ye-es," replied my small friend; "it's a nice story, but it's nicer in +my book than in yours. I'll bring it next time I come, so you can read +it." + +He did. The story was told in prose. It began, "There was once a town, +named Hamelin, and there were so many rats in it that the people did not +know what to do." Certainly this is "easier to read" than the forty-two +lines which the poem uses to make an identical statement regarding the +town named Hamelin. My little friend is only six. I hope that by the +time he is twelve he will think the poem is as "nice" as, if not "nicer" +than, the story in his book. At least he may be impelled by the memory +of his pleasure in his book to turn to my book and compare the two +versions of the tale. + +The children of to-day, like the children of former days, read because +they find in books such stuff as dreams are made of; and, in common with +the children of all times, they must needs make dreams. Like the boys +and girls of most eras, they desire to make also other, more temporal, +things. To aid them in this there are books in quantities and of +qualities not even imagined by the children of a few generations ago. +The book the title of which begins with the words "How to Make" is +perhaps the most distinctive product of the present-day publishing +house. No other type of book can so effectively win to a love for +reading a child who seems indifferent to books; who, as a boy friend of +mine used to say, "would rather hammer in nails than read." The "How to +Make" books tell such a boy how to hammer in nails to some purpose. I +happened to see recently a volume called "Boys' Make-at-Home Things." +With much curiosity I turned its pages,--pages illustrated with pictures +of the make-at-home things of the title,--glancing at directions for +constructing a weather-vane, a tent, a sled, and a multitude of smaller +articles. I thought of my boyfriend. "Do you think he would care to have +the book?" I inquired of his mother over the telephone. + +"Well, I _wish_ he would care to have _any_ book!" she replied. "If you +want to _try_ this one--" She left the sentence unfinished, unless a +sigh may be regarded as a conclusion. + +I did try the book. "This will tell you how to have fun with your +tools," I wrote, when I sent it to the boy. + +Except for a laconic note of thanks, I heard nothing from my young +friend about the book. One day last week I chanced to see his mother. +"What do you think I am doing this afternoon?" she said. "I am getting a +_book_ for my son, at his own request! He is engrossed in that book you +sent him. He is making some of the things described in it. But he wants +to make something _not_ mentioned in it, and he actually asked me to see +if I could find a book that told how!" + +"So he likes books better now?" I commented. + +"Well--I asked him if he did," said the boy's mother; "and he said he +didn't like '_booky_' books any better, but he liked this kind, and +always would have, if he'd known about them!" + +Whether my boy friend will learn early to love "booky" books is a bit +doubtful perhaps; certainly, however, he has found a companion in one +kind of book. He has made the discovery quickly, too; for he has had +"Boys' Make-at-Home Things" less than a month. + +It was an easy matter for that boy's mother to get for her son the +particular book he desired. She lives in a city; at least three large +public libraries are open to her. As for book-shops, there are more +within her reach than she could possibly visit in the course of a week, +much less in an afternoon. + +The mothers who live in the country cannot so conveniently secure the +books their boys and girls may wish or need. I know one woman, the +mother of two boys, living in the country, who has to exercise +considerable ingenuity to provide her sons with books of the "How to +Make" kind. There is no public library within available distance of the +farmhouse which is her home, and she and her husband cannot afford to +buy many books for their children. The boys, moreover, like so great a +variety of books that, in order to please them, it is not necessary to +select a book that is not "booky." Their parents are lovers of great +literature. "I cannot bring myself to buy a book about how to make an +aeroplane, for instance," their mother said to me one day, "when there +are so many wonderful books they have not read, and would enjoy reading! +Since I must limit my purchase of books, I really think I ought to +choose only the _real_ books for the boys; and yet they want to make +things with their hands, like other boys, and there is no way to teach +them how except through books. My husband has no time for it, and there +is no one else to show them." + +The next summer I went to spend a few days with my friend in the +country. The morning after my arrival her boys proposed to take me "over +the place." At the lower edge of the garden, to which we presently came, +there was a little brook. Across it was a bridge. It was plainly to be +seen that this bridge was the work of the boys. "How very nice it is!" I +remarked. + +"We made it," the older of the boys instantly replied. + +"Who showed you how?" I queried, wondering, as I spoke, if my friend +had, after all, changed her mind with respect to the selection of books +for her children, and chosen one "How to Make" volume. + +"It told how in a book," the younger boy said; "a Latin book father +studied out of when he was a boy. There was a picture of the bridge; and +on the pages in the back of the book the way to make it was all written +out in English--father had done it when he was in school. It was a long +time before we could _quite_ see how to do it; but mother helped, and +the picture showed how, and father thought we could do it if we kept at +it. And it is really a good bridge--you can walk across on it." + +When the boys and I returned to the house my friend greeted me with a +merry smile. As soon as we were alone she exclaimed, "I have _so_ wanted +to write to you about our bridge, patterned on Caesar's! But the boys +are so proud of it, they like to 'surprise' people with it--not because +it is like a bridge Caesar made, but because it is a bridge they have +made themselves!" + +[Illustration: THE CHILDREN'S EDITION] + +Another friend of mine, the mother of a little girl, has had a different +problem, centring around the necessity of books for children, to solve. +She, too, lives in the country, and her little girl is a pupil at the +neighboring district school. During a visit in the city home of a cousin +the small girl had been a spectator at the city child's "school play," +which happened to consist of scenes from "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." +When she returned home, she wished to have such an entertainment in her +school. "Dearest," her mother said, "we have no books of plays children +could act." + +"Couldn't we do the one they did at Cousin Rose's school?" was the next +query. "Papa says we have _that_." + +"I am afraid not," her mother demurred. "Ask your teacher." + +The child approached her teacher on the subject. "No," the teacher said +decisively. "'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' is too long and too hard. Read +it, and you'll see. But," she sagely added, "if you can find anything +that is suitable, and can persuade the other children to act in it, I +will help you all I can." + +That evening, at home, the little girl read "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." +"Mamma," she suddenly cried, as she neared the end, "my teacher says +this is too long and too hard for us children to do. But we _could_ do +the play that the people _in it_ do--don't you think? It is _very_ +short, and all the children will like it because it is about poor +Pyramus and Thisbe, that we have all read about in school. It isn't +_just_ the same as the way it was in the story we read; but it is about +them--and the wall, and the lion, and everything! Don't you think we +could do it? They did the fairy part when I saw it at Cousin Rose's +school, and not this at all. But couldn't _we_?" + +"I did not like to discourage her," my friend said when she related the +tale to me. "_All_ the other children were willing and eager to do it, +so her teacher couldn't refuse, after what she had said, to help them. I +helped with the rehearsals, too, and I doubt if the teacher or I ever +laughed so much in all our lives as we did at that time--when there were +no children about! The children were so sweet and serious over their +play! They acted it as they would have acted a play on the subject of +Pyramus and Thisbe written especially for them. _They_ weren't funny. +No; they were perfectly lovely. What was so irresistibly comic, of +course, was the difference between their performance and one's +remembrance of regular performances of it--to say nothing of one's +thoughts as to what Shakespeare would have said about it. How those +children will laugh when they are grown up! They will have something to +laugh at that will last them a lifetime. But _poor_ Shakespeare!" + +I did not echo these final words of my friend. For does not Shakespeare +rather particularly like to bless us with the laugh that lasts a +lifetime, even if--perhaps especially if--it be at our own expense? + +Books are such integral parts of the lives of present-day children, +especially in America. Their elders appreciate, as possibly the grown- +ups of former times did not quite so fully appreciate, the importance of +books in the education of the boys and girls. It may even be that we +over-emphasize it a bit. We send the children to the book-shelves for +help in work and for assistance in play. In effect, we say to them, +"Read, that you may be able to mark, learn, and inwardly digest." It is +only natural that the boys and girls should read for a hundred reasons, +instead of for the one reason of an older day--the pursuit of happiness +in the mere reading itself. "How can you sit idly reading a book when +there are so many useful things you might be doing?" was the question +often put to the children of yesterday by their elders. To-day we feel +that the children can hardly do anything likely to prove more useful +than reading a book. Is not this because we have taught them, not only +to read, but to read for a diversity of reasons? + +American children are so familiarly at home in the world of books, it +should not surprise us to find them occasionally taking rather a +practical, everyday view of some of the things read. A little girl +friend of mine chanced to begin her reading of Shakespeare during a +winter when her grown-up relatives were spending a large portion of +their leisure going to see stage representations of Shakespeare's plays. +She therefore heard considerable conversation about the plays, and about +the persons acting the chief rôles in them. It happened that "As You +Like It" was one of the comedies being acted. The little girl was +invited to go to see it. "Who is going to be Orlando?" she inquired; she +had listened to so much talk about who "was," or was "going to be," the +various persons in the several dramas! + +"But," she objected, when she was informed, "I think I've heard you say +he is not very tall. Orlando was _such_ a tall man!" + +"Was he?" I ventured, coming in at that moment. "I don't remember that +about him. Who told you he was tall?" + +"Why, it is in the book!" she exclaimed. + +Every one present besought her to mention where. + +"Don't you remember?" she said incredulously. "He says Rosalind is just +as high as his heart; that wouldn't be _quite_ up to his shoulder. And +she says she is _more than common_ tall! So he must have been +_'specially_ tall. Don't you remember?" she asked again, looking +perplexedly at our blank faces. + +There are so many bonds of understanding between American children of +the present time and their grown-up relatives and friends. Is not one of +the best of these that which has come out of our national impulse toward +giving the boys and girls the books we love, "cut small"; and showing +them how to read those books as we read the larger books from which they +are made? "What kinds of books do American children read?" foreigners +inquire. We are able to reply, "The same kinds that grown-up Americans +read." "And why do they read them?" may be the next question. Again we +can answer, "For much the same reasons that the grown-ups read them." +"How do they use the libraries?" might be the next query. Still we could +say, "As grown people use them." And if yet another query, "Why?" be +put, we might reply, "Because, unlike any other children in the world, +American children are almost as completely 'exposed to books' as are +their elders." + + + + +VI + + + +THE CHILD IN CHURCH + + +Within the past few months, I have had the privilege of looking over the +answers sent by men and women--most of them fathers and mothers--living +in many sections of the United States, in response to an examination +paper containing among other questions this one: "Should church-going on +the part of children be compulsory or voluntary?" In almost every case +the answer was, "It should be voluntary." In practically all instances +the reason given was, "Worship, like love, is at its best only when it +is a free-will offering." + +It was not a surprise to read again and again, in longer or in shorter +form, such an answer, based upon such a reason. The religious liberty of +American children of the present day is perhaps the most salient fact of +their lives. Without doubt, the giving to them of this liberty is the +most remarkable fact in the lives of their elders. No grown people were +ever at any time willingly allowed to exercise such freedom in matters +pertaining to religion as are the children of our nation at the present +time. Not only is churchgoing not compulsory; religion itself is +voluntary. + +A short while ago a little girl friend of mine was showing me her +birthday gifts. Among them was a Bible. It was a beautiful book, bound +in soft crimson leather, the child's name stamped on it in gold. + +"And who gave you this?" I asked. + +"Father," the little girl replied. "See what he has written in it," she +added, when the shining letters on the cover had been duly appreciated. + +I turned to the fly-leaf and read this: + +"To my daughter on her eighth birthday from her father. + + "'I give you the end of a golden string: + Only wind it into a ball,-- + It will lead you in at Heaven's gate + Built in Jerusalem's wall.'" + +"Isn't it lovely?" questioned the child, who had stood by, waiting, +while I read. + +"Yes," I agreed, "very lovely, and very new." + +Her mother, who was listening, smiled slowly. "My father gave me a Bible +on my birthday, when I was seven"--she began. + +"O mother," interrupted her little girl, "what did grandfather write in +it?" + +"Go and look," her mother said. "You will find it on the table by my +bed." + +The child eagerly ran out of the room. In a few moments she returned, +the Bible of her mother's childhood in her hands. It also was a +beautiful book; bound, too, in crimson leather, and with the name of its +owner stamped on it in gold. And on the fly-leaf was written,-- + +"To my daughter, on her seventh birthday, from her father." + +Beneath this, however, was inscribed no modern poetry, but + +"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days +come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no +pleasure in them." + +[Illustration: IN THE INFANT CLASS] + +The little girl read it aloud. "It sounds as though you wouldn't be +happy if you _didn't_ remember, mother," she said, dubiously. + +"Well, darling," her mother replied, "and so you wouldn't." + +The child took her own Bible and read aloud the verse her father had +written. "But, mother, this sounds as though you _would_ be happy if you +_did_ remember." + +"And so you will, dear," her mother made reply. "It is the same thing," +she added. + +"Is it?" the little girl exclaimed in some surprise. "It doesn't _seem_ +quite the same." + +The child did not press the question. She left us, to return her +mother's Bible to its wonted place. When she came back, she resumed the +exhibiting of her birthday gifts where it had been interrupted. But +after she had gone out to play I said to her mother, "Are they _quite_ +the same--the text in your Bible and the lines in hers?" + +"It _is_ rather a long way from Solomon to William Blake, isn't it?" she +exclaimed. + +"But I really don't see much difference. The same thing is said, only in +the one case it is a command and in the other it is an impelling +suggestion." + +"Isn't that rather a great deal of difference?" I ventured. + +"No, I think not," she said, meditatively. "Of course, I admit," she +supplemented, "that the idea of an impelling suggestion appeals to the +imagination more than the idea of a command. But that's the _only_ +difference." + +It seems to me that this "only" difference is at the very foundation of +the religious training of the children of the present day in our +country. We do our best to awaken their imaginations, to put to them +suggestions that will impel, to say to them the "same thing" that was +said to the children of more austere times about remembering their +Creator; but so to say it that they feel, not that they will be unhappy +if they do not remember, but that they will be happy if they do. It is +the love of God rather than the fear of God that we would have them +know. + +Is it not, indeed, just because we do so earnestly desire that they +should learn this that we leave them so free with regard to what we call +their spiritual life? "Read a chapter in your Bible every day, darling," +I recently heard a mother say to her little girl on the eve of her first +visit away from home without her parents. "In Auntie's house they don't +have family prayers, as we do, so you won't hear a chapter read every +day as you do at home." + +"What chapters shall I read, mamma?" the child asked. + +"Any you choose, dear," the mother replied. + +"And when in the day?" was the next question. "Morning or night?" + +"Just as you like, dearest," the mother answered. + +But there is a religious liberty beyond this. To no one in America is it +so readily, so sympathetically, given as to a child. We are all familiar +with the difficulties which attend a grown person, even in America, +whose convictions necessitate a change of religious denomination. Such a +situation almost invariably means distress to the family, and to the +relinquished church of the person the form of whose faith has altered. +In few other matters is so small a measure of liberty understandingly +granted a grown person, even in America. But when a child would turn +from one form of belief to another, how differently the circumstance is +regarded! + +One Sunday, not long ago, visiting an Episcopal Sunday-school, I saw in +one of the primary classes a little girl whose parents, as I was aware, +were members of the Baptist Church. + +"Is she a guest?" I asked her teacher. + +"Oh, no," she replied; "she is a regular member of the Sunday-school; +she comes every Sunday. She was christened at Easter; I am her +godmother." + +"But don't her father and mother belong to the Baptist Church?" I +questioned. + +"Yes," said the child's Sunday-school teacher. "But she came to church +one Sunday with some new playmates of hers, whose parents are +Episcopalians, to see a baby christened. Then her little friends told +her how they had all been christened, as babies; and when she found that +she hadn't been, she wanted to be. So her father and mother let her, and +she comes to Sunday-school here." + +"Where does she go to church?" I found myself inquiring. + +"To the Baptist Church, with her father and mother," was the reply. "She +asked them to let her come to Sunday-school here; but it never occurred +to her to think of going to church excepting with them." + +Somewhat later I chanced to meet the child's mother. It was not long +before she spoke to me concerning her little girl's membership in the +Episcopal Sunday-school. "What were her father and I to do?" the mother +said. "We didn't feel justified in standing in her way. She wanted to be +christened; it seemed to mean something real to her--" she broke off. +"What _were_ we to do?" she repeated. "It would be a dreadful thing to +check a child's aspiration toward God! Of course she is only a little +girl, and she wanted to be like the others. Her father and I thought of +that, naturally. But--" Again she stopped. "One can never tell," she +went on, "what is in the mind of a child, nor what may be happening to +its spirit. Samuel was a very little child when God spoke to him," she +concluded, simply. + +Quite as far as that mother, has another mother of my acquaintance let +her little girl go along the way of religious freedom. One day I went +with her and the child to an Italian jewelry shop. Among the things +there was a rosary of coral and silver. The little girl, attracted by +its glitter and color, seized it and slipped it over her head. "Look, +mother," she said, "see this lovely necklace!" + +Her mother gently took it from her. "It isn't a necklace," she +explained; "it is called a rosary. You mustn't play with it; because it +is something some people use to say their prayers with." + +The child's mother is of Scotch birth and New England upbringing. The +little girl has been accustomed to a form of religion and to an attitude +toward the things of religion that are beautiful, but austerely +beautiful. She is an imaginative child; and she caught eagerly at the +poetical element thus, for the first time, associated with prayer. "Tell +me how!" she begged. + +When next I was in the little girl's bedroom, I saw the coral and silver +rosary hanging on one of the head-posts of her bed. "Yes, my dear," her +mother explained to me, "I got the rosary for her. She wanted it--'to +say my prayers with,' she said; so I got it. After all, the important +thing is that she says her prayers." + +Among my treasures I have a rosary, brought to me from the Holy Land. I +have had it for a long time, and it has hung on the frame of a +photograph of Bellini's lovely Madonna. This little girl has always +liked that picture, and she has often spoken to me about it. But she had +never mentioned the rosary, which not only is made of dark wood, but is +darker still with its centuries of age. One day after the rosary of pink +coral and bright silver had been given her she came to see me. Passing +through the room where the Madonna is, she stopped to look at it. At +once she exclaimed, "_You_ have a rosary!" + +"Yes," I said; "it came from the Holy Land." I took it down, and put it +into her hands. "It has been in Bethlehem," I went on, "and in +Jerusalem. It is very old; it belonged to a saint--like St. Francis, who +was such friends with the birds, you remember." + +"I suppose the saint used it to say his prayers with?" the little girl +observed. Then, the question evidently occurring to her for the first +time, she asked, eagerly, "What prayers did he say, do you think?" + +When I had in some part replied, I said, this question indeed occurring +to me for the first time, "What prayers do you say?" + +"Oh," she replied, instantly, "I say, 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' +and 'God bless' all the different ones at home, and in other places, +that I know. I say all that; and it takes all the beads. So I say, 'The +Lord is my Shepherd' last, for the cross." She was silent for a moment, +but I said nothing, and she went on. "I know 'In my Father's house are +many mansions,' and 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels.' +I might say them sometimes instead, mightn't I?" + +I told this to one of my friends who is a devout Roman Catholic. "It +shows," she said, "what the rosary can do for religion!" + +But it seemed to me that it showed rather what religion could do for the +rosary. Had the child's mother, Scotch by birth, New England by +breeding, not been a truly religious woman she would not have bade her +little girl handle with reverence the emblem of a faith so unlike her +own; she would not have said, "Don't play with it." As for the small +girl, had she never learned to "say prayers," she would not have desired +the rosary to say them "with." And it was not the silver cross hanging +on her rosary that influenced her to "say last," for it, the best psalm +and "spiritual song" she knew; it was the understanding she had been +given by careful teaching of the meaning of that symbol. Above all, had +the little girl, after being taught to pray, not been left free to pray +as her childish heart inclined, that rosary would scarcely have found a +place on the head-post of her small bed. + +It may be for the very reason that the children are not compelled to +think and to feel in the things of religion as their parents do that +fathers and mothers in America so frankly tell their boys and girls +exactly what they do think and just how they do feel. The children may +not ever understand the religious experiences through which their +parents are passing, but they often know what those experiences are. +Moreover, they sometimes partake of them. + +Among my child friends there is a little girl, an only child, whose +father died not a great while ago. The little girl had always had a +share in the joys of her parents. It surprised no one who knew the +family that the mother in her grief turned to the child for comfort; and +that together they bore their great bereavement. Indeed, so completely +did this occur that the little girl for a time hardly saw any one +excepting her mother and her governess. After a suitable interval, an +old friend of the family approached the mother on the subject. "Your +little girl is only eight years old," she said, gently. "Oughtn't she +perhaps to go to see her playmates, and have them come to see her, +again, now?" + +The mother saw the wisdom of the suggestion. The child continued to +spend much of her time with her mother, but she gradually resumed her +former childish occupations. She had always been a gregarious little +girl; once more her nursery was a merry, even an hilarious, place. + +One Saturday a short time ago she was among the six small guests invited +to the birthday luncheon of another little girl friend of mine. Along +with several other grown-ups I had been invited to come and lend a hand +at this festivity. I arrived just as the children were going into the +dining-room, where the table set forth for their especial use, and +bright with the light of the seven candles on the cake, safely placed in +the centre, awaited them. They climbed into their chairs, and then all +seven of them paused. "Mother," said the little girl of the house, "who +shall say grace?" + +"_I_ can!" + +"Let _me_!" + +"I _always_ do at home!" + +These and other exclamations were made before the mother could reply. +When she was able to get a hearing, she suggested, "I think each one of +you might, since you all can and would like to." + +"You say it first," said one of the children to her little hostess, +"because it is your birthday." + +At a nod from her mother, the little girl said the Selkirk grace:-- + +"Some hae meat and canna eat, + And some wad eat that want it; +But we hae meat and we can eat, + And sae the Lord be thankit." + +Then another small girl said her grace, which was Herrick's:-- + +"Here a little child I stand, +Heaving up my either hand; +Cold as paddocks though they be, +Here I lift them up to Thee, +For a benison to fall +On our meat and on us all +Amen." + +The next little girl said Stevenson's:-- + +"It is very nice to think +The world is full of meat and drink, +And little children saying grace +In every Christian kind of place." + +The succeeding little guests said the dear and familiar "blessing" of so +many children:-- + +"For what we are about to receive, O Lord, make us truly thankful." + +My little friend into whose life so grievous a sorrow had come was the +last to say her grace. It was the poem of Miss Josephine Preston Peabody +entitled "Before Meat:-- + +"Hunger of the world. +When we ask a grace +Be remembered here with us, +By the vacant place. + +"Thirst with nought to drink, +Sorrow more than mine, +May God some day make you laugh, +With water turned to wine!" + +There was a silence when she finished, among the children as well as +among the grown persons present. "I don't _quite_ understand what your +grace means," the little girl of the house said at last to her small +guest. + +"It means that I still have my mamma, and she still has me," replied the +child. "Some people haven't anybody. It means that; and it means we ask +God to let them have Him. My mamma told me, when she taught it to me to +say instead of the grace I used to say when we had my papa." + +The little girl explained with the simple seriousness and sweetness so +characteristic of the answers children make to questions asked them +regarding things in any degree mystical. The other small girls listened +as sweetly and as seriously. Then, with one accord, they returned to the +gay delights of the occasion. They were a laughing, prattling, eagerly +happy little party, and of them all not one was more blithe than the +little girl who had said grace last. + +The child's intimate companionship with her mother in the sorrow which +was her sorrow too had not taken from her the ability for participation +in childish happiness, also hers by right. Was not this because the +companionship was of so deep a nature? The mother, in letting her little +girl share her grief, let her share too the knowledge of the source to +which she looked for consolation. Above all, she not only told her of +heavier sorrows; she told her how those greater griefs might be +lightened. Children in America enter into so many of the things of their +parents' lives, is it not good that they are given their parts even in +those spiritual things that are most near and sacred? + +I have among my friends a little boy whose father finds God most surely +in the operation of natural law. Indeed, he has often both shocked and +distressed certain of his neighbors by declaring it to be his belief +that nowhere else could God be found. "His poor wife!" they were wont to +exclaim; "what must she think of such opinions?" And later, when the +little boy was born, "That unfortunate baby!" they sighed; "how will his +mother teach him religion when his father has these strange ideas?" That +the wife seemed untroubled by the views of her husband, and that the +baby, as he grew into little-boyhood, appeared very similar to other +children as far as prayers and Bible stories and even attendance at +church were concerned, did not reassure the disturbed neighbors. For the +child's father continued to express--if possible, more decidedly--his +disquieting convictions. "Evidently, though," said one neighbor, "he +doesn't put such thoughts into the head of his child." + +Apparently he did not. I knew the small boy rather intimately, and I was +aware that his father, after the custom of most American parents, took +the child into his confidence with regard to many other matters. The +little boy was well acquainted with his father's political belief, for +example. I had had early evidence of this. But it was not until a much +later time, and then indirectly, that I saw that the little boy was +possessed too of a knowledge of his father's religious faith. + +[Illustration: "DO YOU LIKE MY NEW HYMN?"] + +I was ill in a hospital a year or two ago, and the little boy came with +his mother to see me. A clergyman happened to call at the same time. It +was Sunday, and the clergyman suggested to my small friend that he say a +psalm or a hymn for me. + +"My new one, that daddy has just taught me?" the child inquired, turning +to his mother. + +She smiled at him. "Yes, dearest," she said gently. + +The little boy came and stood beside my bed, and, in a voice that +betokened a love and understanding of every line, repeated Mrs. +Browning's lovely poem:-- + +"They say that God lives very high! + But if you look above the pines, +You cannot see our God. And why? + +"And if you dig down in the mines, + You never see Him in the gold, +Though from Him all that's glory shines. + +"God is so good, He wears a fold + Of heaven and earth across His face-- +Like secrets kept, for love, untold. + +"But still I feel that His embrace + Slides down, by thrills, through all things made, +Through sight and sound of every place: + +"As if my tender mother laid + On my shut lids, her kisses' pressure, +Half-waking me at night; and said, + 'Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?'" + +Beyond question the clergyman had expected a less unusual selection than +this; but he smiled very kindly at the little boy as he said the +beautiful words. At the conclusion he merely said, "You have a good +father, my boy." + +"Do you like my new hymn?" the child asked me. + +"Yes," I replied. "Did your father tell you what it means?" I added, +suddenly curious. + +"No," said my small friend; "I didn't ask him. You see," he +supplemented, "it tells _itself_ what it means!" + +The things of religion so often to the children tell themselves what +they mean! Only the other day I heard a little girl recounting to her +young uncle, learned in the higher criticism, the story of the Creation. + +"Just only _six days_ it took God to make _everything_" she said; "think +of that!" + +"My dear child," remonstrated her uncle, "_that_ isn't the point at all +--the _amount_ of time it required! As a matter of fact, it took +thousands of years to make the world. The word 'day' in that connection +means a certain period of time, not twenty-four hours." + +"Oh!" cried the little girl, in disappointment; "that takes the +wonderfulness out of it!" + +"Not at all," protested her young uncle. "And, supposing it did, can you +not see that the world could not have been made in six of _our_ days?" + +"Why," said the child, in surprise, "I should think it could have been!" + +"For what reason?" her uncle asked, in equal amazement. + +"Because God was doing it!" the child exclaimed. + +Her uncle did not at once reply. When he did, it was to say, "You are +right about _that_, my dear." + +Sometimes it happens that a child finds in our careful explanation of +the meaning of a religious belief or practice a different or a further +significance than we have indicated. I once had an especially striking +experience of this kind. + +I was visiting a family in which there were several children, cared for +by a nurse of the old-fashioned, old-world type. She was a woman well +beyond middle age, and of a frank and simple piety. There was hardly a +circumstance of daily life for which she was not ready with an +accustomed ejaculatory prayer or thanksgiving. One day I chanced to +speak to her of a mutual friend, long dead. "God rest her soul!" said +the old nurse, in a low tone. + +"Why did she say that?" the little four-year-old girl of the house asked +me. "I never heard her say that before!" + +"It is a prayer that some persons always say when speaking of any one +who is dead; especially any one they knew and loved," I explained. + +Later in the day, turning over a portfolio of photographs with the +little girl, I took up a picture of a fine, faithful-eyed dog. "Whose +dog is this?" I asked. "What a good one he is!" + +"He was ours," replied the child, "and he was very good; we liked him. +But he is dead now--" She paused as if struck by a sudden remembrance. +Then, "God rest his soul!" she sighed, softly. + +Most of the answers I read in response to the question, "Should +churchgoing on the part of children be compulsory or voluntary?" did not +end with the brief statement that it should be voluntary, and the reason +why; a considerable number of them went on to say: "The children should +of course be inspired and encouraged to go. They should be taught that +it is a privilege. Their Sunday-school teachers and their minister, as +well as their parents, can help to make them wish to go." + +Certainly their Sunday-school teachers and ministers can, and do. The +answers I have quoted took for granted the attendance of children at +Sunday-school. Not one of them suggested that this was a matter +admitting of free choice on the part of the children. "But it isn't," +declared an experienced Sunday-school teacher who is a friend of mine +when I said this to her. "Going to Sunday-school isn't worship; it is +learning whom to worship and how. Naturally, children go, just as they +go to week-day school, whether they like to or not; I must grant," she +added by way of amendment, "that they usually do like to go!" + +Our Sunday-schools have become more and more like our week-day schools. +The boys and girls are taught in them whom to worship and how, but they +are taught very much after the manner that, in the week-day schools, +they are instructed concerning secular things. That custom, belonging to +a time not so far in the past but that many of us remember it, of +consigning the "infant class" of the Sunday-school to any amiable young +girl in the parish who could promise to be reasonably regular in meeting +it does not obtain at the present day. Sunday-school teachers are +trained, and trained with increasing care and thoroughness, for their +task. + +[Illustration: CHILDREN GO TO CHURCH] + +Readiness to teach is no longer a sufficient credential. The amiable +young girl must now not only be willing to teach, she must also be +willing to learn how to teach. In the earlier time practically any well- +disposed young man of the congregation who would consent to take charge +of a class of boys was eagerly allotted that class without further +parley. This, too, is not now the case. The young man, before beginning +to teach the boys, is obliged to prepare himself somewhat specifically +for such work. In my own parish the boys' classes of the Sunday-school +are taught by young men who are students in the Theological School of +which my parish church is the chapel. In an adjacent parish the "infant +class" is in charge of an accomplished kindergartner. Surely such +persons are well qualified to help to inspire and to encourage the +children to regard churchgoing as a privilege, and to make them wish to +go! + +And the minister! I am inclined to think that the minister helps more +than any one else, except the father and mother, to give the children +this inspiration, this encouragement. Children go to church now, when +churchgoing is voluntary, quite as much as they went when it was +compulsory. They learn very early to wish to go; they see with small +difficulty that it is a privilege. Their Sunday-school teachers might +help them, even their parents might help them, but, unless the minister +helped them, would this be so? + +There are so many ways in which the minister does his part in this +matter of the child's relation to the church, and to those things for +which the church stands. They are happily familiar to us through our +child friends: the "children's service" at Christmas and at Easter; the +"talks to children" on certain Sundays of the year. These are some of +them. And there are other, more individual, more intimate ways. + +The other day a little girl who is a friend of mine asked me to make out +a list of books likely to be found in the "children's room" of the near- +by public library that I thought she would enjoy reading. On the list I +put "The Little Lame Prince," the charming story by Dinah Mulock. Having +completed the list, I read it aloud to the little girl. When I reached +Miss Mulock's book, she interrupted me. + +"'The Little Lame Prince,' did you say? Is that in the library? I +thought it was in the Bible." + +"The Bible!" I exclaimed. + +"Yes," the child said, in some surprise; "don't you remember? He was +Jonathan's little boy--Jonathan, that was David's friend--David, that +killed the giant, you know." + +I at once investigated. The little girl was quite correct. "Who told you +about him?" I inquired. + +"Our minister," she replied. "He read it to me and some of the other +children." + +This, too, a bit later, I investigated. I found that the minister had +not read the story as it is written in the Bible, but a version of it +written by himself especially for this purpose and entitled "The Little +Lame Prince." + +At church, as elsewhere, the children of our nation are quick to +observe, and to make their own, opportunities for doing as the grown-ups +do. When occasion arises, they slip with cheerful and confiding ease +into the places of their elders. + +One Sunday, last summer, I chanced to attend a church in a little +seaside village. When the moment arrived for taking up the collection, +no one went forward to attend to that duty. I was told afterward that +the man who always did it was most unprecedentedly absent. There were a +number of other men in the rather large congregation, but none of them +stirred as the clergyman stood waiting after having read several +offertory sentences. I understood afterward that they "felt bashful," +not being used to taking up the collection. The clergyman hesitated for +a moment, and then read another offertory sentence. As he finished, a +little boy not more than nine years old stepped out of a back pew, where +he was sitting with his mother, and, going up to the clergyman, held out +his hand for the plate. The clergyman gravely gave it to him, and the +child, without the slightest sign of shyness, went about the church +collecting the offerings of the congregation. This being done, he, with +equal un-self-consciousness, gave the plate again to the clergyman and +returned to his seat beside his mother. + +"Did you tell him to do it?" I inquired of the mother, later. + +"Oh, no," she answered; "he asked me if he might. He said he knew how, +he saw it done every Sunday, and he was sure the minister would let +him." + +American children of the present day are surer than the children of any +other nation have ever been that their fathers and their mothers and +their ministers will allow them liberty to do in church, as well as with +respect to going to church, such things as they know how to do, and +eagerly wish to do. In our national love and reverence for childhood we +willingly give the children the great gift that we give reluctantly, or +not at all, to grown people--the liberty to worship God as they choose. + + + +CONCLUSION + + +We are a child-loving nation; and our love for the children is, for the +most part, of the kind which Dr. Henry van Dyke describes as "true love, +the love that desires to bestow and to bless." The best things that we +can obtain, we bestow upon the children; with the goodliest blessings +within our power, we bless them. This we do for them. And they,--is +there not something that they do for us? It seems to me that there is; +and that it is something incalculably greater than anything we do, or +could possibly do, for them. More than any other force in our national +life, the children help us to work together toward a common end. A child +can unite us into a mutually trustful, mutually cordial, mutually active +group when no one else conceivably could. + +A few years ago, I was witness to a most striking example of this. I +went to a "ladies' day" meeting of a large and important men's club that +has for its object the study and the improvement of municipal +conditions. The city of the club has a nourishing liquor trade. The club +not infrequently gives over its meetings to discussions of the "liquor +problem";--discussions which, I have been told, had, as a rule, resolved +themselves into mere argumentations as to license and no-license, +resulting in nothing. By some accident this "ladies' day" meeting had +for its chief speaker a man who is an ardent believer in and supporter +of no-license. For an hour he spoke on this subject, and spoke +exceedingly well. When he had finished, there ensued that random play of +question and answer that usually follows the presiding officer's, "We +are now open to discussion." The chief speaker had devoted the best +efforts of his mature life to bringing about no-license in his home +city; the subject was to him something more than a topic for a +discussion that should lead to no practical work in the direction of +solving the "liquor problem" in other cities. He tried to make that club +meeting something more vital than an exchange of views on license and +no-license. With the utmost earnestness, he attempted to arouse a living +interest in the "problem," and, of course, to make converts to his own +belief as to the most effective solution of it. + +Finally, some one said, "Isn't _any_ liquor sold in your city? Your law +keeps it from being sold publicly, but privately,--how about that?" + +"I cannot say," the chief speaker replied. "The law may occasionally be +broken,--I suppose it is. But," he added, "I can tell you this,--we have +no drunkards on our streets. I have a boy,--he is ten years old, and he +has never seen a drunken man in his life. How about the boys of the +people of this city, of this audience?" + +The persons in that audience looked at the chief speaker; they looked at +each other. There followed such a serious, earnest, frank discussion of +the "liquor problem" as had never before been held either in that club, +or, indeed, in any assembly in that city. Since that day, that club has +not only held debates on the "liquor problem" of its city; it has tried +to bring about no-license. The chief speaker of that meeting was far +from being the first person who had addressed the organization on that +subject; neither was he the first to mention its relation to childhood +and youth; but he was the very first to bring his own child, and to +bring the children of each and every member of the association who had a +child into his argument. With the help of the children, he prevailed. + +One of my friends who is a member of that club said to me recently, "It +was the sincerity of the speaker of that 'ladies' day' meeting that won +the audience. I really must protest against your thinking it was his +chance reference to his boy!" + +"But," I reminded him, "it was not until he made that 'chance reference' +to his boy that any one was in the least moved. How do you explain +that?" + +"Oh," said my friend, "we were not sure until then that he was in dead +earnest--" + +"And then you were?" I queried. + +"Why, yes," my friend replied. "A man doesn't make use of his child to +give weight to what he is advocating unless he really does believe it is +just as good as he is arguing that it is." + +"So," I persisted, "it _was_, after all, his 'chance reference' to his +boy--" + +"If you mean that nothing practical would have come of his speech, +otherwise,--yes, it was!" my friend allowed himself to admit. + +Another friend who happened to be present came into the conversation at +this point. "Suppose he had had no child!" she suggested. "Any number of +perfectly sincere persons, who really believe that what they are +advocating is just as good as they argue it is, have no children," she +went on whimsically; "what about them? Haven't they any chance of +winning their audiences when they speak on no-license,--or what not?" + +Those of us who are in the habit of attending "welfare" meetings of one +kind or another, from the occasional "hearings" before various +committees of the legislature, to the periodic gatherings of the +National Education Association, and the National Conference of Charities +and Correction, know well that, when advocating solutions of social +problems as grave as and even graver than the "liquor problem," the most +potent plea employed by those speakers who are not fathers or mothers +begins with the words, "You, who have children." My friend who had said +that a man did not make use of his child to give weight to his arguments +unless he had a genuine belief in that for which he was pleading might +have gone further; he might have added that neither do men and women +make such a use of other people's children excepting they be as +completely sincere,--provided that those men and women love children. +And we are a nation of child-lovers. + +It is because we love the children that they do for us so great a good +thing. It is for the reason that we know them and that they know us that +we love them. We know them so intimately; and they know us so +intimately; and we and they are such familiar friends! The grown people +of other nations have sometimes, to quote the old phrase, "entered into +the lives" of the children of the land; we in America have gone +further;--we have permitted the children of our nation to enter into our +lives. Indeed, we have invited them; and, once in, we have not deterred +them from straying about as they would. The presence of the children in +our lives,--so closely near, so intimately dear!--unites us in grave and +serious concerns,--unites us to great and significant endeavors; and +unites us even in smaller and lighter matters,--to a pleasant +neighborliness one with another. However we may differ in other +particulars, we are all alike in that we are tacitly pledged to the +"cause" of children; it is the desire of all of us that the world be +made a more fit place for them. And, as we labor toward the fulfillment +of this desire, they are our most effectual helpers. + +In our wider efforts after social betterment, they help us. Because of +them, we organize ourselves into national, and state, and municipal +associations for the furtherance of better living,--physical, mental, +and moral. Through them, we test each other's sincerity, and measure +each other's strength, as social servants. In our wider efforts this is +true. Is it not the case also when the field of our endeavors is +narrower? + +Several years ago, I chanced to spend a week-end in a suburban town, the +population of which is composed about equally of "old families," and of +foreigners employed in the factory situated on the edge of the town. I +was a guest in the home of a minister of the place. Both he and his wife +believed that the most important work a church could do in that +community was "settlement" work. "Home-making classes for the girls," +the minister's wife reiterated again and again; and, "Classes in +citizenship for the boys," her husband made frequent repetition, as we +discussed the matter on the Saturday evening of my visit. + +"Why don't you have them?" I inquired. + +"We have no place to have them in," the minister replied. "Our parish +has no parish-house, and cannot afford to build one." + +"Then, why not use the church?" I ventured. + +"If you knew the leading spirits in my congregation, you would not ask +that!" the minister exclaimed. + +"Have you suggested it to them?" I asked. + +"Suggested!" the minister and his wife cried in chorus. "_Suggested_!" + +"I have besought them, I have begged them, I have implored them!" the +minister continued. "It was no use. They are conservatives of the +strictest type; and they cannot bring themselves even to consider +seriously a plan that would necessitate using the church for the meeting +of a boys' political debating club, or a girls' class in marketing." + +"Churches are so used, in these days!" I remarked. + +"Yes," the minister agreed; "but not without the sympathy and +coöperation of the leading members of the congregation!" + +That suburban town is not one to which I am a frequent visitor. More +than a year passed before I found myself again in the pleasant home of +the minister. "I must go to my Three-Meals-a-Day Club," my hostess said +shortly after my arrival on Saturday afternoon. "Wouldn't you like to go +with me?" + +"What is it, and where does it meet?" I asked. + +"It is a girls' housekeeping class," answered the minister's wife; "and +it meets in the church." + +"The church?" I exclaimed. "So the 'leading spirits' have agreed to +having it used for 'settlement' work! How did you win them over?" + +"We didn't," she replied; "they won themselves over,--or rather the +little children of one of them did it." + +When I urged her to tell me how, she said, "We are invited to that +'leading spirit's' house to dinner to-morrow; and you can find out for +yourself, then." + +It proved to bean easy thing to discover. "I am glad to see that, since +you have no parish-house, you are using your church for parish-house +activities," I made an early occasion to say to our hostess, after +dinner, on the Sunday. "You were not using it in that way when I was +here last; it is something very new, isn't it?" + +"It is, my dear," said our hostess,--one of those of his flock whom the +minister had described as "conservatives of the strictest type"; "'very +new' are the exact words with which to speak of it!" + +"How did it happen?" I asked. + +She smiled. "Our minister and his wife declare that my small son and +daughter are mainly responsible for it!" she said. "They began to attend +the public school this autumn,--they had, up to that time, been taught +at home. You know what the population of this town is,--half foreign. +Even in the school in this district, there are a considerable number of +foreigners. I don't know why it is, when they have so many playmates in +their own set, that my children should have made friends, and such close +friends, with some of those foreign children! But they did. And not +content with bringing them here, they wanted to go to their homes! Of +course, I couldn't allow that. I explained to my boy and girl as well as +I was able; I told them those people did not know how to live properly; +that they might keep their children clean, because they wouldn't be +permitted to send them to school unless they did; but their houses were +dirty, and their food bad. And what do you think my children said to me? +They said, 'Mother, have they _got_ to have their houses dirty? Have +they _got_ to have bad food? Couldn't _they_ have things nice, as _we_ +have?' It quite startled me to hear my own children ask me such things; +it made me think. I told my husband about it; it made him think, too. +You know, we are always hearing that, if we _are_ going to try to +improve the living conditions of the poor, we must 'begin with the +children,'--begin by teaching them better ways of living. Our minister +and his wife have all along been eager to teach these foreign children. +We have no place to teach them in, except our church. It was rather a +wrench for my husband and me,--giving our approval to using a church for +a club-house. But we did it. And we secured the consent of the rest of +the congregation,--we told them what our children had said. We were not +the only ones who thought the children had, to use an old-fashioned +theological term, 'been directed' in what they had said!" she concluded. + +The children had said nothing that the minister had not said. Was it not +less what they had said than the fact of their saying it that changed +the whole course of feeling and action in that parish? + +On the days when it is our lot to share in doing large tasks, the +children help us. What of the days which bring with them only a "petty +round of irritating concerns and duties?" Do they not help us then, too? + +In a house on my square, there lives a little girl, three years old, +who, every morning at about eight o'clock, when the front doors of the +square open, and the workers come hurrying down their steps, appears at +her nursery window,--open except in very stormy weather. "Good-bye!" she +calls to each one, smiling, and waving her small hand, "good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" we all call back, "good-bye!" We smile, too, and wave a hand +to the little girl. Then, almost invariably, we glance at each other, +and smile again, together. Thus our day begins. + +We are familiar with the thought of our devotion to children. As +individuals, and as a nation, our services to the children of our land +are conspicuously great. "You do so much for children, in America!" It +is no new thing to us to hear this exclamation. We have heard, we hear +it so often! All of us know that it is true. We are coming to see that +the converse is equally true; that the children do much for us, do more +than we do for them; do the best thing in the world,--make us who are so +many, one; keep us, who are so diverse, united; help us, whether our +tasks be great or small, to "go to our labor, smiling." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN CHILD*** + + +******* This file should be named 10398-8.txt or 10398-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/9/10398 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/10398-8.zip b/old/10398-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7670065 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10398-8.zip diff --git a/old/10398.txt b/old/10398.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a13c8cb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10398.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4499 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The American Child, by Elizabeth McCracken + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The American Child + +Author: Elizabeth McCracken + +Release Date: December 7, 2003 [eBook #10398] + +Language: English + +Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN CHILD*** + + +E-text prepared by Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + +The American Child + +by Elizabeth Mccracken + +With Illustrations from photographs by Alice Austin + +1913 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: COMPANIONS AND FRIENDS] + + +to My Father And Mother + + + + +PREFACE + + +The purpose of this preface is that of every preface--to say "thank +you" to the persons who have helped in the making of the book. + +I would render thanks first of all to the Editors of the "Outlook" for +permission to reprint the chapters of the book which appeared as +articles in the monthly magazine numbers of their publication. + +I return thanks also to Miss Rosamond F. Rothery, Miss Sara Cone Bryant, +Miss Agnes F. Perkins, and Mr. Ferris Greenslet. Without the help and +encouragement of all of these, the book never would have been written. + +Finally, I wish to say an additional word of thanks to my physician, Dr. +John E. Stillwell. Had it not been for his consummate skill and untiring +care after an accident, which, four years ago, made me a year-long +hospital patient, I should never have lived to write anything. + +E. McC. + +CAMBRIDGE, January, 1913 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + + I. THE CHILD AT HOME + II. THE CHILD AT PLAY +III. THE COUNTRY CHILD + IV. THE CHILD IN SCHOOL + V. THE CHILD IN THE LIBRARY + VI. THE CHILD IN CHURCH + CONCLUSION + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +COMPANIONS AND FRIENDS +THREE SMALL GIRLS +THE BOY OF THE HOUSE +"DID YOU PLAY IT THIS WAY?" +THE DEAR DELIGHTS OF PLAYING ALONE +"THE CHILDREN--THEY ARE SUCH DEARS" +A SMALL COUNTRY BOY +ARRAYED IN SPOTLESS WHITE +THEY PAINT PICTURES AS A REGULAR PART OF THEIR SCHOOL ROUTINE +THEY DO SO MANY THINGS! +THEY HAVE SO MANY THINGS! +THE STORY HOUR IN THE CHILDREN'S ROOM +THE CHILDREN'S EDITION +IN THE INFANT CLASS +"DO YOU LIKE MY NEW HYMN?" +CHILDREN GO TO CHURCH + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +One day several years ago, when Mr. Lowes Dickinson's statement that he +had found no conversation and--worse still--no conversationalists in +America was fresh in our outraged minds, I happened to meet an English +woman who had spent approximately the same amount of time in our country +as had Mr. Lowes Dickinson. "What has been your experience?" I anxiously +asked her. "Is it true that we only 'talk'? Can it really be that we +never 'converse'?" + +"Dear me, no!" she exclaimed with gratifying fervor. "You are the most +delightful conversationalists in the world, on your own subject--" + +"Our own subject?" I echoed. + +"Certainly," she returned; "your own subject, the national subject,--the +child, the American child. It is possible to 'converse' with any +American on that subject; every one of you has something to say on it; +and every one of you will listen eagerly to what any other person says +on it. You modify the opinions of your hearers by what you say; and you +actually allow your own opinions to be modified by what you hear said. +If that is conversation, without a doubt you have it in America, and +have it in as perfect a state as conversation ever was had anywhere. But +you have it only on that subject. I wonder why," she went on, half- +musingly, before I could make an attempt to persuade her to qualify her +rather sweeping assertion. "It may be because you do so much for +children, in America. They are always on your mind; they are hardly ever +out of your sight. You are forever either doing something for them, or +planning to do something for them. No wonder the child is your one +subject of conversation. You do so _very_ much for children in America," +she repeated. + +Few of us will agree with the English woman that the child, the American +child, is the only subject upon which we converse. Certainly, though, it +is a favorite subject; it may even not inaptly be called our national +subject. Whatever our various views concerning this may chance to be, +however, it is likely that we are all in entire agreement with regard to +the other matter touched upon by the English woman,--the pervasiveness +of American children. Is it not true that we keep them continually in +mind; that we seldom let them go quite out of sight; that we are always +doing, or planning to do, something for them? What is it that we would +do? And why is it that we try so unceasingly to do it? + +It seems to me that we desire with a great desire to make the boys and +girls do; that all of the "_very_ much" that we do for them is done in +order to teach them just that--to do. It is a large and many-sided and +varicolored desire, and to follow its leadings is an arduous labor; but +is there one of us who knows a child well who has not this desire, and +who does not cheerfully perform that labor? Having decided in so far as +we are able what were good to do, we try, not only to do it ourselves, +in our grown-up way, but so to train the children that they, too, may do +it, in their childish way. The various means that we find most helpful +to the end of our own doing we secure for the children,--adapting them, +simplifying them, and even re-shaping them, that the boys and girls may +use them to the full. + +There is, of course, a certain impersonal quality in a great deal of +what we, in America, do for children. It is not based so much on +friendship for an individual child as on a sense of responsibility for +the well-being of all childhood, especially all childhood in our own +country. But most of what we do, after all, we do for the boys and girls +whom we know and love; and we do it because they are our friends, and we +wish them to share in the good things of our lives,--our work and our +play. To what amazing lengths we sometimes go in this "doing for" the +children of our circles! + +One Saturday afternoon, only a few weeks ago, I saw at the annual +exhibit of the State Board of Health, a man, one of my neighbors, with +his little eight-year old boy. The exhibit consisted of the customary +display of charts and photographs, showing the nature of the year's work +in relation to the milk supply, the water supply, the housing of the +poor, and the prevention of contagious diseases. My neighbor is not a +specialist in any one of these matters; his knowledge is merely that of +an average good citizen. He went from one subject to the other, studying +them. His boy followed close beside him, looking where his father +looked,--if with a lesser interest at the charts, with as great an +intentness at the photographs. As they made their way about the room +given over to the exhibit, they talked, the boy asking questions, the +father endeavoring to answer them. + +The small boy caught sight of me as I stood before one of the charts +relating to the prevention of contagious diseases, and ran across the +room to me. "What are _you_ looking at?" he said. "That! It shows how +many people were vaccinated, doesn't it? Come over here and see the +pictures of the calves the doctors get the stuff to vaccinate with +from!" + +"Isn't this an odd place for a little boy on a Saturday afternoon?" I +remarked to my neighbor, a little later, when the boy had roamed to the +other side of the room, out of hearing. + +"Not at all!" asserted the child's father. "He was inquiring the other +day why he had been vaccinated, why all the children at school had been +vaccinated. Just before that, he had asked where the water in the tap +came from. This is just the place for him right now! It isn't odd at all +for him to be here on a Saturday afternoon. It is much odder for _me_" +he continued with a smile. "I'd naturally be playing golf! But when +children begin to ask questions, one has to do something about answering +them; and coming here seemed to be the best way of answering these +newest questions of my boy's. I want him to learn about the connection +of the state with these things; so he will be ready to do his part in +them, when he gets to the 'voting age.'" + +"But can he understand, yet?" I ventured. + +"More than if he hadn't seen all this, and heard about what it means," +my neighbor replied. + +It is not unnatural, when a child asks questions so great and so far- +reaching as those my neighbor's small boy had put to him, that we should +"do something about answering them,"--something as vivid as may be +within