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Child Culture in the Home 
 
 A Book for Mothers 
 
 BY 
 
 Martha B. Mosher 
 
 ' The destiny of the nations lies far more in 
 the hands of women — the mothers — than 
 in the hands of those who possess power." 
 
 Froebel. 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 M DCCC XCVIII 
 
Mr 
 
 Cop3Tight, 1898 
 Fleming H. Rbvkll Company 
 
 7^ y 3^ 
 
TO MY OWN BELOVED CHILDREN, 
 IN WHOM I THUS EXPRESS MY TRUST, 
 I DEDICATE THIS MY EFFORT 
 JN BEHALF OF OTHER CHILDREN. 
 
 MARTHA B. MOSHER. 
 
He who helps a child helps humanity — with a dis- 
 tinctness y with an immediateness, which no other help 
 given to human creatures in any other stage of human 
 life can possibly give again. 
 
 Phillips Brooks. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Emotions 11 r 
 
 II. The Moeal Sense 22 "Vv 
 
 III. Heredity and Environment 33 
 
 IV. The Training of the Senses .... 46 
 V. The Training of the Will 60 
 
 VI. Punishment and Reward 74 
 
 VII. The Value of Play 85 
 
 VIII. Self-reliance 102 "^ 
 
 IX. Character 113 "S- 
 
 X. Culture 129 
 
 XI. Language and Literature 144 
 
 XII. Manners 164 
 
 XIII. Habits of Childhood ....... 182 H 
 
 XIV. Habits of Youth 196 )^ 
 
 XV. Domestic Economy 210 
 
 XVI. Civic Duties 222 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The best promise for to-morrow lies always 
 in the best fulfilment of the opportunities of 
 to-day. If the decision regarding the eligibil- 
 ity of women to higher social and political 
 status rested on their success as homekeepers 
 and mothers, a favorable one might be warmly 
 contested. There would be no impeachment 
 of their mother love, moral appreciation, or 
 good intention, but of their thoughtfulness, 
 consistency, and knowledge of the best meth- 
 ods to secure the best possible development of 
 their children. 
 
 Everywhere women of to-day are seeking 
 improvement — their energies being aroused to 
 the utmost by the new independence and intel- 
 lectual life which has come to them. The fric- 
 tion of mind with mind, the stimulus from as- 
 sociated ideas is awakening thoughts and the- 
 ories on all possible subjects, which, if wisely 
 directed, will result in the greatest benefit to 
 mankind. But in their efforts for ameliorating 
 human conditions, women should bear in mind 
 that the best study in the humanities is in 
 their own home. The more one observes, the 
 7 
 
8 Preface 
 
 more fervently must one feel the power and in- 
 fluence of woman in the life of the race and of 
 the nation ; and mothers are earnestly urged, 
 not only to place their best efforts in the home 
 because it is the nursery of souls and from it 
 emanates the influence which guides the des- 
 tiny of nations, but also to ascertain the best 
 methods and apply them with zeal. Knowl- 
 edge is of little value unless it body forth in 
 worthy activity and a fuller sense of responsi- 
 bility, at least to the nearest duty. 
 
 The world is a vast school which the child 
 enters at birth, and from which he is only re- 
 leased by death. Education is the most impor- 
 tant motive in that school, and he who is not 
 advancing is retrograding. Education is the 
 Hebe who hands man the elixir of the gods — 
 wisdom and power. The great problem is, 
 what are the best means of distilling this much- 
 sought draught? Old methods are being re- 
 vised and better ones evolved to meet the 
 broader life, and this generation has shown it- 
 self most receptive to innovations engendered 
 by new conditions. In all educational depart- 
 ments there has been more progress in method, 
 and a better application of new methods, than 
 in the home, the place of all where the influence 
 is the greatest and most enduring. 
 
 The new educational method consists in a 
 truer appreciation of the child nature — its long- 
 
Preface 9 
 
 ings and capabilities, and confers mentally and 
 morally a more perfect observation, a nicer as- 
 similation, a finer expression. 
 
 The endeavor of this book is to select the 
 most essential, vital questions pertaining to this 
 progress, to urge the better way with an earn- 
 estness that will move some thoughtless 
 mother, and to offer a few practical sugges- 
 tions to some aspiring one. If it succeeds in 
 the least degree, it is its own excuse for being ; 
 if it does not, it is a misjudgment. Some of 
 the thoughts may not appear directly applica- 
 ble to the child's education, but these indicate 
 the line of his development. Parents must 
 lead the child, but they cannot do so in ad- 
 vance of their own enlightenment and appre- 
 ciation. 
 
 If, by any suggestion, a single home is made 
 the living fountain of health and happiness 
 that it should be, if one girl or boy is inspired 
 to a truer, more cultured womanhood or man- 
 hood, the author will account herself priv- 
 ileged. 
 
Child Culture 
 
 THE EMOTIONS 
 
 Emeeson has said that the great difference 
 between men is in their power of feeling. 
 Feeling is universal and becomes an element of 
 weakness or strength, as it is allowed to riot or 
 is wisely directed. Unallied with the moral 
 sense and the intellect, it degenerates into appe- 
 tite and passion, in the exercise of which man 
 is outdone by the brutes, to whose vehemence 
 he seldom attains and then only revoltingly. 
 But purified by the intellect and by true as- 
 piration, judiciously harnessed, it becomes the 
 strength of strengths, the fire which sets in mo- 
 tion the will, the energies and the mental fac- 
 ulties. 
 
 The emotions are a prime factor in the spir- 
 itual life, and when balanced by the judgment 
 into perfect harmony with it, create the ideal 
 man. To achieve this blending of the emo- 
 tions and the intellect, requires a lifelong study 
 for natures that are born, as most natures are, 
 11 
 
12 Child Culture 
 
 with a predominance of one over the other. It 
 is diflBcult for the strongly emotional tempera- 
 ment not to permit itself to be swayed by its 
 desires and impulses; in fact many lives are 
 thrown off the track altogether by ignorance 
 of the necessity or means of curbing their emo- 
 tional impulses, and of constantly submitting 
 them to the control of their reason. This ig- 
 norance converts a great power into a great 
 weakness. The man lacking emotional vitality 
 is equally imperfect, for a cold intellect unsof-. 
 tened by a warm heart lacks one of the best in- 
 spirations to virtue. 
 
 It is easy to awaken the childish heart, and 
 the emotions should be educated before the in- 
 tellect. Read the children stories, or relate cir- 
 cumstances to them which will call forth their 
 sympathies, but only for worthy objects. One 
 can easily go too far and cultivate a spurious 
 feeling, a sickly sentimentality that would be 
 as objectionable as a lack of susceptibility. It 
 is found that children who come from the 
 slums, the offspring of the uncultured class, 
 require much stronger appeals to touch their 
 emotions than the children of highly developed 
 families. The latter are apt to be too highly 
 organized. Experienced kindergarten teachers 
 understand the point perfectly. A teacher who 
 had had charge of a phlegmatic class in a tene- 
 ment district, and had been obliged to use some 
 
The Emotions ' 13 
 
 effort to arouse its sensibilities, undertook to 
 fill a temporary vacancy in a class in a better 
 neighborhood, where the children of more cul- 
 tured families attended. Several mothers com- 
 plained to the superintendent that their chil- 
 dren seemed excited, could not sleep at night, 
 and the mothers were unable to quiet them or 
 to account for this unusual condition. The ex- 
 perienced superintendent considered the matter 
 and divined the cause ; she attended one of the 
 school sessions, when her conjecture was con- 
 firmed. The teacher was employing the same 
 methods with these more sensitive children 
 that she had found necessary with the impas- 
 sive class. The superintendent suggested a 
 selection of more quieting songs and games, 
 and the difficulty was corrected. Study the 
 child's temperament, and try the following 
 method to counterbalance excess or lack of 
 emotion. Give the highly organized child sim- 
 ple pleasures, phlegmatic attendants, quiet sur- 
 roundings. Give the child lacking in sensibili- 
 ties more stirring pleasures, a livelier maid, a 
 little more exciting environment. It is easy to 
 guide in the right direction the heart of a little 
 child, its nature is so impressionable. 
 
 A teacher tells of a little four year old boy 
 in one of the kindergartens, who used so many 
 " swear words," that for the good of the others 
 he was compelled to sit apart. He was per- 
 
14 ' Child Culture 
 
 fectly willing to use other words, but until he 
 came to school he did not know there were any- 
 just as good. His home surroundings were of 
 the roughest, coarsest kind. The kindergarten 
 was the opening of a new world to him ; he 
 was much interested in everything that hap- 
 pened, and seemed particularly fond of the 
 flowers that were brought to the kindergarten 
 by friends. The morning after Decoration 
 Day he came with a bunch of faded clover, 
 which he gave to the teacher. She asked him 
 where he found it, and the answer brought 
 forth a touching little story. He had been 
 thinking of one of the kindergarten songs, and 
 the thought of dewy meadows and white daisies 
 and clover blossoms really growing, had touched 
 his imagination, so after school he found an 
 older boy to go with him, and they started on 
 the elevated road to find the country. Just 
 where they went no one knows, but he found 
 some clover and brought a large bunch back 
 with him. On his way home he stopped at the 
 kindergarten, but as it was late in the after- 
 noon and no one was there he went home, still 
 holding tightly the beloved bunch of flowers 
 which he kept all the next day while the kin- 
 dergarten was closed. The following morning 
 he started bright and early, and brought his 
 teacher the clover, which by this time had 
 entirely withered. He told her he had tried 
 
The Emotions 15 
 
 to bring some buttercups, too, but "they all 
 broke." 
 
 It is no small thing to secure the heart and 
 imagination of a small child. A wise man has 
 said, *' To fill the imagination with beautiful 
 images is the best thing that can be done to 
 educate little children." At the end of the 
 year, this little boy^s mother sent the teacher 
 an envelope. When it was opened it was found 
 to contain, as an expression of her gratitude for 
 all that had been done for her boy, two hard 
 earned dollars. 
 
 To touch the imaginations and emotions of 
 children is to render them receptive to the im- 
 pressions one wishes to make; for what they 
 feel with some keenness in the heart takes 
 stronger hold in the head. The heart, as the 
 source of man*s noblest inspirations, is such an 
 important factor in his development that its use 
 cannot be overlooked. 
 
