Class U^>U\r Book SM-A Copyright N° COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. A MODERN MADONNA THE LIBRARY OF HOME ECONOMICS A COMPLETE HOME-STUDY COURSE ON THE NEW PROFESSION OF HOME-MAKING AND ART OF RIGHT LIVING; THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE MOST RECENT ADVANCES IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES TO HOME AND HEALTH PREPARED BY TEACHERS OF RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY FOR HOME-MAKERS, MOTHERS, TEACHERS, PHYSICIANS, NURSES, DIETITIANS, PROFESSIONAL HOUSE , MANAGERS, AND ALL INTERESTED IN HOME, HEALTH, ECONOMY AND CHILDREN TWELVE VOLUMES NEARLY THREE THOUSAND PAGES, ONE THOUSAND ILLUSTRATIONS TESTED BY USE IN CORRESPONDENCE INSTRUCTION REVISED AND SUPPLEMENTED CHICAGO AMERICAN SCHOOL OF HOME ECONOMICS I907 LIBRARY of CONGRESS One OoDy Kec?ived APa 26 **)! a Of*.«.<*nt t»»vy CLASS /\ AXo, *e ^liL COPY Copyright, 1907 BY Home Economics Association Entered at Stationers' Hall, London All Rights Reserved, AUTHORS ISABEL BEVIER, Ph. M. Professor of Household Science, University of Illinois. Author U. S. Government Bulletins, "Development of the Home Economics Movement in America," etc. ALICE PELOUBET NORTON, M. A. Assistant Professor of Home Economics, School of Education, Uni- versity of Chicago ; Director of the Chautauqua School of Domestic Science. S. MARIA ELLIOTT Instructor in Home Economics, Simmons College; Formerly Instruc- tor School of Housekeeping, Boston. ANNA BARROWS Director Chautauqua School of Cookery; Lecturer Teachers' College, Columbia University, and Simmons College ; formerly Editor "Ameri- can Kitchen Magazine;" Author " Home Science Cook Book." ALFRED CLEVELAND COTTON, A. M., M. D. Professor Diseases of Children, Rush Medical College, University of Chicago; Visiting Physician Presbyterian Hospital, Chicago ; Author of " Diseases of Children." BERTHA M. TERRILL, A. B. Professor in Home Economics in Hartford School of Pedagogy; Author of U. S. Government Bulletins. KATE HEINTZ WATSON Formerly Instructor in Domestic Economy, Lewis Institute ; Lecturer University of Chicago. MARION FOSTER WASHBURNE Editor "The Mothers' Magazine;" Lecturer Chicago Froebel Asso- ciation ; Author " Everyday Essays," " Family Secrets," etc. MARGARET E. DODD Graduate Massachusetts Institute of Technology ; Teacher of Science, Woodward Institute. AMY ELIZABETH POPE With the Panama Canal Commission ; Formerly Instructor in Practical and Theoretical Nursing, Training School for Nurses, Presbyterian Hospital, New York City. MAURICE LE BOSQUET, S. B. Director American School of Home Economics ; Member American Public Health Association and American Chemical Society. CONTRIBUTORS AND EDITORS ELLEN H. RICHARDS Author " Cost of Food," " Cost of Living," " Cost of Shelter," " Food Materials and Their Adulteration," etc., etc.; Chairman Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics. MARY HINMAN ABEL Author of U. S. Government Bulletins, "Practical Sanitary and Econ- omic Cooking," " Safe Food," etc. THOMAS D. WOOD, M. D. Professor of Physical Education, Columbia University. H. M. LUFKIN, M. D. Professor of Physical Diagnosis and Clinical Medicine, University of Minnesota. OTTO FOLIN, Ph. D. Special Investigator, McLean Hospital, Waverly, Mass. T. MITCHELL PRUDDEN, M. D., LL. D. Author "Dust and Its Dangers " "The Story of the Bacteria," "Drink- ing Water and Ice Supplies," etc. FRANK CHOUTEAU BROWN Architect, Boston, Mass.; Author of "The Five Orders of Architec- ture," " Letters and Lettering." MRS. MELVIL DEWEY Secretary Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics. HELEN LOUISE JOHNSON Professor of Home Economics, James Millikan University, Decatur. FRANK W. ALLIN, M. D. Instructor Rush Medical College, University of Chicago. MANAGING EDITOR MAURICE LE BOSQUET, S. B. Director American School of Home Economics. BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF HOME ECONOMICS MRS. ARTHUR COURTENAY NEVILLE President of the Board. MISS MARIA PARLOA Founder of the first Cooking School in Boston; Author of "Home Economics," "Young Housekeeper," U. S. Government Bulletins, etc. MRS. MARY HINMAN ABEL Co-worker in the "New England Kitchen," and the " Rumford Food Laboratory;" Author of U. S. Government Bulletins, " Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking," etc. MISS ALICE RAVENHILL Special Commissioner sent by the British Government to report on the Schools of Home Economics in the United States; Fellow of the Royal Sanitary Institute, London. MRS. ELLEN M. HENROTIN Honorary President General Federation of Woman's Clubs. MRS. FREDERIC W. SCHOFF President National Congress of Mothers. MRS. LINDA HULL LARNED Past President National Household Economics Association ; Author of " Hostess of To-day." MRS. WALTER McNAB MILLER Chairman of the Pure Food Committee of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs. MRS. J. A. KIMBERLY Vice President of National Household Economics Association. MRS. JOHN HOODLESS Government Superintendent of Domestic Science for the province of Ontario ; Founder Ontario Normal School of Domestic Science, now the MacDonald Institute. A MADONNA OF THE WILD. A Takima mother, with papoose Study of Child Life MARION FOSTER WASHBURNE ASSOCIATE EDITOR MOTHER'S MAGAZINE AUTHOR "EVERYDAY ESSAYS" "FAMILY SECRETS," ETC. LECTURER TO CHICAGO FROEBEL ASSOCIATION CHICAGO AMERICAN SCHOOL OF HOME ECONOMICS I907 COPYRIGHT, I904, BY AMERICAN SCHOOL OF HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS COPYRIGHT, I906, BY HOME ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION Entered at Stationers Hall, London All Eights Reserved CONTENTS An Open Letter .... v Development of the Child .... 3 Faults and Their Remedies . . . .26 Character Building ..... 59 Play ... ... 76 Occupations ..... 90 Art and Literature in Child Life . . . 100 Studies and Accomplishments . .119 Financial Training ... . 126 Religious Training ..... 131 Application of Principles . .141 Other People's Children .... 145 The Sex Question ...... 149 Fathers ...... 152 The Unconscious Influence . . . . 157 Answers to Questions . . . 160 Bibliography . . . . , .170 Supplemental Study Program . . .175 Index ........ 179 111 AMERICAN SCHOOL OF HOME ECONOMICS CHICAGO January 1. 1907, My dear Madam: In beginning this subject of the "Study of Child Life" there may be lurking doubts in your mind as to whether any reliable rules can really be laid down. They seem to arise mostly from the perception of the great difference be- tween children. What will do for one child will not do for another. Some children are easily per- suaded and gentle, others willful, still others sullen or unresponsive. How, then, is it possi- ble that a system of education and training can be devised suitable for their various disposi- tions? We must remember that children are much more alike than they are different. One may have blue eyes, another gray, another black, but they all have two. We are, therefore, in a position to make rules for creatures having two eyes and these rules apply to eyes of all colors. Child- ren may be nervous, sanguine, bilious, or pleth- oric, but they all have the same kind of inter- nal organs and the same general rules of health apply to them all In this series of lessons I have endeavored to set forth principles briefly and to confirm them by instances within the experience of every observer of childhood. The rules given are such as are held at present by the best educators to be based upon sound philosophy, not at variance wit-h the slight array or scientific facts at our command. Perhaps you yourself may be able to add to the number of reliable facts intelligently re- ESitS-J^ 5 U3t be collec ted before muSh greater scientific advance is possible. There is, to be sure, an art of application of these rules both in matters of health of body and of health of mind and this art must be worked out by each mother for each individual child. We all recognize that it is a long endeavor before we can apply to our own lives such prin- ciples of conduct as we heartily acknowledge to be right. Why, then, expect to be able to apply principles instantly and unerringly to a little child? If a rule fails when you attempt to apply it, before questioning the principle, may it not be well to question your own tact* and skill? So far as I can advise with you in special instances of difficulty, I shall be very glad to do so; not that I shall always know what to do myself, but that we can get a little more light upon the problems by conferring together. I know well how difficult a matter this of child training is, for every day, in the management of my own family of children, I find such philosophy, science and .art as I can command very much put to the test. Sincerely yours, Instructor (Copyrighted E. A. Perry.) FREIDRICH FRCEBEL By courtesy of The Perry Pictures Co.. Maiden, Mass. STUDY OF CHILD LIFE PART I. 'T'HE young of the human species is less able to care for itself than the young of any other spe- cies. Most other creatures are able to walk, or at any rate stand, within a few hours of birth. But the human baby is absolutely dependent and helpless, unable even to manufacture all the animal heat that he requires. The study of his condition at birth at once suggests a number of practical procedures, some of them quite at variance with the traditional procedures. HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS Let us see, then, exactly what his condition is. In the first place, he is, as Virchow, an authority on phy- at Birth siological subjects declares, merely a spinal animal. Some of the higher brain centers do not yet exist at all, while others are in too incomplete a state for serv- ice. The various sensations which the baby experi- ences — heat, light, contact, motion, etc. — are so many stimuli to the development of these centers. If the stimulus is too great, the development is sometimes unduly hastened, with serious results, which show themselves chiefly in later life. The child who is brought up in a noisy room, is constantly talked to and fondled, is likely to develop prematurely, to talk Condition STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Weight at Birth State of Development and walk at an early age ; also to fall into nervous decay at an early age. And even if by reason of an unusually good heredity he escapes these dangers, it is almost certain that his intellectual power is not so great in adult life as it would have been under more favorable conditions. A new baby, like a young plant, requires darkness and quiet for the most part. As he grows older, and shows a spontaneous interest in his surroundings, he may fittingly have more light, more companionship, and experience more sensations. The average boy baby weighs about seven pounds at birth ; the average girl, about six and a half pounds. The head is larger in proportion to the body than in after life ; the nose is incomplete, the legs short and bowed, with a tendency to fall back upon the body with the knees flexed. This natural tendency should be allowed full play, for the flexed position is said to be favorable to the growth of the bones, permuting the cartilaginous ends of the bones to lie free from pressure at the joints. The plates of the skull are not complete and do not fit together at the edges. Great care needs to be taken of the soft spot thus left exposed on the top of the head — the undeveloped place where the edges of these bones come together. Any injury here in early life is liable to affect the mind. The bony enclosures of the middle ear r.re unfin- ished and the eyes also are unfinished. It is a ques- tion yet to be settled, whether a new-born baby is blind HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS. 5 and deaf or not. At any rate, he soon acquires a sensitiveness to both light and sound, although it is three years or more before he has amassed sufficient experience to estimate with accuracy the distance of objects seen or heard. He can cry, suck, sneeze, cough, kick, and hold on to a finger. All of these acts, though they do not yet imply personality, or even mind, give evidence of a wonderful organism. They require the co-operation of many delicate nerves and muscles — a co-operation that has as yet baffled the power of scientists to explain. Although the young baby is in almost constant motion while he is awake, he is altogether too weak to turn himself in bed or to escape from an uncomforta- ble position, and he remains so for many weeks. This constant motion is necessary to his muscular develop- ment, his control of his own muscles, his circulation, and, very probably, to the free transmission of nerv- ous energy. Therefore, it is of the first importance that he has freedom to move, and he should be given time every day to move and stretch before the fire, without clothes on. It is well to rub his back and legs at the same time, thus supplementing his gym- nastics with a gentle massage. By the time he is four or five weeks old it is safe to Educational play with him a little every day, and Froebel has made Beginnings his "Play with the Limbs" one c: his first educational exercises. In this play the mother lays the baby, un- dressed, upon a pillow and catches the little ankles in 6 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. her hands. Sometimes she prevents the baby from kicking, so that he has to struggle to get his legs free ; sometimes she helps him, so that he kicks more freely and regularly ; sometimes she lets him push hard against her breast. All the time she laughs and sings to him, and Froebel has made a little song for this purpose. Since consciousness is roused and deepened by sensations, remembered, experienced, and com- pared, it is evident that this is more than a fanciful play; that it is what Froebel claimed for it — a real educational exercise. By means of it the child may gain some consciousness of companionship, and thus, by contrast, a deeper self-consciousness. First The baby is at first unable to hold up its head, and in this he is just like all other animals, for no animal, except man, holds up its head constantly. The human baby apparently makes the effort because he desires to see more clearly — he could doubtless see clearly enough for all physical purposes with his head hung down, but not enough to satisfy his awakening men- tality. The effort to hold the head up and to look around is therefore regarded by most psychologists as one of the first tokens of an awakening intellectual life. And this is true, although the first effort seems to arise from an overplus of nervous energy which makes the neck muscles contract, just as it makes other muscles contract. The first slight raisings of the head are like the first kicking movements, merely im- pulsive ; but the child soon sees the advantage of this Efforts HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS. apparently accidental movement and tries to master it. Preyer* considers that the efforts to balance the head are among the first indications that the child's will is taking possession of his muscles. His own boy ar- rived at this point when he was between three and four months old. The grasp of the new-born baby's hand has a sur- prising power, but the baby himself has little to do with it. The muscles act because of a stimulus pre- sented by the touch of the fingers, very much as the muscles of a decapitated frog contract when the cur- rent of electricity passes over them. This is called reflex grasping, and Dr. Louis Robinson,f thinking that this early strength of grasp was an important illustration of and evidence for evolution, tried ex- periments on some sixty new-born babies. He found that they could sustain their whole weight by the arms alone when their hands were clasped about a slender rod. They grasped the rod at once and could be lifted from the bed by it and kept in this position about half a minute. He argued that this early strength of arm, which soon begins to disappear, was a sur- vival from the remote period when the baby's ances- tors were monkeys or monkey-like people who lived in trees. However this may be, during the first week the baby's hands are much about his face. By accident author *W. Preyer, Professor of Physiology, of Jena, "The Mind of the Child." D. Appleton & Co. tDr. Robinson, Physician and Evolutionist, paper Eclectic, Vol. 29. in of The Reflex Grasping Beginnings of Will Power of Will 8 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. they reach the mouth, they are sucked ; the child feels himself suck its own fist ; he feels his fist being sucked. Some day it will occur to- him that that fist belongs to the same being who owns the sucking mouth. But at this point, as Miss Shinn* has ob- served, the baby is often surprised and indignant that he cannot move his arms around and at the same time suck his fist. This discomfort helps him to make an effort to get his fist into his mouth and keep it there, and this effort shows his will beginning to take pos- session of his hands and arms. Growth Since any faculty grows by its own exercise, just as muscles grow by exercise, every time the baby suc- ceeds in getting his hands to his mouth as a result of desire, every time that he succeeds in grasping an object as a result of desire, his will power grows. Action of this nature brings in new sensations, and the brain centers used for recording such sensations grow. As the sensations multiply, he compares them, and an idea is born. For the beginnings of mental devel- opment no other mechanism is actually needed than a brain and a hand and the nerves connecting them. Laura Bridgeman and Helen Keller, both of them deaf and blind, received their education almost entirely through their hands, and yet they were unusually capa- ble of thinking. The child's hands, then, from the beginning, are the servants of his brain — instruments *Miss Millicent Shinn, American Psychologist, author of "Bi- ography of a Baby." HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS. by means of which he carries impressions from the outer world to the seat of consciousness, and by which in turn he imprints his consciousness upon the outer world. The average baby does not begin to grasp objects with intention before the fourth month. The first grasping seems to be done by feeling, without the aid of the eye, and is done with the fingers with no at- tempt to oppose the thumb to them. So closely does the use of the thumbs set opposite the fingers in grasping coincide with the first grasping with the aid of sight, that some observers have been led to be- lieve that as soon as the baby learns to use its thumb in this way he proves that he is beginning to grasp with intention. The order of development seems to> be, first, automa- tism, the muscles contracting of themselves in response to nervous stimuli ; second, instinct, the