our power. But, even when the queries are of a minor character, +we still bestir ourselves until they are adequately answered. + +"Mamma," I heard a little girl inquire recently, as she fingered a scrap +of pink gingham of which her mother was making "rompers" for the baby of +the family, "why are the threads of this cloth pink when you unravel it +one way, and white when you unravel it the other?" + +The mother was busy; but she laid aside her sewing and explained to the +child about the warp and the woof in weaving. + +"I don't _quite_ see why _that_ makes the threads pink one way and white +the other," the little girl said, perplexedly, when the explanation was +finished. + +"When you go to kindergarten, you will," I suggested. + +"But I want to know now," the child demurred. + +The next day I got for the little girl at a "kindergarten supply" +establishment a box of the paper woofs and warps, so well-known to +kindergarten pupils. Not more than three or four days elapsed before I +took them to the child; but I found that her busy mother had already +provided her with some; pink and white, moreover, among other colors; +and had taught the little girl how to weave with them. + +"She understands, _now_, why the threads of pink gingham are pink one +way and white the other!" the mother observed. + +"Why did you go to such trouble to teach her?" I asked with some +curiosity. + +"Well," the mother returned, "she will have to buy gingham some time. +She will be a grown-up 'woman who spends' some day; and she will do the +spending the better for knowing just what she is buying,--what it is +made of, and how it is made!" + +It is no new thing for fathers and mothers to think more of the future +than of the present in their dealings with their boys and girls. Parents +of all times and in all countries have done this. It seems to me, +however, that American fathers and mothers of to-day, unlike those of +any other era or nation, think, in training their children, of what one +might designate as a most minutely detailed future. The mother of whom I +have been telling wished to teach her little girl not only how to buy, +but how to buy gingham; and the father desired his small boy to learn +not alone that his state had a board of health, but that he might hope +to become a member of a particular department of it. + +We occasionally hear elderly persons exclaim that children of the +present day are taught a great many things that did not enter into the +education of their grandparents, or even of their parents. But, on +investigation, we scarcely find that this is the case. What we discover +is that the children of to-day are taught, not new lessons, but the old +lessons by a new method. Sewing, for example: little girls no longer +make samplers, working on them the letters of the alphabet in "cross- +stitch"; they learn to do cross-stitch letters, only they learn not by +working the entire alphabet on a square of linen merely available to +"learn on," but by working the initials of a mother or an aunt on a +"guest towel," which later serves as a Christmas or a birthday gift of +the most satisfactory kind! Perhaps one of the best things we do for the +little girls of our families is to teach them to take their first +stitches to some definite end. Certainly we do it with as conscientious +a care as ever watched over the stitches of the little girls of old as +they made the faded samplers we cherish so affectionately. + +The brothers of these little girls learned carpentry, when they were old +enough to handle tools with safety. The boys of to-day also learn it; +some of them begin long before they can handle any tools with safety, +and when they can handle no tool at all except a hammer. As soon as they +wish to drive nails, they are allowed to drive them, and taught to drive +them to some purpose. I happened not a great while ago to pass the day +at the summer camp of a friend of mine who is the mother of a small boy, +aged five. My friend's husband was constructing a rustic bench. + +The little boy watched for a time; then, "Daddy, _I_ want to put in +nails," he said. + +"All right," replied his father; "you may. Just wait a minute and I'll +let you have the hammer and the nails. Your mother wants some nails in +the kitchen to hang the tin things on. If she will show you where she +wants them, I'll show you how to put them in." + +This was done, with much gayety on the part of us all. When the small +boy, tutored by his father, had driven in all the required nails, he +lifted a triumphant face to his mother. "There they are!" he exclaimed. +"Now let's hang the tin things on them, and see how they look!" + +The boy's father did not finish the rustic bench that day. When a +neighboring camper, who stopped in to call toward the end of the +afternoon, expressed surprise at his apparent dilatoriness, and asked +for an explanation, the father simply said, "I did mean to finish it to- +day, but I had to do something for my boy instead." + +One of the things we grown-ups do for children that has been rather +severely criticized is the lavishing upon them of toys,--intricate and +costly toys. "What, as a child, I used to _pretend_ the toys I had, +were, the toys my children have now, _are_!" an acquaintance of mine was +saying to me recently. "For instance," she went on, "I had a box with a +hole in one end of it; I used to pretend that it was a camera, and +pretend to take pictures with it! I cannot imagine my children doing +that! They have real cameras and take real pictures." + +The camera would seem to be typical of the toys we give to the children +of to-day; they can do something with it,--something real. + +The dearest treasure of my childhood was a tiny gold locket, shaped, and +even engraved, like a watch. Not long ago I was showing it to a little +girl who lives in New York. "I used to pretend it _was_ a watch," I +said; "I used to pretend telling the time by it." + +She gazed at it with interested eyes. "It is very nice," she observed +politely; "but wouldn't you have liked to have a _real_ watch? _I_ have +one; and I _really_ tell the time by it." + +"But you cannot pretend with it!" I found myself saying. + +"Oh, yes, I can," the little girl exclaimed in surprise; "and I do! I +hang it on the cupola of my dolls' house and pretend that it is the +clock in the Metropolitan Tower!" + +The alarmists warn us that what we do for the children in the direction +of costly and complicated toys may, even while helping them do something +for themselves, mar their priceless simplicity. Need we fear this? Is it +not likely that the "real" watches which we give them that they may +"really" tell time, will be used, also, for more than one of the other +simple purposes of childhood? + +The English woman said that we Americans did so much, so _very_ much, +for the children of our nation. There have been other foreigners who +asserted that we did _too_ much. Indubitably, we do a great deal. But, +since we do it all that the children may learn to do, and, through +doing, to be, can we ever possibly do too much? "It is possible to +converse with any American on the American child," the English woman +said. Certainly every American has something to say on that subject, +because every American is trying to do something for some American +child, or group of children, to do much, _very_ much. + + + + +I + + + +THE CHILD AT HOME + + +In one of the letters of Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, to her mother, +Queen Victoria, she writes: "I try to give my children in their home +what I had in my childhood's home. As well as I am able, I copy what you +did." + +There is something essentially British in this point of view. The +English mother, whatever her rank, tries to give her children in their +home what she had in her childhood's home; as well as she is able, she +copies what her mother did. The conditions of her life may be entirely +different from those of her mother, her children may be unlike herself +in disposition; yet she still holds to tradition in regard to their +upbringing; she tries to make their home a reproduction of her mother's +home. + +The American mother, whatever her station, does the exact opposite--she +attempts to bestow upon her children what she did not possess; and she +makes an effort to imitate as little as possible what her mother did. +She desires her children to have that which she did not have, and for +which she longed; or that which she now thinks so much better a +possession than anything she did have. Her ambition is to train her +children, not after her mother's way, but in accordance with "the most +approved modern method." This method is apt, on analysis, to turn out to +be merely the reverse side of her mother's procedure. + +I have an acquaintance, the mother of a plump, jolly little tomboy of a +girl; which child my acquaintance dresses in dainty embroideries and +laces, delicately colored ribbons, velvet cloaks, and feathered hats. +These garments are not "becoming" to the little girl, and they are a +distinct hindrance to her hoydenish activities. They are not what she +ought to have, and, moreover, they are not what she wants. + +"I wish I had a middy blouse, and some bloomers, and an aviation cap, +and a sweater, and a Peter Thompson coat!" I heard her say recently to +her mother: "the other children have them." + +"Children are never satisfied!" her mother exclaimed to me later, when +we were alone. "I spend so much time and money seeing that she has nice +clothes; and you hear what she thinks of them!" + +"But, for ordinary wear, for play, wouldn't the things she wants be more +comfortable?" I ventured. "You dress her so beautifully!" I added. + +"Well," said my acquaintance in a gratified tone, "I am glad you think +so. _I_ had _no_ very pretty clothes when I was a child; and I always +longed for them. My mother didn't believe in finery for children; and +she dressed us very plainly indeed. I want my little girl to look as I +used to wish _I_ might look!" + +"But she doesn't care how she looks--" I began. + +"I know," the child's mother sighed. "I can _see_ how _her_ little girls +will be dressed!" + +Can we not all see just that? And doubtless the little girls of this +beruffled, befurbelowed tomboy--dressed in middy blouses, and bloomers, +and aviation caps, and sweaters, and Peter Thompson coats, or their +future equivalents--will wish they had garments of a totally different +kind; and _she_ will be exclaiming, "Children are never satisfied!" + +If this principle on the part of mothers in America in providing for +their children were confined to such superficialities as their clothing, +no appreciable harm--or good--would come of it. But such is not the +case; it extends to the uttermost parts of the child's home life. + +Only the other day I happened to call upon a friend of mine during the +hour set aside for her little girl's piano lesson. The child was +tearfully and rebelliously playing a "piece." Her teacher, a musician of +unusual ability, guided her stumbling fingers with conscientious +patience and care. A child of the least musical talent would surely have +responded in some measure to such excellent instruction. My friend's +little girl did not. When the lesson was finished, she slipped from the +piano stool with a sigh of intense relief. + +She started to run out of doors; but her mother detained her. "You may +go to your room for an hour," she said, gently but gravely, "and stay +there all alone. That will help you to remember to try harder tomorrow +to have a good music lesson." And the child, more tearful, more +rebellious than before, crept away to her room. + +"When I was her age I didn't like the work involved in taking music +lessons any better than she does," my friend said. "So my mother didn't +insist upon my taking them. I have regretted it all my life. I love +music; I always loved it--I loved it even when I hated practising and +music lessons. I wish my mother had made me keep at it, no matter how +much I objected! Well, I shall do it with _my_ daughter; she'll thank me +for it some day." + +I am not so sure that her daughter will. Her music-teacher agrees with +me. "The child has no talent whatever," she told me. "It is a waste of +time for her to take piano lessons. Her mother now--_she_ has a real +gift for it! I often wish _she_ would take the lessons!" + +American mothers are no more prone to give their children what they +themselves did not have than are American fathers. The man who is most +eager that his son should have a college education is not the man who +has two or three academic degrees, but the man who never went to college +at all. The father whose boys are allowed to be irregular in their +church attendance is the father who, as a boy, was compelled to go to +church, rain or shine, twice on every Sunday. + +In the more intimate life of the family the same principle rules. The +parents try to give to the children ideals that were not given to them; +they attempt to inculcate in the children habits that were not +inculcated in themselves. + +I know a family in which are three small girls, between whom there is +very little difference in age. These children all enjoy coming to take +tea with me. For convenience, I should naturally invite them all on the +same afternoon. + +Both their father and mother, however, have requested me not to do this. +"Do ask them one at a time on different days," they said. + +"Of course I will," I assented. "But--why?" I could not forbear +questioning. + +"When I was a child," the mother of the three little girls explained, "I +was never allowed to accept an invitation unless my younger sister was +invited, too. I was fond of my sister; but I used to long to go +somewhere sometime by myself! My husband had the same experience--his +brother always had to be invited when he was, or he couldn't go. Our +children shall not be so circumscribed!" + +There is not much danger for them, certainly, in that direction. Yet I +rather think they would enjoy doing more things together. One day, not a +great while ago, I chanced to meet all three of them near a tearoom. I +asked them--perforce all of them--to go in with me and partake of ice +cream. As we sat around the table, the oldest of the three glanced at +the other two with a friendly smile. "It is nice--all of us having ice +cream with you at the same time," she remarked, and her younger sisters +enthusiastically agreed. + +To be sure, they are nearer the same age and they are more alike in +their tastes than their mother and her sister, or their father and his +brother. Perhaps their parents needed to take their pleasures singly; +they seem able quite happily to take theirs in company. + +I have another friend, who was brought up in a household in which, as +she says, "individuality" was the keynote. In her own home the keynote +is "the family." She encourages her children to "do things together." +Furthermore, she and her husband habitually participate in their +children's occupations to a greater degree than any other parents I have +ever seen. + +[Illustration: THREE SMALL GIRLS] + +Their friends usually entertain these children "as a family"; but not +long ago, happening to have only two tickets to a concert, I asked one, +and just one, of the little girls of this household to attend it with +me. She accepted eagerly. During an intermission she looked up at me and +said, confidingly, "It is nice sometimes to do things not 'as a family,' +but just as one's self!" + +Then, for the first time, it occurred to me that she was the "odd one" +of her family. All its pleasures, all its interests, were not equally +hers. She needed sometimes to do things as herself. + +In matters of discipline, too, we find the same theory at work. Parents +who were severely punished as children do not punish their children at +all; and the most austere of parents are those who, when children, were +"spoiled." Almost regardless of the natures of their children, parents +deal with them, so far as discipline is concerned, as they themselves +were not dealt with. + +This implies no lack of love, no lack of respect, for the older +generation. On the contrary, it is the sign and symbol of a love, a +respect, so great as to permit of divergences of opinion and procedure, +in spite of differences of age. + +"I am not going to bring up the baby in the way I was brought up, mamma, +darling," I once heard a mother of a month-old baby (her first child) +say to the baby's grandmother. + +"Aren't you, dear?" replied the older lady, with a smile. "Why not?" + +"Oh," returned the daughter, "I want her to be better than I am. I think +if you'd brought me up conversely from the way you did, I'd have been a +much more worth-while person." + +She spoke very solemnly, but her mother only laughed, and then fondly +kissed her daughter and her granddaughter. "That is what I said to _my_ +mother when _you_ were a month old!" she said whimsically. + +Children in American homes, it might be supposed, would be affected by +such diversity in the theories of their parents and their grandparents +concerning their rearing. They might naturally be expected to "take +sides" with the one or the other; or, at any rate, to be puzzled or +disturbed by the principle of "contrariwiseness" governing their lives. +From their earliest years they are aware of it. The small girl very soon +learns that the real reason why she finds a gold bracelet in her +Christmas stocking is that mother "always wanted one, but grandma did +not approve of jewelry for children." The little boy quickly discovers +that his dog sleeps on the foot of his bed mainly because "father's dog +was never allowed even to come into the house. Grandpa was a doctor, and +thought dogs were not clean." + +This knowledge, so soon acquired, would seem to be a menace to family +unity; but it is not--even in homes in which the three generations are +living together. The children know what their grandparents wished for +their parents; they know what their parents wish for them; but, most of +all and best of all, they know what they wish for themselves. It is not +what their parents had, nor what their parents try to give them; it is +"what other children have." + +Perhaps all children are conventional; certainly American children are. +They wish to have what the other children of their acquaintance have, +they wish to do what those other children do. It is not because mother +wanted a bracelet, and never had it, that the little girl would have a +bracelet; it is because "the other girls have bracelets." Not on account +of the rules that forbade father's dog the house is the small boy happy +in the nightly companionship of his dog; he takes the dog to bed with +him for the reason that "the other boys' dogs sleep with them." + +Even unto honors, if they must carry them alone, children in America +would rather not be born. A little girl who lives in my neighborhood +came home from school in tears one day not long ago. Her father is a +celebrated writer. The school-teacher, happening to select one of his +stories to read aloud to the class, mentioned the fact that the author +of the story was the father of my small friend. + +"But why are you crying about it, sweetheart?" her father asked. "Do you +think it's such a bad story?" + +"Oh, no," the little girl answered; "it is a good enough story. But none +of the other children's fathers write stories! Why do _you_, daddy? It's +so peculiar!" + +It may be that all children, whatever their nationalities, are like this +little girl. We, in America, have a fuller opportunity to become +intimately acquainted with the minds of children than have the people of +any other nation of the earth. For more completely than any other people +do American fathers and mothers make friends and companions of their +children, asking from them, first, love; then, trust; and, last of all, +the deference due them as "elders." Any child may feel as did my small +neighbor about a "peculiar" father; only a child who had been his +comrade as well as his child would so freely have voiced her feeling. + +We all remember the little boy in Stevenson's poem, "My Treasures," +whose dearest treasure, a chisel, was dearest because "very few children +possess such a thing." + +Had he been an American child, that chisel would not have been a +"treasure" at all, unless all of the children possessed such a thing. + +Not only do the children of our Nation want what the other children of +their circle have when they can use it; they want it even when they +cannot use it. I have a little girl friend who, owing to an accident in +her infancy, is slightly lame. Fortunately, she is not obliged to depend +upon crutches; but she cannot run about, and she walks with a +pathetically halting step. + +One autumn this child came to her mother and said: "Mamma, I'd like to +go to dancing-school." + +"But, my dearest, I'm afraid--I don't believe--you could learn to dance +--very well," her mother faltered. + +"Oh, mamma, _I_ couldn't learn to dance _at all_!" the little girl +exclaimed, as if surprised that her mother did not fully realize this +fact. + +"Then, dearest, why do you want to go to dancing-school?" her mother +asked gently. + +"The other girls in my class at school are all going," the child said. + +Her mother was silent; and the little girl came closer and lifted +pleading eyes to her face. "_Please_ let me go!" she begged. "The others +are all going," she repeated. + +"I could not bear to refuse her," the mother wrote to me later. "I let +her go. I feared that it would only make her feel her lameness the more +keenly and be a source of distress to her. But it isn't; she enjoys it. +She cannot even try to learn to dance; but she takes pleasure in being +present and watching the others, to say nothing of wearing a 'dancing- +school dress,' as they do. This morning she said to her father: 'I can't +dance, Papa; but I can talk about it. I learn how at dancing-school. Oh, +I love dancing-school!'" + +Her particular accomplishment maybe of minute value in itself; but is +not her content in it a priceless good? If she can continue to enjoy +learning only to talk about the pleasures her lameness will not permit +her otherwise to share, her dancing-school lessons will have taught her +better things than they taught "the other children," who could dance. + +That mother was her little girl's confidential friend as well as her +mother. The child, quite unreservedly, told her what she wanted and why +she wanted it. It was no weak indulgence of a child's whim, but a +genuine respect for another person's rights as an individual--even +though that individual was merely a little child--that led that mother +to allow her daughter to have what she wanted. May not some subtle sense +of this have been the basis of the child's happiness in the fulfillment +of her desire? She _wanted_ to go to dancing-school because the other +children were going; but may she not have _liked_ going because she felt +that her mother understood and sympathized with her desire to go? + +A Frenchwoman to whom I once said that American parents treat their +children in many ways as though they were their contemporaries remarked, +"But does that not make the children old before their time?" + +So far from this, it seems, on the contrary, to keep the parents young +after their time. It has been truly said that we have in America fewer +and fewer grandmothers who are "sweet old ladies," and more and more who +are "charming elderly women." We hear less and less about the "older" +and the "younger" generations; increasingly we merge two, and even +three, generations into one. + +Only yesterday, calling upon a new acquaintance, I heard the four-year- +old boy of the house, mentioning his father, refer to him as "Henry." + +His grandmother smiled, and his mother said, casually: "When you speak +_of_ father, dear, it would be better to say, 'my father,' so people +will be sure to know whom you mean. You may have noticed that grandma +always says, 'my son,' and I always say 'my husband,' when _we_ speak of +him." + +"Does he call his father by his Christian name?" I could not resist +questioning, when the little boy had left the room. + +"Sometimes," replied the child's mother. + +"He hears so many persons do it, he can't see why he shouldn't. And +there really _is_ no reason. Soon enough he will find out that it isn't +customary and stop doing it." + +This is a far cry from the days when children were taught to address +their parents as "honored sir" and "respected madam." But, it seems to +me, the parents are as much honored and respected now as then; and--more +important still--both they and the children are, if not dearer, yet +nearer one another. + +In small as well as in large matters they slip into their parents' +places--neither encouraged nor discouraged, but simply accepted. +Companions and friends, they behave as such, and are treated in a +companionable and friendly manner. + +The other afternoon I dropped in at tea-time for a glimpse of an old +friend. + +Her little girl came into the room in the wake of the tea-tray. "Let +_me_ pour the tea," she said, eagerly. + +[Illustration: THE BOY OF THE HOUSE] + +"Very well," her mother acquiesced. "Be careful not to fill the cups too +full, so that they overflow into the saucers; and do not forget that the +tea is _hot_" she supplemented. + +The little girl had never poured the tea before, but her mother neither +watched her nor gave her any further directions. The child devoted +herself to her pleasant task. With entire ease and unconsciousness she +filled the cups, and made the usual inquiries as to "one lump, or two?" +and "cream or lemon?" + +"Isn't she rather young to pour the tea?" I suggested, when we were +alone. + +"I don't see why," my friend said. "There isn't any 'age limit' about +pouring tea. She does it for her dolls in the nursery; she might just as +well do it for us here. Of course it is hot; but she can be careful." + +There are few things in regard to the doing or the saying or the +thinking of which American parents apprehend any "age limit." Their +children are not "tender juveniles." They do not have a detached life of +their own which the parents "share," nor do the parents have a detached +life of their own which the children "share." There is the common life +of the home, to which all, parents and children, and often grandparents +too, contribute, and in which they all "share." + +This is the secret of that genuine satisfaction that so many of us +grown-ups in America find in the society of children, whether they are +members of our own families or are the children of our friends and +neighbors. + +A short time ago I had occasion to invite to Sunday dinner a little boy +friend of mine who is nine years old. Lest he _might_ feel his youth in +a household which no longer contains any nine-year-olds, I invited to +"meet him" two other boys, playmates of his, of about the same age. +There chanced also to be present a friend, a professor in a woman's +college, into whose daily life very seldom strays a boy, especially one +nine years old. + +"What interesting things have you been doing lately?" she observed to +the boy beside her in the pause which followed our settling of ourselves +at the table. + +"I have been seeing 'The Blue Bird,'" he at once answered. "Have _you_ +seen it?" he next asked. + +No sooner had she replied than he turned to me. "I suppose, of course, +_you've_ seen it," he said. + +"Not yet," I told him; "but I have read it--" + +"Oh, so have I!" exclaimed one of the other boys; "and I've seen it, +too. There is one act in the play that isn't in the book--'The Land of +Happiness' it is. My mother says she doesn't think Mr. Maeterlinck could +have written it; it is so different from the rest of the play." + +Those present, old and young, who had seen "The Blue Bird" debated this +possibility at some length. + +Then the boy who had introduced it said to me: "I wonder, when you see +it, whether _you'll_ think Mr. Maeterlinck wrote 'The Land of Happiness' +act, or not." + +"I haven't seen 'The Blue Bird,'" the third boy remarked, "but I've seen +the Coronation pictures." Whereupon we fell to discussing moving-picture +shows. + +During the progress of that dinner we considered many other subjects, +lighting upon them casually; touching upon them lightly; and--most +significant of all--discoursing upon them as familiars and equals. None +of us who were grown-up "talked down" to the boys, and certainly none of +the boys "talked up" to us. Each one of them at home was a "dear +partner" of every other member of the family, younger and older, larger +and smaller. Inevitably, each one when away from home became quite +spontaneously an equal shareholder in whatever was to be possessed at +all. + +A day or two after the Sunday of that dinner I met one of my boy guests +on the street. "I've seen 'The Blue Bird,'" I said to him; "and I'm +inclined to think that, if Mr. Maeterlinck did write the act 'The Land +of Happiness,' he wrote it long after he had written the rest of the +play. I think perhaps that is why it is so different from the other +acts." + +"Why, I never thought of that!" the boy cried, with absolute +unaffectedness. He appeared to consider it for a moment, and then he +said: "I'll tell my mother; she'll be interested." + +Foreign visitors of distinction not infrequently have accused American +children of being "pert," or "lacking in reverence," or "sophisticated." +Those of us who are better acquainted with the children of our own +Nation cannot concur in any of these accusations. Unhappily, there are +children in America, as there are children in every land, who _are_ +pert, and lacking in reverence, and sophisticated; but they are in the +small minority, and they are not the children to whom foreigners refer +when they make their sweeping arraignments. + +The most gently reared, the most carefully nurtured, of our children are +those usually seen by distinguished foreign visitors; for such +foreigners are apt to be guests of the families to which these children +belong. The spirit of frank _camaraderie_ displayed by the children they +mistake for "pertness"; the trustful freedom of their attitude toward +their elders they interpret as "lack of reverence"; and their eager +interest in subjects ostensibly beyond their years they misread as +"sophistication." + +It must be admitted that American small boys have not the quaint +courtliness of French small boys; that American little girls are without +the pretty shyness of English little girls. We are compelled to grant +that in America between the nursery and the drawing-room there is no +great gulf fixed. This condition of things has its real disadvantages +and trials; but has it not also its ideal advantages and blessings? +Cooeperative living together, in spite of individual differences, is one +of these advantages; tender intimacy between persons of varying ages is +one of these blessings. + +A German woman on her first visit to America said to me, as we talked +about children, that, with our National habit of treating them as what +we Americans call "chums," she wondered how parents kept any authority +over them, and especially maintained any government _of_ them, and _for_ +them, without letting it lapse into a government _by_ them. + +"I should think that the commandment 'Children, obey your parents' might +be in danger of being overlooked or thrust aside," she said, "in a +country in which children and parents are 'chums,' as Americans say." + +That ancient commandment would seem to be too toweringly large to be +overlooked, too firmly embedded in the world to be thrust aside. It is a +very Rock of Gibraltar of a commandment. + +American parents do not relinquish their authority over their children. +As for government--like other wise parents, they aim to help it to +develop, as soon as it properly can, from a government of and for their +children into a government by them. Self-government is the lesson of +lessons they most earnestly desire to teach their children. + +Methods of teaching it differ. Indeed, as to methods of teaching their +children anything, American fathers and mothers have no fixed standard, +no homogeneous ideal. More likely than not they follow in this important +matter their custom in matters of lesser import--of employing a method +directly opposed to the method of their own parents, and employing it +simply because it is directly opposed. This is but too apt to be their +interpretation of the phrase "modernity in child nurture." But the +children learn the lesson. They learn the other great and fundamental +lessons of life, too, and learn them well, from these American fathers +and mothers who are so friendly and companionable and sympathetic with +them. + +Why should they not? There is no antagonism between