 The child who shows an undue sense of fear 
 can only be reasoned with until the fear is 
 shown to be unreasonable. Some parents try 
 to destroy the feeling by forcing the child to 
 enter dark rooms or to face the object of its 
 fear. I have known a child almost thrown into 
 spasms by this injudicious if not brutal method 
 of cure, while there are few children who, when 
 their reason is more developed, do not outgrow 
 such fear. It is unnatural, and I believe is 
 
i6 Child Culture 
 
 always superinduced upon children while they 
 are very young by nursemaids, who frighten 
 them into silence and submission, never realiz- 
 ing the enormity of the act or its lasting injury. 
 Apprehending such possibilities, I have always 
 explained to my children's maids when they 
 first entered my service, the harm such methods 
 would do a child, and have forbidden any 
 words containing a suggestion of objects to be 
 feared. A child should know nothing of ghosts 
 or hobgoblins. 
 
 There is nothing that the child-heart longs 
 for and appreciates so much as sympathy. It 
 is a talisman by which the heart can be moulded 
 to whatever the parent desires. Discover the 
 existing element of any faculty found weak or 
 insufificient, and by sympathizing with it, it can 
 be made to grow to the desired proportion. 
 
 Parents give their little ones food, clothing, 
 instruction, often everything but the best gifts — 
 themselves, withholding sympathy and interest 
 from their little thoughts and happenings. The 
 children are absent from home so much, if they 
 attend school and spend further time in out-of- 
 door sports, that, when they are at home, the 
 busy parents forget to yield other interests for 
 a time and give heart to the child's affairs by 
 manifesting an interest in them. 
 
 When any faculty appears excessive, it may 
 
The Emotions 17 
 
 be reduced by refusing to sympathize with it, 
 and at the same time developing other powers 
 to balance that one. 
 
 Hope should be cherished and led on from 
 the hope for material things, which will prob- 
 ably not need fostering, to a hope for higher 
 things which shall culminate in a power of 
 faith, one of the most valuable gifts man pos- 
 sesses. It is the faculty of hope which gives 
 man confidence without which there can be no 
 success, — it is the faculty which enables a man 
 to rise when he has fallen ; to try again when 
 he has failed. 
 
 In nothing do children differ more than in 
 the kind and degree of their affections. Some 
 children, as well as adults, possess only their 
 lowest form, — the instinctive love. It is the 
 form in which the animals love their young; 
 men, women and children love their pets ; it is 
 the love of the unwise mother when she cares 
 more for the child's gratification than for that 
 which bespeaks its ultimate welfare. It is the 
 untrained feeling, and needs to be linked to the 
 intellect and the moral sense to develop into 
 the higher forms. 
 
 The higher form is that which desires the 
 good of the beloved, which will sacrifice itself 
 for the good of its object. It is manifest in the 
 child that willingly remains quiet for a long 
 time that its little baby brother or sister may 
 
l8 Child Culture 
 
 sleep undisturbed ; in the little girl who sews 
 »- for the dolly or shares some of her favorite toys 
 with her brother, sister, or playmate; in the 
 performance of any act which is not pure self- 
 gratification, and whereby the loved one is 
 benefited. It is the self-sacrificing love of the 
 mother which places her at the service of the 
 family, which makes her willing to yield her 
 rest and ease by day, and if need be by night, 
 to attend her sick child. It is the love which 
 makes her work beyond her pleasure that her 
 children may be properly fed and their cloth- 
 ing made and kept in repair, the love which 
 denies the child that which may be detrimental 
 to its health or morals; — it is the love which 
 ennobles life. 
 
 The highest form of love is the impersonal 
 love, which has no fondness in it, but seeks 
 merely the welfare and happiness of others. 
 This- is the love of the philanthropist and re- 
 former. It contains no thought of self-gratifi- 
 cation ; it is love in the abstract and includes 
 that " Charity which thinketh no evil." It is 
 the love which we are admonished by Christ to 
 possess. 
 
 There is also the passion of love which comes 
 with adult age and which leads to the marriage 
 relation. This form is often mistaken for pure 
 love which it may or may not include. When 
 it does not it is not worthy of the name. If 
 
The Emotions 19 
 
 young men and women realized the difference 
 between a love which is simply infatuation and 
 one which embraces the higher qualities, there 
 would be fewer unhappy marriages and di- 
 vorces, both of which are becoming all too fre- 
 quent. The intensity of the feeling is no indi- 
 cation of its purity, only of its sensuous quality. 
 He who wishes to test the purity and strength 
 of his love, will ascertain if it be willing to 
 yield its own indulgence if the welfare of the 
 beloved demand the sacrifice. 
 
 Some human beings there are who seem to 
 have no affection, no power of attachment, and 
 walk ever alone. Harriet Martineau describes 
 and prescribes for these unfortunates. She 
 says : ** They seem doomed to a hermit ex- 
 istence amidst the very throng of life. If they 
 are neglected they are lost, they must sink into 
 a slough of selfishness and perish. And none 
 are so likely to be neglected as they who 
 neither love nor win love. If such an one is 
 not neglected, he may become an able and use- 
 ful being, and it is for his parents to try this in 
 a spirit of reverence for his mysterious nature, 
 and of pity for the privations of his heart. 
 They will search out and cherish, by patient 
 love, such little power of attachment as he may 
 show, and they will perhaps find him capable 
 of general kindliness and the wide interests of 
 benevolence, though the happiness of warm 
 
20 Child Culture 
 
 friendship and family endearment is denied 
 him." 
 
 One of the sweetest qualities a woman can 
 possess is tenderness. There is no other that 
 renders her so lovable and attractive. It is 
 love in repose, touched with compassion, and 
 seems an essential quality of the feminine 
 nature. 
 
 . Wholesome feelings are vastly more impor- 
 tant than logical thought, for feeling underlies 
 thought, and the just regulation of the feelings 
 
 ' is the first essential of civilized man. There 
 are natures that are constantly running over 
 with feeling; they play the entire gamut of the 
 emotions, effervescing with delight, or weeping 
 and despairing, without cause; they live on 
 Olympus or in Hades, and in action such per- 
 sons are as unstable as they are in feeling. 
 If they cannot entirely overcome their moods, 
 they can avoid extreme manifestations of tliem 
 and, by a determined self-control, attain a better 
 equilibrium and a more wholesome state. A 
 strong antiseptic for the overwrought emotional 
 temperament is the intellectual life. Study 
 and brain work counteract the undue excita- 
 tion of the feelings. If the emotions are al- 
 lowed to run riot in childhood, it will be very 
 difficult to overtake them at a later period. 
 No very intense emotions of any nature should 
 be created in a child's soul; it is better that 
 
The Emotions 21 
 
 children, should not often feel too deeply. Let 
 us have more genuine honest emotions and less 
 of the premature and false. 
 
 Carlyle has said, " There never was yet the 
 wise head without first the generous heart." 
 Generosity is a quality that belongs to all noble 
 natures, and there is no one so poor that he 
 cannot know the happiness of giving; for, if he 
 can give nothing more, he can give crumbs to 
 the birds, or he can give his services, or he can 
 think generously. Giving is not all of generos- 
 ity. To think and to judge generously are as 
 true essences of the generous heart as gifts that 
 pass from hand to hand. 
 
 " Having seen the egotism of sensuality and 
 of intellect, who would not know the happiness 
 resulting from goodness. Do not look down 
 on the child's simplest acts of generosity, — it is 
 these which lead the soul to self-denial and to 
 sublime character. Let the heart as. well as 
 the senses and the intellect have feasts." 
 
n 
 
 THE MORAL SENSE 
 
 Different nations and different periods have 
 held different views of what constituted the 
 perfect man, and whatever ideal his fellow-men 
 liappened to hold became the aim and object of 
 the ambitious youth of that time and nation. 
 Hereto he lent all his energies and succeeded 
 in greater or less degree. Public sentiment 
 hoists the standard, and the desire for public 
 approval is instinctive with men. The majority 
 bow before it. But what is the public and what 
 creates its sentiment ? The public is but the 
 aggregation of many individuals, and its senti- 
 ment is the last result of the thinking of the 
 most powerful of these individuals. These usu- 
 ally take the lead aud impress their principles 
 and beliefs on others. Every great revolution 
 and all evolution are first the conception of a 
 single mind, — a mind which is more radical, 
 more enlightened, farther seeing than others of 
 the time. This becomes the leaven by which 
 the masses are at last affected, and their opinion 
 in turn controls the attitude of the rising gen- 
 eration. History is an unbroken procession of 
 advanced thinkers and heroes, to whom is due 
 22 
 
The Moral Sense 23 
 
 the progress of humanity. Hnss, Wickliffe, 
 Luther, struck the first great blows at the 
 abuses of religion, and for its liberty, standing 
 for conscience against the world ; Galileo, Plato, 
 Cromwell, Hampden, Lincoln, Froebel, Darwin, 
 — and many others, in greater or less degree, 
 have aided in the social and moral evolution of 
 mankind, and rendered it true service. They 
 sometimes stood alone, unacknowledged by 
 their contemporaries, but recognized by subse- 
 quent generations at their true value, and the 
 principles for which they stood became incor- 
 porated in their highest ideals. 
 
 Men are not all born to be heroes before the 
 world, but every man, by the establishment of 
 high principle and by a faithful adherence 
 thereto, can be as true a hero in his own life as 
 he who shines before men. 
 
 What is the basis of high principle and noble 
 living ? It is the moral sense ; and the home is 
 the school where the moral sense is educated and 
 man's ideal is developed. In this little world, 
 whatever is the opinion of the parent becomes 
 in a large measure that of the child. If the 
 parents' ideal is a man of intellect, the child's 
 aims will be intellectual; if the parents' aims 
 are worldly advancement, the child will strive 
 in that direction. There are sporadic cases in 
 which the child's preferences can by no means 
 be made to conform to those of its parents, — 
 
24 Child Culture 
 
 sometimes to its advantage, oftener to its disad- 
 vantage ; but, as a rule, while under the pa- 
 rental roof, the child's aim will be determined 
 by that of the parents. This is a point which 
 constantly baffles philanthropists ; for which- 
 ever end they take hold of in endeavoring to 
 establish reform in a family seems to be the 
 wrong one. The plastic nature of the child ad- 
 mits of moulding so easily, that one feels that it 
 is the prehensile point ; and yet to secure de- 
 velopment seems futile so long as the child's 
 environments are so unfavorable, — so long as 
 it is in close contact with an ignorant, indiffer- 
 ent, and perhaps immoral, mother. 
 