inherited wis- dom of the race, which discovered ages ago that the hand could be used to greater advantage when the thumb was separated from the fingers ; and thirdly, the child's own intelligence and will making use of this natural and inherited machinery. This order holds true of the development, not only of the hand, but of the whole organism. A little earlier than this, during the third month, the baby first looks upon his own hands and notices them. Darwin tells us that his boy looked at his own hands and seemed to study them until his eyes crossed. Intentional Grasping Order of Development Looking STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Tearing Throwing About the same time the child notices his foot and uses his hand to carry it to its mouth. It is some time later that he discovers that he can move his feet without his hands. About this time, three or four months old, the child begins to tear paper into pieces, and may be easily taught to let the pieces that have found their way into his mouth be taken out again. Now, too, he begins to throw things, or to drop them ; then he wants to get them back again, and the patient mother must pick them up and give them back many times. Sometimes a baby is punished for this proclivity, but it is really a part of his development, and at least once a day he should be allowed to play in this manner to his heart's content. It is tact, not discipline, that is needed, and the more he is helped the sooner he will live through this stage and come to the next point where he begins to throw things. In this stage, of course, he must be given the proper things to throw — small, bright-colored worsted balls, bean-bags, and other harmless objects. If he is allowed to discover the pleasure there is in smashing glass and china, he will certainly be, for a time, a very destructive little person. When later he is able to creep — to throw his ball and creep after it — he will amuse himself for hours at a time, and so relieve those who have patiently attended him up to this time. In general we may lay down the rule that the more time and attention of the right sort is given to a young HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS. n child, the less will need to be given as he grpzvs older. It is poor economy to neglect a young child, and try to make it up on the growing boy or girl. This is to substitute a complicated and difficult problem for a simple one. It is some time before a child's will can so overcome T he his newly-acquired tendency to grasp every possible iSSnc? object that he can keep his hands off of anything that invites him. The many battles between mothers and children on the subject of not touching forbidden things are at this stage a genuine wrong and injus- tice to the child. So young a child is scarcely more responsible for touching whatever he can reach than is a piece of steel for being drawn toward a powerful magnet. Preyer says that it is years before voluntary inhibitions of grasping become possible. The child has not the necessary brain machinery. Commands and spatting of the hands create bewilderment and tend to build up a barrier between mother and child. Instead of doing such things, simply put high out of reach and sight whatever the child must not touch. Another way in which young children are often made to suffer because of the ignorance of parents is the leaving of undesired food on the child's plate. Every child, when he does not want his food, pushes the plate away from him, and many mothers push it back and scold. The real truth is that the motor sug- gestion of the food upon the plate is so strong that the child feels as if he were being forced to eat it 12 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. The Three Months' Baby Danger of Forcing Creeping every time he looks at the plate ; to escape from eating it he is obliged to push it out of sight. But this difficulty comes later. Now we are con- cerned with a three-months-old baby. At this stage the child is usually able to balance his head, to sit up against pillows, to seize and grasp objects, and to hold out his arms when he wishes to be taken. Al- though he may have made a number of efforts to sit erect, and may have succeeded for a few minutes at a time, he still is far from being able to sit alone, unsup- ported. This he does not accomplish until the fifth or sixth month. There is nothing to be gained by trying to make him sit alone sooner; indeed, there is danger in it — danger in forcing young bones and muscles to do work beyond their strength, and danger also to the nerves. It is safe to say that a normal child always exercises all its faculties to the utmost without need of urging, and any exercise beyond the point of natural fatigue, if persisted in, is sure to bring about abnormal results. The first efforts toward creeping often appear in the bath when the child turns over and raises himself upon his hands and knees. This is a sign that he might creep sooner, if he were not impeded by cloth- ing. He should be allowed to spread himself upon a blanket every day for an hour or two, and to get on his knees as frequently as he pleases. Often he needs a little help to make him creep forward, for most HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS. 13 babies creep backward at first, their arms being stronger than their legs. Here the mother may safely interfere, pushing the legs as they ought to go and showing the child how to manage himself; for very often he becomes much excited over his inability to creep forward. The climbing instinct begins to appear by this time climbing — the seventh month — and here the stair-case has its great advantage. It ought not to be shut from him by a gate, but he should be taught how to climb up and down it in safety. To do this, start him at the head of the stairs, and, you yourself being below him, draw first one knee and then the other over the step, thus showing him how to creep backward. Two les- sons of about twenty minutes each will be sufficient. The only danger is in creeping down head foremost, but if he once learns thoroughly to go backward, and has not been allowed the other way at all, he will never dream of trying it. In going down backward, if he should slip, he can easily save himself by catching the stairs with his hands as he slips past. The child who creeps is often later in his attempts to walk than the child who does not ; and, therefore, when he is ready to walk, his legs will be all the stronger, and the danger of bow-legs will be past. As long as the child remains satisfied with creeping, he is not yet ready either mentally or physically for walking. u STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Standing Walking Alternate Growth If the child has been allowed to creep about freely, he will soon be -standing. He will pull himself to his feet by means of any chair, table, or indeed anything that he may get hold of. To avoid injuring him, no flimsy chairs or spindle-legged tables should be allowed in his nursery. He will next begin to sidle around a chair, shuffling his feet in a vague fashion, and some- times, needing both of his hands to seize some coveted object, he will stand without clinging, leaning on his stomach. An unhurried child may remain at this stage for weeks. Let alone, as he should be, he will walk without knowing how he does it, and will be the stronger for having overcome his difficulties himself. He should not be coaxed to stand or walk. The things in his room actually urge him to come and get them. Any further persuasion is forced, and may urge him be- yond his strength. Walking-chairs and baby- jumpers are injurious in this respect. They keep the child from his native free- dom of sprawling, climbing, and pulling himself up. The activity they do permit is less varied and helpful than the normal activity, and the child, restricted from the preparatory motions, begins to walk too soon. A curious fact in the growth of children is that they seem to grow heavier for a certain period, and then to grow taller for a similar period.. That is, a very young baby, say, two months old, will grow fatter for about six weeks, and then for the next six weeks will HOW THE CHILD DEVELOPS. 15 grow longer, while the child of six years changes his manner of growth every three or four months. These periods are variable, or at least their law has not yet been established, but the observant mother can soon make the period out for herself in the case of her own child. For two or three days, when the manner of growth seems to be changing from breadth to length, and vice versa, the children are likely to be unusually nervous and irritable, and these aberrations must, of course, be patiently borne with. In all these things some children develop earlier than others, but too early development is to be re- gretted. Precocious children are always of a delicate nervous organization. Fiske* has proved to us that the reason why the human young is so far more help- less and dependent than the young of any other species is because the activities of the human race have be- come so many, so widely varied, and so complex, that they could not fix themselves in the nervous struc- ture before birth. There are only a few things that the chick needs to know in order to lead a successful chicken life ; as a consequence these few things are well impressed upon the small brain before ever he chips the shell ; but the baby needs to learn a great many things — so many that there is no time or room to* implant them before birth, or, indeed, in the few years immediately succeeding birth. To hurry the Precocity *John Fiske, writer on Evolutionary Philosophy. His theory of infancy is perhaps his most important contribution to science. i6 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Early Ripening Ample Opportunity for Growth development, therefore, of certain few of these facul- ties, like the faculties of talking, and walking, of imitation or response, is to crowd out many other fac- ulties perhaps just beginning to grow. Such forcing will limit the child's future development to the few faculties whose growth is thus early stimulated. Pre- cocity in a child, therefore, is a thing to be deplored. His early ripening foretells an early decay; and a wise mother is she who gives her child ample opportu- nity for growing, but no urging. Ample opportunity for growth includes (i) Whole- some surroundings, (2) Sufficient sleep, (3) Proper clothing, (4) Nourishing food. We will take up these topics in order. WHOLESOME SURROUNDINGS. The whole house in which the child lives ought to be well warmed and equally well aired. Sunlight also is necessary to his well-being. If it is impossible to have this in every room, as sometimes happens in city homes, at least the nursery must have it. In the cen- tral States of the Union plants and trees exposed to the southern sun put forth their leaves two weeks sooner than those exposed to the north. The infant cannot fail to profit by the same condition, for the young child may be said to lead in part a vegetative as well as an animal life , and to need air and sunshine and warmth as much as plants do. The very best room in the house is not too good for the nursery, for in ' v >-• % P(K^ * I JOHN FISKE i8 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Tempera- ture Fresh Air Daily Outing no other room is such important and delicate work being done. The temperature is a matter of importance. It should not be decided by guess-work, but a ther- mometer should be hung upon a wall at a place equally removed from draft and from the source of heat. The temperature for children during the first year should be about 70 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and not lower than 50 degrees at night. Children who sleep with the mother will not be injured by a temperature 5 to 20 degrees lower at night. It is important to provide means for the ingress of fresh air. It is not sufficient to air the room from another room, unless that other room has in it an open window. Even then the nursery windows should be opened wide from fifteen minutes to half an hour night and morning, while the child is in another room ; and this even when the weather is at zero or below. It does not take long to warm up a room that has been aired. Perhaps the best means of obtaining the ingress of fresh air without creating a draft upon the floor, where the baby spends so much of his time, is to raise the window six inches at the top or bot- tom and insert a board cut to fit the aperture. But no matter how well ventilated the nursery may be, all children more than six weeks old need unmodi- fied outside air, and need it every day, no matter what the weather, unless they are sick. SLEEP. 19 The daily outing secures them better appetites, quiet sleep, and calmer nerves. Let them be properly clothed and protected in their carriages, and all weathers are good for them. Children who take their naps in their baby-carriages may with advantage be wheeled into a sheltered spot, covered warmly, and left to sleep in the outer air. They are likely to sleep longer than in the house, and find more refreshment in their sleep. STTFFICIENT SLEEP. Few children in America get as much sleep as they really need. Preyer gives the record of his own child, and the hours which this child found necessary for his sleep and growth may be taken for a standard. In the first month, sixteen, in full, out of twenty-four hours were spent in sleep. The sleep rarely lasted beyond two hours at a time. In the second month about the same amount was spent in sleep, which lasted from three to six hours at a time. . In the sixth month, it lasted from six to eight hours at a time, and began to diminish to fifteen hours in the twenty-four. In the thirteenth month, fourteen hours' sleep daily; in the seventeenth, prolonged sleep began, ten hours without interruption ; in the twentieth, prolonged sleep became habitual, and sleep in the day-time was re- duced to two hours. In the third year, the night sleep lasted regularly from eleven to twelve hours, and sleep in the daytime was no longer required. Naps 20 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Preyer's record stops here. But it may be added that children from three to eight years still require eleven hours' sleep ; and, although the child of three may not need a daily nap, it is well for him, until he is six years old, to lie still for an hour in the middle of the day, amusing himself with a picture book or paper and pencil, but not played with or talked to by any other person. Such a rest in the middle of the day favors the relaxation of muscles and nerves and breaks the strain of a long day of intense activity. PROPER CLOTHING. Proper clothing for a child includes three things : (a) Equal distribution of warmth, (b) Freedom from restraint, (c) Light weight. Equal distribution of warmth is of great impor- tance, and is seldom attained. The ordinary dress for a young baby, for example, leaves the arms and the upper part of the chest unprotected by more than one thickness of flannel and one of cotton — the shirt and the dress. About the child's middle, on the contrary, there are two thicknesses of flannel — a shirt and band — and five of cotton, i. e., the double bands of the white and flannel petticoats, and the dress. Over the legs, again, are two thicknesses of flannel and two of cotton, i. e., the pinning blanket, flannel skirt, white skirt, and dress. The child in a comfortably warm house needs two thicknesses of flannel and one of cot- ton all over it, and no more, CLOTHING. 21 The practice of putting extra wrappings about the abdomen is responsible for undue tenderness of those organs. Dr. Grosvenor, of Chicago, who designed a model costume for a baby, which he called the Ger- trude suit, says that many cases of rupture are due to bandaging of the abdomen. When the child cries the abdominal walls normally expand ; if they are tightly bound, they cannot do this, and the pressure upon one single part, which the bandages may not hold quite firmly, becomes overwhelming, and results in rupture. Dr. Grosvenor also thinks that many cases of weak lungs, and even of consumption in later life, are due to the tight bands of the skirts pressing upon the soft ribs of the young child, and narrowing the lun< space. Freedom from restraint. Not only should the clothes not bind the child's body in any way, but they should not be so long as to prevent free exercise of the legs. The pinning-blanket is objectionable on this account. I* is difficult for the child to kick in it ; and as we nave seen before, kicking is necessary to the proper development of the legs. Undue length of skirt operates in the same way — the weight of cloth is a check upon activity. The first garment of a young baby should not be more than a yard in length from the neck to the bottom of the hem, and three-quarters of a yard is enough for the inner garment. The sleeves, too, should be large and loose, and the arm-size should be roomy, so as to prevent chafing. The Gertrude Suit Objection to the Pinning Blanket 22 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. The sleeves may be tied in at the wrist with a ribbon to insure warmth. Lightness of weight. The underclothing should be made of pure wool, so as to gain the greatest amount of warmth from the least weight. In the few cases where wool would cause irritation, a silk and wool mixture makes a softer but more expensive garment. Under the best conditions, clothes restrict and impede free development somewhat, and the heavier they are the more they impede it. Therefore, the effort should be to get the greatest amount of warmth with the least possible weight. Knit garments attain this most per- fectly, but the next best thing is all-wool flannel of a fine grade. The weave known as stockinet is best of all, because goods thus made cling to the body and yet restrict its activity very little. The best garments for a baby are made according to the accompanying diagram . Princess They consist of three garments, to be worn one over the other, each one an inch longer in every way than the underlying one. The first is a princess gar- ment, made of white stockinet, which takes the place of shirt, pinning-blanket, and band. Before cutting this out, a box-pleat an inch and a half wide should be laid down the middle of the front, and a side pleat three-fourths of an inch wide on either side of the placket in the back. The sleeve should have a tuck an inch wide. These tucks and pleats are better run in by hand, so that they may be easily ripped. As the Garment CLOTHING. 