love and law. +Parents are in a position of authority over their children; no risk of +the strength of that position is involved in a friendship between +parents and children anywhere. It is not remarkable that American +parents should retain their authority over their children. What is +noteworthy is that their children, less than any other children of the +civilized world, rebel against it or chafe under it: they perceive so +soon that their parents are governing them only because they are not +wise enough to govern themselves; they realize so early that government, +by some person or persons, is the estate in common of us all! + +One day last summer at the seashore I saw a tiny boy, starting from the +bath-house of his family, laboriously drag a rather large piece of +driftwood along the beach. Finally he carefully deposited it in the sand +at a considerable distance from the bath-house. + +"Why did you bring that big piece of wood all the way up here?" I +inquired as he passed me. + +"My father told me to," the child replied. + +"Why?" I found myself asking. + +"Because I got it here; and it is against the law of this town to take +anything from this beach, except shells. Did you know that? I didn't; my +father just 'splained it to me." + +American fathers and mothers explain so many things to their children! +And American children explain quite as great a number of things to their +parents. They can; because they are not only friends, but familiar +friends. We have all read Continental autobiographies, of which the +chapters under the general title "Early Years" contained records of +fears based upon images implanted in the mind and flourishing there-- +images arising from some childish misapprehension or misinterpretation +of some ordinary and perfectly explainable circumstance. "I was afraid +to pass a closed closet alone after dark," one of these says. "I had +heard of 'skeletons in closets'; I knew there were none in our closets +in the daytime, but I couldn't be sure that they did not come to sleep +in them at night; and I was too shy to inquire of my parents. What +terrors I suffered! I was half-grown before I understood what a +'skeleton in a closet' was." + +An American child would have discovered what one was within five minutes +after hearing it first mentioned, provided he had the slightest interest +in knowing. No American child is too shy to inquire of his parents +concerning anything he may wish to know. Shyness is a veil children wear +before strangers; in the company of their intimates they lay it aside-- +and forget it. In the autobiographies of Americans we shall not find +many accounts of childish terrors arising from any reserve in the +direction of asking questions. In American homes there are no closets +whose doors children are afraid to pass, or to open, even after dark. + +"American children are all so different!" an Englishman complained to me +not long ago; "as different as their several homes. One can make no +statement about them that is conclusive." + +But can one not? To be sure, they do vary, and their homes vary too; but +in one great, significant, fundamental particular they are all alike. In +American homes the parents not only love their children, and the +children their parents; their "way of loving" is such that one may say +of them, "Their souls do bear an equal yoke of love." They and their +parents are "chums." + + + + +II + + + +THE CHILD AT PLAY + + +Not long ago I happened to receive in the same mail three books on home +games, written by three different American authors, and issued by three +separate publishing-houses. In most respects the books were dissimilar; +but in one interesting particular they were all alike: the games in them +were so designed that, though children alone could play them well, +children and grown-ups together could play them better. No one of the +several authors suggested that he had any such theory in mind when +preparing his book; each one simply took it for granted that his "home +games" would be played by the entire household. Would not any of us in +America, writing a book of this description, proceed from precisely the +same starting-point? + +We all recollect the extreme amazement in the Castle of Dorincourt +occasioned by the sight of the Earl playing a "home game" with Little +Lord Fauntleroy. No American grandfather thus engaged would cause the +least ripple of surprise. Little Lord Fauntleroy, we recall, had been +born in America, and had lived the whole ten years of his life with +Americans. He had acquired the habit, so characteristic of the children +of our Nation, of including his elders in his games. Quite naturally, on +his first day at the Castle, he said to the Earl, "My new game--wouldn't +you like to play it with me, grandfather?" The Earl, we remember, was +astonished. He had never been in America! + +American grown-ups experience no astonishment when children invite them +to participate in their play. We are accustomed to such invitations. To +our ready acceptance of them the children are no less used. "Will you +play with us?" they ask with engaging confidence. "Of course we will!" +we find ourselves cordially responding. + +I chanced, not a great while ago, to be ill in a hospital on Christmas +Day. Toward the middle of the morning, during the "hours for visitors," +I heard a faint knock at my door. + +Before I could answer it the door opened, and a little girl, her arms +full of toys, softly entered. + +"Did you say 'Come in'?" she inquired. + +Without waiting for a reply, she carefully deposited her toys on the +nurse's cot near her. Then, closing the door, she came and stood beside +my bed, and gazed at me in friendly silence. + +"Merry Christmas!" I said. + +"Oh, Merry Christmas!" she returned, formally, dropping a courtesy. + +She was a sturdy, rosy-cheeked child, and, though wearing a fluffy white +dress and slippers, she looked as children only look after a walk in a +frosty wind. Clearly, she was not a patient. + +"Whose little girl are you?" I asked. + +"Papa's and mamma's," she said promptly. + +"Where are they?" I next interrogated. + +"In papa's room--down the hall, around the corner. Papa is sick; only, +he's better now, and will be all well soon. And mamma and I came to see +him, with what Santa Claus brought us." + +"I see," I commented. "And these are the things Santa Claus brought +you?" I added, indicating the toys on the cot. "You have come, now, to +show them to me?" + +Her face fell a bit. "I came to play at them with you," she said. "Your +nurse thought maybe you'd like to, for a while. Are you too sick to +play?" she continued, anxiously; "or too tired, or too busy?" + +How seldom are any of us too sick to play; or too tired, or too busy! "I +am not," I assured my small caller. "I should enjoy playing. What shall +we begin with?" I supplemented, glancing again toward the toy-bestrewn +cot. + +"Oh, there are ever so many things!" the little girl said. "But," she +went on hesitatingly, "_your_ things--perhaps you'd like--might I look +at them first?" + +Most evident among these things of mine was a small tree, bedizened, +after the German fashion, with gilded nuts, fantastically shaped +candies, and numerous tiny boxes, gayly tied with tinsel ribbons. +"What's in the boxes--presents or jokes?" the little girl questioned. +"Have you looked?" + +"I hadn't got that far, when you came," I told her; "but I rather +_think_--jokes." + +"_I'd_ want to _know_" she suggested. + +When I bade her examine them for me, she said: "Let's play I am Santa +Claus and you are a little girl. I'll hand you the boxes, and you open +them." + +We did this, with much mutual enjoyment. The boxes, to my amusement and +her delight, contained miniature pewter dogs and cats and dolls and +dishes. "Why," my little companion exclaimed, "they aren't _jokes_; they +are _real presents_! They will be _just_ right to have when _little_ +children come to see you!" + +When the last of the boxes had been opened and my other less juvenile +"things" surveyed, the child turned to her own treasures. "There are the +two puzzles," she said, "and there is the big doll that can say 'Papa' +and 'Mamma,' and there is the paper doll, with lovely patterns and +pieces to make more clothes out of for it, and there is a game papa just +_loved_. Perhaps you'd like to play _that_ best, too, 'cause you are +sick, too?" she said tentatively. + +I assented, and the little girl arranged the game on the table beside my +bed, and explained its "rules" to me. We played at it most happily until +my nurse, coming in, told my new-made friend that she must "say 'Good- +bye' now." + +My visitor at once collected her toys and prepared to go. At the door +she turned. "Good-bye," she said, again dropping her prim courtesy. "I +have had a very pleasant time." + +"So have I!" I exclaimed. + +And I had had. "She was so entertaining," I said to my nurse, "and her +game was so interesting!" + +"It is not an uncommon game," my nurse remarked, with a smile; "and she +is just an ordinary, nice child!" + +America is full of ordinary, nice children who beguile their elders into +playing with them games that are not uncommon. How much "pleasant time" +is thereby spent! + +"Where do American children learn to expect grown people to play with +them?" an Englishwoman once asked me. "In the kindergarten?" + +Undoubtedly they do. In no country except Germany is the kindergarten so +integral a part of the national life as it is in America. In our cities, +rich and poor alike send their children to kindergartens. Not only in +the public and the private schools, but also in the social settlements, +and even in the Sunday-schools, we have kindergarten departments. In the +rural schools the teachers train the little "beginners" in accordance +with kindergarten principles. Even to places far away from any schools +at all the kindergarten penetrates. Only yesterday I saw a book, written +by a kindergartner, dedicated to "mothers on the rolling prairie, the +far-off rancho, the rocky island, in the lonely light-house, the +frontier settlement, the high-perched mining-camp," who, distant indeed +from school kindergartens and their equipment, might wish help in making +out of what materials they have well-equipped home kindergartens. + +"Come, let us play with the children," the apostles of Froebel teach us. +And, "Come, let us ask the grown-ups to play with us," they would seem +unconsciously to instruct the children. + +One autumn a friend of mine, the mother of a three-year-old boy and of a +daughter aged sixteen, said to me: "This is my daughter's first term in +the high school; she will need my help. My boy is just at the age when +it takes all the spare time I have to keep him out of mischief; how +shall I manage?" + +"Send the boy to kindergarten," I advised. "He is ready to go; and it +will be good for him. He will bring some of the 'occupations' home with +him; and they will keep him out of mischief for you." + +She sent the boy to a little kindergarten in the neighborhood. + +About two months later, I said to her, "I suppose the kindergarten has +solved the problem of more spare time for your daughter's new demands +upon you?" + +"Well--in a way," she replied, dubiously. "It gives me the morning free; +but--" + +"Doesn't the boy bring home any 'occupations'?" I interposed. + +My friend laughed. "Yes," she said; "he certainly does! But he doesn't +want to 'occupy' himself alone with them; he wants _all_ of us to do it +with him! We have become quite expert at 'weaving,' and 'folding,' and +'sewing'! But, on the other hand," she went on, "he isn't so much +trouble as he was. He wants us to play with him more, but he plays more +intelligently. We take real pleasure in joining in his games, and-- +actually--in letting him share ours." + +This little boy, now five years old, came to see me the other day. + +"What would you like to do?" I asked, when we had partaken of tea. +"Shall we put the jig-saw puzzle together; or should you prefer to have +me tell you a story?" + +"Tell me a story," he said at once; "and then I'll tell you one. And +then _you_ tell another--and then _I'll_ tell another--" He broke off, +to draw a long breath. "It's a game," he continued, after a moment. "We +play it in kindergarten." + +"Do you enjoy telling stories more than hearing them told?" I inquired, +when we had played this game to the extent of three stories on either +side. + +"No," my little boy friend replied. "I like hearing stories told more +than anything. But _that_ isn't a game; that's just being-told-stories. +The _game_ is taking-turns-telling-stories." He enunciated each phrase +as though it were a single word. + +His mother had spoken truly when she said that her little boy had +learned to play intelligently. He had learned, also, to include his +elders in his games on equal terms. Small wonder that they took real +pleasure in playing with him. + +The children cordially welcome us to their games. They ask us to be +children with them. As heartily, they would have us bespeak their +company in our games; they are willing to try to be grown-up with us. + +I was visiting a family recently, in which there is but one small child, +a boy of eight. One evening we were acting charades. Divided into camps, +we chose words in turn, and in turn were chosen to superintend the +"acting-out" of the particular word. It happened that the word +"Psychical-research," and the turn of the eight-year-old boy to be +stage-manager coincided. Every one in his camp laughed, but no one so +much as remotely suggested that the word or the stage-manager be +changed. + +"What does it mean, 'Psychical-research'?" the boy made question. + +We laughed still more, but we genuinely tried to make the term +comprehensible to the child's mind. + +This led to such prolonged and lively argument that the little stage- +manager finally observed: "I don't see how it _can_ mean _all_ that all +of you say. Can't we let the whole-word act of it go, and act out the +rest? We can, you know--'Sigh,' 'kick,' 'all'; and 're' (like in music, +you know), and 'search!'" + +"Oh, no," we demurred; "we must do it properly, or not at all!" + +"Well, then," said the boy, in a quaintly resigned tone of voice, "talk +to me about it, until I know what it is!" + +In spite of hints from the other camp not to overlap the time allotted +us, in the face of messages from them to hurry, regardless of their +protests against our dilatoriness, we did talk to that little eight- +year-old boy about "Psychical-research" until he understood its meaning +sufficiently to plan his final act. "If he is playing with us, then he +_is_ playing with us," his father somewhat cryptically remarked; "and he +must know the details of the game." + +This playing with grown-ups does not curtail the play in which children +engage with their contemporaries. There are games that are distinctly +"children's games." We all know of what stuff they are made, for most of +us have played them in our time--running-games, jumping-games, shouting- +games. By stepping to our windows nearly any afternoon, we may see some +of them in process. But we shall not be invited to participate. At best, +the children will pause for a moment to ask, "Did you play it this way?" + +Very likely we did not. Each generation plays the old games; every +generation plays them in a slightly new way. The present generation +would seem to play them with a certain self-consciousness; without that +_abandon_ of an earlier time. + +A short while ago I happened to call upon a friend of mine on an +afternoon when, her nursemaid being "out," she was alone with her +children--a boy of seven and a girl of five. I found them together in +the nursery; my friend was sewing, and the children were playing +checkers. Apparently, they were entirely engrossed in their game. +Immediately after greeting me they returned to it, and continued it with +seeming obliviousness of the presence of any one excepting themselves. +But when their mother, in the course of a few moments, rose, and said to +me: "Let's go down to the library and have tea," both the children +instantly stopped playing--though one of them was in the very thick of +"taking a king"--and cried, "Oh, don't go; stay with us!" + +[ILLUSTRATION: "DID YOU PLAY IT THIS WAY?"] + +"My dears," my friend said, "you don't need us; you have your game. +Aren't you happy with it?" + +"Why, yes," the little girl admitted; "but we want you to see us being +happy!" + +Only to-day, as I came up my street, a crowd of small children burst +upon me from behind a hedge; and, shouting and gesticulating, surrounded +me. Their faces were streaked with red, and blue, and yellow lines, +applied with crayons; feathers of various domestic kinds ornamented +their hats and caps, and they waved in the air broken laths, presumably +gifts from a builder at work in the vicinity. + +"We are Indians!" they shrieked; "wild Indians! See our war-paint, and +feathers, and tomahawks! We hunt the pale face!" + +While I sought about for an appropriate answer to make, my little +neighbors suddenly became calm. + +"Don't we children have fun?" one of them questioned me. "You like to +see us having fun, don't you?" + +I agreed, and again their war-whoops began. They followed me to my door +in a body. Inside I still heard them playing, but with lessened din. +Several times during the afternoon, hearing their noise increase, I +looked out; each time I saw that the arrival of another grown-up pale +face was the occasion of the climactic moment in the game. In order to +be wild Indians with perfect happiness the small players demanded an +appreciative audience to see them being happy. + +Some of us in America are prone to deprecate in the children of our +Nation this pleased consciousness of their own enjoyment, this desire +for our presence as sympathetic onlookers at those of their games in +which we cannot join. We must not allow ourselves to forget that it is a +state of mind fostered largely by our National habit of treating +children as familiars and equals. Our satisfaction in their pleasures we +mention in their hearing. If they are aware that we like to see them +"being happy," it is because we have told them, and told them +repeatedly. We do not, as in a former time, "spell some of our words" in +their company, in order that they may not know all we say. On the +contrary, we pronounce all our words with especial clearness, and even +define such as are obscure, that the children not only may, but must, +fully understand us when we speak "before them." Unquestionably this +takes from the play of the children self-forgetfulness of one kind, but +sometimes it gives to them self-forgetfulness of another, a rarer kind. + +I know a family of children, lovers of games which involve running +races. Several years ago one of the boys of this family died. Since his +death the other children run no more races. + +"We like running races just as much," one of the girls explained to me +one evening, as we sat by the fire and talked about her dead brother; +"but, you know, _he_ always liked them best, because he generally won. +He loved to have mother see him winning. He was always getting her to +come and watch him do it. And mother liked it, and used to tell other +people about it. We don't run races now, because it might remind mother +too much." + +No matter how joyously American children may play with their elders, or +with their contemporaries, whatever enhancement their satisfaction in +play with one another may gain from the presence of grown-up spectators, +they are not likely to become so dependent upon the one, nor so self- +conscious by reason of the other, that they will relinquish--or, worse +still, never know--the dear delights of "playing alone." Games played in +company may be the finest prose--they are yet prose; games played alone +are pure poetry. The children of our Nation are not without that +imagination which, on one day or another, impels a child to wander, +"lonely as a cloud," along the path of dreamful, solitary play. + +How often a child who, to our eyes, appears to be doing nothing +whatever, is "playing alone" a delectable game! Probably, only once in a +hundred times, and then, by the merest accident, do we discover what +that game is. + +Among my child friends there is a little boy who takes great pleasure in +seeing dramas acted. One spring day I took him to an open-air +presentation of "As You Like It." + +The comedy was charmingly given in a clearing in a beautiful private +park. Orlando had "real" trees and hawthorns and brambles upon which to +hang his verses; and he made lavish use of them. + +The fancy of my small friend was quite captivated by what he called +"playing hide-and-go-seek with poems." "What fun he has, watching her +find them and not letting her know he hid them!" he exclaimed. + +Later in the season I went to spend a few days at the country home of +his parents. Early one morning, from my window, I espied the little boy, +stealthily moving about under the trees in the adjacent apple orchard. + +At breakfast he remarked to me, casually, "It's nice in the orchard--all +apple blossoms." + +"Will you go out there with me?" I asked. + +"P'aps not to-day," he made reply. "But," he hazarded, "you could go by +yourself. It's nice," he repeated; "all apple blossoms. Get close to the +trees, and smell them." + +It was a pleasant plan for a May morning. + +I lost no time in putting it into practice. Involuntarily I sought that +corner of the orchard in which I had seen my small friend. Mindful of +his counsel, I got close to the apple blossoms and smelled them. As I +did so I noticed a crumpled sheet of paper in a crotch of one of the +trees. I no sooner saw it than I seized it, and, smoothing it out, read, +written in a primary-school hand:-- + +"The rose is red, +The violet blue, +Sugar is sweet, +And so are you." + +Need I say that I had scarcely read this before I entered upon an +exhaustive search among the other trees? My amused efforts were well +rewarded. Between two flower-laden branches I descried another "poem," +in identical handwriting:-- + +"A birdie with a yellow bill +Hopped upon the window-sill, +Cocked his shining eye and said +'Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head!'" + +In a tiny hollow I found still another, by the same hand:-- + +"'T was brillig, and the slithy toves + Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; +All mimsy were the borogoves, + And the mome raths outgrabe." + +As I went back to the house, bearing my findings, I met my little boy +friend. He tried not to see what I carried. + +"I gathered these from the apple trees," I said, holding out the verses. +"They are poems." + +He made no motion to take the "poems." His eyes danced. But neither then +did he say nor since has he said that the verses were his; that he was +the Orlando who had caused them to grow upon the trees. + +Another child of my acquaintance, a little girl, I discovered in an even +sweeter game for "playing alone." She chanced to call upon me one +afternoon just as I was taking from its wrappings an _edition de luxe_ +of "Pippa Passes." Her joy in the exquisite illustrations with which the +book was embellished even exceeded mine. + +"Is the story in the book as lovely as the pictures?" she queried. + +"Yes," I assured her. + +Then, at her urgent request, I told her the tale of the "little black- +eyed pretty singing Felippa"; of her "single day," and of her singing +that "righted all again" on that holiday in Asolo. + +The child was silent for a moment after I had finished the story. "Do +you like it?" I inquired. + +"Um--yes," she mused. "Let me look at the pictures some more," she +asked, with sudden eagerness. + +I handed her the book, and she pored over it for a long time. "The +houses then were not like the houses now--were they?" she said; "and the +people dressed in funny clothes." + +The next Saturday, at an early hour, I heard beneath my window a +childish voice singing a kindergarten song. I peeped out. There stood my +little friend. I was careful to make no sound and to keep well in the +shadow. The small girl finished her song, and softly ran away. + +"Your little girl serenaded me the other morning," I said to her mother +when I saw her a few days afterward. The child had shown so slight an +interest in anything in my book except the pictures that I did not yet +connect her singing with it. + +"You, too!" exclaimed the little girl's mother. "She evidently serenaded +the entire neighborhood! All day Saturday, her only holiday, she went +around, singing under various windows! I wonder what put the idea into +her head." + +"Did you ask her?" I questioned, with much curiosity. + +"Yes," answered the child's mother; "but she only smiled, and looked +embarrassed, so I said nothing further. She seemed to want to keep her +secret, the dear baby! So I thought I'd let her!" + +And I--I, too, kept it. "Yes, do let her," was all I said. + +American children, when "playing alone," impersonate the heroes and +heroines of the dramas they see, or the stories they are told, or the +books they read (how much more often they must do it than we suspect our +memories of our own childish days will teach us), but when they play +together, even when they "play at books that they have read," they +seldom "pretend." A group of small boys who have just read "Robin Hood" +do not say: "Wouldn't it be fun to play that _we_ are Robin Hood and his +Merry Men, and that our grove is Sherwood Forest?" They are more apt to +say: "It would be good sport for _us_--shooting with bows and arrows. We +might get some, and fix up a target somewhere and practise." The circle +of little girls who have read "Mary's Meadow" do not propose that they +play at being Mary. They decide instead upon doing, in their own proper +persons, what Mary did in hers. They can play together, the children of +our Nation, but they seem unable to "pretend" together. They are perhaps +too self-conscious. + +It is a significant circumstance that yearly there are published in +America a large number of books for children telling them "how to make" +various things. A great part of their play consists in making something +--from a sunken garden to an air-ship. + +I recently had a letter from a boy in which he said: "The boys here are +getting wireless sets. We have to buy part of the things; but we make as +many of them as we can." + +And how assiduously they attempt to make as many as they can of the +other things we grown-ups make! They imitate our play; and, in a spirit +of play, they contrive to copy to its last and least detail our work. If +we play golf or tennis, they also play these games. Are we painters of +pictures or writers of books, they too aspire to paint or to write! + +It cannot be denied that we encourage the children in this "endless +imitation." We not only have diminutive golf sticks and tennis rackets +manufactured for their use as soon as they would play our games; when +they show signs of toying with our work, we promptly set about providing +them with the proper means to that end. + +One of our best-known magazines for children devotes every month a +considerable number of its pages to stories and poems and drawings +contributed by children. Furthermore, it offers even such rewards as we +grown-up writers and painters are offered for "available" products. +Moreover, the young contributors are instructed in the intricacies of +literary and artistic etiquette. They are taught how to prepare +manuscripts and drawings for the editorial eye. The "rules" given these +children are identical with the regulations governing well-conducted +grown-up writers and artists--excepting that the children are commanded +to "state age," and "have the contribution submitted indorsed as wholly +original!" + +It is a noteworthy fact that hundreds of children in America send in +contributions, month after month, year after year, to this magazine. +Even more significant is it that they prepare these contributions with +all the conscientious care of grown-up writers or painters to whom +writing or painting is the chiefest reality of life. So whole-heartedly +do the children play at being what their elders are! + +[Illustration: THE DEAR DELIGHTS OF PLAYING ALONE] + +An Italian woman once asked me, "The American children--what do they +employ as toys?" + +I could only reply, "Almost anything; almost everything!" + +When we are furthest from seeing the toy possibilities of a thing, they +see it. I have among my treasures a libation cup and a _ushabti_ +figurine--votive offerings from the Temple of Osiris, at Abydos. + +A short time ago a little boy friend of mine lighted upon them in their +safe retreat. "What are these?" he inquired. + +"They came from Egypt--" I began. + +"Oh, _really_ and _truly_?" he cried. "_Did_ they come from the Egypt in +the poem-- + +"'Where among the desert sands +Some deserted city stands, +There I'll come when I'm a man +With a camel caravan; +And in a corner find the toys +Of the old Egyptian boys'?" + +He spent a happy hour playing with the libation cup and the _ushabti_-- +trophies of one of the most remarkable explorations of our era. I did +not tell him what they were. He knew concerning them all he needed to +know--that they could be "employed as toys." Perhaps the very tiniest of +the "old Egyptian boys" had known only this, too. + +"Little girls do not play with dolls in these days!" is a remark that +has been made with great frequency of late years. Those of us who have +many friends among little girls often wonder what is at the basis of +this rumor. There have always been girls who did not care for dolls. In +the old-fashioned story for girls there was invariably one such. In +"Little Women," as we all recall, it was Jo. No doubt the persons who +say that little girls no longer play with dolls count among their +childish acquaintances a disproportionate number of Jos. Playing with +dolls would seem to be too fundamentally little-girlish ever to fall +into desuetude. + +"Girls, as well as boys, play with dogs in these days!" is another +plaintive cry we often hear. But were there ever days when this was not +the case? From that far-off day when Iseult "had always a little brachet +with her that Tristram gave her the first time that ever she came into +Cornwell," to the time when Dora cuddled Jip, even down to our own day, +when the heroine of "Queed" walks forth with her Behemoth, girls both in +fact and in fiction have played with dogs; played with them no less than +boys. This proclivity on the part of the little girls of our Nation is +not distinctively American, nor especially childish, nor particularly +girl-like; it is merely human. + +In few activities do the children of our Nation reveal what we call the +"American sense of humor" so clearly as in their play. Slight ills, and +even serious misfortunes, they instinctively endeavor to lift and carry +with a laugh. It would be difficult to surpass the gay heroism to which +they sometimes attain. + +Most of us remember the little hunchbacked boy in "Little Men" who, when +the children played "menagerie," chose the part of the dromedary. +"Because," he explained, "I have a hump on my back!" + +Among my acquaintances there is a little girl who is blind. One day I +invited her to go picnicking with a party of normal children, one of +whom was her elder sister. She was accustomed to the company of children +who could see, and she showed a ready disposition to join in the games +of the other picnickers. Her sister stayed close beside her and guarded +and guided her. + +"Let's play blind man's buff," one of the children heedlessly suggested +after a long course of "drop-the-handkerchief." + +The other children with seeing eyes instantly looked at the child who +was sightless, and whispered, "Ssh! You'll hurt her feelings!" + +But the little blind girl scrambled eagerly to her feet. "Yes," she +said, brightly; "let's play blind man's buff! _I_ can be 'It' _all_ the +time!" + +There is a phrase that has been very widely adopted by Americans. +Scarcely one of us but uses it--"playing the game." Our highest +commendation of a man or a woman has come to be, "He plays the game," or +"She plays the game." Another phrase, often upon our lips, is "according +to the rules of the game." We Americans talk of the most sacred things +of life in the vocabulary of children at play. May not this be because +the children of our Nation play so well; so much better than we grown- +ups do anything? + + + + +III + + + +THE COUNTRY CHILD + + +One spring, not long ago, a friend of mine, knowing that I had a desire +to spend the summer in the "real country," said to me, "Why don't you go +to a farm somewhere in New England? Nothing could be more 'really +countrified' than that! You would get what you want there." + +Her