 It is much more difficult to regenerate the 
 adult, yet without her cooperation one works 
 against such serious odds. 
 
 The best statement I have met of what moral 
 instruction should effect is this : " To give a 
 power of self-control, a command of the pas- 
 sions and desires, and to direct the heart and 
 mind to high and worthy ends." A man may 
 be ever so brilliant, profound and learned, yet 
 if he have not moral power, he is valueless ; it 
 is the pivot on which his whole value hinges. 
 
 Many weaknesses result from a lack of com- 
 mon sense in expecting of one thing what be- 
 longs to another. How many men, ignorant 
 from love of ease, or poor from idleness, or un- 
 generous from shallow sympathies, groan never- 
 
The Moral Sense 25 
 
 theless if they be not treated as are the learned, 
 the rich, and the generous. 
 
 Teach the young from the beginning the 
 great moral law of cause and effect — teach them 
 not to look for wealth without work, for honor 
 without honesty ; — teach them that character 
 stands above surroundings ; — that esteem 
 should be bestowed where it is due. The ele- 
 mental man, with his vast mental and spiritual 
 endowments, is entitled to reverence as well as 
 he whose material wealth is his adornment. 
 
 It is not all of morals to moralize ; less pre- 
 cept and more example is to be commended; 
 the living realization, the quiet suggestion, the 
 favorable opportunity, are the efficient teachers. 
 Ignorance is responsible for a deal of wicked- 
 ness, but evil example and parental neglect are 
 responsible for vastly more. 
 
 The greatest and noblest of the moral powers 
 is conscientiousness ; it is the basis of all moral 
 action. There is no race nor any sane individ- 
 ual that has not in some degree a sense of right 
 and wrong. It means unmitigated honesty to 
 oneself and one's fellow-man, the faithful follow- 
 ing of one's idea of right, the avoiding that 
 which one feels to be wrong. This sense be- 
 longs to different persons in different degrees. 
 The merchant who hides defects in his goods, 
 the woman who dresses and entertains beyond 
 her means, the child who promises with no 
 
26 - Child Culture 
 
 thought of fulfilment, — all are lacking in con- 
 scientiousness. Their conduct shows want of 
 honor, they take advantage of ignorance and 
 trust. One of my supreme admirations has 
 always been Thomas Babington Macaulay, who 
 sought strenuously to carry a measure in par- 
 liament which he deemed a wise and beneficial 
 one for others, but which, had it passed, would 
 have occasioned him the loss of almost his en- 
 tire fortune. Such heroism can but command 
 our deepest admiration. The truly conscien- 
 tious person, then, permits no thought of ex- 
 pediency to stand between him and his sense 
 of right. 
 
 Knowledge and wisdom should be the hand- 
 maidens of the conscience, else it may prove a 
 curse instead of a blessing. Some of the 
 blackest crimes that history records, the most 
 cruel exactions, have been perpetrated by men 
 of misdirected consciences. One cannot say 
 that the Hindoo mother who throws her babe 
 in the river in fulfilment of her idea of right, 
 that the old persecutors who thought that they 
 were serving God by torturing their fellow men, 
 did wrong. They followed the dictates of their 
 consciences, which were, however, misdirected. 
 And who shall say that future ages may not 
 pass judgment on many points of our conduct 
 in the virtue of which we now firmly believe. 
 Conscience should be enthroned, but it should 
 
The Moral Sense 27 
 
 be an enlightened conscience. If one's views 
 lead one to act at variance with the views of 
 the best, the most enlightened people, — to act 
 against nature, I would not say " Surrender," 
 but " Beware," for " ancient agreement and 
 long concurrence of many men have a right of 
 authority in reason. To rise above this is 
 grand action, but not to weigh it is shallow 
 thinking." 
 
 There is no more pathetic sight than a strong 
 power of conscientiousness directed toward 
 wickedness. We see this illustrated in the 
 case of children born and reared in iniquity, 
 who have no power to help themselves, but who 
 are taught from infancy that the only wrong is 
 not to be adepts in stealing, lying, deceiving 
 and other perversions. Therefore knowledge 
 and wise perception should go hand in hand 
 with conscience, and constitute its safeguards. 
 A child who has known the pleasure of a re- 
 lieved and approving conscience, even at great 
 personal inconvenience, will not be reluctant to 
 renew the experience. 
 
 While in most children the conscience needs 
 to be developed, there are a few, — I believe the 
 number extremely small, — in whom it is already 
 so sensitive that it needs to be repressed or 
 regulated ; they have an exaggerated fear of 
 wrong-doing ; they suffer intensely for slight 
 omissions and commissions. A too tender con- 
 
.28 Child Culture 
 
 science is to be deprecated, for it produces ex- 
 cruciating and unnecessary suffering. What 
 should be cultivated is a healthy conscience, 
 one that acts naturally and vigorously, but in 
 which there is no taint of the morbid. 
 
 It is not best to anticipate too much, and 
 overwhelm the child with precepts. Let the 
 suggestion come with the occasion ; let the com- 
 mission or omission call forth the lesson, and 
 above all, let him perceive some truths for him- 
 self. No truths are so precious to us as those 
 we have ourselves perceived; they make the 
 deepest impression on our moral natures, and 
 are the ones by which we are most apt to profit. 
 
 Next to what experience teaches, the child is 
 most impressed by the moral precepts which he 
 sees embodied. When he sees that the mother 
 and father give duty the precedence to pleasure, 
 that they refuse to give ear to vicious gossip, 
 charitably defend or suspend judgment against 
 the slandered, or when the mother sacrifices her 
 own convenience to minister to the unfortu- 
 nate, — do not these living precepts speak more 
 eloquently to the child than any sermon un- 
 supported by example ? 
 
 There is a claim that evil example deters, 
 disgusts the beholder and thus acts beneficially 
 on the morals. The Spartans compelled the 
 Helots to get drunk at times, hoping the dis- 
 gusting sight would act as a deterrent to the 
 
The Moral Sense 29 
 
 youth of the time. If such contact is not so 
 continuous as to harden the sensibilities, this 
 method might serve as a confirmation after the 
 moral sense has been developed, but if the 
 child's moral convictions are dim or weak, it is 
 a dangerous experiment. 
 
 Few persons seem to realize the significance 
 of strict integrity in the small everyday affairs 
 of life, yet they are the beginnings from which, 
 step by step, the moral sensibilities are quick- 
 ened or dulled, and perhaps forever weakened. 
 I had some difficulty in impressing upon one of 
 my children, when he first attended school, to 
 which he went by car, that if his fare were not 
 collected he should not retain it, but should 
 himself offer it to the conductor. His is a dis- 
 honesty to which many children must plead 
 guilty, and often with the parents' knowledge. 
 These little opportunities for inculcating un- 
 swerving honesty and integrity arise often in 
 every household, and should serve as occasions 
 for valuable practical lessons. 
 
 What is the obstacle that obstructs the path 
 of morality and virtuous living? Is it not the 
 suffering entailed ? There is no royal road to 
 virtue any more than there is to learning. 
 Whatever is worth having in the moral as well 
 as in the material or intellectual world, must be 
 earned by the sweat of the brow, else it would 
 be possessed by all ; it is the difficulty of attain- 
 
30 Child Culture 
 
 ment which enhances the value. There is no 
 merit in not doing what we have no temptation 
 to do ; the merit is in the temptation resisted, 
 the weakness overcome. The recluse who with- 
 draws from the world that he may not meet 
 temptation, is not so strong as he who remains 
 in the world and fights the devil out of sight. 
 
 It is a great weakness in parents that they 
 are not willing their children should suffer in 
 the acquisition of moral rectitude ; they seem 
 to think their offspring can go through life 
 without pain. This folly affects the child, and 
 does more to weaken character than any other 
 one influence. Inspire the young with courage 
 to bear for the right, to expect to suffer incon- 
 veniences, and to do so willingly as a natural 
 concomitant of virtuous effort. 
 
 To submit to any suffering robs it of half its 
 bitterness. They who earnestly desire to 
 . conquer are willing to endure all for which the 
 conquest calls. They are the true soldiers, and 
 will find their compensation in the victory 
 which cannot fail to be theirs. 
 
 Not only in the battle, but after the unsuc- 
 cessful battle, the vanquished must suffer, and 
 by suffering he will attain the requisite 
 strength. Temptation calls forth the evil in 
 our nature that we may become conscious of it 
 and eradicate it. We may fall before such 
 seductions for a time, but when the avengers, 
 
The Moral Sense 31 
 
 retribution, remorse and repentance overtake 
 us, they slay the evil that is in us, and after we 
 have recognized our passions we should not 
 again be misled. In the Purgatoria the spirits 
 plunge gladly into the fire, because they know 
 it purges. Lanier depicts Gwendolen's state 
 after coming under Deronda's influence as fol- 
 lows : — " The possibility of making one's life a 
 good life, not only makes it worth living but 
 invests it with a romantic interest whose depth 
 is infinitely beyond that of all the society pleas- 
 ures which had hitherto formed her horizon." 
 
 It is not wise to develop the child's moral 
 nature by specific, arbitrary rules. Teach him 
 EIGHT THINKING, and abovc all eight feeling, 
 for noble and high feeling not only brings men 
 into the light where they can see well, but 
 keeps undefiled that tabernacle of God, their 
 integrity, which is the one essential for both 
 individuals and society. 
 
 Religion is the dynamics of good morals. 
 Because we often find good men and women 
 who disclaim belief in the supernatural (the so- 
 called agnostics), we may conclude that it is a 
 non-essential, that their morals were of inde- 
 pendent growth. It is a deception; they are 
 the fruit which has fallen from the tree of re- 
 ligion, and these good men and women do not 
 realize that the fruit was ever attached to it. 
 Religion is a leaven that has entered the world, 
 
32 Child Culture 
 
 and though the world ''kuow it not" and cast 
 it off, it has done its faithful work and will do 
 it to the end of time. 
 