23 baby grows and the flannel shrinks, these tucks and pleats can be let out. The next garment, which goes over this, is made in DIAGRAM OF THE "GERTRUDE" SUIT. the same way, only an inch larger in every measure- ment. It is made of baby flannel, and takes the place 24 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. of the flannel petticoat with its cotton band. Over these two garments any ordinary dress may be worn. Dressed in this suit, the child is evenly covered with two thicknesses of flannel and one of cotton. As the skirts are rather short, however, and he is expected to move his legs about freely, he may well wear long white wool stockings. As the child grows older, the principles underlying this method of clothing should be borne in mind, and clothes should be designed and adapted so as to meet these three requirements. FOOD. Natural The natural food of a young baby is his mother's milk, and no satisfactory substitute for it has yet been found. Some manufactured baby foods do well for certain children ; to others they are almost poison ; and for none of them are they sufficient. The milk of the cow is not designed for the human infant. It contains too much casein, and is too difficult of diges- tion. Various preparations of milk and grains are rec- ommended by nurses and physicians, but no conscien- tious nurse or physician pretends that any of them begins to equal the nutritive value of human milk. More women can nurse their babies than now think they can ; the advertisements of patent foods lead them to think the matter of little importance, and they do not make the necessary effort to preserve and increase the natural supply of milk. The family phy- Food FOOD. ~'5 sician can almost always better the condition of the mother who reaHy desires to nurse her own child, and he should be consulted and his directions obeyed. The importance of a really great effort in this direction is shown by the fact that the physical culture records, now so carefully kept in many of our schools and col- leges, prove that bottle-fed babies are more likely to be of small stature, and to have deficient bones, teeth and hair, than children who have been fed on mother's milk. The food question is undoubtedly the most impor- tant problem to the physical welfare of the child, and has, as well, a most profound effect upon his disposi- tion and character. Indiscriminate feeding is the cause of much of the trouble and worry of mothers. This subject is taken up at length in other papers of this course, and it will suffice to say here that the table o£ the family with young children should be regulated largely by the needs of the growing sons and daugh- ters. The simplified diet necessary may well be of benefit to other members of the family. Bottle-fed Babies Simple Diet FAULTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. The Child's World and the Adult's World The child born of perfect parents, brought up per- fectly, in a perfect environment, would probably have no faults. Even such a child, however, would be at times inconvenient, and would do and say things at variance with the order of the adult world. Therefore lie might seem to a hasty, prejudiced observer to be naughty. And, indeed, imperfectly born, imperfectly trained as children now are, many of their so-called faults are no more than such inconvenient crossings of an immature will with an adult will. No grown person, for instance, likes to be inter- rupted, and is likely to regard the child who inter- rupts him wilfully naughty. No young child, on the contrary, objects to being interrupted in his speech, though he may object to being interrupted in his play; and he cannot understand why an adult should set so much store on the quiet listening which is so infre- quent in his own experience. Grown persons object to noise ; children delight in it. Grown persons like to have things kept in their places ; to a child, one place is as good as another. Grown persons have a preju- dice in favor of cleanliness ; children like to swim, but hate to wash, and have no> objections whatever to grimy hands and faces. None of these things imply the least degree of obliquity on the child's part ; and yet it is safe to say that nine-tenths of the children JEAN PAUL RICHTER 28 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Real Faults Training the Will who are punished are punished for some of these things. The remedy for these inconveniences is time and patience. The child, if left to himself, without a word of admonishment, would probably change his conduct in these respects, merely by the force of imi- tation, provided that the adults around him set him a persistent example of courtesy, gentleness, and clean- liness. The faults that are real faults, as Richter* says, are those faults which increase with age. These it is that need attention rather than those that disappear of themselves as the child grows older. This rule ought to be put in large letters, that every one who has to train children may be daily reminded by it ; and not exercise his soul and spend his force in trying to over- come little things which may perhaps be objectionable, but which will vanish to-morrow. Concentrate your energies on the overcoming of such tendencies as may in time develop into permanent evils. To accomplish this, you must, of course, train the child's own will, because no one can force another person into virtue against his will. The chief object of all training is, as we shall see in the next section, to lead the child to love righteousness, to prefer right doing to wrong doing; to make right doing a perma- nent desire. Therefore, in all the procedures about *Jean Paul Richter, "Der einsige." German writer and philosopher. His rather whimsical and fragmentary book on education, called "Levana," contains some rare scraps of wis- dom much used by later writers on educational topics. FAULTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 29 to be suggested, an effort is made to convince the child of the ugliness and painfulness of wrong doing. Punishment, as Herbert Spencer* agrees with Froe- belf in pointing out, should be as nearly as possible a representation of the natural result of the child's action ; that is, the fault should be made to punish itself as much as possible without the interference of any outside person; for the object is not to make the child bend his will to the will of another, but to make him see the fault itself as an undesirable thing. The effort to break the child's will has long been recognized as disastrous by all educators. A broken will is a worse misfortune than a broken back. In the latter case the man is physically crippled ; in the former, he is morally crippled. It is only a strong, unbroken, persistent will that is adequate to achieve self-mastery, and mastery of the difficulties of life. The child who is too yielding and obedient in his early days is only too likely to be weak and incompetent in his later days. The habit of submission to a more mature judgment is a bad habit to insist upon. The child should be encouraged to think out things for himself; to experiment and discover for himself why his ideas do not work ; and to refuse to give them up until he is genuinely convinced of their impractica- bility. His *Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher and Scientist, book on "Education" is sound and practical. fFreidrich Froebel, German Philosopher and Educator, founder of the Kindergarten system, and inaugurator of the new education. His two great books are "The Education of Man" and "The Mother Play." Natural Punishment Breaking the Will 30 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Emergencies Disobedience It is true that there are emergencies in which his immature judgment and undisciplined will must yield to wiser judgment and steadier will; but such yield- ing should not be suffered to become habitual. It is a safety valve merely, to be employed only when the pressure of circumstances threatens to become danger- ous. An engine whose safety valve should be always in operation could never generate much power. Nor is there much difficulty in leading even a very strong- willed and obstinate child to give up his own way under extraordinary circumstances. If he is not in the habit of setting up his own will against that of his mother or teacher, he will not set it up when the quick, unfamiliar word of command seems to> fit in with the unusual circumstances. Many parents practice cry- ing "Wolf! wolf!" to their children, and call the practice a drill of self-control ; but they meet inevitably with the familiar consequences : when the real wolf comes the hackneyed cry, often proved false, is dis- regarded. When the will is rightly trained, disobedience is a fault that rarely appears, because, of course, where obedience is seldom required, it is seldom refused. The child needs to obey — that is true ; but so does his mother need to obey, and all other persons about him. They all need to obey God, to obey the laws of nature, the impulses of kindness, and to follow after the ways of wisdom. Where such obedience is a set- tled habit of the entire household, it easily, and, as HERBERT SPENCER 32 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. it were, unconsciously, becomes the habit of the child. Where such obedience is not the habit of the house- hold, it is only with great difficulty that it can become the habit of the child. His will must set itself against its instinct of imitativeness, and his small house, not yet quite built, must be divided against itself. Probably no* child ever rendered entire obe- dience to any adult who did not himself • hold his own wishes in subjection. As Emerson says: "In dealing with my child, my Latin and my Greek, my accomplishments and my money, stead me nothing, but as much soul as I have avails. If I am willful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength. But, if I renounce my will and act for the soul, setting that up as an umpire between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul ; he reveres and loves with me." Negative Suppose the child to be brought to such a stage Goodness ^^ ^ - g w iHi n g to ^ Q anything his father or moth- er says ; suppose, even, that they never tell him to do anything that he does not afterwards discover to be reasonable and just; still, what has he gained? For twenty years he has not had the respon- sibility for a single action, for a single decision, right or wrong. What is permitted is right to him ; what is forbidden is wrong. When he goes out into the world without his parents, what will happen? At the best he will not lie, or steal, or commit murder. That Real FAULTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 33 Is, he will do none of these things in their bald and simple form. But in their beginnings these are hidden under a mask of virtue and he has never been trained to look beneath that mask ; as happened to Richard Feveril/ sin may spring upon him unaware. Some one else, all his life, has labeled things for him ; he is not in the habit of judging for himself. He is blind, deaf, and helpless — a plaything of circumstances. It is a chance whether he falls into sin or remains blameless. Disobedience, then, in a true sense, does not mean failure to do as he is told to do. It means failure to disobedience do the things that he knows to be right. He must be taught to listen and obey the voice of his own con- science ; and if that voice should ever speak, as it sometimes does, differently from the voice of the con- science of his parents or teachers, its dictates must still be respected by these older and wiser persons, and he must be permitted to do this thing which in itself may be foolish, but which is not foolish to him. And, on the other hand, the child who will have his Liberty own way even when he knows it to be wrong should be allowed to have it within reasonable limits. Richter says, leave to him the sorry victory, only exercising suf- ficient ingenuity to make sure that it is a sorry one. What he must be taught is that it is not at all a pleasure to have his own way, unless his own way happens to be right ; and this he can only be taught by having his own way when the results are plainly disastrous. Every time *"The Ordeal of Richard Feveril," by George Meredith. 34 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. that a willful child does what he wants to do, and suffers sharply for it, he learns a lesson that nothing but this experience can teach him. self- But his suffering must be plainly seen to be the re- Pu ment su ^ °* ms deed, and not the result of his mother's anger. For example, a very young child who is deter- mined to play with fire may be allowed to touch the hot lamp or a stove, whenever affairs can be so ar- ranged that he is not likely to burn himself too se- verely. One such lesson is worth all the hand-spat- tings and cries of "No, no I" ever resorted to by anxious parents. If he pulls down the blocks that you have built up for him, they should stay down, while you get out of the room, if possible, in order to evade all responsibility for that unpleasant result. Prohibitions are almost useless. In order to con- vince yourself of this, get some one to command you not to move your right arm, or to wink your eye. You will find it almost impossible to obey for even a few moments. The desire to move your arm, which was not at all conscious before, will become overpowering. The prohibition acts like a suggestion, and is an impli- cation that you would do the negative act unless you were commanded not to. Miss Alcott, in "Little Men," well illustrates this fact in the story of the children who were told not to put beans up their noses, and who straightway filled their noses with beans. As we shall see in the next section, Froebel meets this difficulty by substituting positive commands for FAULTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 35 prohibitions ; that is, he tells the child to do instead of telling him not to> do. Tiedemann* says that example is the first great evolutionary teacher, and liberty is the second. In the overcoming of disobedience, no other teachers are needed. The method may be tedious ; it may be many years before the erratic will is finally led to work in orderly channels ; but there is no> possibility of abridging the process. There is no short and sudden cure for disobedience, and the only hope for final cure is the steady working of these two- great forces, example and liberty. To illustrate the principles already indicated, we will consider some specific problems together with sug- gestive treatment for each. QUICK TEMPER. This, as well as irritability and nervousness, very often springs from a wrong physical condition. The digestion may be bad, or the child may be overstim- ulated. He may not be sleeping enough, or may not get enough outdoor air and exercise. In some cases the fault appears because the child lacks the discipline of young companionship. Even the most exemplary adult cannot make up to the child for the influence of other children. He perceives the difference between himself and these giants about him, and the percep- tion sometimes makes him furious. His struggling individuality finds it difficult to maintain itself under the pressure of so many stronger personalities. He Positive Commands Cause of Temper *Tiedemann, German Psychologist. 36 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. makes, therefore, spasmodic and violent attempts of self-assertion, and these attempts go under the name of fits of temper. The child who is not ordinarily strong enough to assert himself effectively will work himself up into a passion in order to gain strength, much as men some- times stimulate their ccurage by liquor. In fact, pas- sion is a sort of moral intoxication. Remedy— But whether the fits of passion are physical or and QiTiet moral, the immediate remedy is the same — his environ- ment must be promptly changed and his audience re- moved. He needs solitude and quiet. This does not mean shutting him into a closet, but leaving him alone in a quiet room, with plenty of pleasant things about. This gives an opportunity for the disturbed organism to right itself, and for the will to recover its normal tone. Some occupation should be at hand — blocks or other toys, if he is too young to read ; a good book or two, such as Miss Alcott's "Little Men" and "Little Women," when he is old enough to> read. If he is destructive in his passion, he must be put in a room where there are very few breakables to tempt him. If he does break anything he must be required to help mend it again. To shout a threat to this effect through the door when the storm of temper is still on, is only to goad him into fresh acts of re- bellion. Let him alone while he is in this temporarily insane state, and later, when he is sorry and wants to be good, help him to repair the mischief he has QUICK TEMPER. 37 wrought. It is as foolish to argue with or to threaten the child in this state as it would be were he a patient in a lunatic asylum. It is sometimes impossible to get an older child to go into retreat. Then, since he cannot be carried, and he is not open to remonstrance or commands, go out of the room yourself and leave him alone there. At any cost, loneliness and quiet must be brought to bear upon him. Such outbursts are exceedingly exhausting, using up in a few minutes as much energy as would suf- fice for many days of ordinary activity. After the attack the child needs rest, even sleep, and usually seeks it himself. The desire should be encouraged. Every reasonable precaution should be taken against Precautions the recurrence of the attacks, for every lapse into' this excited state makes more certain the next ■ lapse and weakens the nervous control. This does not mean that you should give up any necessary or right regu- lations for fear of the child's temper. If the child sees that you do this, he will on occasion deliberately work himself up into a passion in order to get his own way. But while you do not relax any just regu- lations, you may safely help him to meet them. Give him warning. For instance, do not spring any dis- agreeable commands upon him. Have his duties as systematized as possible so that he may know what to expect ; and do not under any circumstances nag him nor allow other children to tease him. to be Taken 38 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. SULLENNESS. This fault likewise often has a physical cause, seated very frequently in the liver. See that the child's food is not too heavy. Give him much fruit, and in- sist upon vigorous exercise out of doors. Or he may perhaps not have enough childish pleasures. For while most children are overstimulated, there still remain some children whose lives are unduly color- less and eventless. A sullen child is below the normal level of responsiveness. He needs to be roused, wak- ened, lifted out of himself, and made to take an active interest in other persons and in the outside world inheritance In many cases sullenness is an inherited disposition Example intensified by example. It is unchildlike and morbid to an unusual degree and very difficult to cure. The mother of a sullen child may well look to her own conduct and examine with a searching eye the pecu- liarities of her own family and of her husband's. She may then find the cause of the evil, and by removing the child from the bad example and seeing to it that every day contains a number of childish pleasures, she may win him away from a fault that will other- wise cloud his whole life. LYING. All lies are not bad, nor all liars immoral. A young child who cannot yet understand the obligations of truthfulness cannot be held morally accountable for his departure from truth. Lying is of three kinds. LYING. 