advice rather appealed to my fancy. I at once set about looking for +a New England farmhouse in which I might be received as a "summer +boarder." Hearing of one that was situated in a particularly healthful +and beautiful section of New England, I wrote to the woman who owned and +operated it, telling her what I required, and asking her whether or no +she could provide me with it. "Above all things," I concluded my letter, +"I want quiet." + +Her somewhat lengthy reply ended with these words: "The bedroom just +over the music-room is the quietest in the house, because no one is in +the music-room excepting for a social hour after supper. I can let you +have that bedroom." + +My friend had said that nothing was so "really countrified" as a New +England farm. But a "music-room," a "social hour after supper!" The +terms suggested things distinctly urban. + +I sent another letter to the woman to whom this amazing farmhouse +belonged. "I am afraid I cannot come," I wrote. "I want a simpler +place." Then, yielding to my intense curiosity, I added: "Are many of +your boarders musical? Is the music-room for their use?" + +"No place could be simpler than this," she answered, by return mail. "I +don't know whether any of my boarders this year will be musical or not. +Some years they have been. The music-room isn't for my boarders, +especially; it is for my niece. She is very musical, but she doesn't get +much time for practising in the summer." + +She went on to say that she hoped I would decide to take the bedroom +over the music-room. I did. I had told her that, above all things, I +desired quiet; but, after reading her letters, I think I wished, above +all things, to see the music-room, and the niece who was musical. + +"She will probably be a shy, awkward girl," one of my city neighbors +said to me; "and no doubt she will play 'The Maiden's Prayer' on a +melodeon which will occupy one corner of the back sitting-room. You will +see." + +In order to reach the farm it was necessary not only to take a journey +on a train, but also to drive three miles over a hilly road. The little +station at which I changed from the train to an open two-seated carriage +in waiting for me was the usual rural village, with its one main street, +its commingled post-office and dry-goods and grocery store, and its +small white meeting-house. + +The farm, as we approached it, called to mind the pictures of old New +England farms with which all of us are familiar. The house itself was +over a hundred years old, I afterward learned; and had for that length +of time "been in the family" of the woman with whom I had corresponded. + +She was on the broad doorstone smiling a welcome when, after an hour's +drive, the carriage at last came to a stop. Beside her was her niece, +the girl whom I had been so impatient to meet. She was neither shy nor +awkward. + +"Are you tired?" she inquired. "What should you like to do? Go to your +room or rest downstairs until supper-time? Supper will be ready in about +twenty minutes." + +"I'd like to see the music-room," I found myself saying. + +"Oh," exclaimed the girl, her face brightening, "are you musical? How +nice!" + +As she spoke she led the way into the music-room. It was indeed a back +sitting-room. Its windows opened upon the barnyard; glancing out, I saw +eight or ten cows, just home from pasture, pushing their ways to the +drinking-trough. I looked around the little room. On the walls were +framed photographs of great composers, on the mantelshelf was a +metronome, on the centre-table were two collections of classic piano +pieces, and in a corner was,--not a melodeon,--but a piano. The maker's +name was on it--a name famous in two continents. + +"Your aunt told me you were musical," I said to the girl. "I see that +the piano is your instrument." + +"Yes," she assented. "But I don't play very well. I haven't had many +lessons. Only one year with a really good teacher." + +"Who was your teacher?" I asked idly. I fully expected her to say, "Some +one in the village through which you came." + +"Perhaps you know my teacher," she replied; and she mentioned the name +of one of the best pianists and piano teachers in New England. + +"Most of the time I've studied by myself," she went on; "but one year +auntie had me go to town and have good lessons." + +At supper this girl waited on the table, and after supper she washed the +dishes and made various preparations for the next morning's breakfast. +Then she joined her aunt and the boarders, of whom there were nine, on +the veranda. + +"I should so like to hear you play something on the piano," I said to +her. + +She at once arose, and, followed by me, went into the music-room, which +was just off the veranda. "I only play easy things," she said, as she +seated herself at the piano. + +Whereupon she played, with considerable skill, one of Schumann's simpler +compositions, one of Schubert's, and one of Grieg's. Then, turning +around on the piano-stool, she asked me, "Do you like Debussy?" + +I thought of what my neighbor had prophesied concerning "The Maiden's +Prayer." Debussy! And this girl was a country girl, born and bred on +that dairy farm, educated at the little district school of the vicinity; +and, moreover, trained to take a responsible part in the work of the +farm both in winter and in summer. Her family for generations had been +"country people." + +It was not surprising that she had made the acquaintance of Debussy's +music; nor that she had at her tongue's end all the arguments for and +against it. Her music-teacher was, of course, accountable for this. What +was remarkable was that she had had the benefit of that particular +teacher's instruction; that, country child though she was, she had been +given exactly the kind, if not the amount, of musical education that a +city child of musical tastes would have been given. + +My neighbor had predicted a shy, awkward girl, a melodeon, and "The +Maiden's Prayer." One of our favorite fallacies in America is that our +country people are "countrified." Nothing could be further from the +truth, especially in that most important matter, the up-bringing of +their children. Country parents, like city parents, try to get the best +for their children. That "best" is very apt to be identical with what +city parents consider best. Circumstances may forbid their giving it to +their children as lavishly as do city parents; conditions may force them +to alter it in various ways in order to fit it to the needs of boys and +girls who live on a farm, and not on a city street; but in some sort +they attempt to obtain it, and, having obtained it, to give it to their +children. + +[Illustration: "THE CHILDREN--THEY ARE SUCH DEARS!"] + +They are as ambitious for the education of their children as city +parents; and to an amazing extent they provide for them a similar +academic training. An astonishing proportion of the students in our +colleges come from country homes, in which they have learned to desire +collegiate experience; from country schools, where they have received +the preparation necessary to pass the required college entrance +examinations. Surrounded, as we in cities are, by schools especially +planned, especially equipped, to make children ready for college, we may +well wonder how country children in rural district schools, with their +casual schedules and meagre facilities, are ever so prepared. By +visiting even a few district schools we may in part discover. + +I happened, not a great while ago, to spend an autumn month on a farm in +a very sparsely settled section of New Hampshire. + +One morning at breakfast, shortly after Labor Day, my landlady said: +"School opens next week. The teacher is coming here to board for the +winter. I expect her to-day." + +"Where does she come from?" I asked. + +"From Smith College," the farmer replied, unexpectedly. "This is her +second year of teaching our school." + +The school-teacher arrived late in the afternoon. My landlady was +"expecting" her; so was I, no less eagerly. + +"Why were you interested in me?" she inquired, when, on further +acquaintance, I confessed this to her. + +"Because, with a training that fits you for work in a carefully graded +school or a college, you chose to teach here. Why did you?" + +"For three reasons," she answered. "Country life is better for my health +than city life; the people around here are thoroughly awake to the +importance of education; and the children--they are such dears! You must +see them when school opens." + +I did see them then. Also, I saw them before that time. When the news of +their teacher's arrival reached them, they came "by two, and threes, and +fuller companies" to welcome her. They ranged in age from a boy and a +girl of fifteen to two little girls of six. Each and every one was +rapturously glad to see the teacher; they all brought her small gifts, +and all of them bore messages from their homes, comprising a score of +invitations to supper, the loan of a tent for the remainder of the mild +weather, and the offer of a "lift" to and from school on stormy days. + +The teacher accepted these tributes as a matter of course. She was +genuinely glad to see her old pupils. In her turn, she sent messages to +their several homes, and gave into the children's hands tokens she had +purposely gathered together for them. "We'll meet on Monday at the +school-house," she finally said; and the children, instantly responding +to the implied suggestion, bade her good-bye, and went running down the +dusty road. Each one of them lived at least a mile away; many of them +more than two miles. + +On Monday I accompanied the teacher to school. The school-house was a +small, one-roomed, wooden building. It contained little besides a few +rows of desks and benches for the children, two or three maps, and +blackboards, a tiny closet filled with worn books, the teacher's desk, +and a coal stove. But it had windows on three sides, and was set down in +the midst of a grassy meadow bordered with a stone wall. + +There were fourteen pupils. They were all assembled in the school-yard +when we arrived. The boys were playing baseball, and the girls, perched +on the stone wall, were watching them. The moment they saw the teacher +boys and girls alike came to escort her to her place in the school- +house. When she was in it, they took their own places--those they had +occupied during the former term. There was one "new" pupil, a small boy. +He had been so frequently a "visiting scholar" the previous year that +his newness was not very patent. There was a desk that he also claimed +as his. + +"We will sing 'America,'" were the words with which the teacher +commenced the new school year, "and then we will go on with our work, +beginning where we left off in the spring." + +We hear a great deal at the present time concerning the education of the +"particular child." In the very best of our private schools in the city +each pupil is regarded as a separate and distinct individual, and taught +as such. This ideal condition of things prevailed in that little +district school in the farming region of New Hampshire. That teacher had +fourteen pupils; practically, she had fourteen "grades." Even when it +happened that two children were taught the same lesson, each one was +taught it individually. + +"They are all so different!" the teacher said, when I commented upon the +difference of her methods with the various children. "That boy, who +hopes to go to college and then teach, needs to get one thing from his +history lesson; and that girl, who intends to be a post-office clerk as +soon as she finishes school, needs to get something else." + +She did not aim to prepare her pupils for college. The district school +was only a "grammar school." There was a high school in the nearest +village, which was three miles away; she made her pupils ready for +entrance into that. In order to attend the high school, more than one +child in that neighborhood, year after year, in sunshine and storm, +walked two and three miles twice daily. Many a child who lived still +farther away was provided by an interested father with a horse and a +conveyance with which to make the two journeys a day. No wonder the +teacher of that district school felt that the people in the neighborhood +were "thoroughly awake to the importance of education"! + +As for the children--she had said that they were "such dears!" They +were. I remember, in particular, two; a brother and sister. She was +eight years old, and he was nine. They were inseparable companions. On +bright days they ran to school hand in hand. When it rained, they +trudged along the muddy road under one umbrella. + +The school-teacher had taught the little girl George Eliot's poem +"Brother and Sister." She could repeat it word for word, excepting the +line, "I held him wise." She always said that, "I hold him tight." This +"piece" the small girl "spoke" on a Friday afternoon. The most winning +part of her altogether lovely recitation was the smile with which she +glanced at her brother as she announced its title. He returned her +smile; when she finished her performance, he led the applause. + +Before the end of my visit I became very intimate with that brother and +sister. I chanced to be investigating the subject of "juvenile books." + +"What books have you?" I inquired of the little girl. + +"Ever so many of all kinds," she replied. "Come to our house and look at +them," she added cordially. + +Their house proved to be the near-by farm. One of the best in that +section, it was heated with steam and furnished with running water and +plumbing. It had also a local and long-distance telephone. The brother +and sister were but two of a family of seven children. Their father, who +was a member of the school committee, and their mother, who was a +graduate of a city high school, were keenly interested in, and, +moreover, very well informed on, the subject of pedagogy. They had read +a great number of books relating to it, and were in the habit of +following in the newspapers the procedures of the National Education +Association's Conventions. + +"Your children have a large number of exceedingly good books!" I +exclaimed, as I looked at the many volumes on a day appointed for that +purpose by the mother of the family. "I wish all children had as fine a +collection!" + +"Country children _must_ have books," she replied, "if they are going to +be educated _at all._ City children can _see_ things, and learn about +them that way. Country children have to read about them if they are to +know about them." + +The books were of many types--poetry, fiction, historical stories, +nature study, and several volumes of the "how to make" variety. All of +these were of the best of their several kinds--identical with the books +found in the "Children's Room" in any well-selected public library. Some +of them had been gifts to the children from "summer boarders," but the +majority had been chosen and purchased by their parents. + +"We hunt up the names of good books for children in the book review +departments of the magazines," the mother said. + +When I asked what magazines, she mentioned three. Two she and her +husband "took"; the other she borrowed monthly from a neighbor, on an +"exchange" basis. + +No other children in that region were so abundantly supplied with books; +but all whom I met liked to read. Their parents, in most cases unable to +give them numerous books, had, in almost every instance, taught them to +love reading. + +One boy with whom I became friends had a birthday while I was in the +neighborhood. I had heard him express a longing to read "The Lays of +Ancient Rome," which neither he nor any other child in the vicinity +possessed, so I presented him with a copy of it. + +"Would you mind if I gave it to the library?" he asked. "Then the other +children around could read it, too." + +"The library!" I exclaimed. + +"Oh, I don't mean the one down in the village," he hastened to explain. +"I mean the one here, near us. Haven't you been to it?" + +When he found that I had not, he offered to go with me to see it. It +turned out to be a "lean-to" in a farmhouse that was in a rather central +position with relation to the surrounding farms. The library consisted +of about two hundred volumes. The librarian was an elderly woman who +lived in the house. One was allowed, she told me, to take out as many +books as one wished, and to keep them until one had finished reading +them. + +"Do you want to take out any?" she inquired. + +After examining the four or five shelves that comprised the library, I +wanted to take out at least fifty. The books, especially the "juvenile +books," were those of a former generation. Foremost among them were the +"Rollo Books," "Sandford and Merton," Mary Howitt's "Story-Book," and +"The Parents' Assistant." + +"Who selected the books?" I asked. + +"Nobody exactly _selected_ them," the librarian said. "Every one around +here gave a few from their collections, so's we could have a near-to +library--principally on account of the children. I live most convenient +to every one hereabouts; so I had shelves put up in my lean-to for +them." + +News travels very rapidly indeed in the country. My boy friend told some +of the other children that I was reading the _oldest_ books in the +library. "She takes them out by the armfuls," I overheard him remark. + +No doubt he made more comments that I did not overhear; for one morning +a small girl called to see me, and, after a few preliminaries, said, "If +you are through with 'The Fairchild Family,' may I have it? You like it +awfully much, don't you?" + +Not only in the secular teaching of their children do thoughtful country +parents, in common with careful fathers and mothers living elsewhere, +try to obtain the best means and to use them to the best ends; in the +religious instruction of their children they make a similar attempt. +They are not content to let their children learn entirely at home, to +depend solely upon parental guidance. The church, and even the Sunday +school, are integral parts in the up-bringing of the most happily +situated country children. The little white meeting-houses in the small +rural villages are familiar places to the country child--joyously +familiar places, at that. The only weekly outing that falls to the lot +of the younger children of country parents is the Sunday trip to church +and Sunday school. + +What do they get from it? Undoubtedly, very much what city children +receive from the church and the Sunday school--in quantity and in +quality. There is a constant pleasure from the singing; an occasional +glimmer of illumination from the sermon; and an unfailing delight from +the Bible stories. We can be reasonably sure that _all_ children get +thus much from the habitual church and Sunday-school attendance. Some, +irrespective of city or country environment, glean more. + +A small country boy of my acquaintance brought from Sunday school one of +the most unique versions of a Scriptural passage with which I have ever +met. "Did you go to church this morning?" I inquired of him, one Sunday +afternoon, when, catching a glimpse of me under the trees near his home, +he came, as he explained, to "pass the time of day" with me. + +"Yes," he answered; "and I went to Sunday school, too." + +"And what was your lesson about?" I asked. + +"Oh, about the roses--" + +"Roses?" I interrupted, in surprise. + +"Yes," the little boy went on; "the roses--you know--in the gardens." + +"I don't remember any Sunday-school lesson about them," I said. + +"But there _is_ one; we had it to-day. The roses, they made the children +have good manners. Then, one day, the children were greedy; and their +manners were bad. Don't you know about it?" he added anxiously. + +He was but five years old. I told him about Moses; I explained +painstakingly just who the Children of Israel were; and I did my best to +point out clearly the difference between manna and manners. He listened +with seeming understanding; but the next day, coming upon me as I was +fastening a "crimson rambler" to its trellis, he inquired solemnly, "Can +the roses make children have good manners, _yet_?" + +Country children are taught, even as sedulously as city children, the +importance of good manners! On the farm, as elsewhere, the small left +hand is seized in time by a mother or an aunt with the well-worn words, +"Shake hands with the _right_ hand, dear." "If you please," as promptly +does an elder sister supplement the little child's "Yes," on the +occasion of an offer of candy from a grown-up friend. The proportion of +small boys who make their bows and of little girls who drop their +courtesies is much the same in the country as it is in the city. + +[Illustration: A SMALL COUNTRY BOY] + +In the matter of clothes, too, the country mother, like any other mother +in America, wishes her children to be becomingly attired, in full accord +with such of the prevailing fashions as seem to her most suitable. In +company with the greater portion of American mothers, she devotes +considerable time and strength and money to the wardrobes of her boys +and girls. The result is that country children are dressed strikingly +like city children. Their "everyday" garments are scarcely +distinguishable from the "play clothes" of city children; their "Sunday" +clothes are very similar to the "best" habiliments of the boys and girls +who do not live in the country. + +We have all read, in the books of our grandmothers' childhood, of the +children who, on the eve of going to visit their city cousins, were much +exercised concerning their wearing apparel. "_Would_ the pink frock, +with the green sash, be _just_ what was being worn to parties in the +city?" the little girl of such story-books fearfully wondered. "Will +boys of my age be wearing short trousers _still_?" the small boy +dubiously queried. Invariably it transpired that pink frocks and green +sashes, if in fashion at all, were _never_ seen at parties; and that +_long_ trousers were absolutely essential, from the point of view of +custom, for boys of our hero's age. Many woes were attendant upon the +discovery that these half-suspected sumptuary laws were certain facts. + +No present-day country boy and girl, coming from the average home to the +house of city cousins, would need to feel any such qualms. Should they, +five minutes' inspection of the garments of those city cousins would +relieve their latent questionings. They would see that, to the casual +eye, they and their cousins were dressed in the same type of raiment. + +How could they fail to be? A large crop of "fashion magazines" +flourishes in America. The rural free delivery brings them to the very +doors of the farmhouse. By the use of mail orders the mother on the farm +can obtain whatever materials the particular "fashion magazine" to which +she is a subscriber advises, together with paper patterns from which she +can cut anything, from "jumpers" to a "coat for gala occasions." + +The approved clothes of all American children in our time are so +exceedingly simple in design that any woman who can sew at all can +construct them; and, in the main, the materials of which they are made +are so inexpensive that even the farmer whose income is moderate in size +can afford to supply them. A clergyman who had worked both in city and +in country parishes once told me that he attributed the marked increase +in ease and grace of manner--and, consequently, in "sociability"--among +country people to-day, as compared with country people of his boyhood, +very largely to the invention of paper patterns. + +"Rural folk dressed in a way peculiar to themselves then," he said; "now +they dress like the rest of the world. It is curious," he went on, +reflectively, "but human beings, as a whole, seem unable not to be +awkward in their behavior if their costumes can possibly be +differentiated otherwise than by size!" + +It is another queer fact that normal persons would seem to require +"best" clothes. They share the spirit of Jess, in "A Window in Thrums." +"But you could never wear yours, though ye had ane," said Hendry to her +about the "cloak with beads"; "ye would juist hae to lock it awa in the +drawers." "Aye," Jess retorted, "but I would aye ken it was there." + +I have an acquaintance who is not normal in this matter. She scorns +"finery," whether for use or for "locking awa." One summer she and I +spent a fortnight together on a Connecticut farm. During the week the +farmer and his wife, as well as their two little children, a girl and a +boy, wore garments of dark-colored denim very plainly made. The children +were barefooted. + +"These people have sense," my acquaintance observed to me on the first +day of our sojourn; "they dress in harmony with their environment." + +I was silent, realizing that, if Sunday were a fine day, she might feel +compelled to modify her approbation. On Saturday night the farmer asked +if we should care to accompany the family to church the next morning. +Both of us accepted the invitation. + +Sunday morning, as I had foreseen, when the family assembled to take its +places in the "three-seater," the father was in "blacks," with a +"boiled" shirt; the mother, a pretty dark-eyed, dark-haired young woman, +a pleasant picture in the most every-day of garments, was a charming +sight, in a rose-tinted wash silk and a Panama hat trimmed with black +velvet. As for the boy and the girl, they were arrayed in spotless +white, from their straw hats even to their canvas shoes. The hands of +the farmer and his son were uncovered; but the mother and her little +daughter wore white lisle gloves. They also carried parasols--the +mother's of the shade of her dress, the girl's pale blue. No family in +America could possibly have looked more "blithe and bonny" than did that +one in "Sunday" clothes, ready for church. + +The face of my acquaintance was a study. + +In it were mingled surprise and disapproval. Both these elements became +more pronounced when we were fairly in the meeting-house. All the men, +women, and children there assembled were also in "Sunday" clothes. + +My acquaintance has the instinct of the reformer. Hardly were we settled +in the "three-seater," preparatory to returning home after the service, +when she began. "Do you make your own clothes?" she inquired of the +farmer's wife. + +"Yes," was the reply; "and the children's, too." + +"Isn't there a great deal of work involved in the care of such garments +as you are all wearing to-day?" she further pursued. + +"I suppose there is the usual amount," the other woman said, dryly. + +"Then, why do you do it--living in the country, as you do?" + +"There is no reason why people shouldn't dress nicely, no matter where +they happen to live," was the answer. "During the week we can't; but on +Sunday we can, and do, and ought--out of respect to the day," she +quaintly added. + +[Illustration: ARRAYED IN SPOTLESS WHITE] + +The city is not a mere name to American country children. Increased +train facilities, the improvement in the character of country roads +brought about by the advent of the automobile, and the extension of the +trolley system have done much to mitigate the isolation of rural +communities. The farmer and his wife can avail themselves of the +advantages to be found in periodical trips to the nearest city. Like +other American parents, they invite their children to share their +interests. The boys and girls are included in the jauntings to the city. + +I once said to a little girl whom I met on a farm in Massachusetts: "You +must come soon and stay with me in the city from Saturday until Monday. +We will go to the Art Museum and look at the pictures." + +"Oh," she cried, joyously, "I'd _love_ to! Every time we go to town, and +there is a chance, mother and I go to the Museum; we both like the +pictures so much." + +This little girl, when she was older, desired to become a kindergartner. +There was a training-school in the near-by city. She could not afford to +go to and fro on the train, but there was a trolley. The journey on the +trolley occupied three hours, but the girl took it twice daily for two +years. + +"Doesn't it tire you?" I asked her. + +"Oh, somewhat," she admitted; "but I was already used to it. We usually +traveled to town on it when I was small." + +"Countrified" is not the word to apply to American farmers and their +families. One might as aptly employ it when describing the people of +England who live on their "landed estates." Ignorance and dullness and +awkwardness we shall not often find among country children. The boys and +girls on the farms are as well informed, as mentally alert, and as +attractive as children in any other good homes in America. + +We all know Mr. James Whitcomb Riley's poem, "Little Cousin Jasper." The +country boy in it, we recall, concluded his reflections upon the happier +fortune of the boy from the "city" of Rensselaer with these words: + +"Wishst our town ain't like it is!