The Book of the Child
The Book of the Child
Children have come into greater prominence during the last quarter of a century than ever before in the history of this country. Many things have been written about them, many things have been done for them,—some foolish and some wise, but all suggested by a newly aroused sense of the vital importance attached to their proper upbringing.
The Cause of the Children.
Legislation for Children.
It is, of course, true that the Cause of the Children has been used by both political parties for their own purposes, but, for all that, there has been a large amount of most valuablelegislation on the subject during the last twenty years.[1]The helplessness of children and their rights as citizens of this country have been better understood and provided for, while their impressionable nature has been realised, and the rigour of their training and discipline considerably modified.
The Better Position of Children.
It may be that there has been too great a change in some directions. There may be a freedom of intercourse between children and their parents or teachers that borders on disrespect. But taking one thing with another the position of children has altered for the better, and it is no bad thing that few subjects have greater interest at the present day than that of Children. It is an interest, too, that has come to stay. Of a distinctly softening and refining nature like the taste for gardening, which has brought into theworld so many books during the last few years, it is only now beginning to reveal its true importance, and it will increase as from year to year more people perceive its fascination and trace its results.
Old-fashioned Discipline.
Sixty or seventy years ago the chief interest in children shown by parents and teachers was of an extremely disciplinary nature. Many children were not allowed to sit down without permission when in their parents’ presence, and it was in many families the rule that the father and mother should be addressed as “Sir” and “Ma’am.” Teachers of both sexes ruled mainly by fear, and allowed no intimacy between themselves and their pupils. The rigour of such upbringing and education must have withered many a tender-natured child as a cold black wind in spring will shrivel the opening blossoms of the fruit trees.
Children of the Poor.
Metropolitan Working Classes’ Association.
Among the working classes, until theChurch began to establish its schools, the children grew up anyhow, and could in few cases read or write. Infant mortality and unhealthy conditions of childhood were prevalent. So much was this the case that in 1847, while little was yet being thought or written about Children, the Metropolitan Working Classes’ Association for Improving the Public Health actually put out a pamphlet on their proper rearing and training. This document had some considerable circulation, but its usefulness must have been greatly curtailed by the inability of so many people in those days to read.
Literature Concerning Children.
Before this publication the literature on the subject of children was extremely scanty. Not only was this the case but those people who did from time totime write on the subject seem to have been ashamed of doing so, and their works, appearing once or twice in a century, are for the most part anonymous.
The Office of Christian Parents.
There exists a treatise printed by Cantrell Legge, printer to the University of Cambridge, in the year 1616, with the title “The Office of Christian Parents, showing how Children are to be governed throughout all ages and times of their life. With a brief Admonitorie addition unto children to answer in dutie to their Parents’ office.”
Personal Care of the Mother.
Possible Extinction of Boarding Schools.
The writer, whoever he may have been, appears to have at that very early date grasped the importance of his subject, for he says, “The Parent is put in trust to governe the chiefest creature under heaven, to train up that which is called the Generation of God.” Being thus impressed with the value of children,it is natural to find the author of the treatise giving advice that is being more and more strongly urged upon parents at the present day. Eminent doctors insist upon the advantage to infants of being personally cared for by the mother, and not handed over wholesale to a nurse. Educational experts are more and more inclined to take the view that children should be kept at home as long as possible. So far, indeed, has this theory advanced that there is a suggestion of the ultimate extinction of our great public boarding schools in favour of a larger number of schools so situated that children may attend them as day scholars while still living at home under parental care and influence.
Interference of the Grandmother.
The old writer of 1616 made a strong point of the child being cared for by its parents from birth onwards. He (possibly from personal experience) did not evenapprove of the interference of the grandmother, for he quaintly observes, “In some places there comes in the child-wive’s mother. She will not have her daughter troubled with the noursing: and the Father cannot abide the crying of the child: therefore a nurse is sent for in all hast”—a course of action of which he entirely disapproves.
When the child is a little older he still thinks that its committal to the care of a servant should be avoided.
“When a child beginneth to know his mother from another, there groweth two absurdities, either the mother’s fondness maketh it a crying child and restless, or els her careless committing it to a servant spills it.”
The Spoiling of Children.
Here comes in also his first advice as to the disciplining of a child. He appears to have held strong views as to the necessityof firmness, but not to have been in favour of the great severity which often obtained in those days. His observations are too valuable even now to be passed over. What could be better than the following? “Here cometh in the cockling of the parents to give the child the sway of his owne desires to have whatsoever it pointeth to, and so it maketh the parents and all the house slaves, and there is no end of noyse, of crying, and wraling; or els there is such severitie as the heart of the child is utterly broken.” Or again, “When parents do either too much cockle their children, or by home example do draw them to worser things, or els neglect the due discipline and good order, what I pray you can come to passe? but as we see in trees which beeing neglected at the first are crooked and unfruitful; contrarily, they which by the hand and art of the husbandman are proined,stayed up, and watered, are made upright, faire, and fruitfull.”