 The child's faith will doubtless be that of its 
 parents, that which came to it by tradition, and 
 it matters little what is the denomination. The 
 more deeply religious one is, the less one cares 
 about sects. But I should wish the child to be 
 Christian in the best sense of the word — a fol- 
 lower of the spirit of Christ — that spirit of 
 charity, justice, compassion and self-annihila- 
 tion wherein all sects reverence Him, and in 
 following which none can err. 
 
 There has been growing a sentiment that 
 children should not be taught dogmatically in 
 religious matters, but should await their own 
 interpretations in mature life ; nevertheless, 
 parents should have religious convictions them- 
 selves, and those which after profound and 
 prayerful effort appeal to them as truest, should 
 be the instruction given their children, at least 
 on cardinal subjects on which the child must 
 receive enlightenment from some source. 
 
 In so far as religion is a means of obtaining 
 soul culture, and not a matter of theological 
 polemics and hide-bound dogma, it can be and 
 is the source of man's truest inspirations ; the 
 preference should therefore be given the denom- 
 inations which hold character above dogma, the 
 spirit above the letter. 
 
Ill 
 
 HEREDITY AND ENVIEONMENT 
 
 Man is the product of two powers ; first the 
 organic, with which he is born ; second the ac- 
 quired, which comes to him by environment, 
 and by the action and reaction of his faculties. 
 Their respective importance and value have 
 been the subject of discussion, debate and in- 
 vestigation by the leading scientists and philos- 
 ophers of the day, some contending that the 
 difference between men is only a difference of 
 education ; others vindicating the claim of the 
 innate tendency, the preeminence of heredity. 
 Both claims are exaggerations, and a modifica- 
 tion of each is nearer the truth. It would be 
 utterly unscientific to believe that man does not 
 partake of the characteristics and tendencies of 
 his parents. In all nature like begets like. 
 Any given species reproduces the same species, 
 the bacillus of cholera produces only cholera 
 bacilli and that of consumption only consump- 
 tion. In the lower forms of animal and vegeta- 
 ble life the protoplasm is unaltered and trans- 
 mitted almost without change. Unlike the 
 creatures of the natural and animal world, man 
 has intellect and soul, and is thereby endowed 
 
34 Child Culture 
 
 with a free will and power to modify his natural 
 inheritance. 
 
 The antimony which dominates the question 
 is solvable only by experiment and experience,' 
 and the data of both claimants are modified by 
 the results. 
 
 When it is observed in the animal world how 
 exactly and uniformly one breed and quality 
 begets the like breed and quality, it would seem 
 a simple conclusion that the law of transmis- 
 sion would be as inflexible in the case of man. 
 It proves not to be so with higher organisms ; 
 the higher the organism the greater the differ- 
 entiation; in these organisms, only tendencies, 
 not conditions, are transmitted. The causes of 
 the differentiation are both organic and ac- 
 quired. The child has two parents, perhaps of 
 different physical types, the one blonde the 
 other brunette ; the child cannot possibly be 
 both, he must resemble the one or the other, or 
 be a modification of both. These parents have 
 qualities unlike ; the mother may be impulsive, 
 the father phlegmatic in temperament ; the 
 child can inherit only the qualities of one par- 
 ent, or be a modification of the two, and 
 thereby produces a more perfect balance than 
 existed in either parent ; or the two tendencies 
 may struggle in him always, sometimes one, 
 sometimes the other prevailing. In all opposing 
 tendencies one will dominate and the other be 
 
Heredity and Environment 35 
 
 subordinate for that generation, perhaps for sev- 
 eral to come, and may then unexpectedly reas- 
 sert itself. Any tendency that has once de- 
 veloped is never lost, but is held in stock and 
 liable to reproduction. Atavism goes back of 
 parents and grandparents to remote ancestors, 
 and, though under certain conditions it may 
 never manifest itself, the possibility is never 
 extinct. 
 
 The point that confuses hereditists more than 
 any other is the great number of the ancestors 
 of every individual. Every man has four grand- 
 parents, eight great grandparents, thirty- two 
 direct progenitors in the preceding generation, 
 so that going back ten generations he finds him- 
 self a direct descendant of two thousand per- 
 sons and, as these figures double in each gener- 
 ation, his ancestry becomes almost coextensive 
 with the inhabitants of the earth. To what a 
 variety of tendencies is he therefore heir, and 
 how this multiplicity reduces the danger of the 
 establishment, confirmation and predominance 
 of any one trait. When one reflects what a 
 composite creature he is, is it any wonder that 
 a man finds himself the victim of so many 
 conflicting thoughts and passions, — that he is 
 sometimes inconsistent? His possibilities are 
 not only the sum of all the inherited tendencies 
 of all his forefathers, but also include those ten- 
 dencies acquired by each forefather, these also 
 
36 Child Culture 
 
 being represented in every transmission. Each 
 one's natural and inherited tendencies are added 
 unto by his environment ; they are either fos- 
 tered and increased or they are whipped back 
 and modified ; so that while every man is a prod- 
 uct, he is also a producer of tendencies, and 
 the new product has just as fixed a quality as 
 its predecessor. These changes are wrought by 
 environment and are the salvation of what 
 might otherwise be a hopeless heritage. The 
 remarkable feature of heredity is the tenacity 
 with which it clings to what is once conceded 
 to it ; this retention is its special function, while 
 change, melioration is the function of environ- 
 ment. If heredity is permitted to do its worst, 
 to strengthen the same evil tendencies gener- 
 ation after generation, the weak traits uniting 
 with the weak, the depraved with the depraved, 
 and environment in no way relieves the condi- 
 tion, then certain characteristics become in- 
 grained, and it will take generations of better 
 tendencies to undo the traits which have become 
 so fixed. Yet the worst can be modified in one 
 generation by union with better qualities and 
 by a favorable environment. The hindrance 
 to such redemption lies in the solidarity of the 
 weak, just as the strength of the virtuous is in 
 their solidarity.^ 
 
 * North American Review, Sept. 1893, "The Lesson of 
 Heredity." By Henry S. Williams. 
 
Heredity and Environment 37 
 
 The attraction of opposite qualities in the 
 sexes helps to preserve the equilibrium, for by 
 the union of a man and woman of opposite 
 characteristics a general balance is apt to ensue 
 in the offspring. The weakness of the aristoc- 
 racy is in their environment; overindulgence 
 weakens, too great license removes the re- 
 straints which fetter the less privileged class, 
 80 that we constantly see the high degenerating, 
 and their places filled by others who have been 
 more favorably environed. However certain 
 one may feel that he has a goodly heritage, 
 it should be preciously guarded, for who knows 
 the latent evil that lurks in the rear, awaiting 
 opportunity to reassert itself, and every man 
 has enough such tendencies in his composition 
 to prove his undoing if he gives play to them. 
 
 Men and women who take pleasure in hurt- 
 ing one another's feelings still retain the in- 
 stincts of the reptiles of ages ago that crawled 
 the earth, seeking whom they might sting or 
 stick their fangs into. All have inherent good 
 and inherent bad tendencies ; man is by his 
 conglomerate ancestry a creature of great com- 
 plexity. 
 
 A man whose recent ancestry has yielded to 
 its evil tendencies in any direction will find 
 these currents in himself nearer the surface 
 and more prone to assert themselves; but he 
 may have strong counter-currents that have lain 
 
38 Child Culture 
 
 dormant and which will react to a changed en- 
 vironment; these he can array against his weak- 
 ness and become a stronger man than one who 
 had no such battle to fight. The man who 
 feels that he can rest on the laurels of his an- 
 cestors, may become reckless or less guarded 
 and be overthrown ; the man who is conscious of 
 a weak inheritance may be on the alert against 
 the enemy, and on that point unassailable. The 
 necessity is that he should feel his -own respon- 
 sibility for himself. Nothing thwarts a man's 
 redemption so completely as a sense of fatality, 
 of moral slavery, of an irremedial heredity, 
 which is also unwarranted, for in the light of 
 scientific facts all have inherent possibilities for 
 good. What a source of comfort and hope this 
 affords a man who aspires to be better than his 
 heritage. In religion and morality alike, the 
 idea of salvation — i, e., health giving — is the 
 essential idea. " Blood will tell," — but which 
 blood? That will be decided largely by a 
 man's environment. " If virtue and morality 
 cannot be taught, then the whole moral obli- 
 gation is void ; if heredity is without remedy, 
 social science is paralyzed.'* 
 
 Citations are constantly made to prove the 
 strength of heredity ; many might be made to 
 show its irregularities. Men of talent are 
 rarely sons of men eminent in the same line, or 
 even of men who have evinced unusual ability ; 
 
Heredity and Environment 39 
 
 neither do we hear much of the posterity of 
 genius. By the laws of heredity the brilliant 
 should beget the brilliant, talent beget talent, 
 yet the fact is that cases of marked ability, or 
 talent, are almost invariably sporadic. 
 
 By environment is meant not only the direct, 
 intentional education which the child receives, 
 but also every influence that touches his life 
 after birth. Example, as has been shown else- 
 where, is one of the greatest forces in develop- 
 ing good tendencies in a child, as, more than 
 all others it shows possibilities realized. There 
 is another force to which psychologists have 
 lately given attention, — the force of sugges- 
 tion. " All perception is incipient suggestion," 
 says Guyau,^ " which in certain individuals not 
 being neutralized by other suggestions, com- 
 pletes itself in action.^ All suggestion becomes 
 irresistible when perception, instead of being 
 produced in the midst of complex states of con- 
 sciousness which limit it, occupies the whole 
 consciousness, and at a given moment con- 
 stitutes the whole inner being. This state is 
 found in all whose mental equilibrium is made 
 more or less unstable by a kind of abstraction 
 which suppresses in the mind one aspect of 
 reality Thus suggestion is the trans- 
 formation by which a relatively passive organ- 
 ism tends to bring itself into unison with a rel- 
 * L'Education et PHereditj. 
 