-- +Wishst it's ist as big as his! +Wishst 'at _his_ folks they'd move _here_, +An' _we'd_ move to Rensselaer!" + +Only last summer I repeated this poem to a little girl whose home was a +farm not far from a house at which I was stopping. + +"But," she said, in a puzzled tone of voice, "no place is as big as the +country! Look!" she exclaimed, pointing to the distant horizon; "it's so +big it touches the edge of the sky! No city is _that_ big, is it?" + + + + +IV + + + +THE CHILD IN SCHOOL + + +An elderly woman was talking to me not long ago about her childhood. + +"No, my dear, I did not have a governess," she said, in answer to my +questionings. "Neither did I attend the public schools, though I lived +in the city. I went to a private school. The pupils in it were the girls +of the little social circle to which my parents belonged. There were +perhaps twenty of us in all. And there were three teachers; one for the +'first class,' one for the 'second class,' and a French-German-music- +and-drawing-teacher-in-one for both classes." + +"And what did you study?" I asked. + +"Besides French, German, music, and drawing?" my elderly friend mused. +"Well, we had the three R's; and history, English and American, and +geography, and deportment. I think that was all." + +"And you liked it?" I ventured. + +"Yes, my dear, I did," replied my friend, "though I used to pretend that +I didn't. I sometimes even 'played sick' in order to be allowed to stay +home from school. Children then, as now, thought they ought to 'hate to +go to school.' I believe most of them did, too. I happened to be a +'smart' child; so I liked school. I suppose 'smart' children still do." + +A "smart" child! In my mind's eye I can see my elderly friend as one, +sitting at the "head" of her class, on a long, narrow bench, her eyes +shining with a pleased consciousness of "knowing" the lesson, her cheeks +rosy with expectation of the triumph sure to follow her "saying" of it, +her lips parted in an eagerness to begin. Can we not all see her, that +"smart" child of two generations ago? + +As for her lesson, can we not hear it with our mind's ear? In +arithmetic, it was the multiplication table; in English history, the +names of the sovereigns and the dates of their reigns; in geography, the +capitals of the world; in deportment--ah, in deportment, a finer lesson +than any of our schools teach now! These were the lessons. Indeed, my +elderly friend has told me as much. "And not easy lessons, either, my +dear, nor easily learned, as the lessons of schoolchildren seem to be +to-day. We had no kindergartens; the idea that lessons were play had not +come in; to us lessons were work, and hard work." + +My friend gave a little sigh and shook her head ever so slightly as she +concluded. It was plain that she deprecated modern educational methods. +"Schools have changed," she added. + +And has not the attitude of children toward going to school changed even +more? Do many of them "hate to go"? Do any of them at all think they +"ought to hate to go"? Is a single one "smart" in the old-time sense of +the word? + +A winter or two ago I was recovering from an illness in a house which, +by great good fortune, chanced to be situated on a suburban street +corner, not only near a large public school, but directly on the main +route of the children going to and from it. My chief pleasure during +that shut-in winter was watching those children. Four times a day--at +half-past eight, at half-past twelve, at half-past one, and at half-past +three--I would take the window to see them going by. They were of many +ages and sizes; from the kindergarten babies to the boys and girls of +the ninth grade. None of them could possibly have been described as +"creeping like snail unwillingly to school." As a usual thing, they came +racing pell-mell down the three streets that converged at my corner; +after school they as tumultuously went racing up, homeward. I never +needed to consult the clock in order not to miss seeing the children. +When I heard from outside distant sounds of laughing and shouting, I +knew that a school session had just ended--or was about to begin. Which, +I could only tell by noting the time. The same joyous turmoil heralded +the one as celebrated the other. Clearly, these children, at least, did +not "hate to go to school"! + +One of them, a little boy of nine, a friend and near neighbor of mine, +liked it so well that enforced absence from it constituted a punishment +for a major transgression. "Isn't your boy well?" I inquired of his +mother when she came to call one evening. "A playmate of his who was +here this afternoon told me that he had not been in school to-day." + +"Oh, yes, he is perfectly well!" my friend exclaimed. "But he is being +disciplined--" + +"Disciplined?" I said. "Has he been so insubordinate as that in school?" + +"Not in school," the boy's mother said; "at home." Then, seeing my +bewilderment, she elucidated. "When he is _very_ naughty at home, I keep +him out of school. It punishes him more than anything else, because he +loves to go to school." + +Another aspect of the subject presented itself to my mind. "I should +think he would fall behind in his studies," I commented. + +"Oh, no," she replied; "he doesn't. Children don't fall behind in their +studies in these days," she added. "They don't get a chance. Every +single lesson they miss their teachers require them to 'make up.' When +my boy is absent for a day, or even for only half a day, his teacher +sees that he 'makes up' the lessons lost before the end of the week. +When I was a child, and happened to be absent, no teacher troubled about +_my_ lost lessons! _I_ did all the troubling! I laboriously 'made them +up'; the thought of examination days coming along spurred me on." + +Those examination days! How amazed, almost amused, our child friends are +when we, of whose school-days they were such large and impressive +milestones, describe them! A short time ago I was visiting an old +schoolmate of mine. "Tell me what school was like when you and mother +went," her little girl of ten besought me. + +So I told her. I dwelt upon those aspects of it differing most from +school as she knows it--the "Scholarship Medal," the "Prize for Bible +History," and the other awards, the bestowal of which made "Commencement +Morning" of each year a festival unequaled, to the pupils of "our" +school, by any university commencement in the land, however many and +brilliant the number of its recipients of "honorary degrees." I touched +upon the ease with which even the least remarkable pupil in that school +could repeat the Declaration of Independence and recount the "causes" of +the French Revolution. Finally, I mentioned our examination days--six in +January, six more in June. + +"What did you do on them?" inquired the little girl. + +"Will you listen to that?" demanded her mother. "Ten years old--and she +asks what we did on examination days! This is what it means to belong to +the rising generation--not to know, at ten, anything about examination +days!" + +"What _did_ you do on them?" the little girl persisted. + +"We had examinations," I explained. "All our books were taken away, and +we were given paper and pen and ink--" + +"And three hours for each examination," my friend broke in. "We had one +in the morning and another in the afternoon." + +"Yes," I went on. "One morning we would have a grammar examination. +Twenty questions would be written on the blackboard by our teacher, and +we would write the answers--in three hours. On another morning, or on +the afternoon of that same day, we might have an arithmetic examination. +There would be twenty questions, and three hours to answer them in, just +the same." + +"Do you understand, dear?" said the little girl's mother. "Well, well," +she went on, turning to me before the child could reply, "how this talk +brings examination days back to my remembrance! What excitement there +was! And how we worked getting ready for them! I really think it was a +matter of pride with us to be so tired after our last examination of the +week that we had to go to bed and dine on milk toast and a soft-boiled +egg!" + +The little girl was looking at us with round eyes. + +"Does it all sound very queer?" I asked. + +"The going to bed does," she made reply; "and the milk toast and the egg +for dinner, and the working hard. The examinations sound something like +the tests we have, _They_ are questions to write answers to, but we +don't think much about them. I don't believe any of the girls or boys go +to bed afterwards, or have milk toast and eggs for dinner--on purpose +because they have had a test!" + +She was manifestly puzzled. "Perhaps it is because we have tests about +every two weeks, and not just in January and June," she suggested. + +She did not seem disposed to investigate further the subject of her +mother's and my school-days. In a few moments she ran off to her play. + +When she was quite out of hearing her mother burst into a hearty laugh. +"Poor child!" she exclaimed. "She thinks we and our school were very +curious. I wonder why," she continued more seriously, "we did take +examinations, and lessons, too, so weightily. Children don't in these +days. The school-days of the week are so full of holiday spirit for them +that, actually, Saturday is not much of gala day. Think of what Saturday +was to _us_! What glorious times we had! Why, Saturday was _Saturday_, +to us! Do you remember the things we did? You wrote poems and I painted +pictures, and we read stories, and 'acted' them. Then, we had our +gardens in the spring, and our experiments in cake-baking in the winter. +My girls do none of these things on Saturday. The day is not to them +what it was to us. I wonder what makes the difference." + +[Illustration: THEY PAINT PICTURES AS A REGULAR PART OF THEIR SCHOOL +ROUTINE] + +I had often wondered; but these reflections of my old schoolmate gave me +an inkling of what the main difference is. To us, school had been a +place in which we learned lessons from books--books of arithmetic, books +of grammar, or other purely academic books. For five days of the week +our childish minds were held to our lessons; and our lessons, without +exception, dealt with technicalities--parts of speech, laws of +mathematics, facts of history, definitions of the terms of geography. +Small marvel that Saturday was a gala day to us. It was the one "week +day" when we might be unacademic! + +But children of the present time have no such need of Saturday. They +write poems, and paint pictures, and read stories, and "act" them, and +plant gardens, and even bake cake, as regular parts of their school +routine. The schools are no longer solely, or even predominantly, +academic. As for technicalities, where are they in the schools of to- +day? As far in the background as the teachers can keep them. Children do +not study grammar now; they are given "language work." It entails none +of the memorizing of "rules," "exceptions," and "cautions" that the +former study of grammar required. History would seem to be learned +without that sometime laying hold of "dates." Geography has ceased to be +a matter of the "bounding" of states and the learning of the capitals of +the various countries; it has become the "story of the earth." And +arithmetic--it is "number work" now, and is all but taught without the +multiplication tables. How could Saturday be to the children of to-day +what it was to the children of yesterday? + +My old schoolmate's little girl had spoken of "tests." In my school-days +we called such minor weekly or fortnightly matters as these, "reviews." +We regarded them quite as lightly as my small friend looked upon her +"tests." Examinations--they were different, indeed. Twice a year we were +expected to stretch our short memories until they neatly covered a +series of examination papers, each composed of twenty questions, +relating to fully sixteen weeks' accumulation of accurate data on the +several subjects--fortunately few--we had so academically been studying. +It is little wonder that children of the present day are not called upon +to "take" such examinations; not only the manner of their teaching, but +the great quantity of subjects taught, make "tests" of frequent +occurrence the only practicable examinations. + +"Children of the present time learn about so many things!" sighed a +middle-aged friend of mine after a visit to the school which her small +granddaughter attended. "What an array of subjects are brought to their +notice, from love of country to domestic science! How do their young +minds hold it?" + +I am rather inclined to think that their young minds hold it very much +as young minds of one, two, or three generations ago held it. After all, +what subjects are brought to the notice of present-day children that +were not called to the attention of children of former times? The +difference would seem to be, not that the children of to-day learn about +more things than did the children of yesterday, but that they learn +about more things in school. Love of country--were we not all taught +that by our fathers as early and as well as the children are taught it +to-day by their teachers? And domestic science--did not mothers teach +that, not only to their girls, but to their boys also, with a degree of +thoroughness not surpassed even by that of the best of modern domestic +science teachers? The subjects to be brought to the notice of children +appear to be so fixed; the things to be learned by them seem to be so +slightly alterable! It is only the place of instruction that has +shifted. Such a quantity of things once taught entirely at home are now +taught partly at school. + +It is the fashion, I know, to deplore this. "How dreadful it is," we +hear many a person exclaim, "that things that used to be told a child +alone at its mother's knee are now told whole roomfuls of children +together in school!" + +Certainly it would be "dreadful" should the fact that children are +taught anything in school become a reason to parents for ceasing to +teach them that same thing at home. So long as this does not happen, +ought we not to rejoice that children are given the opportunity of +hearing in company from their teachers what they have already heard +separately from their fathers and mothers? A boy or a girl who has heard +from a father or a mother, in intimate personal talk, of the beauty of +truth, the beauty of purity, the beauty of kindness, is fortified in an +endeavor to hold fast to these things by hearing a teacher speak of them +in a public, impersonal way. + +Indeed, is not this unity between the home and the school the great and +unique fact in the education of the children of the present time? They +are taught at home, as children always have been, and doubtless always +will be, an "array of subjects"; and they are taught at school, as +children perhaps never before were, other aspects of very nearly all the +matters touched upon in that "array." My old schoolmate said that +Saturday had lost the glory it wore in her school-days and mine; but it +seems to me that what has actually occurred is that the five school-days +of the week have taken on the same glory. The joys we had only on +Saturday children have now on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, +Friday, _and_ Saturday! + +It is inevitable, I suppose, that they should handle our old delights +with rather a professional grasp. One day recently a little girl, a new +acquaintance, came to see me. I brought out various toys, left over from +my childhood, for her amusement--a doll, with the trunk that still +contained her wardrobe; an autograph album, with "verses" and sketches +in it; and a "joining map," such as the brother of Rosamond of the +Purple Jar owned. + +[Illustration: THEY DO SO MANY THINGS!] + +My small caller occupied herself with these for a flattering length of +time, then she said: "You played with these--what else did you play +with?" + +"I made paper-boats," I replied; "and sailed them. I will show you how," +I added. + +She watched me with interest while I folded and refolded a sheet of +writing-paper until it became a boat. + +"There!" I said, handing it to her. + +"Have you any more, paper you can spare?" she questioned. + +"Of course," I said. "Should you like me to make you more boats?" + +"I'll make some things for _you_" she remarked, "if you will let me have +the paper." + +I offered her the freedom of the writing-paper drawer; and, while I +looked on, she folded and refolded with a practiced hand, until the +table beside us was covered, not only with boats compared with which +mine was as a dory to an ocean liner, but also with a score of other +pretty and somewhat intricate paper toys. + +"Who taught you to make all these lovely things?" I asked. + +"My teacher," answered the small girl. "We all do it, in my room at +school, every Friday." + +They do so many things! Their grown-up friends are hard put to it to +find anything novel to do with, or for, them. Not long ago a little boy +friend of mine was ill with scarlet fever. His "case" was so light that +the main problem attached to it was that of providing occupation for the +child during the six weeks of quarantine in one room. Remembering the +pleasure I had taken as a child in planting seeds on cotton in a glass +of water and watching them grow at a rate almost equal to that of Jack's +beanstalk, I made a similar "little garden" and sent it to the small +boy. + +"It was lots of fun, having it," he said, when, quite well, he came to +see me. "It grew so fast--faster than the others." + +"What others?" I queried. + +"At school," he explained. "We have them at school; and they grow fast, +but the one you gave me grew faster. Was that because it was in a little +glass instead of a big bowl?" + +I could not tell him. We had not had them at school in my school-days in +a big bowl. They had been out-of-school incidents, cultivated only in +little glasses. + +They have so many things at school, the children of to-day! If many of +these things have been taken from the home, they have only been taken +that they may, as it were, be carried back and forth between the home +and the school. + +I have a friend, the mother of an only child, a boy of eight. Her +husband's work requires that the family live in a section of the city +largely populated by immigrants. The one school in the vicinity is a +large public school. When my friend's little boy reached the "school +age," he, perforce, was entered at this school. + +"You are an American," his father said to him the day before school +opened; "not a foreigner, like almost every child you will find at +school. Remember that." + +"He doesn't understand what you mean when you talk to him about being an +American," the boy's mother said the next morning as we all watched the +child run across the street to the school. "How could he, living among +foreigners?" + +One day, about two months later, the small boy's birthday being near at +hand, his father said to him, "If some one were planning to give you +something, what should you choose to have it?" + +"A flag," the boy said instantly; "an American flag! _Our_ flag!" + +"Why?" the father asked, almost involuntarily. + +"To salute," the child replied. "I've learned how in school--what to say +and what to do. Americans do it when they love their country--like you +told me to," he added, eagerly. "Our teacher says so. She's taught us +all how to salute the flag. I told her I was an American, not a +foreigner like the other children. And she said they could be Americans, +too, if they wanted to learn how. So they are going to." + +The small boy got his flag. The patriotism taught at home and the +patriotism taught at school, diverse at other points, met and mingled at +that one most fundamental point. + +In former days children did not quote their teachers much at home, nor +their parents much at school. They do both in these days; occasionally +with comic results. A little girl of my acquaintance whose first year at +school began less than a month ago has, I observed only yesterday, +seemed to learn as her introductory lesson to pronounce the words +"either" and "neither" quite unmistakably "[=a]ther" and "n[=a]ther." + +"This is an amazing innovation," I said to her mother. "How did she ever +happen to think of it?" + +"Ask her," said her mother plaintively. + +I did inquire of the little girl. "Whom have you heard say '[=a]ther' +and 'n[=a]ther'?" + +"Nobody," she unexpectedly answered. + +"Then how did you learn to say it?" + +"Uncle Billy told me to--" + +This uncle is an instructor of English in one of our most famous +colleges. "My _dear_ child," I protested, "you must have misunderstood +him!" + +"Oh, no," she affirmed earnestly. "You see, papa and mamma say 'eether' +and 'neether,' and my school-teacher says 'eyether' and 'nyether.' I +told papa and mamma, and they said to say them the way my teacher did; +and I told my teacher, and she said to say them the way papa and mamma +did! I couldn't say them two ways at once; and I didn't know which one +way to say them. So Uncle Billy told me, if _he_ were doing it, _he_ +wouldn't worry about it; _he_ would say them '[=a]ther' and +'n[=a]ther'!" + +She is a very little girl, only seven; and she has not yet rounded out +her first month of school. I suppose before she has been in school a +full term she will have discovered the impracticability of her uncle's +method of settling the vexed question as to the pronunciation of +"either" and "neither." Very likely she will decide to say them +"eyether" and "nyether," as her teacher does. + +It takes the children so short a time to elevate the teacher to the rank +of final arbiter in their intellectual world. So soon, they follow her +footsteps in preference to any others along the ways of education. Not +only do they pronounce words as she pronounces them; in so far as they +are able, they define words as she defines them. In due course, they are +a bit fearful of any knowledge obtained otherwise than as she teaches +them to obtain it. Is there one of us who has attempted to help a child +with "home lessons" who has not been obliged to reckon with this fact? +Have we not worked out a problem in "bank discount," for instance, for a +perplexed youthful mathematician, only to be told, hesitatingly, "Ye-es, +you have got the right answer, but that isn't the way my teacher does +bank discount. Don't you know how to do it as she does?" Or, with a +young Latin "beginner" in the house, have we not tried to bring order +out of chaos with respect to the "Bellum Gallicum" by translating, "All +Gaul is divided into three parts," to be at once interrupted by, "Our +teacher translates that, 'Gaul is, _as a whole_, divided into three +parts.'" If we would assist the children of our immediate circles at all +with their "home lessons," we must do it exactly after the manner and +method ordained by their teachers. + +This condition of things ought not to be displeasing to us, for the +reason that, in the main, we have ourselves brought it to pass. The +children, during their first days at school, are loyally ready to force +the views of their fathers and their mothers, and their uncles and +aunts, upon their teachers; and their teachers are tactfully ready to +effect a compromise with them. But, before very long, our reiterated, +"Your teacher knows; do as she says," has its effect. The teacher +becomes the child's touchstone in relation to a considerable number of +the "array of subjects" taught in a present-day school. School-teachers +in America prepare themselves so carefully for their duties, train +themselves to such a high order of skill in their performance, it is but +just that those of us who are not teachers should abdicate in their +favor. + +However, since we are all very apt to be in entire accord with the +children's teachers in all really vital matters, our position of second +place in the minds of the boys and girls with regard to the ways of +doing "bank discount" or translating "_Gallia est omnes divisa in partes +tres_" is of small account. At least, we have a fuller knowledge of +their own relations with these mathematical and Latinic things than our +grandparents had of our parents' lessons. And the children's teachers +know more about our relations to the subjects taught than the teachers +of our fathers and mothers knew respecting the attitudes of our +grandfathers and grandmothers toward the curriculum of that earlier +time. For the children of to-day, unlike the children of a former time, +talk at home about school and talk at school about home. Almost +unconsciously, this effects an increasingly cooperative union between +home and school. + +"We are learning 'Paul Revere's Ride,' in school," I heard a small girl +who lives in Boston say recently to her mother. + +"Are you, darling?" the mother replied. "Then, shouldn't you like to go +some Saturday and see the church where the lanterns were hung?" + +So much did the child think she would like to go that her mother took +her the next Saturday. + +"You saw the very steeple at which Paul Revere looked that night for the +lanterns!" I said, when, somewhat later, I happened to be again at that +child's home. + +"Twice," she replied. "I told my teacher that mother had taken me, so +she took all of us in my room at school on the next Saturday." + +Perhaps the most significant influence of the American home upon the +American school is to be found in the regular setting apart of an hour +of the school-day once, or twice, or even three times a week, as a story +hour; and the filling of that hour with the stories, read or told, that +in earlier times children never so much as heard mentioned at school by +their teachers. It is indeed a pleasant thought that in school-rooms +throughout the land boys and girls are hearing about the Argonauts, and +the Knights of the Round Table, and the Crusaders; to say nothing of +such famous personages in the story world as Cinderella, and the +Sleeping Beauty, and Hop-O'-My-Thumb. The home story hour is no less +dear because there is a school story hour too. + +The other afternoon I stopped in during the story hour to visit a room +in the school of my neighborhood. The teacher told the story of Pandora +and the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur. A small friend of mine is a +member of the "grade" which occupies that room. At the end of the +session she walked home with me. + +"Tell me a story?" she asked, when, sitting cozily by the fire, we were +having tea. + +"What one should you like?" I inquired. "The story of Clytie, perhaps, +or--" + +"I'd like to hear the one about Pandora--" + +"But you have just heard it at school!" I exclaimed. + +"I know," she said; "but I'd like to hear you tell it." + +When I had told it, she begged me to tell another. Again I suggested +various tales in my repertory. But she refused them all. "Tell about the +man, and the dragon, and the ball of string, and the lady--" she began. + +And once more when I interposed, reminding her that she had just heard +it, she once more said, "Yes; but I'd like to hear it again." + +Some of the children whom I have in mind as I write go to private +schools and some of them go to public schools. It has not seemed to me +that the results obtained by the one type of school are discernibly +different from those produced by the other. In the private school there +are fewer pupils than in the public school; and they are more nearly +alike from the point of view of their parents' material wealth than are +the pupils in a public school. They are also "Americans," and not +"foreigners," as are so many of the children in city public schools, and +even in the public schools of many suburbs and villages. Possibly owing +to their smaller numbers, they receive more individual attention than +the pupils of the public school; but, so far as my rather extensive and +intimate acquaintance with children qualifies me to judge, they learn +the same lessons, and learn them with equal thoroughness. We hear a +great deal about the differences between public and private schools, and +certainly there are differences; but the pupils of the public and the +private schools are very much alike. It is considerably easier to +distinguish a public from a private school than it is to tell a public- +school child from a private-school child. + +[Illustration: THEY HAVE SO MANY THINGS!] + +There are many arraignments of our American schools, whether public or +private; and there are many persons who shake their heads over our +American school-children. "The schools are mere drilling-places," we +hear, "where the children are all put through the same steps." And the +children--what do we hear said of them? "They do not work at their +lessons as children of one, two, or three generations ago did," is the +cry; "school is made so pleasant for them!" + +Unquestionably our American schools and our American school-children +have their faults. We must try to amend both. Meanwhile, shall we not be +grateful that the "steps" through which the children are put are such +excellent ones; and shall we not rejoice that school is made so +"pleasant" for the boys and girls that, unlike the children of one, two, +or three generations ago, they like to go to school? + + + + +V + + + +THE CHILD IN THE LIBRARY + + +One day, not long ago, a neighbor of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, +of honored memory, was talking to me about him. Among the score of +charming anecdotes of the dear Colonel that she told me, there was one, +the most delightful of all, that related to the time-worn subject of the +child in the library. "As a family, we were readers," she said. "The +importance of reading had been impressed upon our minds from our +earliest youth. All of us liked to read, excepting one sister, younger +than I. She cared little for it; and she seldom did it. I was a mere +child, but so earnestly had I always been told that children who did not +read would grow up ignorant that I worried greatly over my sister who +would not read. At last I unburdened my troubled mind to Colonel +Higginson. 'She doesn't like to read; she doesn't read,' I confided. 'I +am afraid she will grow up ignorant; and then she will be ashamed! And +think how we shall feel!' The Colonel considered my words in silence for +a time. Then he said: 'There is a large and finely selected library in +your house; don't be disturbed regarding your sister, my dear. She will +not grow up ignorant. You see, she is exposed to books! She is certain +to get something of what is in them!'" + +Colonel Higginson's neighbor went on to say that from that day she was +no longer haunted by the fear that her sister, because she did not read, +would grow up ignorant. Are many of us in that same condition of feeling +with respect to the children of our acquaintance, even after we have +provided them with as excellent a library as had that other child in +which they may be "exposed to books"? On the contrary, so solicitous are +we that, having furnished to the best of our knowledge the best books, +we do not rest until we are reasonably sure that the children are, not +simply getting something from them, but getting it at the right times +and in the right ways. And everything and every one conspires to help +us. Publishers issue volumes by the dozen with such titles as "The +Children's Reading" and "A Guide to Good Reading" and "Golden Books for +Children." The librarian of the "children's room" in many a library sets +apart a certain hour of each week or each month for the purpose of +telling the children stories from the books that we are all agreed the +children should read, hoping by this means to inspire the boys and girls +to read the particular books for themselves. No effort is regarded as +too great if, through it, the children seem likely to acquire the habit +of using books; using them for work, and using them for recreation. + +Certainly our labors in this direction on behalf of the children are +amply rewarded. Not only are American children of the present time fond +of reading--most children of other times have been that; they have a +quite remarkable skill and ease in the use of books. + +A short while ago, spending a spring week-end with a friend who lives in +the country, I chanced to see a brilliant scarlet bird which neither my +hostess nor I could identify. "It was a redbird, I suppose," I said, in +mentioning it later to a city acquaintance. + +"What _is_ a redbird?" she asked. "Is it a cardinal, or a tanager, or +something still different?" + +"I don't know," I replied. "Perhaps," I added, turning to her little +girl often who was in the room, "_you_ know; children learn so much +about birds in their 'nature study.'" + +"No," the child answered; "but," she supplemented confidently, "I can +find out." + +Several days afterward she came to call. "Do you remember _exactly_ the +way that red bird you saw in the country looked?" she inquired, almost +as soon as we met. + +"Just red, I think," I said. + +"Not with black wings?" she suggested. + +"I hardly think so," I answered. + +"P'aps it had a few _white_ feathers in its wings?" she hinted. + +"I believe not," I said. + +"Then," she observed, with an air of finality, "it was a cardinal +grosbeak; and the other name for that _is_ redbird; so you saw a +redbird. The scarlet tanager is red, too, but it has black wings, and it +isn't called a redbird; and the crossbill is red, with a few _white_ +feathers, and _it_ isn't called a redbird either. Only the cardinal +grosbeak is. That was what you saw," she repeated. + +"And who told you all this?" I queried. + +"Nobody," the little girl made reply. "I looked it up in the library." + +She was only ten. "How did you look it up?" I found myself asking. + +"First," she explained, "I picked out the birds on the bird charts that +were red. The charts told their names. Then I got out a bird book, and +looked till I found where it told about those birds." + +"Do you look up many things in the library?" I questioned. + +"Oh, yes," the child replied. + +"And do you always find them?" I continued. + +"Not always by myself," she confessed. "Everything isn't as easy to look +up as birds. But when I can't, there is always the librarian, and she +helps; and when she is helping, 'most _anything_ gets found!" + +The public library of my small friend's city, not being the library I +habitually used, was only slightly familiar to me. Not long after I had +been so earnestly assured that the scarlet bird I had seen was a +redbird, I made occasion to go to the library in which the information +had been gathered. It was such a public library as may be seen in very +nearly every small city in the United States. Built of stone; lighted +and heated according to the most approved modern methods; divided into +"stack-rooms" and "reading-rooms" and "receiving-rooms"--it was that +"typical American library" of which we are, as we should be, so proud. I +did not ask to be directed to the "children's room"; I simply followed a +group of children who had come into the building with me. + +The "children's room," too, was "typical." It was a large, sunny place, +furnished with low bookcases, small tables, and chairs. Around two +walls, above the shelves, were pictures of famous authors, and +celebrated scenes likely to be known to children. At one end of the room +the bird charts of which I had so interestingly heard were posted, +together with flower charts and animal charts, of which I had not been +told. At the other end was the desk of the librarian, who so helped +young investigators that, when she helped, _anything_ got found. + +I seated myself at the little table nearest her desk. She smiled, but +she said nothing. Neither did I say anything. The time of day was just +after school; the librarian was too much occupied to talk to a stray +visitor. I remained for fully an hour; and during that hour a steady +stream of children passed in and out of the room. Some of them selected +books, and, having obtained them, departed; others stayed to read, and +others walked softly about, examining the pictures and charts. All of +them, whatever their various reasons for coming to the library, began or +ended their visits in conference with the librarian. They spoke just +above a whisper, as befitted the place, but I was near enough to hear +all that was said. + +"We want to give a play at school the last day before Christmas +vacation," said one small girl; "is there a good one here?" + +The librarian promptly recommended and put into the child's hands a +little volume entitled "Fairy Tales a Child Can Read and Act." + +A boy, entering rather hurriedly, asked, "Could I have a book that tells +how to make a wireless