39 (i.) The imaginative lie. (2.) The evasive lie. (3.) The politic lie. (1.) It is rather hard to call the imaginative lie a lie at all. It is so closely related to the creative in- stinct which makes the poet and novelist and which, common among the peasantry of a nation, is respon- sible for folk-lore and mythology, that it is rather an intellectual activity misdirected than a moral obliquity. Very imaginative children often do not know the dif- ference between what they imagine and what they act- ually see. Their mind's eye sees as vividly as their bodily eye ; and therefore they even believe their own statements. Every attempt at contradiction only brings about a fresh assertion of the impossible, which to the child becomes more and more certain as he hears him- self affirming its existence. Punishment is of no use at all in the attempt to regulate this exuberance. The child's large statements should be smiled at and passed over. In the meantime, he should be encouraged in every possible way to get a firm grasp of the actual world about him. Manual training, if it can be obtained, is of the greatest ad- vantage, and for a very young child, the performance every day of some little act, which demands accuracy and close attention, is necessary. For the rest, wait; this is one of the faults that disappear with age. (2.) The lie of evasion is a form of lying which seldom appears when the relations between child and parents are absolutely friendly and open. However, Imaginative "Lying" The Lie of Evasion 40 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. the child who is very desirous of approval may find it difficult to own up to a fault, even when he is cer- tain that the consequence of his offense will not be at all terrible. This is the more difficult, because the more subtle condition. It is obvious that the child who lies merely to avoid punishment can be cured of that fault by removing from him the fear of punish- ment. To this end, he should be informed that there will be no punishment whatever for any fault that he freely confesses. For the chief object of punishment being to make him face his own fault and to see it as something ugly and disagreeable, that object is ob- viously accomplished by a free and open confession, and no further punishment is required. But when the child in spite of such reassurance still continues to lie, both because he cannot bear to have you think him capable of wrong-doing, and be- cause he is not willing to acknowledge to himself that he is capable of wrong-doing, the situation becomes more complex. All you can do is to urge upon him the superior beauty of frankness ; to praise him and love him, especially when he does acknowledge a fault, thus leading him to see that the way to win your ap- proval — that approval which he desires so intensely — is tO' face his own shortcomings with a steady eye and confess them to you unshrinkingly. The Pontic (3.) The politic lie is of course the worst form of lying, partly because it is so unchildlike. This is the kind of fault that will grow with age ; and grow Lie LYING. 41 with such rapidity that the mother must set herself against it with all the force at her command. The child who lies for policy's sake, in order to achieve some end which is most easily achieved by lying, is a child led into wrong-doing by his ardent desire to get something or do something. Discover what this some- thing is, and help him to get it by more legitimate means. If you point out the straight path, and show the goal well in view at the end of it, he may be per- suaded not to take the crooked path. But there are occasionally natures that delight in crookedness and that even in early childhood. They would rather go about getting their heart's desire in some crooked, intricate, underhanded way than by the direct route. Such a fault is almost certain to be an inherited one ; and here again, a close study of the child's relatives will often help the mother to make a good diagnosis, and even suggest to her the line of treatment. In an extreme case, the family may unite in dis- believing the child who lies, not merely disbelieving him when he is lying, but disbelieving him all the time, no matter what he says. He must be made to see, and that without room for any further doubt, that the crooked paths that he loves do not lead to the goal his heart desires, but away from it. His words, not being true to the facts, have lost their value, and no one around him listens to them. He is, as it were, rendered speechless, and his favorite means of getting Inherited Crookedness Extreme Cases 42 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. his own way is thus made utterly valueless. Such a remedy is in truth a terrible one. While it is being administered, the child suffers to the limit of his en- durance ; and it is only justified in an exertme case ; and after the failure of all gentler means. JEALOUSY. Too often this deadly evil is encouraged in infancy, instead of being promptly uprooted as it ought to be. It is very amusing, if one does not consider. the con- sequences, to see a little child slap and push away the father or the older brother, who attempts to kiss the mother ; but this is another fault that grows with years, and a fault so deadly that once firmly rooted it can utterly destroy the beauty and happiness of an otherwise lovely nature. The first step toward over- coming it must be to make the reign of strict justice justice j n f-] ie home so obvious as to remove all excuse for the and Love ev }i_ 'phe second step is to encourage the child's love for those very persons of whom he is most likely to be jealous. If he is jealous of the baby, give him spe- cial care of the baby. Jealousy indicates a tempera- ment overbalanced emotionally ; therefore, put your force upon the upbuilding of the child's intellect. Give him responsibilities, make him think out things for himself. Call upon him to assist in the family con- claves. In every way cultivate his power of judg- ment. The whole object of the treatment should be JEALOUSY. 43 to strengthen his intellect and to accustom his emo- tions to find outlet in wholesome, helpful activity. One wise mother made it a rule to pet the next to the baby. The baby, she said, was bound to be petted a good deal because of its helplessness and sweetness, therefore she made a conscious effort to pet the next to the youngest, the one who had just been crowded out of the warm nest of mother's lap by the advent of the newcomer. Such a rule would go far to prevent the beginnings of jealousy. SELFISHNESS. This is a fault to which strong-willed children are especially liable. The first exercise of will-power af- ter it has passed the stage of taking possession of the child's own organism usually brings him into con- flict with those about him. To succeed in getting hold of a thing against the wish of someone else, and to hold on to it when someone else wants it, is to win a victory. The coveted object becomes dear, not so much for its own sake, as because it is a trophy. Such a child knows not the joy of sharing; he knows only the joys of wresting victory against odds. This is in- deed an evil that grows with the years. The child who holds onto his apple, his candy, or toy, fights tooth and nail everyone who wants to take it from him, and resists all coaxing, is liable to become a hard, sordid, grasping man, who stops at no obstacle to ac- complish his purpose. 44 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. The Only- Child Kindergarten a Remedy Yet in the beginning, this fault often hides itself and escapes attention. The selfish child may be quiet, clean, and under ordinary circumstances, obedient. He may not even be quarrelsome ; and may therefore come under a much less degree of discipline than his ob- streperous, impulsive, rebellious little brother. Yet, in reality, his condition calls for much more careful attention than does the condition of the younger brother. However, the child who has no brother at all, either older or younger, nor any sister, is almost invited by the fact of his isolation to fall into this sin. Only children may be — indeed, often are — precocious, bright, capable, and well-mannered, but they are sel- dom spontaneously generous. Their own small selves occupy an undue proportion of the family horizon, and therefore of their own. This is where the Kindergarten has its great value. In the true Kindergarten the children live under a dispensation of loving justice, and selfishness betrays itself instantly there, because it is alien to the whole spirit of the place. Showing itself, it is promptly condemned, and the child stands convicted by the only tribunal whose verdict really moves him — a jury of his peers. Normal children hate selfishness and con- demn it, and the selfish child himself, following the strong, childish impulse of imitation, learns to hate his own fault ; and so quick is the forgiveness of chil- SELFISHNESS. 45 dren that he needs only to begin to repent before the circle of his mates receives him again. This is one reason why the Kindergarten takes chil- dren at such an early age. Aiming, as it does, to lay the foundations for right thinking and feeling, it must begin before wrong foundations are too deeply laid. Its gentle, searching methods straighten the strong will that is growing crooked, and strengthen the en- feebled one. But if the selfish child is too old for the Kindergar- ten, he should belong to a club. Consistent selfishness will not long be tolerated here. The tacit or outspoken rebuke of his mates has many times the force of a domestic rebuke; because thereby he sees himself, at least for a time, as his comrades see him, and never thereafter entirely loses his suspicion that they may be right. Their individual judgment he may defy, but their collective judgment has in it an almost magi- cal power, and convinces him in spite of himself. Whatever strong affections the selfish boy shows must be carefully cultivated. Love for another is the only sure cure for selfishness. If he loves animals, let him have pets, and give into his hands the whole re- sponsibility for the care of them. It is better to let the poor animals suffer some neglect, than to take away from the boy the responsibility for their condi- tion. They serve him only so far as he can be in- duced to serve them. The chief rule for the cure of selfishness is, then, to watch every affection, small and Intimate Association a Help Cultivate Affections 46 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. large, encourage it, give it room to grow, and see to it that the child does not merely get delight out of it, but that he works for it, that he sacrifices himself for those whom he loves. The Physical Cause Laziness and Rapid Growth LAZINESS. This condition is often normal, especially during adolescence. The developing boy or girl wants to lop and to lounge, to lie sprawled over the floor or the sofa. Quick movement is distasteful to him, and often has an undue effect upon the heart's action. He is normally dreamy, languid, indifferent, and subject to various moods. These things are merely tokens of the tremendous change that is going on within his organism, and which heavily drains his vitality. Cer- tain duties may, of course, be required of him at this stage, but they should be light and steady. He should not be expected to fill up chinks and run errands with joyful alacrity. The six- or eight-year-old may be called upon for these things, and not be harmed, but this is not true of the child between twelve and sev- enteen. He has absorbing business on hand and should not be too often called away from it. Laziness ordinarily accompanies rapid growth of any kind. The unusually large child, even if he has not yet reached the period of adolescence, is likely to be lazy. His nervous energies are deflected to keep up his growth, and his intelligence is often temporarily dulled by the rapidity of his increase in size. LAZINESS. 47 Moreover, it is not natural for any child to hurry. Hurry is in itself both a result of nervous strain and a cause of it ; and grown people whose nerves have been permanently wrenched away from normal quietude and steadiness, often form a habit of hurry which makes them both unfriendly toward children and very bad for children. These young creatures ought to go along through their days rather dreamily and alto- gether serenely. Every turn of the screw to tighten their nerves makes more certain some form of early nervous breakdown. They ought to have work to do, of course, — enough of it to occupy both mind and body — but it should be quiet, systematic, regular work, much of it performed almost automatically. Only occasion- ally should they be required to do things with a con- scious effort to attain speed. However, there is a degree of laziness difficult of definition which is abnormal ; the child fails to per- form any work with regularity, and falls behind both at school and at home. This may be the result of (i) poor assimilation, (2) of anaemia, or it may be (3) the first symptom of some disease. (1.) Poor assimilation may show itself either by (a) thinness and lack of appetite; (b) fat and ab- normal appetite; (c) retarded growth; or (d) irreg- ular and poorly made teeth and weak bones. (2.) Anaemia betrays itself most characteristically by the color of the lips and gums. These, instead of being red, are a pale yellowish pink, and the whole Hurry Not Natural Abnormal, Laziness Anaemia 48 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. complexion has a sort of waxy pallor. In extreme cases this pallor even becomes greenish. As the dis- ease is accompanied with little pain, and few if any marked symptoms, beyond sleepiness and weakness, it often exists for some time without being suspected by the parents. (3.) The advent of many other diseases is an- nounced by a languid indifference to surroundings, and a slow response to the customary stimuli. The child's brain seems clouded, and a light form of torpor in- vades the whole body. The child, who is usually active and interested in things about him, but who loses his activity and becomes dull and irresponsive, should be carefully watched. It may be that he is merely chang- ing his form of growth — *. e., is beginning to grow tall after completion of his period of laying on flesh, or vice versa. Or he may be entering upon the period of adolescence. But if it is neither of these things, a physician should be consulted. Monotony A milder degree of laziness may be induced by a too monotonous round of duties. Try changing them. Make them as attractive as possible. For, of course, you do not require him to perform these duties for your sake, whatever you allow him to suppose about it, but chiefly for the sake of their influence on his character. Therefore, if the influence of any work is bad, you will change it, although the new work may not be nearly so much what you prefer to have him do. Whatever the work is, if it is only emptying LAZINESS. 49 waste-baskets, don't nag him, merely expect him to do it, and expect it steadily. In their earlier years all children love to help mother. They like any piece of real work even better than play. If this love of activity was properly encour- aged, if the mother permitted the child to help, even when he succeeded only in hindering, he might well become one of those fortunate persons who love to work. This is the real time for preventing laziness. But if this early period has been missed, the next best thing is to take advantage of every spontaneous in- terest as it arises ; to hitch the impulse, as it were, to some task that must be steadily performed. For ex- ample, if the child wants to play with tools, help him to make a small water-wheel, or any other interest- ing contrivance, and keep him at it by various devices until he has brought it to a fair degree of comple- tion. Your aim is to stretch his will each time he at- tempts to do something a little further than it tends to go of itself ; to let him work a little past his first impulse, so that he may learn by degrees to work when work is needed, and not only when he feels like it. Helping UNTIDINESS. Essentially a fault of immaturity as this is, we must beware how we measure it by a too severe adult standard. It is not natural for any young creature to take an interest in cleanliness. Even the young ani- mals are cared for in this respect by their parents ; the Neatness Not Natural 50 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. cow licks her calf ; the cat, her kittens ; and neither calf nor kittens seem to take much interest in the pro- cess. The conscious love of cleanliness and order grows with years, and seems to be largely a mat- ter of custom. The child who has always lived in decent surroundings by-and-by finds them necessary to his comfort, and is willing to make a degree of ef- fort to secure them. On the contrary, the street boy who sleeps in his clothes, does not know what it is to desire a well-made bed, and an orderly room. Remedies The obvious method of overcoming this difficulty, then, is not to' chide the child for the fault, but to make him so accustomed to pleasant surroundings that he cannot help but desire them. The whole process of making the child love order is slow but sure. It con- sists in (i) Patient waiting on nature: first, keep the baby himself sweet and clean, washing the young child yourself, two or three times a day, and showing your delight in his sweetness ; dressing him so simply that he keeps in respectable order without the neces- sity of a painful amount of attention. (2) Example: He is to be accustomed to orderly surroundings, and though you ordinarily require him to put away some of his things himself, you do also assist this process by putting away a good deal to which you do not call attention. You make your home not only orderly but pretty, and yourself, also, that his love for you may Habit lead him into' a love for daintiness. (3) Habits: A few set observances may be safely and steadfastly de- Example UNTIDINESS. 