40 Child Culture 
 
 atively active organism ; the latter dominates 
 the former, and eventually controls its external 
 movements and inner beliefs. Intercourse with 
 respected masters, relatives, or any superior 
 whatever, must produce suggestions which ex- 
 tend through a child's life. Crimes are propa- 
 gated by suggestion, often in the form in which 
 the first was committed. The injury done by 
 the Press in giving the details of crimes, sui- 
 cides, etc., is incalculable, and shows the power 
 of suggestion for evil. Obedience is the effect 
 of successful suggestion, and the power of sug- 
 gestion is reducible to the power of assertion. 
 Temperaments most capable of acquiring 
 authority over men are those which assert 
 most strongly. They who have the strongest 
 beliefs, the strongest convictions, are the ones 
 who are the most believed, who have the most 
 authority. Every strong will tends to create 
 a will in the same direction in other individuals. 
 What one thinks with sufficient energy, one 
 makes others think and see in the same light ; 
 the power of affirmation is contagious ; author- 
 ity is the centre from which action is radiated." 
 Children, — on account of their absence of 
 ideas, — have the undeveloped consciousness pe- 
 culiarly open to this force. Everything the 
 child sees is a suggestion to it. Everyone 
 knows the story of the woman who, when go- 
 ing out one day, told her children not to put 
 
Heredity and Environment 41 
 
 any beans in their noses. The children had no 
 thought of doing such a thing previous to the 
 suggestion, which, however, proved stronger 
 than their power of obedience, for, when the 
 mother returned all the children had beans up 
 their noses. 
 
 Shakespeare illustrates the power of sugges- 
 tion in Macbeth, when the witches salute him 
 — "All hail Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of 
 Cawdor!" and, "That shalt be king hereafter," 
 which suggestion led to Duncan's death and 
 the elevation of Macbeth to the throne. 
 
 The moral art of suggestion is the art of 
 modifying an individual by making him believe 
 he may be other than he is. It is one of the 
 important means in education. Persuade a 
 child that he has a strong will in order to 
 give him strength of will ; make him feel that 
 he is morally free, that he may realize the idea 
 of moral liberty. If moral slavery reduce him 
 to the belief that he has no strength to resist, 
 that he is powerless to oppose his impulse, he 
 yields without a struggle. One's faith in one's 
 ability to do anything is half of the achieve- 
 ment. The art of managing the young, and 
 even men, consists in assuming them to be as 
 good as we wish them to be, thus forcing on 
 them a "noblesse oblige." Therefore, in 
 education, always presuppose the existence of 
 goodness and goodwill. All children have bet- 
 
42 Child Culture 
 
 ter intentions than their conduct indicates. Ill 
 conduct is oftener the result of thoughtless- 
 ness, impulse, overflowing animal spirits than 
 of real waywardness or deliberation. 
 
 It is well to give tasks to children because it 
 accustoms them to exert their will power, and 
 in the experience of winning success, they learn 
 their power and thus acquire self-confidence. 
 The task should never exceed the child's power, 
 however, but be increased in proportion to his 
 strength. To task him beyond his power is to 
 produce a result diametrically opposed to the 
 idea of capability which one is trying to instil. 
 The essential purpose is to create, by direct 
 suggestion or repeated action, a series of habits 
 capable of strengthening some, or of supplant- 
 ing other, impulses of heredity origin. Chil- 
 dren admire moral strength, and no suggestion 
 will appeal to them more strongly than one ex- 
 ercised in this direction. 
 
 The influence of good social environment is 
 a power too manifest for the partisans of hered- 
 ity not to admit. The actions of our ancestors 
 prompt certain actions in us, and if there is 
 nothing to correct the prompting we yield to 
 it. But, with the solidarity of our social en- 
 vironment favoring us, the original prompting 
 is continually disregarded until it is lost. The 
 child, by the influence of example, of moral 
 suggestion in various forms, and of another ele- 
 
Heredity and Environment 43 
 
 ment which may be described as the element of 
 obligation or duty — tlie feeling that what one 
 can do one ought to do, — disregards its first in- 
 clination, and in time establishes the habit of 
 resistance. All of these influences may be 
 classed however as coming from blind prompt- 
 ings or instinctive adaptations to the right, and 
 while they are valuable, they are far less so 
 than insight, the perception of right, the indi- 
 vidual concurrence of the heart and mind in 
 divine law, which generates living principles. 
 
 Genius is born. Though much more easily 
 obtained by men of righteous ancestry, virtue 
 can only be the result of individual effort. 
 Who would not wish to be well-born, both for 
 the honor it confers, and because one's lot in 
 life is thereby rendered so much easier ? If a 
 man could choose his ancestors he would choose 
 only the best. No man is responsible to God 
 or to man for his forefathers or his birth, but 
 every man has some responsibility for his en- 
 vironment, for his acquired qualities, and it is 
 his duty and should be his ambition to leave 
 to his progeny the best possible inheritance, 
 and to say with Napoleon, " It is I who am the 
 ancestor." 
 
 IMany well-to-do childless families claim they 
 would adopt orphan children or foundlings if 
 it were not for the danger of a bad heredity in 
 such children. The majority of foundlings are 
 
44 Child Culture 
 
 doubtless ill born, or at least the offspring of 
 weakness, but with good environment, so many 
 have become highly respected members of so- 
 ciety and sources of such infinite comfort and 
 pleasure to the adopted parents that the be- 
 nevolent should not be discouraged. Some 
 very excellent people have children of their 
 own who turn out most unfortunately, but it 
 does not follow because the parents were good 
 and virtuous that they managed their children 
 judiciously, or made their environment what it 
 should be. In like manner some adopted chil- 
 dren prove unsatisfactory by reason of unfavor- 
 able environment. But any woman who has 
 the moral fitness and can offer the right en- 
 vironmental advantages to such deprived little 
 ones, can do no greater charity than to take to 
 her heart and home one of them. And after 
 all, when one's full duty has been done, respon- 
 sibility ceases, and the rest may be left to God 
 who judges by the effort and not by the result. 
 It is diflBcult to draw the line of demarcation 
 between the two great influences ; it is often 
 diflScult to state just whether the development 
 is the result of a man's environment or of his 
 heredity, so that if the influence of education 
 has not been completely demonstrated, it has 
 at least been shown that in countless cases 
 heredity is irregular and unreliable. We can- 
 not aid the latter for ourselves, so our faith and 
 
Heredity and Environment 45 
 
 our efforts must turn to the former, endeavor- 
 ing to recover for ourselves and to secure to 
 our posterity a heritage more precious than 
 wealth. 
 
IV 
 
 THE TRAINING OF THE SENSES 
 
 A BLUB book recently published in Great 
 Britain covering the criminal statistics of Eng- 
 land, Ireland, and Wales, discloses the fact that 
 in those countries there are more criminals be- 
 tween the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years 
 than of any other period. The United States 
 census reports show a similar condition in this 
 country ; also, that in proportion to the popula- 
 tion the increase in the number of juvenile 
 criminals is greater than of adult criminals. 
 Between 1880 and 1890 there was a material 
 decrease of adult criminals while the number 
 of juvenile criminals increased, and in 1890 
 fully thirty-five per cent, of the criminal popu- 
 lation of this country was under twenty-one 
 years of age. 
 
 Children who commit crime at that tender 
 age are presumably neglected in their homes, 
 have come under the influence of vice outside 
 when they should have been under judicious 
 home restraint. Does not such a condition 
 point to a failure of parental duty, or to neglect 
 by the state ? If the parent or the state has a 
 claim on the child for obedience and service, 
 46 
 
The Training of the Senses 47 
 
 how much more has the child, an involuntary 
 partner, a moral right to be educated for these 
 relations ? When we reflect what difficulties 
 beset the narrow path even with the best en- 
 vironment, is not the importance of a more 
 careful guardianship most manifest ? 
 
 While the per cent, as shown by foregoing 
 statistics was as high as thirty-five, the figures 
 show that the increase in those ten years had 
 only been eight to the million of population, 
 which is a comparatively meagre increase, and 
 gives evidence of an effective moral agency in 
 this country which is encouraging, and which 
 should be an inducement for increased effort. 
 
 A century and a half ago the first powerful 
 blow was struck in behalf of a more thoughtful 
 humane education of the child, and the assail- 
 ant was that most inconsistent of men, the 
 superb scorner, Jean Jacques Rousseau. He 
 was a man of many misconceptions and posings, 
 but of at least one brilliant and penetrating 
 work, "Emile, or Concerning Education." Its 
 ideas on the natural training of the child were 
 the heralding thoughts of our present system, 
 while his ideas on the training of women were 
 as benighted and conceited as his others were 
 enlightened. Richter, the most charming and 
 noble of German authors, was a pupil of his, as 
 were also Pestalozzi and Froebel, to whom we 
 owe the present predominance of natural train- 
 
48 Child Culture 
 
 ing during the earlier years of childhood. Un- 
 til Froebel's time little thought was given to 
 the training of the infant's natural instincts in 
 the development of conduct and character. He 
 made a scientific study of these apparently in- 
 significant instincts, and in his works " The 
 Science of Motherhood " and " Education of 
 Man," etc., shows how these instincts rightly 
 understood are the text-books of the child's 
 education. If parents understood the important 
 service he has rendered childhood and mother- 
 hood, and the value of his ideas to the race, the 
 next great monument erected in this or any 
 other country would be to Feiedrich Froebel. 
 If understood and followed in every home his 
 methods would reconstitute human conduct 
 and character. Too few mothers, even of those 
 who know of his work, appreciate that this 
 system should not be confined to the kindergar- 
 ten, but is just as applicable in the home and 
 should be the study of every woman who 
 wishes to educate her children intelligently and 
 unto their best possibilities. The principles un- 
 derlying the kindergarten are the most enliglit- 
 ened of modern educational ideas ; and the ad- 
 vantage of extending their operation to the 
 child's home life is in the fact, that compara- 
 tively few children have the opportunity of at- 
 tending kindergarten, that such attendance sel- 
 dom extends beyond a period of two years and 
 
The Training of the Senses 49 
 
 then only for three hours a day. The value of 
 tlie kindergarten work is very great, but would 
 be inestimable if the ideas there instilled were 
 cherished and continued in the home the re- 
 mainder of the day and the remainder of the 
 educational years. My apprehension is, that in 
 many cases a great deal is lost under a home 
 influence wholly subversive and in a subsequent 
 education, the ideas of which are unrelated to 
 this experience. 
 