set--and have it quick, so I can begin to-day +before dark?" + +It was not a moment before the librarian found for him a book called +"Wireless Telegraphy for Amateurs and Students." + +Another boy, less on pleasure bent, petitioned for a "book about Abraham +Lincoln that will tell things to put in a composition on him." And a +girl, at whose school no Christmas play was apparently to be given, +asked for "a piece of poetry to say at school just before Christmas." +For these two, as for all who preceded or followed them, the librarian +had help. + +"How wonderful, how unique!" exclaimed an Italian friend to whom I +related the experiences of that afternoon hour in the "children's room" +in the library of that small city. + +But it seems to me that the wonderful thing about it is that it is not +unique; that in almost any "children's room" in almost any public +library in America practically the same condition prevails. Not only are +"children's rooms" of a very fine order to be found in great numbers; +but children's librarians, as sympathetic and as capable as the +librarian of my small friend's library, in as great numbers, are in +charge of those rooms. So recognized a profession has theirs come to be +that, connected with one of the most prominent libraries in the country, +there is a "School for Children's Librarians." + +The "children's librarians" do not stop at assisting them in choosing +books. The story hour has come to be as important in the "children's +rooms" as it is now in the school, as it has always been in the home. +Telling stories to children has grown to be an art; there is more than +one text-book laying down its "principles and laws." Many a librarian is +also an accomplished story-teller, and in an increasing number of +libraries there is a story hour in the "children's rooms." Beyond +question, we in America have taken every care that our public libraries +shall mean something more to the boys and girls than places in which +they are merely "exposed to books." + +American children read; it is doubtful whether any other children in the +world read so much or so intelligently. In our public libraries we plan +with such completeness for their reading that they can scarcely escape +becoming readers! At home we keep constantly in mind the great +importance of inculcating in them a love of books and a wontedness in +their use. To so many of their questionings we reply by advising, "Get a +book about it from the library." So many of the fundamental lessons of +life we first bring to their attention by putting into their hands books +treating of those lessons written by experts--written, moreover, +expressly for parents to give to their boys and girls to read. + +A few days ago I received a letter from a mother saying: "Do you know of +a book on hygiene that I can give to my children to read--a book on that +subject _for_ children?" + +Within reach of my hand I had such a book, entitled "The Child's Day," a +simply, but scientifically, written little volume, telling children what +to do from the hour of rising until the hour of retiring, in order to +keep well and strong, able to do good work at school, and to enjoy as +good play after school. It was a book that a child not only could read +with profit, but would read with pleasure. + +At about the same time a father said to me: "Is there any book written +for children about good citizenship--a sort of primer of civics, I mean? +I require something of that kind for my boy." + +A book to meet that particular need, too, was on my book-shelves. +"Lessons for Junior Citizens," it is called. In the clearest, and also +the most charming, form it tells the boys and girls about the +government, national and local, of their country, and teaches them their +relation to that government. + +It is safe to say that there is practically no subject so mature that it +is not now the theme of a book, or a score of books, written especially +for children. Every one of the numerous publishing houses in the United +States issues yearly as many good volumes of this particular type as are +submitted. A century ago a new writer was most likely to win the +interest of a publisher by sending him a manuscript subtitled, "A +Novel." At the present time a beginner can more quickly awaken the +interest of a publisher by submitting a manuscript the title of which +contains the words, "For Children." + +"Authors' editions" of books we have long had offered us by publishers; +"_editions de luxe_" too; and "limited editions of fifty copies, each +copy numbered." These are all old in the world of books. What is new, +indeed, is the "children's edition." We have it in many shapes, from +"Dickens for Children" to "The Children's Longfellow." These volumes +find their way into the "children's rooms" of all our public libraries; +and, quite as surely, they help to fill the "children's bookcases" in +the private libraries to be found in a large proportion of American +homes. For no public library can take the place in the lives of the +children of a private library made up of their "very own" books. The +public library may, however, often have a predominant share in +determining the selection of those "very own" books. The children wish +to possess such books as they have read in the "children's room." + +Sometimes a child has still another similar reason for wishing to own a +certain book. Only the other day I had a letter from a boy to whom I had +sent a copy of "The Story of a Bad Boy." "I am glad to have it," he +said. "The library has it, and father has it. I like to have what the +library and father have." + +Parents buy books for their children in very much the proportions that +parents bought them before the land was dotted with public libraries. +Indeed, they buy books in larger proportions, for the reason that there +are so many more books to be bought! The problem of the modern father or +mother is not, as it once was, to discover a volume likely to interest +the children; but, from among the countless volumes offered for sale, +all certain to interest the children, to choose one, two, or three that +seem most excellent where all are so good. A mother of a few generations +ago whose small boy was eager to read tales of chivalry simply gave him +"Le Morte D'Arthur"; there was no "children's edition" of it, no "Boy's +King Arthur," no "Tales of the Round Table." The father whose little +girl desired to read for herself the stories of Greece he had told her +put into her hands Bulfinch's "Age of Fable"; he could not, as can +fathers to-day, give her Kingsley's rendering, or Hawthorne's, or Miss +Josephine Preston Peabody's. Like the father of Aurora Leigh,-- + +"He wrapt his little daughter in his large +Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no." + +At the present time we do not often see a child wrapped in a large man's +doublet of a book; even more seldom do we see a father careless if it +fit or no. What we plainly behold is that doublet, cut down, and most +painstakingly fitted to the child's little mind. + +Unquestionably the children lose something by this. The great books of +the world do not lend themselves well to making over. "Tales from +Shakespeare" are apt to leave out Shakespeare's genius, and "Stories +from Homer" are not Homer. In cutting the doublet to fit, the most +precious part of the fabric is in danger of being sacrificed. + +But whatever the children lose when they are small, they find again when +they come to a larger growth. Most significant of all, when they find +it, they recognize it. A little girl who is a friend of mine had read +Lambs' "Tales." The book had been given to her when she was eight years +old. She is nine now. One day, not long ago, she was lingering before my +bookcases, taking out and glancing through various volumes. Suddenly she +came running to me, a copy of "As You Like It" in her hand. "This story +is in one of my books!" she cried. + +"Yes," I said; "your book was written from this book, and some of those +other little red books there with it in the bookcase." + +The child went back to the bookcase. She took down all the other volumes +of Shakespeare, and, sitting on the rug with them, she spent an utterly +absorbed hour in turning over their leaves. Finally she scrambled to her +feet and set the books back in their places. "I've found which stories +in these books are in my book, too," she remarked. "Mine are easier to +read," she added; "but yours have lovely talk in them!" + +Had she not read Lambs' "Tales" at eight I am not certain she would have +ventured into the wide realms of Shakespeare at nine, and tarried there +long enough to discover that in those realms there is "lovely talk." + +Occasionally, to be sure, the children insist upon books being easy to +read, and refuse to find "lovely talk" in them if they are not. It was +only a short time ago that I read to a little boy Browning's "Pied Piper +of Hamelin." When I had finished there was a silence. "Do you like it?" +I inquired. + +"Ye-es," replied my small friend; "it's a nice story, but it's nicer in +my book than in yours. I'll bring it next time I come, so you can read +it." + +He did. The story was told in prose. It began, "There was once a town, +named Hamelin, and there were so many rats in it that the people did not +know what to do." Certainly this is "easier to read" than the forty-two +lines which the poem uses to make an identical statement regarding the +town named Hamelin. My little friend is only six. I hope that by the +time he is twelve he will think the poem is as "nice" as, if not "nicer" +than, the story in his book. At least he may be impelled by the memory +of his pleasure in his book to turn to my book and compare the two +versions of the tale. + +The children of to-day, like the children of former days, read because +they find in books such stuff as dreams are made of; and, in common with +the children of all times, they must needs make dreams. Like the boys +and girls of most eras, they desire to make also other, more temporal, +things. To aid them in this there are books in quantities and of +qualities not even imagined by the children of a few generations ago. +The book the title of which begins with the words "How to Make" is +perhaps the most distinctive product of the present-day publishing +house. No other type of book can so effectively win to a love for +reading a child who seems indifferent to books; who, as a boy friend of +mine used to say, "would rather hammer in nails than read." The "How to +Make" books tell such a boy how to hammer in nails to some purpose. I +happened to see recently a volume called "Boys' Make-at-Home Things." +With much curiosity I turned its pages,--pages illustrated with pictures +of the make-at-home things of the title,--glancing at directions for +constructing a weather-vane, a tent, a sled, and a multitude of smaller +articles. I thought of my boyfriend. "Do you think he would care to have +the book?" I inquired of his mother over the telephone. + +"Well, I _wish_ he would care to have _any_ book!" she replied. "If you +want to _try_ this one--" She left the sentence unfinished, unless a +sigh may be regarded as a conclusion. + +I did try the book. "This will tell you how to have fun with your +tools," I wrote, when I sent it to the boy. + +Except for a laconic note of thanks, I heard nothing from my young +friend about the book. One day last week I chanced to see his mother. +"What do you think I am doing this afternoon?" she said. "I am getting a +_book_ for my son, at his own request! He is engrossed in that book you +sent him. He is making some of the things described in it. But he wants +to make something _not_ mentioned in it, and he actually asked me to see +if I could find a book that told how!" + +"So he likes books better now?" I commented. + +"Well--I asked him if he did," said the boy's mother; "and he said he +didn't like '_booky_' books any better, but he liked this kind, and +always would have, if he'd known about them!" + +Whether my boy friend will learn early to love "booky" books is a bit +doubtful perhaps; certainly, however, he has found a companion in one +kind of book. He has made the discovery quickly, too; for he has had +"Boys' Make-at-Home Things" less than a month. + +It was an easy matter for that boy's mother to get for her son the +particular book he desired. She lives in a city; at least three large +public libraries are open to her. As for book-shops, there are more +within her reach than she could possibly visit in the course of a week, +much less in an afternoon. + +The mothers who live in the country cannot so conveniently secure the +books their boys and girls may wish or need. I know one woman, the +mother of two boys, living in the country, who has to exercise +considerable ingenuity to provide her sons with books of the "How to +Make" kind. There is no public library within available distance of the +farmhouse which is her home, and she and her husband cannot afford to +buy many books for their children. The boys, moreover, like so great a +variety of books that, in order to please them, it is not necessary to +select a book that is not "booky." Their parents are lovers of great +literature. "I cannot bring myself to buy a book about how to make an +aeroplane, for instance," their mother said to me one day, "when there +are so many wonderful books they have not read, and would enjoy reading! +Since I must limit my purchase of books, I really think I ought to +choose only the _real_ books for the boys; and yet they want to make +things with their hands, like other boys, and there is no way to teach +them how except through books. My husband has no time for it, and there +is no one else to show them." + +The next summer I went to spend a few days with my friend in the +country. The morning after my arrival her boys proposed to take me "over +the place." At the lower edge of the garden, to which we presently came, +there was a little brook. Across it was a bridge. It was plainly to be +seen that this bridge was the work of the boys. "How very nice it is!" I +remarked. + +"We made it," the older of the boys instantly replied. + +"Who showed you how?" I queried, wondering, as I spoke, if my friend +had, after all, changed her mind with respect to the selection of books +for her children, and chosen one "How to Make" volume. + +"It told how in a book," the younger boy said; "a Latin book father +studied out of when he was a boy. There was a picture of the bridge; and +on the pages in the back of the book the way to make it was all written +out in English--father had done it when he was in school. It was a long +time before we could _quite_ see how to do it; but mother helped, and +the picture showed how, and father thought we could do it if we kept at +it. And it is really a good bridge--you can walk across on it." + +When the boys and I returned to the house my friend greeted me with a +merry smile. As soon as we were alone she exclaimed, "I have _so_ wanted +to write to you about our bridge, patterned on Caesar's! But the boys +are so proud of it, they like to 'surprise' people with it--not because +it is like a bridge Caesar made, but because it is a bridge they have +made themselves!" + +[Illustration: THE CHILDREN'S EDITION] + +Another friend of mine, the mother of a little girl, has had a different +problem, centring around the necessity of books for children, to solve. +She, too, lives in the country, and her little girl is a pupil at the +neighboring district school. During a visit in the city home of a cousin +the small girl had been a spectator at the city child's "school play," +which happened to consist of scenes from "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." +When she returned home, she wished to have such an entertainment in her +school. "Dearest," her mother said, "we have no books of plays children +could act." + +"Couldn't we do the one they did at Cousin Rose's school?" was the next +query. "Papa says we have _that_." + +"I am afraid not," her mother demurred. "Ask your teacher." + +The child approached her teacher on the subject. "No," the teacher said +decisively. "'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' is too long and too hard. Read +it, and you'll see. But," she sagely added, "if you can find anything +that is suitable, and can persuade the other children to act in it, I +will help you all I can." + +That evening, at home, the little girl read "A Midsummer-Night's Dream." +"Mamma," she suddenly cried, as she neared the end, "my teacher says +this is too long and too hard for us children to do. But we _could_ do +the play that the people _in it_ do--don't you think? It is _very_ +short, and all the children will like it because it is about poor +Pyramus and Thisbe, that we have all read about in school. It isn't +_just_ the same as the way it was in the story we read; but it is about +them--and the wall, and the lion, and everything! Don't you think we +could do it? They did the fairy part when I saw it at Cousin Rose's +school, and not this at all. But couldn't _we_?" + +"I did not like to discourage her," my friend said when she related the +tale to me. "_All_ the other children were willing and eager to do it, +so her teacher couldn't refuse, after what she had said, to help them. I +helped with the rehearsals, too, and I doubt if the teacher or I ever +laughed so much in all our lives as we did at that time--when there were +no children about! The children were so sweet and serious over their +play! They acted it as they would have acted a play on the subject of +Pyramus and Thisbe written especially for them. _They_ weren't funny. +No; they were perfectly lovely. What was so irresistibly comic, of +course, was the difference between their performance and one's +remembrance of regular performances of it--to say nothing of one's +thoughts as to what Shakespeare would have said about it. How those +children will laugh when they are grown up! They will have something to +laugh at that will last them a lifetime. But _poor_ Shakespeare!" + +I did not echo these final words of my friend. For does not Shakespeare +rather particularly like to bless us with the laugh that lasts a +lifetime, even if--perhaps especially if--it be at our own expense? + +Books are such integral parts of the lives of present-day children, +especially in America. Their elders appreciate, as possibly the grown- +ups of former times did not quite so fully appreciate, the importance of +books in the education of the boys and girls. It may even be that we +over-emphasize it a bit. We send the children to the book-shelves for +help in work and for assistance in play. In effect, we say to them, +"Read, that you may be able to mark, learn, and inwardly digest." It is +only natural that the boys and girls should read for a hundred reasons, +instead of for the one reason of an older day--the pursuit of happiness +in the mere reading itself. "How can you sit idly reading a book when +there are so many useful things you might be doing?" was the question +often put to the children of yesterday by their elders. To-day we feel +that the children can hardly do anything likely to prove more useful +than reading a book. Is not this because we have taught them, not only +to read, but to read for a diversity of reasons? + +American children are so familiarly at home in the world of books, it +should not surprise us to find them occasionally taking rather a +practical, everyday view of some of the things read. A little girl +friend of mine chanced to begin her reading of Shakespeare during a +winter when her grown-up relatives were spending a large portion of +their leisure going to see stage representations of Shakespeare's plays. +She therefore heard considerable conversation about the plays, and about +the persons acting the chief roles in them. It happened that "As You +Like It" was one of the comedies being acted. The little girl was +invited to go to see it. "Who is going to be Orlando?" she inquired; she +had listened to so much talk about who "was," or was "going to be," the +various persons in the several dramas! + +"But," she objected, when she was informed, "I think I've heard you say +he is not very tall. Orlando was _such_ a tall man!" + +"Was he?" I ventured, coming in at that moment. "I don't remember that +about him. Who told you he was tall?" + +"Why, it is in the book!" she exclaimed. + +Every one present besought her to mention where. + +"Don't you remember?" she said incredulously. "He says Rosalind is just +as high as his heart; that wouldn't be _quite_ up to his shoulder. And +she says she is _more than common_ tall! So he must have been +_'specially_ tall. Don't you remember?" she asked again, looking +perplexedly at our blank faces. + +There are so many bonds of understanding between American children of +the present time and their grown-up relatives and friends. Is not one of +the best of these that which has come out of our national impulse toward +giving the boys and girls the books we love, "cut small"; and showing +them how to read those books as we read the larger books from which they +are made? "What kinds of books do American children read?" foreigners +inquire. We are able to reply, "The same kinds that grown-up Americans +read." "And why do they read them?" may be the next question. Again we +can answer, "For much the same reasons that the grown-ups read them." +"How do they use the libraries?" might be the next query. Still we could +say, "As grown people use them." And if yet another query, "Why?" be +put, we might reply, "Because, unlike any other children in the world, +American children are almost as completely 'exposed to books' as are +their elders." + + + + +VI + + + +THE CHILD IN CHURCH + + +Within the past few months, I have had the privilege of looking over the +answers sent by men and women--most of them fathers and mothers--living +in many sections of the United States, in response to an examination +paper containing among other questions this one: "Should church-going on +the part of children be compulsory or voluntary?" In almost every case +the answer was, "It should be voluntary." In practically all instances +the reason given was, "Worship, like love, is at its best only when it +is a free-will offering." + +It was not a surprise to read again and again, in longer or in shorter +form, such an answer, based upon such a reason. The religious liberty of +American children of the present day is perhaps the most salient fact of +their lives. Without doubt, the giving to them of this liberty is the +most remarkable fact in the lives of their elders. No grown people were +ever at any time willingly allowed to exercise such freedom in matters +pertaining to religion as are the children of our nation at the present +time. Not only is churchgoing not compulsory; religion itself is +voluntary. + +A short while ago a little girl friend of mine was showing me her +birthday gifts. Among them was a Bible. It was a beautiful book, bound +in soft crimson leather, the child's name stamped on it in gold. + +"And who gave you this?" I asked. + +"Father," the little girl replied. "See what he has written in it," she +added, when the shining letters on the cover had been duly appreciated. + +I turned to the fly-leaf and read this: + +"To my daughter on her eighth birthday from her father. + + "'I give you the end of a golden string: + Only wind it into a ball,-- + It will lead you in at Heaven's gate + Built in Jerusalem's wall.'" + +"Isn't it lovely?" questioned the child, who had stood by, waiting, +while I read. + +"Yes," I agreed, "very lovely, and very new." + +Her mother, who was listening, smiled slowly. "My father gave me a Bible +on my birthday, when I was seven"--she began. + +"O mother," interrupted her little girl, "what did grandfather write in +it?" + +"Go and look," her mother said. "You will find it on the table by my +bed." + +The child eagerly ran out of the room. In a few moments she returned, +the Bible of her mother's childhood in her hands. It also was a +beautiful book; bound, too, in crimson leather, and with the name of its +owner stamped on it in gold. And on the fly-leaf was written,-- + +"To my daughter, on her seventh birthday, from her father." + +Beneath this, however, was inscribed no modern poetry, but + +"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days +come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no +pleasure in them." + +[Illustration: IN THE INFANT CLASS] + +The little girl read it aloud. "It sounds as though you wouldn't be +happy if you _didn't_ remember, mother," she said, dubiously. + +"Well, darling," her mother replied, "and so you wouldn't." + +The child took her own Bible and read aloud the verse her father had +written. "But, mother, this sounds as though you _would_ be happy if you +_did_ remember." + +"And so you will, dear," her mother made reply. "It is the same thing," +she added. + +"Is it?" the little girl exclaimed in some surprise. "It doesn't _seem_ +quite the same." + +The child did not press the question. She left us, to return her +mother's Bible to its wonted place. When she came back, she resumed the +exhibiting of her birthday gifts where it had been interrupted. But +after she had gone out to play I said to her mother, "Are they _quite_ +the same--the text in your Bible and the lines in hers?" + +"It _is_ rather a long way from Solomon to William Blake, isn't it?" she +exclaimed. + +"But I really don't see much difference. The same thing is said, only in +the one case it is a command and in the other it is an impelling +suggestion." + +"Isn't that rather a great deal of difference?" I ventured. + +"No, I think not," she said, meditatively. "Of course, I admit," she +supplemented, "that the idea of an impelling suggestion appeals to the +imagination more than the idea of a command. But that's the _only_ +difference." + +It seems to me that this "only" difference is at the very foundation of +the religious training of the children of the present day in our +country. We do our best to awaken their imaginations, to put to them +suggestions that will impel, to say to them the "same thing" that was +said to the children of more austere times about remembering their +Creator; but so to say it that they feel, not that they will be unhappy +if they do not remember, but that they will be happy if they do. It is +the love of God rather than the fear of God that we would have them +know. + +Is it not, indeed, just because we do so earnestly desire that they +should learn this that we leave them so free with regard to what we call +their spiritual life? "Read a chapter in your Bible every day, darling," +I recently heard a mother say to her little girl on the eve of her first +visit away from home without her parents. "In Auntie's house they don't +have family prayers, as we do, so you won't hear a chapter read every +day as you do at home." + +"What chapters shall I read, mamma?" the child asked. + +"Any you choose, dear," the mother replied. + +"And when in the day?" was the next question. "Morning or night?" + +"Just as you like, dearest," the mother answered. + +But there is a religious liberty beyond this. To no one in America is it +so readily, so sympathetically, given as to a child. We are all familiar +with the difficulties which attend a grown person, even in America, +whose convictions necessitate a change of religious denomination. Such a +situation almost invariably means distress to the family, and to the +relinquished church of the person the form of whose faith has altered. +In few other matters is so small a measure of liberty understandingly +granted a grown person, even in America. But when a child would turn +from one form of belief to another, how differently the circumstance is +regarded! + +One Sunday, not long ago, visiting an Episcopal Sunday-school, I saw in +one of the primary classes a little girl whose parents, as I was aware, +were members of the Baptist Church. + +"Is she a guest?" I asked her teacher. + +"Oh, no," she replied; "she is a regular member of the Sunday-school; +she comes every Sunday. She was christened at Easter; I am her +godmother." + +"But don't her father and mother belong to the Baptist Church?" I +questioned. + +"Yes," said the child's Sunday-school teacher. "But she came to church +one Sunday with some new playmates of hers, whose parents are +Episcopalians, to see a baby christened. Then her little friends told +her how they had all been christened, as babies; and when she found that +she hadn't been, she wanted to be. So her father and mother let her, and +she comes to Sunday-school here." + +"Where does she go to church?" I found myself inquiring. + +"To the Baptist Church, with her father and mother," was the reply. "She +asked them to let her come to Sunday-school here; but it never occurred +to her to think of going to church excepting with them." + +Somewhat later I chanced to meet the child's mother. It was not long +before she spoke to me concerning her little girl's membership in the +Episcopal Sunday-school. "What were her father and I to do?" the mother +said. "We didn't feel justified in standing in her way. She wanted to be +christened; it seemed to mean something real to her--" she broke off. +"What _were_ we to do?" she repeated. "It would be a dreadful thing to +check a child's aspiration toward God! Of course she is only a little +girl, and she wanted to be like the others. Her father and I thought of +that, naturally. But--" Again she stopped. "One can never tell," she +went on, "what is in the mind of a child, nor what may be happening to +its spirit. Samuel was a very little child when God spoke to him," she +concluded, simply. + +Quite as far as that mother, has another mother of my acquaintance let +her little girl go along the way of religious freedom. One day I went +with her and the child to an Italian jewelry shop. Among the things +there was a rosary of coral and silver. The little girl, attracted by +its glitter and color, seized it and slipped it over her head. "Look, +mother," she said, "see this lovely necklace!" + +Her mother gently took it from her. "It isn't a necklace," she +explained; "it is called a rosary. You mustn't play with it; because it +is something some people use to say their prayers with." + +The child's mother is of Scotch birth and New England upbringing. The +little girl has been accustomed to a form of religion and to an attitude +toward the things of religion that are beautiful, but austerely +beautiful. She is an imaginative child; and she caught eagerly at the +poetical element thus, for the first time, associated with prayer. "Tell +me how!" she begged. + +When next I was in the little girl's bedroom, I saw the coral and silver +rosary hanging on one of the head-posts of her bed. "Yes, my dear," her +mother explained to me, "I got the rosary for her. She wanted it--'to +say my prayers with,' she said; so I got it. After all, the important +thing is that she says her prayers." + +Among my treasures I have a rosary, brought to me from the Holy Land. I +have had it for a long time, and it has hung on the frame of a +photograph of Bellini's lovely Madonna. This little girl has always +liked that picture, and she has often spoken to me about it. But she had +never mentioned the rosary, which not only is made of dark wood, but is +darker still with its centuries of age. One day after the rosary of pink +coral and bright silver had been given her she came to see me. Passing +through the room where the Madonna is, she stopped to look at it. At +once she exclaimed, "_You_ have a rosary!" + +"Yes," I said; "it came from the Holy Land." I took it down, and put it +into her hands. "It has been in Bethlehem," I went on, "and in +Jerusalem. It is very old; it belonged to a saint--like St. Francis, who +was such friends with the birds, you remember." + +"I suppose the saint used it to say his prayers with?" the little girl +observed. Then, the question evidently occurring to her for the first +time, she asked, eagerly, "What prayers did he say, do you think?" + +When I had in some part replied, I said, this question indeed occurring +to me for the first time, "What prayers do you say?" + +"Oh," she replied, instantly, "I say, 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' +and 'God bless' all the different ones at home, and in other places, +that I know. I say all that; and it takes all the beads. So I say, 'The +Lord is my Shepherd' last, for the cross." She was silent for a moment, +but I said nothing, and she went on. "I know 'In my Father's house are +many mansions,' and 'Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels.' +I might say them sometimes instead, mightn't I?" + +I told this to one of my friends who is a devout Roman Catholic. "It +shows," she said, "what the rosary can do for religion!" + +But