51 manded, but these should be very few : Such as that he should not come to breakfast without brushing his teeth and combing his hair, or sit down to any meal with unwashed hands. Make them so few that you can be practically certain that they are attended to, for the whole value of the discipline is not in the su- perior condition of his teeth, but in the habit of mind that is being formed. IMPUDENCE. Impudence is largely due to, (1) lack of perception; (2) to bad example and to suggestion; and (3) to a double standard of morality. (1.) In the first place, too much must not be ex- pected of the young savages in the nursery. Remem- Perce pti<>n ber that the children there are in a state very much more nearly resembling that of a savage or half- civilized nation than resembling your own, and that, therefore, while they will undoubtedly take kindly to showy ceremonial, they are not ripe yet for most of the delicate observances. At best, you can only hope to get the crude material of good manners from them. You can hope that they will be in the main kind in intention, and as courteous under provoca- tion as is consistent with their stage of development. If you secure this, you need not trouble yourself un- duly over occasional lapses into perfectly innocent and wholesome barbarism. Lack of 52 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Good manners are in the main dependent upon quick sympathies, because sympathies develop the per- ceptions. A child is much less likely to hurt the feel- ings or shock the sensibilities of a person whom he loves tenderly than of one for whom he cares very little. This is the chief reason why all children are so much more likely to be offensive in speech and ac- tion before strangers than when alone in the bosom of their families. They are so far from caring what a stranger thinks or feels that they cannot even fore- cast his displeasure, nor imagine its reaction upon mother or father. The more, then, that the child's sympathies are broadened, the more he is encouraged to take an interest in all people, even strangers, the better mannered will he become. (2.) Bad example is more common than is usual- Exampie ly supposed. Very few parents are consistently courte- ous toward their children. They permit themselves a sharp tone of voice, and rough and abrupt habits of speech, that would scarcely be tolerated by any adult. Even an otherwise gentle and amiable woman is often disagreeable in her manner toward her children, com- manding them to do things in a way well calculated to excite opposition, and rebuking wrong-doing in unmeasured terms. She usually reserves her soft and gentle speeches for her own friends and for her hus- band's, yet discourtesy cannot begin to harm them as it harms her children. Bad IMPUDENCE. 53 It is true that the children are often under foot when she is busiest, when, indeed, she is so distracted as to not be able to think about manners, but if she would acknowledge to herself that she ought to be polite, and that when she fails to be, it is because she has yielded to temptation ; and if, moreover, she would make this acknowledgment openly to her children and beg their pardon for her sharp words, as she ex- pects them to beg hers, the spirit of courtesy, at any rate, would prevail in her house, and would influence her children. Children are lovingly ready to forgive an acknowledged fault, but keen-eyed beyond belief in detecting a hidden one. (3.) The most fertile cause of impudence is as- Do ubie sumption of a double standard of morality, one for the child and another for the adult. Impudence is, at bottom, the child's perception of this injustice, and his rebellion against it. When to this double standard, — a standard that measures up gossip, for instance, as right for the adult, and listening to gossip as wrong for the child — when to this is added the assumption of infallibility, it is no wonder that the child fairly rages. For, if we come to analyze them, what are the speeches which we find so objectionable? "Do it yourself, if you are so smart." "Maybe I am rude, but I'm not any ruder than you are." "I think you are just as mean as mean can be; I wouldn't be so mean !" Is this last speech any worse in reality than Standard Example 54 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. "You are a very naughty little girl, and I am ashamed of you," and all sorts of other expressions of candid adverse opinion? Besides these forms of impudence, there is the peculiarly irritating: "Well, you do it yourself ; I guess I can if you can." In all these cases the child is partly in the right. He is stating the fact as he sees it, and violently as- serting that you are not privileged to demand more of him than of yourself. The evil comes in through the fact that he is doing it in an ugly spirit. He is not only desirous of stating the truth, but of putting you in the wrong and himself in the right, and if this hurts you, so much the better. All this is because he is angry, and therefore, in impudence, the true evil to be overcome is the evil of anger. Show him, then, that you are open to correction. Admit the justice of the rebuke as far as you can, and set him an example of careful courtesy and for- bearance at the very moment when these traits are most conspicuously lacking in him. If some special point is involved, some question of privilege, quietly, but very firmly, defer the consideration of it until he is master of himself and can discuss the situation with an open mind and in a courteous manner. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. In all these examples, which are merely suggestive, it is impossible to lay down any absolute moral re- cipe, because circumstances so truly alter cases — in CORPORAL PUNISHMENT 55 all these no mention is made of corporal punishment. This is because corporal punishment is never neces- sary, never right, but is always harmful. There are three principal reasons why it should not be resorted to: First, because it is indiscriminate. To inflict bodily pain as a consequence of widely various faults, leads to moral confusion. The child who is spanked for lying, spanked for disobedience, and spanked again for tearing his clothes, is likely enough to consider these three things as much the same, as, at any rate, of equal importance, because they all lead to the same result. This is to lay the foundation for a permanent moral confusion, and a man who cannot see the nature of a wrong deed, and its relative im- portance, is incapable of guiding himself or others. Corporal punishment teaches a child nothing of the reason why what he does is wrong. Wrong must seem to him to be dependent upon the will of another, and its disagreeable consequences to be escapable if only he can evade the will of that other. Second : Corporal punishment is wrong because it inculcates fear of pain as the motive for conduct, instead of love of righteousness. It tends directly to cultivate cowardice, deceitfulness, and anger — three faults worse than almost any fault against which it can be employed. True, some persons grow up both gentle and straightforward in spite of the fact that .they have been whipped in their youth, but it is in spite of, and not because of it. In their homes other Moral Confusion Fear versus Love Blunted 56 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. good qualities must have counteracted the pernicious effect of this mistaken procedure. visibilities Third : Corporal punishment may, indeed, achieve immediate results such as seem at the moment to be eminently desirable. The child, if he be young enough, weak enough, and helpless enough, may be made to do almost anything by fear of the rod; and some of the things he may thus be made to do may be exactly the things that he ought to do; and this certainty of result is exactly what prompts many otherwise just and thoughtful persons to the use of corporal punishment. But these good results are ob- tained at the expense of the future. The effect of each spanking is a little less than the effect of the preceding one. The child's sensibilities blunt. As in the case of a man with the drug habit, it requires a larger and larger dose to produce the required effect. That is, if he is a strong child capable of en- during and resisting much. If, on the contrary, he is a weak child, whose slow budding will come only timidly into existence, one or two whippings followed by threats, may suffice to keep him in a permanently cowed condition, incapable of initiative, incapable of spontaneity. The method of discipline here indicated, while it is more searching than any corporal punishment, does not have any of its disadvantages. It is more search- ing, because it never blunts the child's sensibilities, CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. 57 but rather tends to refine them, and to make them more responsive. The child thus trained should become more sus- ceptible, day by day, to gentle and elevating in- fluences. This discipline is educative, explaining to the child why what he does is wrong, showing him the painful effects as inherent in the deed itself. He cannot, therefore, conceive of himself as being ever set free from the obligation to do right ; for that ob- ligation within his experience does not rest upon his mother's will or ability to inflict punishment, but upon the very nature of the universe of which he is a part. The effects of such discipline are therefore permanent. That which happens to the child in the nursery, also happens to him in the great world when he reaches manhood. His nursery training interprets and orders the world for him. He comes, therefore, into the world not desiring to experiment with evil, but clear-eyed to detect it, and strong-armed to over- come it. We are now ready to consider our subject in some of its larger aspects. Educative Discipline Permanent Results TEST QUESTIONS The following questions constitute the "written reci- tation" which the regular members of the A. S. H. E. answer in writing and send in for the correction and comment of the instructor. They are intended to emphasize and fix in the memory the most important points in the lesson. STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. PART I. Read Carefully. In answering these questions you are earnestly requested not to answer according to the text-book where opinions are asked for, but to answer according to conviction. In all cases credit will be given for thought and original observation. Place your name and full address at the head of the paper; use your own words so that your in- structor may be sure that you understand the subject. 1. How does Fiske account for the prolonged help- lessness of the human infant? To what prac- tical conclusions does this lead? 2. Name the four essentials for proper bodily growth. 3. How does the child's world differ from that of the adult? 4. In training a child morally, how do you know which faults are the most important and should have, therefore, the chief attention? 5. In training the will, what end must be held stead- ily in view? 6. What are the advantages or disadvantages of a broken will? 7. Is obedience important ? Obedience to what ? How do you train for prompt obedience in emergencies ? STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. 8. What is the object of punishment? Does corporal punishment accomplish this object? 9. What kind of punishment is most effective? 10. Have any faults a physical origin? If so, name some of them and explain. 11. What are the two great teachers according to Tiederman ? 12. What can you say of the fault of untidiness? 13. What are the dangers of precocity? 14. What do you consider were the errors your own parents made in training their children? 15. Are there any questions which you would like to ask in regard to the subjects taken up in this lesson? Note. — After completing the test, sign vour full name. STUDY OF CHILD LIFE PART II Philosophy CHARACTER BUILDING Although we have taken up the question of pun- ishment and the manner of dealing with various child- ish iniquities before the question of character-build- ing, it has only been done in order to clear the mind of some current misconceptions. In the statements of Froebel's simple and positive philosophy of child Froebei's culture, misconception on the part of the reader must be guarded against, and these misconceptions gener- ally arise from a feeling that, beautiful as his opti- mistic philosophy may be, there are some children too bad to profit by it — or at least that there are oc- casions when it will not work out in practice. In the preceding section we have endeavored to show in detail how this method applies to a representative list of faults and shortcomings, and having thus, we hope, proved that the method is applicable to a wide range of cases — indeed to all possible cases — we will proceed to recount the fundamental principles which Froebel, and before him Pestalozzi,* enunciated ; which those who adhere to the new education are to- day working out into the detail of school-room prac- tice. * Pestalozzi, Educator, Philosopher, and Reformer.. Author of '•How Gertrude Teaches Her Children." 6o STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Object of Moral Training. The Reason Why As previously stated, the object of the. moral train- ing of the child is the inculcation of the love of right- eousness. Frcebel is not concerned with laying down a mass of observances which the child must follow, and which the parents must insist upon. He thinks rather that the child's nature once turned into the right direction and surrounded by right influences will grow straight without constant yankings and twist- ings. The child who loves to do right is safe. He may make mistakes as to what the right is, but he will learn by these mistakes, and will never go far astray. However, it is well to save him as far as possible from the pain of these mistakes.. We need to pre- serve in him what has already been implanted there ; the love of understanding the reasons for conduct. When the child asks "Why?" therefore, he should seldom be told "Because mother says so." This is to deny a rightful activity of his young mind ; to give him a monotonous and insufficient reason, temporary in its nature, instead of a lasting reason which will remain with him through life. Dante says all those who have lost what he calls "the good of the intel- lect" are in the Inferno. And when you refuse to give your child satisfactory reasons for the conduct you require of him, you refuse to cultivate in him that very good of the intellect which is necessary for his salvation. CHARACTER BUILDING. 61 As soon, however, as your commands become posi- tive instead of negative, the difficulty of meeting the situation begins to disappear. It is usually much easier to tell the child why he should do a thing than why he should not do its opposite. For example, it is much easier to make him see that he ought to be a helpful member of the family than to make him understand why he should stop making a loud noise, or refrain from waking up the baby. There is some- thing in the child which in calm moments recognizes that love demands some sacrifice. To this something you must appeal and these calm moments, for the most part, you must choose for making the appeal. The effort is to prevent the appearance of evil by the active presence of good. The child who is busy trying to be good has little time to be naughty. Advantage of Positive Commands Frobel's most characteristic utterance is perhaps this : "A suppressed or perverted good quality — a good tendency, only repressed, misunderstood, or misguided — lies originally at the bottom of every shortcoming in man. Hence the only and infallible remedy for counteracting any shortcoming and even wickedness is to find the originally good source, the originally good side of the human being that has been repressed, disturbed, or misled into the shortcoming, and then to foster, build up, and properly guide this good side. -Thus the shortcoming will at last dis- appear, although it may involve a hard struggle Original Goodness Methods 62 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. against habit, but not against original depravity in man, and this is accomplished so much the more rap- idly and surely because man himself tends to abandon his shortcomings, for man prefers right to wrong." The natural deduction from this is that we should say "do" rather than "don't" ; open up the natural way for rightful activity instead of uttering loud warning cries at the entrance to every wrong path. Kindergarten It is for this reason that the kindergarten tries by every means to make right doing delightful. This is one of the reasons for its songs, dances, plays, its bright colors, birds, and flowers. And in this respect it may well be imitated in every home. No one loves that which is disagreeable, ugly, and forbidding ; yet many little children are expected to love right doing which is seldom attractively presented to them. The results of such treatment are apparent in the grown people of to-day. Most persons have an under- lying conviction that sinners, or at any rate unconscien- tious persons, have a much easier and pleasanter time of it than those who try to do right. To the imagination of the majority of adults sin is dressed in glittering colors and virtue in gray, somber garments. There are few who do not take credit for right doing as if they had chosen a hard and disagreeable part instead of the more alluring ways of wrong. This is because they have been mis-taught in childhood and have come to think of wrongdoing as pleasant and virtue CHARACTER BUILDING. 