 To begin with the infant, (one should begin 
 with his father or great grandfather) every child 
 has certain moral rights. It has a right to be 
 well-born. Henr}^ Ward Beecher said when 
 speaking once on the subject of being "born 
 again " that if he could be born right the first 
 time he would take his chance on " the second." 
 Every child has the right to be born of parents 
 who can provide him adequately with food, 
 clothing, shelter and education ; every parent 
 should feel the infinite responsibility of parent- 
 age. It is seldom considered by the lower 
 classes, and the babies of the higher classes are 
 as greatly wronged in some ways as are those 
 of the poor in others. The babies of the 
 wealthy are too often provided with quarters 
 in a part of the house distant from the parents 
 and left to the charge of ignorant, indifferent 
 hirelings, and who knows what these little 
 things suffer from inattention and impatience, 
 
50 Child Culture 
 
 if not absolute cruelty? We cannot expect 
 more of a servant than of a mother, and though 
 one would think a mother would never fail in 
 tenderness to her little helpless baby, we know 
 that mothers do lose patience sometimes ; and 
 how much oftener will the nurse, who has not 
 the mother love to sustain her self-control. On 
 the streets everyday one hears children spoken 
 to by their maids with a brutality that would 
 fire the mother's heart with indignation if she 
 knew of it. While the poor woman's child suf- 
 fers from her ignorance, the rich woman's child 
 suffers equally from the ignorance and indiffer- 
 ence of its attendaiit. The poor woman may 
 tuck her child's head under her arm and shawl 
 and unconsciously shut off every breath of air 
 from it, almost suffocating it ; the better condi- 
 tioned child lies in a baby carriage with its little 
 eyes exposed to a glaring sun that almost 
 blinds it. At both extremes we find the igno- 
 rance and the consequent suffering. The 
 remedy for the ignorance in both cases is en- 
 lightenment and a closer attention on the 
 mother's part to her child's welfare. Unless 
 one can have a patient, well-trained nurse 
 whose intelligence, disposition and self-control 
 are beyond impeachment, one should keep very 
 near to the baby at all times, even though such 
 vigilance entail great personal discomfort and 
 self-sacrifice. True motherhood means con- 
 
The Training of the Senses 51 
 
 tinued self-sacrifice, but a loving self-sacrifice 
 which has its compensations. 
 
 If a child's first right is to its mother, its next 
 is that it may be a child. Rousseau complained 
 that nothing was so misunderstood as child- 
 hood ; that everything is done later to teach a 
 man already neglected and spoiled in his early 
 years. He says : '' Nature requires children 
 to be children before they are men. If we un- 
 dertake to pervert this plan we shall produce 
 forward fruits, having neither ripeness nor 
 taste, and certain soon to decay. We shall 
 have young professors and old children." And 
 agaiu — " When he leaves my hands I acknowl- 
 edge that he will be neither soldier, priest nor 
 magistrate ; he will be first of all, a man, all 
 that a man ought to be, and though fortune 
 change, he will be prepared for every con- 
 dition." 
 
 The extent of the training in many homes 
 consists in a series of time-honored " Don'ts ; " 
 "Don't make a noise," "Don't put your 
 finger in your nose," " Don't put your hands 
 in your pockets." In many parents' eyes, 
 the child is a puppet which is not to move 
 unless they pull the string. He has hands 
 which are to touch nothing, eyes which may 
 see but must desire nothing, feet that may not 
 go, and a silent tongue. Such children exist 
 for the parents' sake, not for their own. Right 
 
52 Child Culture 
 
 education is disinterested and brings up the 
 child for its own sake, and for the sake of its 
 race and country. It should be simultaneously 
 individual and social. " Bring the most inten- 
 sive individual existence into harmon}^ with the 
 most extensive social life, and perfect harmony 
 will be found to underlie the individual and the 
 collective existence." The science of education 
 must harmonize with new conditions which 
 spring from new knowledge. As Spencer re- 
 marks, " The more perfect and therefore more 
 complex an organism is, the more difficulties 
 beset its harmonious development." 
 
 Society places no restraint on the parents' 
 absolutism, except that if they are brutal, the 
 *' Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Children" steps in, removes the unworthy 
 guardian and appoints another. Society does 
 nothing to parents who neglect their children, 
 who consciously or ignorantly instil wrong 
 principles into them, who permit them to de- 
 ceive, to lie, or commit other manner of wrong. 
 Was it not Socrates who said that every time 
 a youth offended against the right he would 
 have the parents of the wrong doer lashed for 
 the offence ? 
 
 We speak of educating our children, do not 
 our children educate us ? Does not woman at- 
 tain her best development, a finer moral dis- 
 cernment, a truer judgment, in the management 
 
The Training of the Senses 53 
 
 and education of her children than by any- 
 other experience that comes to her. Plato said 
 long ago : " The best way of training the 
 young is to train yourself at the same time ; not 
 to admonish them, but to be always carrying 
 out your own principles and practice." It is 
 certain that whatever we wish the child to be, 
 we must be that to the child ; as a single pre- 
 cept I know of no other that contains so much 
 of efficiency. 
 
 Every instinct that is manifest in the child 
 indicates a line of development, and needs only 
 to be trained and directed. The child that an- 
 noys a whole household by his restlessness, by 
 a constant turning from one mischief to another, 
 is the child who has generated a superfluity of 
 nervous force and seeks to relieve it in needed 
 activity. Instead of repressing this natural in- 
 stinct, find it a legitimate outlet ; it is the in- 
 stinct which is necessary to his physical growth 
 and development ; let him go out, run and play, 
 and change his superabundant vitality into in- 
 creased muscle, good digestion, thorough circu- 
 lation of the blood. If he cannot go out, seek 
 in his surroundings something to engage his 
 active mood, and Froebel's system here comes 
 to the rescue with alluring games and songs 
 which will afford the mother an endless means 
 of interesting him, and which establish a right 
 activity before the wrong one can assert itself. 
 
54 Child Culture 
 
 One of these is a set of finger games for the 
 mother to teach her baby while still in arms. 
 It runs as follows : 
 
 "This is the mother good and dear, 
 This is the father with hearty cheer, 
 This is the brother stout and tall, 
 This is the sister who plays with her doll. 
 And this is the baby, the pet of all, 
 Behold the good family great and small." 
 
 And as the child personifies his fingers and re- 
 gards them as a small family which he can con- 
 trol, he has something to engage his thoughts 
 and affectionate interest. Again if the mother 
 wishes to put the baby to sleep, instead of hav- 
 ing a rebellious scene, she can suggest that the 
 little fingers are tired and wish to sleep, and to 
 the accompaniment of a soft lullaby, the baby 
 and the fingers fall asleep together. 
 
 The spirit of investigation which attacks all 
 intelligent children and which is the instinct 
 that leads to the acquirement of information 
 and knowledge can be directed by giving them 
 playthings that are made to take apart and re- 
 place ; for instance, blocks, which admit of such 
 a variety of combinations; and the negative 
 fault of destruction is thus trained to the pos- 
 itive one of construction. Before the child 
 turns in any wrong direction supply him with 
 positive activities in the right direction. This 
 
The Training of the Senses 5j; 
 
 positive upbuilding principle is Froebel's sys- 
 tem, and it is beautifully elucidated and illus- 
 trated from her experience in Elizabeth Harri- 
 son's " Study of Child Nature." The old method 
 was to DESTROY the wrong, the new method is to 
 PREVENT it. " What avails it to drive out the 
 devil, sweep and garnish the house and leave it 
 empty, if the act only invites seven other de- 
 mons to come in and inhabit it." Every fault 
 is the lack of some virtue and the right educa- 
 tion prevents such defects by leading in the 
 positive right element as a first inhabitant ; and 
 then there are no dirty, slovenly tenants to 
 clean up after. Begin by building the wall 
 where it is weakest. By knowing her child 
 thoroughly and studying his tendencies the 
 mother can soon discover the points that need 
 propping and strengthening. 
 
 Froebel's method also includes the training 
 of the senses, so as to give the child complete 
 control of the lower senses which are organic, 
 and the higher ones which establish the child's 
 communication with the outer world. The 
 gratification of physical appetite should be sub- 
 ordinated to rational ends, giving us Emerson's 
 idea of *' plain living and high thinking." The 
 control of his appetite is to be effected by cul- 
 tivating the child's taste for wholesome food 
 and for that kind alone. When he is old 
 enough to understand, it can be explained to 
 
56 Child Culture 
 
 him that certain foods are required to nourish 
 the body, that such foods make good blood, and 
 good blood makes strong muscle, so if he wishes 
 to be strong he must confine himself to whole- 
 some food. This promise of strength is very 
 appealing to little boys. An appeal to the 
 child's reason sometimes produces unexpectedly 
 fruitful results, and an artificial appetite can be 
 discouraged as easily as it can be created. The 
 undue gratification of the senses leads to over- 
 indulgence, and this again to gluttony and sen- 
 suality. A child's appetite in its original nor- 
 mal state can be retained if the proper measures 
 are adopted from the beginning. In vicious 
 feeding is sown the seed of that most terrible 
 of woes, intemperance, for they are one and tlie 
 same in principle — excessive stimulation of the 
 appetite, false food engendering false appetites. 
 Froebel appreciated this danger, and in his 
 " Education of Man '* says : " In the early 
 years the child's food is a matter of very great 
 importance ; not only may tlie child by this 
 means be made indolent or active, sluggish or 
 mobile, dull or bright, inert or vigorous, but 
 indeed for his entire life. Impressions, inclina- 
 tions, appetites, which the child may have de- 
 rived from his food, the turn it may have given 
 to his senses, and even to his life as a whole, 
 can only with difficulty be set aside, even when 
 the age of self-dependence has been reached; 
 
The Training of the Senses 57 
 
 they are one with his whole physical life, and 
 therefore intimately connected with his spiritual 
 life.'* And again — " Parents and nurses should 
 ever remember, as underlying every precept in 
 this direction, the following general principle : 
 That simplicity and frugality in food and in 
 other physical needs during the years of child- 
 hood enhance man's power of attaining happi- 
 ness and vigor, — true creativeness in every re- 
 spect. Who has not noticed in children over- 
 stimulated by spices and excess of food, appe- 
 tites of a very low order, from which they can 
 never again be free — appetites which even when 
 they seem to have been suppressed, only slum- 
 ber and in times of opportunity reappear, to rob 
 man of all his dignity, and to force him away 
 from his duty. It is far easier than we think to 
 promote and establish the welfare of mankind, 
 and here it is easy to avoid the wrong and to find 
 the right. Always let the food be simply for 
 nourishment, never more, never less. Never 
 should it be taken for its own sake, but for the 
 sake of promoting bodily and mental activity. 
 Still less should the peculiarities of food, its 
 taste or delicacy, ever become an object, but 
 only a means to make it good, pure, wholesome 
 nourishment. Let the food of the little child 
 be as simple as the circumstances in which the 
 child lives can afford, and let it be in propor- 
 tion to his bodily and mental activities." 
 