it seemed to me that it showed rather what religion could do for the +rosary. Had the child's mother, Scotch by birth, New England by +breeding, not been a truly religious woman she would not have bade her +little girl handle with reverence the emblem of a faith so unlike her +own; she would not have said, "Don't play with it." As for the small +girl, had she never learned to "say prayers," she would not have desired +the rosary to say them "with." And it was not the silver cross hanging +on her rosary that influenced her to "say last," for it, the best psalm +and "spiritual song" she knew; it was the understanding she had been +given by careful teaching of the meaning of that symbol. Above all, had +the little girl, after being taught to pray, not been left free to pray +as her childish heart inclined, that rosary would scarcely have found a +place on the head-post of her small bed. + +It may be for the very reason that the children are not compelled to +think and to feel in the things of religion as their parents do that +fathers and mothers in America so frankly tell their boys and girls +exactly what they do think and just how they do feel. The children may +not ever understand the religious experiences through which their +parents are passing, but they often know what those experiences are. +Moreover, they sometimes partake of them. + +Among my child friends there is a little girl, an only child, whose +father died not a great while ago. The little girl had always had a +share in the joys of her parents. It surprised no one who knew the +family that the mother in her grief turned to the child for comfort; and +that together they bore their great bereavement. Indeed, so completely +did this occur that the little girl for a time hardly saw any one +excepting her mother and her governess. After a suitable interval, an +old friend of the family approached the mother on the subject. "Your +little girl is only eight years old," she said, gently. "Oughtn't she +perhaps to go to see her playmates, and have them come to see her, +again, now?" + +The mother saw the wisdom of the suggestion. The child continued to +spend much of her time with her mother, but she gradually resumed her +former childish occupations. She had always been a gregarious little +girl; once more her nursery was a merry, even an hilarious, place. + +One Saturday a short time ago she was among the six small guests invited +to the birthday luncheon of another little girl friend of mine. Along +with several other grown-ups I had been invited to come and lend a hand +at this festivity. I arrived just as the children were going into the +dining-room, where the table set forth for their especial use, and +bright with the light of the seven candles on the cake, safely placed in +the centre, awaited them. They climbed into their chairs, and then all +seven of them paused. "Mother," said the little girl of the house, "who +shall say grace?" + +"_I_ can!" + +"Let _me_!" + +"I _always_ do at home!" + +These and other exclamations were made before the mother could reply. +When she was able to get a hearing, she suggested, "I think each one of +you might, since you all can and would like to." + +"You say it first," said one of the children to her little hostess, +"because it is your birthday." + +At a nod from her mother, the little girl said the Selkirk grace:-- + +"Some hae meat and canna eat, + And some wad eat that want it; +But we hae meat and we can eat, + And sae the Lord be thankit." + +Then another small girl said her grace, which was Herrick's:-- + +"Here a little child I stand, +Heaving up my either hand; +Cold as paddocks though they be, +Here I lift them up to Thee, +For a benison to fall +On our meat and on us all +Amen." + +The next little girl said Stevenson's:-- + +"It is very nice to think +The world is full of meat and drink, +And little children saying grace +In every Christian kind of place." + +The succeeding little guests said the dear and familiar "blessing" of so +many children:-- + +"For what we are about to receive, O Lord, make us truly thankful." + +My little friend into whose life so grievous a sorrow had come was the +last to say her grace. It was the poem of Miss Josephine Preston Peabody +entitled "Before Meat:-- + +"Hunger of the world. +When we ask a grace +Be remembered here with us, +By the vacant place. + +"Thirst with nought to drink, +Sorrow more than mine, +May God some day make you laugh, +With water turned to wine!" + +There was a silence when she finished, among the children as well as +among the grown persons present. "I don't _quite_ understand what your +grace means," the little girl of the house said at last to her small +guest. + +"It means that I still have my mamma, and she still has me," replied the +child. "Some people haven't anybody. It means that; and it means we ask +God to let them have Him. My mamma told me, when she taught it to me to +say instead of the grace I used to say when we had my papa." + +The little girl explained with the simple seriousness and sweetness so +characteristic of the answers children make to questions asked them +regarding things in any degree mystical. The other small girls listened +as sweetly and as seriously. Then, with one accord, they returned to the +gay delights of the occasion. They were a laughing, prattling, eagerly +happy little party, and of them all not one was more blithe than the +little girl who had said grace last. + +The child's intimate companionship with her mother in the sorrow which +was her sorrow too had not taken from her the ability for participation +in childish happiness, also hers by right. Was not this because the +companionship was of so deep a nature? The mother, in letting her little +girl share her grief, let her share too the knowledge of the source to +which she looked for consolation. Above all, she not only told her of +heavier sorrows; she told her how those greater griefs might be +lightened. Children in America enter into so many of the things of their +parents' lives, is it not good that they are given their parts even in +those spiritual things that are most near and sacred? + +I have among my friends a little boy whose father finds God most surely +in the operation of natural law. Indeed, he has often both shocked and +distressed certain of his neighbors by declaring it to be his belief +that nowhere else could God be found. "His poor wife!" they were wont to +exclaim; "what must she think of such opinions?" And later, when the +little boy was born, "That unfortunate baby!" they sighed; "how will his +mother teach him religion when his father has these strange ideas?" That +the wife seemed untroubled by the views of her husband, and that the +baby, as he grew into little-boyhood, appeared very similar to other +children as far as prayers and Bible stories and even attendance at +church were concerned, did not reassure the disturbed neighbors. For the +child's father continued to express--if possible, more decidedly--his +disquieting convictions. "Evidently, though," said one neighbor, "he +doesn't put such thoughts into the head of his child." + +Apparently he did not. I knew the small boy rather intimately, and I was +aware that his father, after the custom of most American parents, took +the child into his confidence with regard to many other matters. The +little boy was well acquainted with his father's political belief, for +example. I had had early evidence of this. But it was not until a much +later time, and then indirectly, that I saw that the little boy was +possessed too of a knowledge of his father's religious faith. + +[Illustration: "DO YOU LIKE MY NEW HYMN?"] + +I was ill in a hospital a year or two ago, and the little boy came with +his mother to see me. A clergyman happened to call at the same time. It +was Sunday, and the clergyman suggested to my small friend that he say a +psalm or a hymn for me. + +"My new one, that daddy has just taught me?" the child inquired, turning +to his mother. + +She smiled at him. "Yes, dearest," she said gently. + +The little boy came and stood beside my bed, and, in a voice that +betokened a love and understanding of every line, repeated Mrs. +Browning's lovely poem:-- + +"They say that God lives very high! + But if you look above the pines, +You cannot see our God. And why? + +"And if you dig down in the mines, + You never see Him in the gold, +Though from Him all that's glory shines. + +"God is so good, He wears a fold + Of heaven and earth across His face-- +Like secrets kept, for love, untold. + +"But still I feel that His embrace + Slides down, by thrills, through all things made, +Through sight and sound of every place: + +"As if my tender mother laid + On my shut lids, her kisses' pressure, +Half-waking me at night; and said, + 'Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?'" + +Beyond question the clergyman had expected a less unusual selection than +this; but he smiled very kindly at the little boy as he said the +beautiful words. At the conclusion he merely said, "You have a good +father, my boy." + +"Do you like my new hymn?" the child asked me. + +"Yes," I replied. "Did your father tell you what it means?" I added, +suddenly curious. + +"No," said my small friend; "I didn't ask him. You see," he +supplemented, "it tells _itself_ what it means!" + +The things of religion so often to the children tell themselves what +they mean! Only the other day I heard a little girl recounting to her +young uncle, learned in the higher criticism, the story of the Creation. + +"Just only _six days_ it took God to make _everything_" she said; "think +of that!" + +"My dear child," remonstrated her uncle, "_that_ isn't the point at all +--the _amount_ of time it required! As a matter of fact, it took +thousands of years to make the world. The word 'day' in that connection +means a certain period of time, not twenty-four hours." + +"Oh!" cried the little girl, in disappointment; "that takes the +wonderfulness out of it!" + +"Not at all," protested her young uncle. "And, supposing it did, can you +not see that the world could not have been made in six of _our_ days?" + +"Why," said the child, in surprise, "I should think it could have been!" + +"For what reason?" her uncle asked, in equal amazement. + +"Because God was doing it!" the child exclaimed. + +Her uncle did not at once reply. When he did, it was to say, "You are +right about _that_, my dear." + +Sometimes it happens that a child finds in our careful explanation of +the meaning of a religious belief or practice a different or a further +significance than we have indicated. I once had an especially striking +experience of this kind. + +I was visiting a family in which there were several children, cared for +by a nurse of the old-fashioned, old-world type. She was a woman well +beyond middle age, and of a frank and simple piety. There was hardly a +circumstance of daily life for which she was not ready with an +accustomed ejaculatory prayer or thanksgiving. One day I chanced to +speak to her of a mutual friend, long dead. "God rest her soul!" said +the old nurse, in a low tone. + +"Why did she say that?" the little four-year-old girl of the house asked +me. "I never heard her say that before!" + +"It is a prayer that some persons always say when speaking of any one +who is dead; especially any one they knew and loved," I explained. + +Later in the day, turning over a portfolio of photographs with the +little girl, I took up a picture of a fine, faithful-eyed dog. "Whose +dog is this?" I asked. "What a good one he is!" + +"He was ours," replied the child, "and he was very good; we liked him. +But he is dead now--" She paused as if struck by a sudden remembrance. +Then, "God rest his soul!" she sighed, softly. + +Most of the answers I read in response to the question, "Should +churchgoing on the part of children be compulsory or voluntary?" did not +end with the brief statement that it should be voluntary, and the reason +why; a considerable number of them went on to say: "The children should +of course be inspired and encouraged to go. They should be taught that +it is a privilege. Their Sunday-school teachers and their minister, as +well as their parents, can help to make them wish to go." + +Certainly their Sunday-school teachers and ministers can, and do. The +answers I have quoted took for granted the attendance of children at +Sunday-school. Not one of them suggested that this was a matter +admitting of free choice on the part of the children. "But it isn't," +declared an experienced Sunday-school teacher who is a friend of mine +when I said this to her. "Going to Sunday-school isn't worship; it is +learning whom to worship and how. Naturally, children go, just as they +go to week-day school, whether they like to or not; I must grant," she +added by way of amendment, "that they usually do like to go!" + +Our Sunday-schools have become more and more like our week-day schools. +The boys and girls are taught in them whom to worship and how, but they +are taught very much after the manner that, in the week-day schools, +they are instructed concerning secular things. That custom, belonging to +a time not so far in the past but that many of us remember it, of +consigning the "infant class" of the Sunday-school to any amiable young +girl in the parish who could promise to be reasonably regular in meeting +it does not obtain at the present day. Sunday-school teachers are +trained, and trained with increasing care and thoroughness, for their +task. + +[Illustration: CHILDREN GO TO CHURCH] + +Readiness to teach is no longer a sufficient credential. The amiable +young girl must now not only be willing to teach, she must also be +willing to learn how to teach. In the earlier time practically any well- +disposed young man of the congregation who would consent to take charge +of a class of boys was eagerly allotted that class without further +parley. This, too, is not now the case. The young man, before beginning +to teach the boys, is obliged to prepare himself somewhat specifically +for such work. In my own parish the boys' classes of the Sunday-school +are taught by young men who are students in the Theological School of +which my parish church is the chapel. In an adjacent parish the "infant +class" is in charge of an accomplished kindergartner. Surely such +persons are well qualified to help to inspire and to encourage the +children to regard churchgoing as a privilege, and to make them wish to +go! + +And the minister! I am inclined to think that the minister helps more +than any one else, except the father and mother, to give the children +this inspiration, this encouragement. Children go to church now, when +churchgoing is voluntary, quite as much as they went when it was +compulsory. They learn very early to wish to go; they see with small +difficulty that it is a privilege. Their Sunday-school teachers might +help them, even their parents might help them, but, unless the minister +helped them, would this be so? + +There are so many ways in which the minister does his part in this +matter of the child's relation to the church, and to those things for +which the church stands. They are happily familiar to us through our +child friends: the "children's service" at Christmas and at Easter; the +"talks to children" on certain Sundays of the year. These are some of +them. And there are other, more individual, more intimate ways. + +The other day a little girl who is a friend of mine asked me to make out +a list of books likely to be found in the "children's room" of the near- +by public library that I thought she would enjoy reading. On the list I +put "The Little Lame Prince," the charming story by Dinah Mulock. Having +completed the list, I read it aloud to the little girl. When I reached +Miss Mulock's book, she interrupted me. + +"'The Little Lame Prince,' did you say? Is that in the library? I +thought it was in the Bible." + +"The Bible!" I exclaimed. + +"Yes," the child said, in some surprise; "don't you remember? He was +Jonathan's little boy--Jonathan, that was David's friend--David, that +killed the giant, you know." + +I at once investigated. The little girl was quite correct. "Who told you +about him?" I inquired. + +"Our minister," she replied. "He read it to me and some of the other +children." + +This, too, a bit later, I investigated. I found that the minister had +not read the story as it is written in the Bible, but a version of it +written by himself especially for this purpose and entitled "The Little +Lame Prince." + +At church, as elsewhere, the children of our nation are quick to +observe, and to make their own, opportunities for doing as the grown-ups +do. When occasion arises, they slip with cheerful and confiding ease +into the places of their elders. + +One Sunday, last summer, I chanced to attend a church in a little +seaside village. When the moment arrived for taking up the collection, +no one went forward to attend to that duty. I was told afterward that +the man who always did it was most unprecedentedly absent. There were a +number of other men in the rather large congregation, but none of them +stirred as the clergyman stood waiting after having read several +offertory sentences. I understood afterward that they "felt bashful," +not being used to taking up the collection. The clergyman hesitated for +a moment, and then read another offertory sentence. As he finished, a +little boy not more than nine years old stepped out of a back pew, where +he was sitting with his mother, and, going up to the clergyman, held out +his hand for the plate. The clergyman gravely gave it to him, and the +child, without the slightest sign of shyness, went about the church +collecting the offerings of the congregation. This being done, he, with +equal un-self-consciousness, gave the plate again to the clergyman and +returned to his seat beside his mother. + +"Did you tell him to do it?" I inquired of the mother, later. + +"Oh, no," she answered; "he asked me if he might. He said he knew how, +he saw it done every Sunday, and he was sure the minister would let +him." + +American children of the present day are surer than the children of any +other nation have ever been that their fathers and their mothers and +their ministers will allow them liberty to do in church, as well as with +respect to going to church, such things as they know how to do, and +eagerly wish to do. In our national love and reverence for childhood we +willingly give the children the great gift that we give reluctantly, or +not at all, to grown people--the liberty to worship God as they choose. + + + +CONCLUSION + + +We are a child-loving nation; and our love for the children is, for the +most part, of the kind which Dr. Henry van Dyke describes as "true love, +the love that desires to bestow and to bless." The best things that we +can obtain, we bestow upon the children; with the goodliest blessings +within our power, we bless them. This we do for them. And they,--is +there not something that they do for us? It seems to me that there is; +and that it is something incalculably greater than anything we do, or +could possibly do, for them. More than any other force in our national +life, the children help us to work together toward a common end. A child +can unite us into a mutually trustful, mutually cordial, mutually active +group when no one else conceivably could. + +A few years ago, I was witness to a most striking example of this. I +went to a "ladies' day" meeting of a large and important men's club that +has for its object the study and the improvement of municipal +conditions. The city of the club has a nourishing liquor trade. The club +not infrequently gives over its meetings to discussions of the "liquor +problem";--discussions which, I have been told, had, as a rule, resolved +themselves into mere argumentations as to license and no-license, +resulting in nothing. By some accident this "ladies' day" meeting had +for its chief speaker a man who is an ardent believer in and supporter +of no-license. For an hour he spoke on this subject, and spoke +exceedingly well. When he had finished, there ensued that random play of +question and answer that usually follows the presiding officer's, "We +are now open to discussion." The chief speaker had devoted the best +efforts of his mature life to bringing about no-license in his home +city; the subject was to him something more than a topic for a +discussion that should lead to no practical work in the direction of +solving the "liquor problem" in other cities. He tried to make that club +meeting something more vital than an exchange of views on license and +no-license. With the utmost earnestness, he attempted to arouse a living +interest in the "problem," and, of course, to make converts to his own +belief as to the most effective solution of it. + +Finally, some one said, "Isn't _any_ liquor sold in your city? Your law +keeps it from being sold publicly, but privately,--how about that?" + +"I cannot say," the chief speaker replied. "The law may occasionally be +broken,--I suppose it is. But," he added, "I can tell you this,--we have +no drunkards on our streets. I have a boy,--he is ten years old, and he +has never seen a drunken man in his life. How about the boys of the +people of this city, of this audience?" + +The persons in that audience looked at the chief speaker; they looked at +each other. There followed such a serious, earnest, frank discussion of +the "liquor problem" as had never before been held either in that club, +or, indeed, in any assembly in that city. Since that day, that club has +not only held debates on the "liquor problem" of its city; it has tried +to bring about no-license. The chief speaker of that meeting was far +from being the first person who had addressed the organization on that +subject; neither was he the first to mention its relation to childhood +and youth; but he was the very first to bring his own child, and to +bring the children of each and every member of the association who had a +child into his argument. With the help of the children, he prevailed. + +One of my friends who is a member of that club said to me recently, "It +was the sincerity of the speaker of that 'ladies' day' meeting that won +the audience. I really must protest against your thinking it was his +chance reference to his boy!" + +"But," I reminded him, "it was not until he made that 'chance reference' +to his boy that any one was in the least moved. How do you explain +that?" + +"Oh," said my friend, "we were not sure until then that he was in dead +earnest--" + +"And then you were?" I queried. + +"Why, yes," my friend replied. "A man doesn't make use of his child to +give weight to what he is advocating unless he really does believe it is +just as good as he is arguing that it is." + +"So," I persisted, "it _was_, after all, his 'chance reference' to his +boy--" + +"If you mean that nothing practical would have come of his speech, +otherwise,--yes, it was!" my friend allowed himself to admit. + +Another friend who happened to be present came into the conversation at +this point. "Suppose he had had no child!" she suggested. "Any number of +perfectly sincere persons, who really believe that what they are +advocating is just as good as they argue it is, have no children," she +went on whimsically; "what about them? Haven't they any chance of +winning their audiences when they speak on no-license,--or what not?" + +Those of us who are in the habit of attending "welfare" meetings of one +kind or another, from the occasional "hearings" before various +committees of the legislature, to the periodic gatherings of the +National Education Association, and the National Conference of Charities +and Correction, know well that, when advocating solutions of social +problems as grave as and even graver than the "liquor problem," the most +potent plea employed by those speakers who are not fathers or mothers +begins with the words, "You, who have children." My friend who had said +that a man did not make use of his child to give weight to his arguments +unless he had a genuine belief in that for which he was pleading might +have gone further; he might have added that neither do men and women +make such a use of other people's children excepting they be as +completely sincere,--provided that those men and women love children. +And we are a nation of child-lovers. + +It is because we love the children that they do for us so great a good +thing. It is for the reason that we know them and that they know us that +we love them. We know them so intimately; and they know us so +intimately; and we and they are such familiar friends! The grown people +of other nations have sometimes, to quote the old phrase, "entered into +the lives" of the children of the land; we in America have gone +further;--we have permitted the children of our nation to enter into our +lives. Indeed, we have invited them; and, once in, we have not deterred +them from straying about as they would. The presence of the children in +our lives,--so closely near, so intimately dear!--unites us in grave and +serious concerns,--unites us to great and significant endeavors; and +unites us even in smaller and lighter matters,--to a pleasant +neighborliness one with another. However we may differ in other +particulars, we are all alike in that we are tacitly pledged to the +"cause" of children; it is the desire of all of us that the world be +made a more fit place for them. And, as we labor toward the fulfillment +of this desire, they are our most effectual helpers. + +In our wider efforts after social betterment, they help us. Because of +them, we organize ourselves into national, and state, and municipal +associations for the furtherance of better living,--physical, mental, +and moral. Through them, we test each other's sincerity, and measure +each other's strength, as social servants. In our wider efforts this is +true. Is it not the case also when the field of our endeavors is +narrower? + +Several years ago, I chanced to spend a week-end in a suburban town, the +population of which is composed about equally of "old families," and of +foreigners employed in the factory situated on the edge of the town. I +was a guest in the home of a minister of the place. Both he and his wife +believed that the most important work a church could do in that +community was "settlement" work. "Home-making classes for the girls," +the minister's wife reiterated again and again; and, "Classes in +citizenship for the boys," her husband made frequent repetition, as we +discussed the matter on the Saturday evening of my visit. + +"Why don't you have them?" I inquired. + +"We have no place to have them in," the minister replied. "Our parish +has no parish-house, and cannot afford to build one." + +"Then, why not use the church?" I ventured. + +"If you knew the leading spirits in my congregation, you would not ask +that!" the minister exclaimed. + +"Have you suggested it to them?" I asked. + +"Suggested!" the minister and his wife cried in chorus. "_Suggested_!" + +"I have besought them, I have begged them, I have implored them!" the +minister continued. "It was no use. They are conservatives of the +strictest type; and they cannot bring themselves even to consider +seriously a plan that would necessitate using the church for the meeting +of a boys' political debating club, or a girls' class in marketing." + +"Churches are so used, in these days!" I remarked. + +"Yes," the minister agreed; "but not without the sympathy and +cooeperation of the leading members of the congregation!" + +That suburban town is not one to which I am a frequent visitor. More +than a year passed before I found myself again in the pleasant home of +the minister. "I must go to my Three-Meals-a-Day Club," my hostess said +shortly after my arrival on Saturday afternoon. "Wouldn't you like to go +with me?" + +"What is it, and where does it meet?" I asked. + +"It is a girls' housekeeping class," answered the minister's wife; "and +it meets in the church." + +"The church?" I exclaimed. "So the 'leading spirits' have agreed to +having it used for 'settlement' work! How did you win them over?" + +"We didn't," she replied; "they won themselves over,--or rather the +little children of one of them did it." + +When I urged her to tell me how, she said, "We are invited to that +'leading spirit's' house to dinner to-morrow; and you can find out for +yourself, then." + +It proved to bean easy thing to discover. "I am glad to see that, since +you have no parish-house, you are using your church for parish-house +activities," I made an early occasion to say to our hostess, after +dinner, on the Sunday. "You were not using it in that way when I was +here last; it is something very new, isn't it?" + +"It is, my dear," said our hostess,--one of those of his flock whom the +minister had described as "conservatives of the strictest type"; "'very +new' are the exact words with which to speak of it!" + +"How did it happen?" I asked. + +She smiled. "Our minister and his wife declare that my small son and +daughter are mainly responsible for it!" she said. "They began to attend +the public school this autumn,--they had, up to that time, been taught +at home. You know what the population of this town is,--half foreign. +Even in the school in this district, there are a considerable number of +foreigners. I don't know why it is, when they have so many playmates in +their own set, that my children should have made friends, and such close +friends, with some of those foreign children! But they did. And not +content with bringing them here, they wanted to go to their homes! Of +course, I couldn't allow that. I explained to my boy and girl as well as +I was able; I told them those people did not know how to live properly; +that they might keep their children clean, because they wouldn't be +permitted to send them to school unless they did; but their houses were +dirty, and their food bad. And what do you think my children said to me? +They said, 'Mother, have they _got_ to have their houses dirty? Have +they _got_ to have bad food? Couldn't _they_ have things nice, as _we_ +have?' It quite startled me to hear my own children ask me such things; +it made me think. I told my husband about it; it made him think, too. +You know, we are always hearing that, if we _are_ going to try to +improve the living conditions of the poor, we must 'begin with the +children,'--begin by teaching them better ways of living. Our minister +and his wife have all along been eager to teach these foreign children. +We have no place to teach them in, except our church. It was rather a +wrench for my husband and me,--giving our approval to using a church for +a club-house. But we did it. And we secured the consent of the rest of +the congregation,--we told them what our children had said. We were not +the only ones who thought the children had, to use an old-fashioned +theological term, 'been directed' in what they had said!" she concluded. + +The children had said nothing that the minister had not said. Was it not +less what they had said than the fact of their saying it that changed +the whole course of feeling and action in that parish? + +On the days when it is our lot to share in doing large tasks, the +children help us. What of the days which bring with them only a "petty +round of irritating concerns and duties?" Do they not help us then, too? + +In a house on my square, there lives a little girl, three years old, +who, every morning at about eight o'clock, when the front doors of the +square open, and the workers come hurrying down their steps, appears at +her nursery window,--open except in very stormy weather. "Good-bye!" she +calls to each one, smiling, and waving her small hand, "good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" we all call back, "good-bye!" We smile, too, and wave a hand +to the little girl. Then, almost invariably, we glance at each other, +and smile again, together. Thus our day begins. + +We are familiar with the thought of our devotion to children. As +individuals, and as a nation, our services to the children of our land +are conspicuously great. "You do so much for children, in America!" It +is no new thing to us to hear this exclamation. We have heard, we hear +it so often! All of us know that it is true. We are coming to see that +the converse is equally true; that the children do much for us, do more +than we do for them; do the best thing in the world,--make us who are so +many, one; keep us, who are so diverse, united; help us, whether our +tasks be great or small, to "go to our labor, smiling." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN CHILD*** + + +******* This file should be named 10398.txt or 10398.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/9/10398 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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