63 as hard, whereas the real truth is exactly the oppo- site. It is wrongdoing that brings unpleasant conse- quences and virtue that brings happiness. There are those who object that by the kinder- garten method right doing is made too easy. The children do not have to put forth enough effort, they say; they are not called upon to endure sufficient pain ; they do not have the discipline which causes them to choose right no matter how painful right may be for the moment. Whether this dictum is ever true or not, it certainly is not true in early child- hood. The love of righteousness needs to be firmly rooted in the character before it is strained and pulled upon. We do not start seedlings in the rocky soil or plant out saplings in time of frost. If tests and trials of virtue must come, let them come in later life when the love of virtue is so firmly established that it may be trusted to find a way to its own satisfaction through whatever difficulties may oppose. In the very beginning of any effort to live up to Froebel's requirements it is evident that children must not be measured by the way they appear to the neigh- bors. This is to reaffirm the power of that rigid tradition which has warped so many young lives. She who is trying to fix her child's heart upon true and holy things may well disregard her neighbor's com- ments on the child's manners or clothes or even upon momentary ebullitions of temper. She is working Right Doing Made Easy Neighbors' Opinions 64 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. below the surface of things, is setting eternal forces to work, and she cannot afford to interrupt this work for the sake of shining the child up with any prema- ture outside polish. If she is to have any peace of mind or to allow any to the child, if she is to live in any way a simple and serene life, she must establish a few iundamental principles by which she judges her child's conduct and regulates her own, and stand by these principles through thick and thin. The Family Perhaps the most fundamental principle is that Republic enunc i atec i Dy Fichte. "Each man," he says, "is a free being in a world of other free beings." There- fore his freedom is limited only by the freedom of the other free beings. That is, they must "divide the world amongst them." Stated in the form of a com- mand he says again, "Restrict your freedom through the freedom of all other persons with whom you come in contact." This is a rule that even a three-year-old child can be made to understand, and it is astonish- ing with what readiness he will admit its justice. He can do anything he wants to, you explain to him, except bother other people. And, of course, the corollary follows that every one else can do whatever he pleases except to bother the child. Rights This clear and simple doctrine can be driven home with amazing force, if you strictly respect the child's right as you require him to respect yours. You should neither allow any encroachments upon your own proper privileges, except so far as you explain that this is of Others CHARACTER BUILDING. 65 only a loving permission on your part, and not to be assumed as a precedent or to be demanded as a right ; nor should you yourself encroach upon his privileges. If you do not expect him to interrupt you, you must not" interrupt him. If you expect him to let you alone when you are busy, you must let him alone when he is busy, that is, when he is hard at work playing. If you must call him away from his playing, give him warning, so that he may have time to put his small affairs in order before obeying your com- mand. The more carefully you do this the more willing will be his response on the infrequent occa- sions when you must demand immediate attention. In some such fashion you teach the child to respect the rights of others by scrupulously respecting those rights to which he is most alive, namely, his own. The next step is to require him with you to think out the rights of others, and both of you together should shape your conduct so as to leave these rights uninfringed. As soon as the young child's will has fully taken pos- The Child . s session of his own organism he will inevitably try to l^ng" 1 rule yours. The establishment of the law of which I have just spoken will go far toward regulating this new-born desire. But still he must be allowed in some degree to rule Others, because power to rule others is likely to be at some time during his life of great importance to him. To thwart him absolutely in this respect, never yielding yourself to his imperious de- mands, is alike impossible and undesirable. His will 66 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. must not be shut up to himself and £o the things that he can make himself do. In various ways, with due consideration for other people's feelings, with courtesy, with modesty, he may well be encouraged to do his share of ruling. And while, of course, he will not begin his ruling in such restrained and thoughtful fashion as is implied by these limitations, yet he must be suffered to begin ; and the rule for the respect of the rights of others should be suffered gradually to work out these modifications. A safe distinction may be made as follows: Per- mit him, since he is so helpless, to rule and persuade others to satisfy his legitimate desires, such as the de- sire for food, sleep, affection, and knowledge ; but when he demands indulgencies, reserve your own liberty of choice, so as to clearly demonstrate to him that you are exercising choice, and in doing so, are well within your own rights. low voice There is one simple outward observation which greatly assists in the inculcation of these funda- mental truths — that is the habit of using a low voice in speaking, especially when issuing a command or ad- ministering a rebuke. A loud, insistent voice prac- tically insures rebellion. This is because the low voice means that you have command of yourself, the loud voice that you have lost it. The child submits to a controlled will, but not to one as uncontrolled as his own. In both cases he follows your example. If you are self-controlled, he tends to become so; if you are Commands of Words CHARACTER BUILDING. 67 excited and angry, he also becomes so, or if he is already so, his excitement and anger increases. While most mothers rely altogether too much upon speech as a means of explaining life to the child, yet it must be admitted that speech has a great function to perform in this regard. Nevertheless it is well to bear in mind that it is not true that a child will always do what you tell him to do, no matter how plain you may tell him, nor how perfectly you may explain your rea- sons. In the first place, speech means less to children than Limitations to grown persons. Each word has a smaller content of experience. They cannot get the full force of the most clear and eloquent statement. Therefore all speech must be reinforced by example, and by as many forms of concrete illustrations as can be commanded. Each necessary truth should enter the child's mind by several channels ; hearing, eye-sight, motor activity should all be called upon. Many truths may be dramatized. This, where the mother is clever enough to employ it, is the surest method of appeal. But in any case, speech alone must not be relied upon, nor the child considered a hopeless case who does not respond to it. Denunciatory speech especially needs wise regulation. As Richter says, "What is to be followed as a rule of prudence, yea, of justice, toward grown-up people, should be much more observed toward children, name- 68 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. ly, that one should never judgingly declare, for in- stance, "You are a liar," or even, "You are a bad boy," instead of saying, "You have told an untruth," or "You have done wrong." For since the power to command yourself implies at the same time the power of obey- ing, man feels a minute after his fault as free as Socra- tes, and the branding mark of his nature, not his deed, must seem to him blameworthy of punishment. "To this must be added that every individual's wrong actions, owing to his inalienable sense of a moral aim and hope, seem to him only short, usurped inter- regnums of the devil, or comets in the uniform solar system. The child, consequently, under such a moral annihilation, feels the wrong-doing of others more than his own ; and this all the more because, in him, want of reflection and the general warmth of his feel- ings, represent the injustice of others in a more ugly light than his own." Example If any one desires to prove the superior force of precept example over precept, let him try teaching a baby to say "Thank you" or "Please," merely by being scrupu- lously careful to say these things to the baby on all fit occasions. No one has taken the statistics of the num- ber of times every small child is exhorted to perfect himself in this particular observance ; but it is safe to say that in the United States alone these injunctions are spoken something like a million times a day and all quite unnecessarily. The child will say "Please" and "Thank you" without being told to do so, if he to Children CHARACTER BUILDING. 69 merely has his attention called to the fact that the people around him all use these phrases. The truth is, too many parents forget to speak these Polit eness agreeable words whenever they ask favors of their own children ; so the force of their example is marred. What you do to the child himself, remember, always outweighs anything you do to others before him. This is the reason why it is necessary that you should ac- knowledge your own shortcomings to the child, if you expect him to acknowledge his to you. It is also necessary sometimes to point out clearly the kind and considerate things that you are in the habit of doing to others, lest the untrained mind of the young child may fail to see and so miss the force of your example. But in thus revealing your own good deeds to the child, remember the motive, and reveal them only (a) when he cannot perceive them of himself, (b) when he needs to perceive them in order that his own con- duct may be influenced by them, and (c) at the time when he is most likely to appreciate them. This latter requirement precludes you from announcing your own righteousness when he is naughty, and compels you, of course, to go directly against your native impulse, which is to mention your deeds of sacrifice and kind- ness only when you are angry and mean to reproach him with them. When you tell him how devoted you have been at some moment when you are both thor- oughly angry, he is in danger of either denying or hating your devotion ; but when you refer to it tender- 7 c STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. ly, and, as your heart will then prompt you, modestly, at some loving moment, he will give it recognition, and be moved to love goodness more devotedly because you embody it. Another important rule is this: Do not make too Law-Making x ... Habit many rules. Some women are like legislatures in per- petual session. The child who is confused and tantal- ized by the constant succession of new laws learns presently to disregard them, and to regulate his life according to certain deductions of his own — sometimes surprisingly wise and politic deductions. The way to cure yourself of this law-making habit is to stop think- ing of every little misdeed as the beginning of a great wrong. It is very likely an accident and a combina- tion of circumstances such as may not happen again. To treat misdemeanors which are not habitual nor char- acteristic as evanescent is the best way to make them evanescent. They should not be allowed to enter too deeply into your consciousness or into that of your child. In order to be able to discriminate between accidental Your wrong-doing, and that which is the first symptom of wrong-thinking, you must be in close touch with your children. This brings us to Froebel's great motto, "Come, let us live with our children!" This means that you are not merely to talk with your child, to hear from his lips what he is doing, but to live so closely with him, that in most cases you know what Children CHARACTER BUILDING. 71 he is doing without any need of his telling you. When, however, he does tell you something which happened in the school play-ground or otherwise out of the range of your knowledge, be careful not to moralize over it. Make yourself as agreeable a secret-keeper as his best friend of his own age ; let your moralizing be so rare that it is effective for that very reason. If the occasion needs moral reflection at all — and that seldom happens — the wise way is to lead the child to do his own reflecting ; to arrive at his own conclusions, and if you must lead him, by all means do so as invisibly as possible. For the most part it is safe to take the confessions lightly, and well to keep your own mind young by looking at things from the boy's point of view. If, however, there is to be perfect confidence be- T he subject tween you, the one subject which is usually kept out ofSex of speech between mothers and children must be no forbidden subject between them; you must not refuse to answer questions about the mystery of sex. If you are not the fit person to teach your child these impor- tant facts, who is ? Certainly not the school-mates and servants from whom he is likely to learn them if you .refuse to furnish the information. Usually it is suf- ficient simply to answer the child's honest questions honestly ; but any mother who finds herself unable to cope with this simple matter in this simple spirit, will find help in Margaret Morley's "Song of Life," in the 72 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Wood-Allen Publications, and the books of the Rev. Sylvanus Stall.* In respect to these matters more than in respect to others, but also in respect to all matters, children often do not know that they are doing" wrong, even when it it very difficult for parents to believe that they do not intend wrong-doing. As we have seen from our analysis of truthfulness, the child may very often lie without a qualm of conscience, and he may still more readily break the unwritten rules of courtesy, asking abrupt and even cruel questions of strangers, and haul the family skeleton out of its closet at critical moments. Such things cannot be wholly guarded against, even by the exercise of the utmost wisdom, but the habit of reasoning things out for himself is the greatest help a child can have. D . .. The formation of the bent of the child's nature as Rignteous- ness a whole is a matter of unconscious education, but as he grows in the power to reason, conscious education must direct his mental activity. It is not enough for him, as it is not enough for any grown person, to do the best that he knows ; he must learn to know the best. The word righteousness itself means right-wiseness, i. e., right knowingness. To quote Froebel again, "In order, therefore, to im- part true, genuine firmness to the natural will-activity "What a Young Girl Ought to Know" and "What a Young Woman Ought to Know,'' by Dr. Mary Wood Allen. "What a Young Boy Ought to Know," "What a Young Man Ought to Know," by Rev. Sylvanus Stall. CHARACTER BUILDING. 72> of the boy, all the activities of the boy, his entire will should proceed from and have reference to the develop- ment, cultivation, and representation of the internal. Instruction in example and in words, which later on become precept and example, furnishes the means for this. Neither example alone, nor words will do; not example alone, for it is particular and special, and the word is needed to give the particular individual exam- ple universal applicability ; not words alone, for exam- ple is needed to interpret and explain the word, which is general, spiritual, and of many meanings. "But instruction and example alone and in them- selves are not sufficient ; they must meet a good pure heart and this is the outcome of proper educational influences in childhood." Lest these directions should seem to demand an al- Moral most superhuman degree, of control and wisdom on the part of the mother, remember that moral precocity is as much to be guarded against as mental precocity. Remember that you are neither required to be a per- fect mother nor to rear a perfect child. As Spencer remarks, a perfect child in this imperfect world would be sadly out of joint with the times, would indeed be a martyr. If your basic principles are right and if your child has before him the daily and hourly spectacle of a mother who is trying to conform herself to high standards, he will grow as fast as it is safe for him to grow. Spencer says : "Our higher moral faculties like our higher intellectual ones, are comparatively 74 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. complex. As a consequence they are both compara- tively late in their evolution, and with the one as with the other, a very early activity produced by stimula- tion will be at the expense of the future character. Hence the not uncommon ' fact that those who during childhood were instanced as models of juvenile good- ness, by and by undergo some disastrous and seemingly inexplicable change, and end by being not above but below par; while relatively exemplary men are often the issue of a childhood not so promising. "Be content, therefore, with moderate measures and moderate results, constantly bearing in mind the fact that the higher morality, like the higher intelligence, must be reached by a slow growth ; and you will then have more patience with those imperfections of nature which your child hourly displays. You will be less prone to constant scolding, and threatening, and for- bidding, by which many parents induce a chronic irri- tation, in a foolish hope that they will thus make their children what they should be." Rules in I n conclusion, the rules that mav be safelv followed Character # m * Building in character-building may be summed up thus : (i) Recognize that the object of your training is to help the child to love righteousness. Command lit- tle and then use positive commands rather than prohi- bitions. Use "do" rather than "don't." (2) Make right-doing delightful. (3) Establish Fichte's doctrine of right, see page 64, CHARACTER BUILDING. 