58 Child Culture 
 
 111 the motto of the " Fasting Song " Froebel 
 says to the mother : 
 
 "Even through the senses Nature woos thy child, 
 Thou canst help him comprehend her lessons mild; " 
 
 He means that nature strives to educate your 
 child spiritually. His convictions are : " That 
 the soul, the Divine element in each child is as 
 it were sealed up when he first comes into the 
 world, and is gradually awakened and strength- 
 ened by the impressions which come to him 
 through the senses from the outside world; that 
 the physical and spiritual growth of the child 
 go forward simultaneously, but the one by 
 means of the other." The selfish side of amuse- 
 ments, of dress, of the body, should be relegated 
 to the background, and the inner motives lead- 
 ing to the higher spiritual side of character 
 brought forward. Commend the child more 
 for beautiful conduct, for kind thought, for 
 moral efforts, than for the brightness of his 
 eyes, the beauty of his hair or any physical su- 
 periority. If parents place appearances above 
 meritorious action the child will make the same 
 untrue discrimination ; the spirit of the parent 
 possesses the child, and the waters must first 
 be purified at their source before they can 
 throw out crystal clear streams for the child's 
 delectation. As Emerson says of man, so of 
 
The Training of the Senses 59 
 
 the child, he " cannot hear what you say, what 
 you are roars so in (my) his ears." 
 
 By such elevated guidance the child will not, 
 as he matures, place his highest hopes on mate- 
 rial things. He whose reliance for happiness 
 is based on externals is doomed to disappoint- 
 ment ; it is only in the higher life of the spirit 
 that man can find a trustworthy anchorage. It 
 is the final view to which all human experience 
 and that mirror of human life, the best litera- 
 ture brings us, that in self and selfish ends man 
 need not look for happiness — that only outside 
 of self can it be found. Man cannot know the 
 supreme moment until he 
 
 "Takes up the harp of life, and smites on all its chords 
 
 with might. 
 Smites the chord of Self, that trembling, passes in music 
 
 out of sight," 
 
THE TRAINING OF THE WILL 
 
 The child's will shows itself very early in 
 life in the strength with which it is attracted 
 to some object, and the effort it makes to secure 
 that object. It cries and struggles with Lao- 
 coon desperation in its determination to have 
 its will, and the desire is usually granted by 
 the parents, because to yield to the child's wish 
 is the easiest way. Self-will is indulged until 
 it has obtained a healthy growth, when the 
 mother concludes that it must be broken, and 
 then a conflict ensues which is as harmful and 
 as injudicious as the first course. Before the 
 child's reasoning faculties are sufficiently de- 
 veloped to be appealed to, before it is old 
 enough to be moved in its sympathies to the 
 right, it can only be taught to submit its will. 
 If articles which it should not have are invaria- 
 bly withheld, and certain ones which it may 
 have always granted, it soon learns to distin- 
 guish between them and to coincide in the 
 regulation ; on the other hand, a series of most 
 disastrous scenes follow the irregularity which 
 sometimes cedes, sometimes refuses, the same 
 article. By being consistent, the mother not 
 
The Training of the Will 6l 
 
 only commands submission at the time, but 
 also a habit of obedience, which is the first and 
 most essential lesson in the child's curriculum. 
 
 Good sense on the mother's part is most nec- 
 essary in training the child to obedience, while 
 disobedience is often incited by arbitrary and 
 unnecessary exactions. There should be few 
 requirements, only such as are for the baby's 
 own sake and they should be invariable. Never 
 exact of him more than he is yet able to give, 
 and if a baby does not relish kisses, which are 
 not necessary to his moral, mental or physical 
 development, do not torment and compel him 
 to accept them. By making the exactions com- 
 mensurate with his strength he will grow in 
 power, and in time respond to the larger de- 
 mands on his obedience. He should be per- 
 mitted all the freedom of will that is consistent 
 with reason and convenience, and this method 
 united with a wise direction of his activities 
 will furnish safeguards against those rebellions 
 which are so detrimental to a child's character. 
 
 Rousseau says : " When the infant cries, it 
 is from discomfort. It is unable to help itself 
 in the least, and can only express its sensation 
 of pain by cries, which are calls for aid. Instead 
 of rocking, or tossing, or scolding it, ascertain 
 the cause of the uneasiness and relieve it. If 
 the cause cannot be found, it is useless to try 
 to console it by means unsuited to the source 
 
62 Child Culture 
 
 of its discomfort. At first, in its weakness, it 
 implores needful aid, which should be accorded ; 
 but by injudicious responses to its prayers, the 
 latter are converted into commands. The 
 baby's commands should not be heeded; his 
 physical comforts should be diligently attended 
 to, but he should not be permitted to command 
 people, for he is not their master. He soon 
 looks on those around him as instruments, which 
 he is to keep in motion, to use for securing 
 every capricious desire ; he thus becomes tyran- 
 nical, perverse and imperious, and the parents 
 have themselves created this spirit of domina- 
 tion by unwise administration. In helping him, 
 we must confine ourselves to what is really of 
 use to him, yielding nothing to his whims or 
 unreasonable wishes. Such caprice is unnec- 
 essary, contributes nothing to his happiness, 
 and will not be manifest except as we create it. 
 Give the child more personal freedom, and less 
 authority ; let him do more for himself and 
 exact less of others. He will thus become ac- 
 customed to desire only what he can obtain for 
 himself, and will feel less keenly the want of 
 what is not within his power. 
 
 " If the child is petted or coaxed when he 
 cries, he is educated to cry. If you* cannot 
 relieve a real discomfort, do nothing ; do not 
 try to soothe him by petting him. Your ca- 
 resses cannot relieve his pain, but he will re- 
 
The Training of the Will 63 
 
 member what is necessary to do to be humored, 
 and when be discovers that he can, at will, en- 
 gage your solicitous attention, he is your master. 
 If we show indifference to his crying, if we 
 take no pains to hush it, he will, receiving no 
 satisfaction, discontinue the practice. Antici- 
 pate his needs and do not wait for him to notify 
 you by crying, which begets the habit; but do 
 not evince much uneasiness and distress at his 
 tears, for when he finds that they have power 
 to move, he will be very lavish of them. By 
 disregarding unreasonable crying the habit is 
 prevented, and if it already exists, can be 
 cured." 
 
 Judicious and consistent management are, 
 however, only the outer breastworks which pro- 
 tect the inner stronghold for a period, and to a 
 certain extent. Neither love nor wisdom can 
 construct a fortification strong enough to keep 
 away temptation, and the outward, formal, obe- 
 dience must be gradually trained to become a 
 voluntary conformity — the will power must be 
 strengthened by an enlightened insight. Will 
 or determination is a valuable quality to possess 
 because it is the carrying power, the executive 
 force of the other faculties. It constitutes the 
 backbone of all virtue and is indispensable to 
 a perfect development. The parent is so desir- 
 ous of having the right thing done that he 
 pompels the child to obey, although his will 
 
64 Child Culture 
 
 power is not strengthened by such compulsory 
 yielding to the parent's will. To become the 
 strong faculty it should be, it must be exercised, 
 must proceed from within. This training of 
 the will takes time and is a slow evolution. In 
 the meantime, obedience must not wait on this 
 training, but must be required, and the child 
 must not be permitted to yield to his caprices 
 or humors while his impulses are strong and his 
 reason feeble. The rational judgment of the 
 mother must prevail until the child's will is 
 sufficiently grown in the right direction. And 
 right here we have the most difficult problem 
 in the entire education of the child — how to 
 compel obedience which it were unwise not to 
 do, and at the same time give the child's will 
 opportunity to develop itself spontaneously, 
 into voluntary obedience. This training can be 
 assisted in two ways : by appeals to his reason, 
 and by appeals to his sympathy with the right. 
 The law by which the will power is developed 
 is the law of recognition. 
 
 The child's will may be directed toward the 
 right by various incentives : one of the most 
 powerful is the appeal to the opinion of some 
 individual whom he respects, or to public opin- 
 ion. If the response to this appeal proceed 
 from a real reverence for the better judgment 
 of the most worthy people, and if he respect it 
 for its soundness, then the recognition is a 
 
The Training of the Will 65 
 
 worthy one. If on the contrary the response 
 simply show a desire for approbation regardless 
 of the value of the praise, then it is vanity and 
 an unworthy motive. The mother has also the 
 instruments of her own praise and censure with 
 which to move the child's will. Praise and 
 censure are joint powers, and he who cannot 
 praise deservedly cannot censure justly, for he 
 lacks the brighter half of justice. Right-will 
 and love are both engendered by judicious 
 praise of meritorious effort, and it is a commend- 
 able power. If the mother is consistent in 
 her standard, always commending every effort 
 toward it, and censuring every deviation from 
 it, this standard will become the child's ideal 
 and inspire his will. The foregoing motives and 
 the child's natural affection for his parents will 
 aid him as much as external motive can in a 
 determination toward the right, and if at the 
 same time his insight is awakened whereby he 
 sees into the justice and wisdom of divine law, 
 — then, when he gains a reverence for the 
 eternal right as such, he has made all the intel- 
 lectual and moral recognition a man can. 
 