Parents to Superintend their Children’s Upbringing.
It will be observed that this writer implies in all the advice he gives that the parent is the proper person to bring up a child, not a servant at home or a teacher at a distance. “Parents,” he says, “should watch and attend upon their children for the avoiding of evil occasions and to see all duties rightly performed.”
How far have we got nowadays from this ideal! How greatly modern habits of life have interfered with any such possibility! What the ancient moralist quoted above would have said to the upbringing of most children at the present day it is difficult to imagine. He sums up his own point of view very pithily in the words, “The egges are badly hatched when the bird is away; and the children are unluckily nurtured whose parents aremade careles, being absent through pleasure.”
Old-fashioned Severity Leads to Dissimulation.
More than a century later, in 1748, there appeared another anonymous publication on the subject. This had for its title “Dialogues on the Passions, Habits, and Affections peculiar to Children.” The writer was imbued with ideas so far in advance of his time that fear of ridicule may have caused him to conceal his name. His sentiments about the proper treatment of children are very much those at which most people have arrived to-day, when the subject has received much prominent attention for a quarter of a century. He combats the prevailing opinion of that date that the right way to deal with children is by a system of formal repression and severity. Thus he makes one of his characters say, “I think it necessary that Children should be kept at some distance.They are apt to grow pert, sawcy, and ungovernable if we make too free with them, or permit them the full liberty of speech in our Company.” To this the reply is made: “To discover the Diseases of the mind ought to be and must be your principal study. But in this you will never be successful if you set out with a practice which teaches them to conceal every bad symptom.”
A Phase of Lying.
The truth contained in these words is very generally recognised nowadays. If a parent wants to make a child untruthful it can be done at once by causing fear, under the guise perhaps of respect, to be the ruling sentiment. Children are only too ready to learn! “As soon as they are born they go astray and speak lies.” It is a tendency of childhood in every class. A gentleman whose work consists in preparing little boys for the great public schools once said that almost every smallboy passes through a phase of lying. The mistress of a little village school declared not long ago that there was only one child there upon whose word she could absolutely rely.
It follows then that those in charge of children, and especially the parents, should note the advice of the writer of the Dialogues. He insists again and again upon the evil effects of fear.
Children Susceptible of Fear.
“Fear,” he says, “I think is the first Passion which we can distinctly trace in the Mind of a Child. They are susceptible of it almost sooner than they can conceive the Nature of Danger; and it is the Misfortune of Numbers that the Nurses find this so easily improved to their purposes that Children find the effects of this passion as long as they live.”
Again, “As to Dread of Punishment which I have observed to be the lowest and most grovelling kind of Fear, youmust by gentle usage remove it from the apprehension of such as have imbibed it from harsh Parents or tyrannical Nurses.”
It is exceedingly remarkable to find a writer in the middle of the eighteenth century who had studied children to such purpose, and who ventured to advance opinions such as those quoted above.
Literature of the last Half Century.
The latter part of the nineteenth century saw a rush of literature concerning children. It is possible that the great public efforts made by the various agencies for bettering the lot of homeless, starving, and ill-treated children began to call special attention to the treatment of all children. It may be that the general tendency of the age to level all distinctions between one and another helped to gain greater consideration for the younger members of the community. It may even be that a more general appreciation of the Gospel teaching helped forward thisresult. Or, as some will say, it may be simply that a wave of sentiment swept over the country and brought with it a tenderer regard for little children. It does not much matter what was the cause. The fact remains that a new interest was awakened, the people of England wanted to understand childhood better, and books and magazine articles on the subject appeared in considerable numbers.
This result, even though some people have thought the supply excessive, has been of great service. The future of a country largely depends upon the proper upbringing of its children. This in its turn depends upon a proper knowledge of the nature of childhood. This knowledge has been stimulated and increased to an unprecedented degree by the works of the best of the writers who have recently dealt with the subject of children.
Books About Children.
To mention only two or three. Which of us has not been the wiser and the betterfor the books of Kenneth Graham, for such an inimitable character study as the Rebecca of Kate Douglas Wiggin, and for the marvellously tender insight into the mystery of the mind of a little child which has been shown by William Canton in the “Invisible Playmate” and “W. V. her Book”?
It may be hoped that what is practically a new science may be studied with even greater diligence in the future, and may be given its proper position as of paramount importance.
Up to the present date more time and pains have been expended and more literature published on the rearing and training of horses and dogs than of the little children upon whom the future destiny of the world depends.
FOOTNOTES:[1]SeeAppendix.
[1]SeeAppendix.
[1]SeeAppendix.