75 (4) Teach by example rather than precept. There- fore respect the child's rights as you wish him to re- spect yours. (5) Use a low voice, especially in commanding or rebuking. (6) In chiding, remember Richter's rule and re- buke the sin and not the sinner. (7) Confess your own misdeeds, by this means and others securing the confidence of your children. Finally, remember that this is an imperfect -world, you are an imperfect mother, and the best results you can hope for are likely to be imperfect. But the results may be so founded upon eternal principles as to tend continually to give place to better and better results. PLAY Although Froebel is best known as the educator who first took advantage of play as a means of education, he was not, in reality, the first to recoginze the high value of this spontaneous activity. He was indeed the first to put this recognition into practice and to use the force generated during play to help the child to a high- er state of knowledge. But before him Plato said that the plays of children have the mightiest influence on the maintenance or the non-maintenance of laws ; that during the first three years the child should be made "cheerful" and "kind" by having sorrow and fear and pain kept away from him and by soothing him with music and rhythmic movements. Aristotle Aristotle held that children until they were five years old "should be taught nothing, not even necessary la- bor, lest it hinder growth, but should be accustomed to use so much motion as to avoid an indolent habit of body, and this," he added, "can be acquired by various means, among others by play, which ought to be neither illiberal, nor laborious, nor lazy." Luther Luther rebukes those who despise the plays of chil- dren and says that Solomon did not prohibit scholars from play at the proper time. Fenelon, Locke, Schil- ler, and Richter all admit the deep significance of this universal instinct of youth. Preyer, speaking not as a philosopher or educator, but as a scientist, mentions "the new kinds of pleas- PLAY. 77 urable sensations with some admixture of intellectual elements," which are gained when the child gradually begins to play. Much that is called play he considers true experimenting, especially when the child is seen to be studying the changes produced by his own activity, as when he tears paper into small bits, shakes a bunch of keys, opens and shuts a box, plays with sand, and empties bottles, and throws stones into the water. "The zeal with which these seemingly aimless movements are executed is remarkable. The sense of gratification must be very great, and is principally due to the feeling of his own power, and of being the cause of the various changes." All these authorities are quoted here in o^der to Educational show that the practical recognition of play which ob- P f a y e ° tains among the advanced educators to-day is not a piece of sentimentalism, as stern critics sometimes de- clare, but the united opinion of some of the wisest minds of this and former ages. As Froebel says, "Play and speech constitute the element in which the child lives. At this stage (the first three years of childhood) he imparts to everything the virtues of sight, feeling, and speech. He feels the unity between himself and the whole external world *' And Froebel conceives it to be of the profoundest importance that this sense of unity should not be disturbed. He finds that play is the most spiritual activity of man at this age, "and at the same time typical of human life as a whole — of the 78 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. inner, hidden, natural life of man and all things ; it gives, therefore, joy, freedom, contentment, inner and outer rest, peace with the world ; it holds the sources of all that is good. The child that plays thor- oughly until physical fatigue forbids will surely be a thorough, determined man, capable of self-sacrifice for the promotion and welfare of himself and others." But all play does not deserve this high praise. It fits only the play under right conditions. Fortunately these are such that every mother can command them. There are three essentials: (i) Freedom, (2) Sym- pathy, (3) Right materials. (1) Freedom is the first essential, and here the child of poverty often has the advantage of the child of wealth. There are few things in the pover- ty-stricken home too good for him to play with ; in its narrow quarters, he becomes, perforce, a part of all domestic activity. He learns the uses of household utensils, and his play merges by imperceptible degrees into true, healthful work. In the home of wealth, however, there is no such freedom, no such richness of opportunity. The child of wealth has plenty of toys, but few real things to play with. He is shut out of the common activity of the family, and shut in to the imitation activity of his nursery. He never gets his small hands on realities, but in his elegant clothes is confined to the narrow conventional round that is falsely supposed to be good for him, PLAY. 79 Froebel insists upon the importance of the child's dress being loose, serviceable, and inconspicuous, so that he may play as much as possible without con- sciousness of the restrictions of dress. The playing child should also have, as we have noticed in the first section, the freedom of the outside world. This does not mean merely that he should go out in his baby- buggy, or take a ride in the park, but that he should be able to play out-of-doors, to creep on the ground, to be a little open-air savage, and play with nature as he finds it. (2) Sympathy is much more likely to rise spon- taneously in the mother's breast for the child's troubles than for the child's joys. She will stop to take him up and pet him when he is hurt, no matter how busy she is, but she too often considers it waste of time to enter into his plays with him ; yet he needs sympathy in joy as much as in sorrow. Her presence, her inter- est in what he is doing, doubles his delight in it and doubles its value to him. Moreover, it offers her op- portunity for that touch and direction now and then, which may transform a rambling play, without much sequence or meaning, into a consciously useful per- formance, a dramatization, perhaps, of some of the child's observations, or an investigation into the na- ture of things. (3) Right Material. Even given freedom and sympathy, the child needs something more in order to Sympathy 80 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. play well : he needs the right materials. The best ma- terials are those that are common to him and to the rest of the world, far better than expensive toys that mark him apart from the world of less fortunate chil- dren. Such toys are not in any way desirable, and they may even be harmful. What he needs are various simple arrangements of the four elements — earth, air, fire, and water. Mud-pies (i) Earth. The child has a noted affinity for it, and he is specially happy when he has plenty of it on hands, face, and clothes. The love of mud-pies is uni- versal ; children of all nationalities and of all degrees of civilization delight in it. No activity could be more wholesome. Sand Next to mud comes sand. It is cleaner in appear- ance and can be brought into the house. A tray of moistened sand, set upon a low table, should be in every nursery, and the sand pile in every yard, day Clay is more difficult to manage indoors, because it gets dry and sifts all about the house, but if a corner of the cellar, where there is a good light, can be given up for a strong table and a jar of clay mixed with some water, it will be found a great resource for rainy days. If modeling aprons of strong material, but- toned with one button at the neck, be hung near the jar of clay, the children may work in this material with- out spoiling their clothes. Clay-modeling is an excel- lent form of manual training, developing without for- cing the delicate muscles of the fingers and wrists, and PLAY. 81 giving wide opportunity for the exercise of the imagin- ation. Earth may be played with in still another way. Chil- dren should dig in it ; for all pass through the digging stage and this should be given free swing. It develops their muscles and keeps them busy at helpful and con- Digging L'ATTERN OF A MODELING APRON. structive work. They may dig a well, make a cave, or a pond, or burrow underground and make tunnels like a mole. Give them spades and a piece of ground they can do with as they like, dress them in overalls, and it will be long before you are asked to think of another amusement for them. In still another way the earth may be utilized, for children may make gardens of it. Indeed, there are those who say that no child's education is complete Gardeas 82 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. until he has had a garden of his own and grown in it all sorts of seeds from pansies to potatoes. But a gar- den is too much for a young child to care for all alone. He needs the help, advice, and companionship of some older person. You must be careful, however, to give help only when it is really desired; and careful also not to let him feel that the garden is a task to which he is driven daily, but a joy that draws him. Kites (2) The Air. The next important plaything is the Windmills . ™. , . 1 1 1 11 1 soap-bubbles air. 1 he kite and the balloon are only two instru- ments to help the child play with it. Little windmills made of colored paper and stuck by means of a pin at the end of a whittled stick, make satisfactory toys. One of their great advantages is that even a very young child can make them for himself. Blowing soap-bub- bles is another means of playing with air. By giving the children woolen mittens the bubbles may be caught and tossed about as well as blown. (3) Water. Perhaps the very first thing he learns to play with is water. Almost before he knows the use of his hands and legs he plays with water in his bath, and sucks his sponge with joy, thus feeling the water with his chief organs of touch, his mouth and tongue. A few months later he will be glad to pour water out of a tin cup. Even when he is two or three years old, he may be amused by the hour, by dressing him in a woolen gown, with his sleeves rolled high, and setting him down before a big bowl or his own bath-tub half full of warm water. To this may be PLAY. 83 added a sponge, a tin cup, a few bits of wood, and some paper. They should not be given all at once, but one at a time, the child allowed to exhaust the possibilities of each before another is added. Still later he may be given the bits of soap left after a cake of soap is used up. Give him also a few empty bottles or bowls and let him put them away with a solid mass of soap- suds in them and see what will happen. When he is older — past the period of putting everything in his mouth — he may be given a few bits of bright ribbons, petals of artificial flowers, or any bright colored bits of cloth which can color the water. Children love to sprinkle the grass with the hose or to water the flowers with the sprinkling can. They enjoy also the metal fishes, ducks, and boats which may be drawn about in the water by means of a magnet. Presently they reach the stage when they must have toy-boats, and next they long to go into real boats and go rowing and sailing. They want to fish, wade, swim, and skate. Some of these pastimes are dangerous, but they are sure to be indulged in at some time or other, with or Pastimes without permission. There never grew a child to sturdy manhood who was successfully kept away from water. The wise mother, then, will not forbid this play, but will do her best to regulate it, to make it safe. She will think out plans for permitting children to go swimming in a safe place with some older per- son. She will let them go wading, and at holiday time Dangerous 84 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. will take them boat-riding. If she permits as much activity in these respects as possible, her refusal when it does come will be respected ; and the child will not, unless perhaps in the first bitterness of disappointment, think her unfriendly and fussy. Above all, he is not likely to try to deceive her, to run off and take a swim on the sly, and thus fall into true danger. (4) Fire is another inevitable plaything. Miss Shinn reports that the first act of her little niece that showed the dawn of voluntary control of the muscles was the clinging of her eyes to the flame of a candle, at the end of the second week. The sense of light and the pleasure derived from it is one of the chief in- centives to a baby's intellectual development. But since fire is dangerous the child must be taught this fact as quickly and painlessly as possible. He will Precaution probably have to be burned once before he really under- stands it, but by watching you can make this pain very small and slight, barely sufficient to give the child a wholesome fear of playing with unguarded fire. For instance, show that the lamp globe is hot. It is not hot enough to injure him, but quite hot enough to be un- pleasant to his sensitive nerves. Put your own hand on the lamp and draw it away with a sharp cry, saying warningly, "Hot, hot !" Do not put his hand on the lamp, but let him put it there himself and then be very sympathetic over the result. Usuallv one such lesson is sufficient. Only do not permit yourself to call every- thing hot which you do not want him to touch. He with Fire PLAY. 85 will soon discover that you are untruthful and will never again trust you so fully. Under proper regulations, however, fire may be Bonfires played with safely. Bonfires with some older person in attendance are safe enough and prevent unlawful bonfires in dangerous places. The rule should be that none of the children may play with fire except with permission ; and then that permission should be grant- ed as often as possible that the children may be en- couraged to ask for it. A stick smouldering at one end and waved about in circles and ellipses is not dangerous when elders are by, but it is dangerous if played with on the sly. Playing with fire on the sly is the most dangerous thing a child can do, and the only way to prevent it is to permit him to play with fire in the open. A beautiful game can be made from a number of Christmas tree candles of various colors and a bowl of water. The candles are lighted and the wax dropped into the water, making little colored cir- cles which float about. These can be linked together in such a fashion as to form patterns which may be lifted out on sheets of paper. The magic lantern is an innocent and comparatively cheap means of playing with light. If it is well taken Lantern care of and fresh slides added from time to time it can be made a source of pleasure for years. Jack-o'-lan- terns are great fun, and when pumpkins are not avail- able, oranges may be used instead. Besides these elemental playthings the child gets 86 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Rhythmic Movements Songs much valuable pleasure out of the rhythmic use of his own muscles. All such plays Plato thought should be regulated by music, and with this Froebel agreed, but in the household this is often impossible. The chil- dren must indulge in many movements when there is no one about who has leisure to make music for them. Still, when they come to the quarrelsome age, a few minutes' rhythmic play to the sound of music will be found to harmonize the whole group wonderfully. For this purpose the ordinary hippity-hop, fast or slow according" to the music, is sufficient. It is as if the regulation of the body to the laws of harmony re- acted upon minds and nerves. Such an exercise is particularly valuable just before bed-time. The chil- dren go to sleep then with their minds under the influ- ence of harmony and wake in the morning inclined to be peaceful and happy. A book of Kindergarten songs, such as Mrs. Gay- nor's ''Songs of the Child World" and Eleanor Smith's "Songs for the Children," ought to be in every household, and the mother ought to familiarize herself with a dozen or so of these perfectly simple melodies. Of course the children must learn . them with her. When once this has been done she has a valuable means of amusing them and bringing them within her control at any time. She may hum one of the songs or play it. The children must guess what it is and then act out their guess in pantomime, so that she can see what they mean. Perhaps it is a windmill song; PLAY. 87 their arms fly around and around in time to the music, now fast, now slow. Perhaps it is a Spring song ; the children are birds building their nests. Other songs turn them into shoemakers, galloping horses, or sol- diers. Dramatic plays, whether simple, like this, or elabo- rate, are, as Goethe shows in Wilhelm Meister, of the greatest possible educational advantage. In them the child expresses his ideas of the world about him and becomes master of his own ideas. He acts out whatever he has heard or seen. He acts out also whatever he is puzzling about, and by making the terms of his prob- lem clear to his consciousness usually solves it. As for dancing, Richter exclaims: "I know not whether I should most deprecate children's balls or most praise children's dances. For the harmony con- nected with it (dancing) imparts to the affections and the mind that material order which reveals the highest, and regulates the beat of the pulse, the step, and even the thought. Music is the meter of this poetic move- ment, and is an invisible dance, as dancing is a silent music. Finally, this also ranks among the advantages of his eye and heel pleasure ; that children with chil- dren, by no harder canon than the musical, light as sound, may be joined in a rosebud feast without thorns or strife." The dances may be of the simplest kind, such as "Ring Around a Rosy," "Here We Go, To and Fro," "Old Dan Tucker" and the "Virginia Reel." The old-fashioned singing plays, such as "London Dramatic Plays Dancing 88 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Bridge," "Where Oats, Peas, Beans, and Barley Grow," and "Pop Goes the Weasel" have their place and value. Several collections of them have been made and published, but usually quite enough material may be found for these plays in the memories of the people of any neighborhood. Toys All these plays, it will be noticed, call for very simple and inexpensive apparatus, in most cases for no apparatus at all. Nevertheless there is a place for toys. All children ought to have a few, both because of the innocent pleasure they afford and because they need to have certain possessions which are inalienably their own. A simple and inexpensive list of suitable toys adapted to various ages is given at the end of this section. Most of them are exactly the toys that parents usually buy. But it will be noticed that none of them are very elaborate or expensive, and that the patrol wagon is not among them. This is because the patrol wagon directly leads to plays that are not only un- educational but positively harmful in their tendencies. The children of a whole neighborhood were once led into the habit of committing various imitation crimes for the sake of being arrested and carried off in a min- iature patrol wagon. If any such expensive and elabo- rate toys are bought, it may well be the plain express wagon or the hook and ladder and fire engine. The first of these leads to plays of industry, the second to those of heroism. FLAY. 89 LIST OF TOYS SUITABLE FOR VARIOUS AGES. Ball, rubber ring, soft animals and rag dolls Before 1 year Blocks and Bells 1 year Small chair and table VA years Noah's Ark 2 years Picture books 2 years Materials and instruments 2 to 3 years Carts, stick-horses, and reins 2 Vi to 3 years Boats, ships, engines, tin or wooden animals, dolls, dishes, broom, spade, sand-pile, bucket, etc 3 years Hoop, games and story-books 5 years OCCUPATIONS Home Kindergarten Kindergarten Methods There are a number of books designed to teach mothers how to carry the Kindergarten occupations over into the home ; but while such books may be help- ful in a few cases, in most cases better occupations pre- sent themselves in the course of the day's work. The Kindergarten occupations themselves follow increasing- ly the order of domestic routine. For example, many children in the Kindergarten make mittens out of eider- down flannel in the Fall, when their own mothers are knitting their mittens, and make little hoods either for themselves or for their dolls. At other periods they put up little glasses of preserves or jelly, and study the industry of the bees and the way they put up their tiny jars of jelly. Their attention is called also to the preparations that the squirrels and other animals make for winter, and to that of the trees and flowers. In other words, the occupations in the Kindergarten are designed to bring the children into conscious sympathy with the life of nature and of the home. That mother who keeps this purpose in mind and applies it to the occupations that come up naturally in the course of a day's work, will thereby bring the Kindergarten spirit into her own home much more truly yian if she invests in a number of perforated sew- ing cards and colored strips of paper for weaving. Not that there is any harm in these bits of apparatus, pro- OCCUPATIONS. 91 vided that the sewing cards are large and so perforated as not to task the eyes and young ringers of the sewer. But unless for some special purpose, such as the mak- ing of a Christmas or birthday gift, these devices are unnecessary and better left to the school, which has less richness of material at hand than has the home. In allowing the children to enter as workers into the full life of the home several good things are accom- plished. ( 1 ) The eager interest of the developing mind is utilized to brighten those duties which are likely to remain permanent duties. Nor does this ob- servation apply only to girls. Domestic obligations are supposed to rest chiefly upon t them, but the truth is that boys need to feel these obligations as keenly as the girls, if they are to grow into considerate and helpful husbands and fathers. The usual division of labor into forms falsely called masculine and feminine is, therefore, much to be deplored. Moreover, at an early age children are seldom sex-conscious, and any. precocity in this direction is especially evil in its re- sults ; yet many mothers from the beginning make such a division between what they require of their boys and of their girls as to force this consciousness upon them. All kinds of work, then, should be allowed in the beginning, however it may differentiate later on, and little boys as well as little girls should be taught to take an interest in sewing, dish-washing, sweeping, dusting, and cooking — in all the forms of domestic activity. Helping Mother 92 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. This is so far recognized among educators that the most progressive primary schools now teach cooking to mixed classes of boys and girls, and also sewing. These activities are recognized as highly educational, being, as they are, interwoven with the history of the race and with its daily needs. When they are studied in their full sum of relationship, they increase the child's knowledge of both the past and the living world. Teaching (2) Besides the deepening of the child's interest in that work which in some form or other he will have with him always, is the quickening of the mother's own interest in what may have come to seem to her mere daily drudgery. Any woman who undertakes to per- form so simple an operation as dish-washing with the help of a bright happy child, asking sixteen questions to the minute, will find that common-place operation full of possibilities ; and if she will answer all the questions she will probably find her knowledge strained to the breaking point, and will discover there is more to be known about dish-washing than she ever dreamed of before ; while in cooking, if she will make an effort to look up the science, history, and ethics involved in the cooking and serving of a very simple meal, she will not be likely to regard the task as one beneath her, but rather as one beyond her. No one can so lead her away from false conventions and narrow prejudices as a little child whom she permits to help her and teach her. OCCUPATIONS. 93 (3) The child's spontaneous joy in being active and in doing any service is being utilized, as it should be, in the performance of his daily duties. We have al- ready referred to the fact that all children in the be- ginning love to work, and that there must be some- thing the matter with our education since this love is so early lost and so seldom reacquired. If when young children wish to help mother they are almost invariably permitted to do so, and their efforts greeted lovingly, this delight in helpfulness will remain a blessing to them throughout life. But in order to get these benefits from the domestic activities two or three simple rules must be observed. (1) Do not go silently about your work, expecting yonr child to be interested and to understand without being talked to. Play with him while you work with him and see the realization of youthfulness that comes to yourself while you do it. Many tasks fit for child- ish hands are in their nature too monotonous for child- ish minds. Here your imagination must come into play to rouse and excite his activity. For instance, you are both shelling peas. When he begins to be tired you suggest to him, "Here is a cage full of birds, let us open the door for them ;" or you may tell a story while you work, but it should be a story about that very activity, or the child will form the habit of dreaming and dawdling over his work. Such stories may be perfectly simple and even rather pointless and yet do good work ; the whole object is to keep the child's fly- The Love of Work To Make "Helping" of Benefit 94 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. away imagination turned upon the work at hand, thus lending 'wings to his thought, and lightness to his fingers. Moreover, the mother who talks with her child while working is training in him the habit of bright unconscious conversation, thus giving him a most use- ful accomplishment. Making a game or a play out of the work is, of course, conducive to the same good re- sults. When the story or the talk drags, the game with its greater dramatic power may be substituted. Fatigue (2) Qiildren should neither be allowed to work to the point of fatigue nor to stop when they please. Fa- tigue, as our latest investigators in physiological psy- chology have conclusively proved, is productive of an actual poison in the blood and as such is peculiarly harmful to young children. But while work — or for that matter play either — must never be pushed past the point of healthful fatigue, it may well be pushed past the point of spontaneous interest and desire : the child may be happily persuaded by various hidden means to do a little more than he is quite ready to do. By this de- vice, which is one of the recognized devices of the Kindergarten, mothers increase by imperceptible de- ■ grees that power of attention which makes will power. willing (3) Set the example of willing industry. Neither let the child conceive of you as an impersonal necessary part of the household machinery, nor as an unwilling martyr to household necessities. Most mothers err in one or the other of these two directions, and many of them err in both: they either, (a) perform the in- Industry OCCUPATIONS. 95 numerable services of the household so quietly and steadily that the child does not perceive the effort that the performance costs and, therefore, as far as his consciousness is concerned, is deprived of the force of his mother's example, or (b) they groan aloud over their burdens and make their daily martyrdom vocal. Either way is wrong, for it is a mistake not to let a child see that your steady performance of tasks, which cannot be always delightful, is a result of self-dis- cipline ; and it is equally a mistake to let him think that this discipline is one against which you rebel. For in reality you are so far from being unwilling to bind yourself in his service that if he needed it you would promptly double and quadruple your exertions. It is exactly what you do when he is sick or in danger ; and if he dies the sorest ache of your heart is the ache of the love that can no longer be of service to the be- loved. (4) Remember that monotony is the curse of labor for both child and adult, but that monotony cannot exist zvhere new intellectual insights are constantly being given. Therefore, while the daily round of labor, shaped by the daily recurring demands for food, warmth, cleanliness, and sleep, goes on without much change, seize every opportunity to deepen the child's perception of the relation of this routine to the order of the larger world. For instance, if a new house is being built near by, visit it with the children, comparing it with your own house, figure out whether it is going Monotony 96 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. Beautiful Work The Right Spirit to be easier to keep clean and to warm than your house is and why. If you need to call in the carpenter, the plumber, the paper-hanger, or the stoveman, try to have him come when the children are at home, and let them satisfy their intense curiosity as to his work. This knowledge will sooner or later be of practical value, and it is immediately of spiritual value. (5) Beautify the work as much as possible by let- ting the artistic sense have full play. This rule is so important that the attempt to establish it in the larger world outside of the home has given rise to the move- ment known as the arts and crafts movement, which has its rise in the perception that no great art can come into existence among us until the common things of daily living — the furniture, the books, the carpets, the chinaware — are made to express that creative joy in the maker which distinguishes an artistic product from an inartistic one. This creative joy, in howsoever small degree, may be present in most cf the things that the child does. If he sets the table, he may set it beautifully, taking real pleasure in the coloring of the china and the shine of the silver and glass. He ought not to be permitted to set it untidily upon a soiled ta- blecloth. (6) This is a negative rule, but perhaps the most important of all : do not nag. The child who is driven to his work and kept at it by means of a constant pressure of a stronger will upon his own, is deriving little, if any, benefit from it ; and as you are OCCUPATIONS. 97 not teaching him to work for the sake of his present usefulness, which is small at the best, but for the sake of his future development, you are more desirous that he should perform a single task in a day in the right spirit, than that he should run a dozen errands in the wrong spirit. (7) Besides a regular time each day for the per- formance of his set share in the household work, give him warning before the arrival of that hour. Children have very incomplete notions of time ; they become much absorbed in their own play ; and therefore no child under nine or ten years of age should be expected to do a given thing at a given time without warning that the time is at hand. Besides these occupations which are truly part of the business of life come any number of other occupa- tions — a sort of a cross between real play and steady work, what teachers call "busy work" — and here the suggestions of the Kindergarten may be of practical value to the mother. For instance, weaving, already referred to, may keep an active child interested and quiet for considerable periods of time. Besides the regular weaving mats of paper, to be had from any Kindergarten supply store, wide grasses and rushes may be braided into mats, raffia and rattan may be woven into baskets, and strips of cloth woven into iron- holders. A visit to any neighboring Kindergarten will acquaint the mother with a number of useful, simple objects that can be woven by a child. Whatever he 'Busy Work' 98 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE. weaves or whatever he makes should be applied to some useful purpose, not merely thrown away ; and while it is true that a conscientious desire to live up to this rule often results in a considerable clutter of flimsy and rather undesirable objects about the house, still, ways may be devised for slowly retiring the oldest of them from view, and disposing of others among patient relatives, sewing Sewing is another occupation much used in the Kin- dergarten as well as in the home. Beginning with the simple stringing of large wooden beads upon shoe- strings, it passes on to sewing on buttons, and sewing doll clothes to the making of real clothing. This last in its simplest form can be begun sooner than most parents suppose, especially if the child is taught the use of the sewing machine. There is really no reason why a child, say six years old, should not learn to sew upon the machine. His interest in machinery is keen at this period, and two or three lessons are usually sufficient to teach him enough about the mechanism to keep him from injuring it. Once he has learned to sew upon the machine, he may be given sheets and towels to hem, and even sew up the seams of larger and more complex articles. He will soon be able to make aprons for himself and his sisters and mother. Toy sewing machines are now sold which are really useful playthings, and on which the child can manu- facture a number of small articles. Those run by a. treadle are preferable to those run by a hand crank, OCCUPATIONS. 99 because they leave the child's hands free to guide the work. Drawing, painting, cutting and pasting are excellent Drawing occupations for children. A large "black-board is a paltlnj useful addition to the nursery furnishings, but the children should be required to wash it off with a damp cloth, instead of using the eraser furnished for the purpose, as the chalk dust gets into the room and fills the children's lungs. Plenty of soft pencils and cray- ons, also large sheets of inexpensive drawing paper, should be at hand upon a low table so that they can draw the large free outlines which best develop their skill, whenever the impulse moves them. If they have also blunt scissors for cutting all sorts of colored papers and a bottle of inocuous library paste, they will be able to amuse themselves at almost any time. Some water colors are now made which are harmless for children so young that they are likely to put the paints in their mouths. Paints are on the whole less objectionable than colored chalks, because the crayons drop upon the floor and get trodden into the carpet. If children are properly clothed as they should be in simple washable garments, there is practically no diffi- culty connected with the free use of paints, and their educational value is, of course, very high. Painting TEST QUESTIONS The following questions constitute the "written reci- tation" which the regular members of the A. S. H. E. answer in writing and send in for the correction and comment of the instructor. They are intended to emphasize and fix in the memory the most important points in the lesson. STUDY OF CHILD LIFE PART II Read Carefully. In answering these questions you are earnestly requested ;/ versus fear, 5 Low voice commands, 66 Lungs, weak, 21 Luther's teachings, 76 Lying, evasive, 39 imaginative, 39 kinds of, 38 politic, 40 Magazines for children, in Magic lantern, 85 Massage, 5 Meaning of righteousness, 72 Model costume, 21 Modeling apron, 81 clay, 80 Monotony undesirable, 95 Moral precocity, 73 training, object of, 60 Mother and teacher, 165 Mother, teaching, 92 Mothers as teachers, 134 Mud pies, 80 Muscular development, 5 Music for children, 106 instrumental, 107 study of, 124 Mystery of sex, 72 Nagging, 96 Naps, 20 Natural food, 24 punishment, 29 talent, 124 Nature study, 112 Negative goodness, 32 Neighbors' opinions, 63 Nervousness, cause of, 35 182 STUDY OF CHILD LIFE New education, the, 120 principles of, 59 Normal child, 1 2 Nursery requisites, 16 Object of moral training, 60 of punishment, 40 Objection to pinning blank- et, 21 Obligation of truthfulness, 38 Occupations, 90 Only child, the, 44 Opportunity for growth, 16 Order of development, 9 Other people's children, 145 Outing, daily, 18 Painting and drawing, 99 Parental indulgence, 154 vanity, 125 Pasting and cutting, 99 Permanent evils, 28 Personal accounts, 129 Pets, care of, 45 Physical cause of laziness, 46 culture, 123 culture records, 25 Philosophy, Frcebel's 59 Pictures, colored, 104 Pinning blanket, objection to, 21 Plastic art, 104 Play, 76 educational value of, 77 essentials of, 78 with the limbs, 5 Politeness to children, 69 Politic lie, the, 40 Positive commands, 35, 61 Precautions to prevent at- tacks of temper, ^y with fire, 84 Precocity, 15 moral, 73 Premature development, 3 Preyer's record, 11, 19 Principles, application of, 141 Prohibitions, useless, 34 Punishment, corporal, 54 indiscriminate, 55' natural, 29 object of, 40 self, 34 Questions, answers to, 160 Quick temper, 35 Real disobedience, ^^ faults, 28 Reflex grasping, 7 Regular allowance, 127 Religious enthusiasm, 135 excitability of adolescence, training, 131 Remedy for fits of temper, 36 Responsibilities of fathers, 154 Restrictions of dress, 79 Rhythmic movements, 86 Richter's views, 28, 87 Right doing, 28 made easy, 63 Righteousness, meaning of, 72 Right material for play, 79 Rights of others, 64 Rules in character building, 74 Rupture, cause of, 2 1 Sand piles, 80 Scientific education, 121 Self-distrustful child, 160 Selfishness, 43 Self-mastery, 29 punishment, 34 Sewing, 98 Sex, 71 mystery of, 72 question, the, 149 INDEX 183 Showy accomplishments, 123 Simple diet, 25 Sleep, sufficient, 19 Social advantages of kinder- garten, 113 Soft spot in head, 4 Solitude remedy for temper, 36 Songs for children, 86 Spencer's views, 29 Spending foolishly, 128 wisely, 127 Standard of morality, double, 53- Standing, 14 Stanley Hall's views, 137 Stealing, 168 Stockinet for undergarments, 22 Story telling, 93 Studies, abstract, 119 and accomplishments, 119 correlation of, 121 Success in child training, 143 Sullenness, 38 Sunday school, disadvantage of, 134 effect of, 132 teachers, 131 Sunlight necessary for growth, 16 Sympathy and imagination, no in play, 79 Symptoms of anaemia, 47 Systematized duties, 37 Talent, natural, 124 Teaching mother, 92 Telling stories, 93 Temperament, emotional, 42 Temperature of nursery, 18 Temper, cause of, 35 precautions to prevent at- tacks of, 7,7 Temporary faults, 24 Theater, 108 Theory before practice, 161 Thermometer in nursery, 18 Throwing, 10 Tiedmann's teachings, 35 Touching forbidden things, 1 1 Toys, 83, 88, 89 Training, financial, 126 for parents, 142 religious, 131 Truthfulness, obligations of, 38 Unconscious influence, 157 Underclothing, 22 Undesired food, n Undisciplined will, 30 Unresponsiveness, 38 Unsought advice, 148 Untidiness, its remedy, 49 Useless commands, n prohibitions, 34 Value of children's clubs, 45 Vanity, parental, 125 Variable periods of growth, 15 Ventilation, means of, 18 Walking, 14 Water as a plaything, 82 colors, 99 Weak lungs, 2 1 Weight at birth, 4 Wholesome surroundings, 16 Will, beginnings of, 7 breaking, the, 29 growth of, 8 Willful child, 34 Willing industry, 94 Will, undisciplined, 30 Work, beautiful, 96 love of, 93 Wrappings, extra, 21 apb26 mi