 There is also the recognition of the heart 
 which moves the child to feel toward the right. 
 This recognition maybe urged by relating stories 
 or facts, whereiu true, generous, noble deeds 
 are presented in such attractive forms that the 
 child at once desires to follow them. Ideals 
 
66 Child Culture 
 
 are created in the depths of intellectual ab- 
 straction or emotional enthusiasm, and to 
 arouse the enthusiasm by citing illustrative fact 
 or fiction, gives the child an ideal toward 
 which he may strive. Froebel's games are full 
 of such attractive ideals, which appeal to the 
 child's heart. When the child is old enough to 
 understand heroic deeds of history, or the 
 imaginary heroes of myth and legend, point 
 out to him the traits which ennobled each, and 
 also the statues which commemorate the vir- 
 tuous dead, that he may appreciate wherein 
 true greatness consists, £ftid cherish only worthy 
 ideals. Miss Harrison says in this regard: 
 *' Where we see little Arabs of our large cities, 
 ragged, dirty and hungry, smoking cigarettes 
 or cigars with a triumphant air of having at- 
 tained a much envied distinction, we know that 
 their standard of manhood is measured by the 
 length of the cigar or size of the pipe which a 
 man can smoke. We know that high ideals 
 have never been given to their little souls, and 
 that they have reached out for some standard 
 by which to measure their growing manliness, 
 and have taken this external distinction as the 
 test." 
 
 A child may be perfectly obedient, never 
 transgress a law, and yet have no power of 
 self-government, for his controlling force may 
 be fear instead of desire, and only when the 
 
The Training of the Will © 
 
 false pressure is raised and his acts are volun- 
 tary, can one know what his own power is. 
 Sustain the child's efforts at self-control by a 
 lavish affection, letting this affection be a re- 
 ward for his conduct, and let encouragement 
 always come before despondency sets in, for 
 only Titanic strength of character can endure 
 against constant discouragement and failure. 
 
 We make the great mistake of expecting too 
 much of our children. Beware of hothouse 
 morality. The detrimental results of intel- 
 lectual precocity are already apparent. The 
 moral faculties evolve slowly, and over-stimu- 
 lation will have reaction. A boy of eight or 
 ten years; who never transgresses, never needs 
 correction, is lacking in physical or mental vi- 
 tality. 
 
 The spirit of analysis, or reasoning about the 
 parent's orders should be discouraged. It is 
 sometimes kind and wise of the parent in re- 
 fusing a request to give a reason for so doing, 
 and it would be commendable if it did not in- 
 vite an argument, thereby lessening the child's 
 respect for parental authority. There ought to 
 be associated with the child's affection a per- 
 fect confidence in the parent's good judgment. 
 " It cannot, however, be wondered at in this 
 age of independent criticism," says Kate Doug- 
 las Wiggin, " when the ubiquitous interro- 
 gation point is levelled against everything, that 
 
ii 
 
 68 Child Culture 
 
 it should also be held against parental judgment. 
 Freedom of thought and speech are republican 
 virtues. If they sometimes prove its vices also 
 we must bear them as patiently as possible " ; 
 but with children it might be insisted tliat 
 sometimes their interest blinds their insight, 
 and they must trust their parents' love and 
 have faith in the rationality of their conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 Of all errors in education the worst is incon- 
 sistency, and an immense increase of trans- 
 gression results from an irregular application 
 of rules. If a child is sent from the table nine 
 times for personal untidiness and permitted to 
 remain the tenth time, he is by the one over- 
 sight encouraged to persist in the offence. " A 
 weak mother," says Spencer, " who perpetually 
 threatens and never performs — who makes 
 rules in haste and repents them at leisure — who 
 treats the same offence now with severity and 
 now with leniency, as the passing hour dictates, 
 is laying up misery for herself and her children. 
 She is making herself contemptible in their 
 eyes. Better even a barbarous form of govern- 
 ment, carried out consistently, than a humane 
 one inconsistently carried out." Some parents' 
 orders remind one of the harlequin who ap- 
 peared on the stage with a bundle of papers 
 under each arm, and who answered, when asked 
 what was under his right arm, — " Orders," and 
 
The Training of the Will 69 
 
 when asked what was under his left arm, — • 
 " Counter-orders." 
 
 Parents should be well assured of the justice 
 and wisdom of their regulations and then ad- 
 here to them ; if, however, on further con- 
 sideration their views are modified, or changed, 
 there is no reason why the child should not 
 have the benefit of the better judgment. Ob- 
 stinacy in clinging to a mistaken judgment is 
 firmness perverted. 
 
 Weak will is the ruin of as many souls as de- 
 liberate evil, and is often the road to it. The 
 prisons, jails and reformatories are full of well- 
 meaning men who are there, not because they 
 are wicked, but because they are weak. There 
 are few persons who would not choose to do 
 right if choosing accomplished it, but they lack 
 the moral courage to resist the temptation at 
 first, and the oftener they yield, the more in- 
 sensible to the wrong are they likely to become. 
 
 When we begin to compromise we begin to 
 die, and the child has learned the most valuable 
 lesson of his life when he appreciates the ad- 
 vantage of not giving entrance or consideration 
 to the thought that can lead him astray. The 
 longer one contemplates the temptation, the 
 more irresistible it becomes. The parents 
 should give the child every aid in its efforts at 
 self-control. He may desire the right course 
 very earnestly and have no practical ideas of 
 
70 Child Culture 
 
 how to attain it, bis feelings overcoming his will 
 constantly. This is a frequent difficulty with 
 intense natures, and on investigation it may be 
 found that the weakness consists in letting the 
 mind dwell on the luring thought, and that to 
 banish it as often as it presents itself is the only 
 hope of success. The best aid in a struggle 
 against temptation is to make the child capable 
 of filling his mind with other thoughts unre- 
 lated to the tempting one. 
 
 The man who holds up his head firmly and 
 securely through a period of poverty or unde- 
 served disgrace is exercising his power of firm- 
 ness as vigorously as the general on the battle- 
 field, and his conflict with his shaken self- 
 esteem and baffled hopes is as great as the con- 
 flict with the enemy. Such a man will have 
 the sympathy of all right-minded people. 
 
 No one can guide and train a little one to his 
 best possibilities who has not by love and right 
 living retained his own child heart ; he must 
 become as one of them before he can wisely 
 direct the life of a little child. Yet these little 
 ones are subjected very often to cruelties and 
 humiliations which are never intended, but are 
 the result of thoughtlessness and carelessness. 
 What can we think of a woman who nicknames 
 her daughter, because she is a girl of slender 
 proportions, " Slim." I once knew such a one. 
 It is no rare thing to hear mothers tease and 
 
The Training of the Will 71 
 
 joke, and, I regret to say, even scold their little 
 children about some physical peculiarity which 
 can be in no way remedied, and of which they 
 thus become painfully conscious. Such words 
 are as cruel as the taunt which made Byron's 
 mother so famous. 
 
 Again, parents after punishing a child for a 
 misdemeanor will relate it to others in the 
 child's presence and laugh at the naughtiness 
 which they a short time before severely re- 
 buked. Fathers are prone to regale their fam- 
 ilies with certain transgressions of their boy- 
 hood, with great relish for the heroic parts they 
 took. These tales, though likely to prove very 
 tempting to the son, are, however, supposed to 
 excite no parallel propensities in him. All these 
 things are done without thought of the disas- 
 trous effect they may have on the child, and 
 only serve to show how guarded parents should 
 be before their children. 
 
 Inconsistency is quite as frequent as thought- 
 lessness, though the following may be an ex- 
 treme case. A child presented himself at school 
 so often in so soiled a state that the teacher 
 remonstrated with him, requesting him to in- 
 vite his mother's inspection before leaving 
 home in the morning. The little fellow re- 
 plied : " My mother has no time for such 
 things. She is writing a book on * How to 
 Rear a Perfect Child.' " 
 
72 Child Culture 
 
 It is also unwise to reprimand a child before 
 others, as the hurt his pride sustains neutral- 
 izes any effect the words might otherwise have ; 
 a child's self-respect should be marred as seldom 
 as possible, and always reinstated as soon after 
 as possible. Self-respect is a motive so strong, 
 that it alone is often sufficient to hold to the 
 path of rectitude. When the child is old 
 enough to understand, if the parent will trace 
 back to its source the fault to which he seems 
 most predisposed and analyze his weak point 
 for him, the analysis will be of great assistance 
 to him in overcoming the fault. 
 
 It is wise sometimes to overlook small faults, 
 particularly if one has occasion already for 
 much reproof, as too frequent censure lessens 
 the child's sensibilities thereto ; the entire in- 
 fluence should be levelled against the graver 
 defects, and when they have been corrected, 
 attention may be given to the lesser ones. Her- 
 bert Spencer's theory of discipline is most wisely 
 suggestive of the course to pursue. He says : 
 " Let the history of your domestic rule typify 
 in little the history of our political rule ; at the 
 outset autocratic control where control is really 
 needful; by and by an incipient constitution- 
 alism, in which the liberty of the subject gains 
 some express recognition ; successive exten- 
 sion of this liberty of the subject gradually 
 ending in parental abdication." The best 
 
The Training of the Will 73 
 
 teacher is one who guides rather than governs, 
 suggests rather than dogmatizes, and who in- 
 spires the listener with a desire to teach him- 
 self, for after all is said and done, a man must 
 make himself. He can be assisted and devel- 
 oped to a given point only, and beyond that 
 his inspiration must emanate from himself. 
 
VI 
 
 PUNISHMENT AND EEWAED 
 
 Long before the child's will has developed 
 sufficiently to wisely direct and sustain him in 
 good conduct, it is necessary that he should 
 conform to some authority, as obedience and 
 right doing cannot wait on the full growth of 
 the will. If the child, however, rebels or disre- 
 gards this authority as well as his sense of 
 right, and can by no appeal to his reason or 
 sympathy be urged to comply, how shall the 
 parental authority be exercised ? 
 
 Obedience may be urged by four different 
 motives: First, Affection. Second, Insight, — 
 the recognition of right, moral respect. Third, 
 The Habit of Submission. Fourth, Fear. Af- 
 fection and recognition of right are the highest 
 motives. 
 
 It must now be ascertained to what extent it 
 is right to let the elements of hope and fear 
 enter into the child's discipline. Much of the 
 mismanagement of children is due to a mis- 
 apprehension of the aim of punishment. Pun- 
 ishment is not only an atonement for trans- 
 gression, but should be so directly a conse- 
 quence of it, as to fix in the child's mind the 
 74 
 
Punishment and Reward 75 
 
 relation between them — the act and its conse- 
 quence, — and thereby aid him in avoiding a 
 repetition of both. He must first know definitely 
 what is right and what is wrong, and have the 
 power of choosing between the two. It is very 
 difficult to ascertain in a young child how far 
 his consciousness is developed ; childhood is so 
 very unconscious. His attitude after the com- 
 mission of a deed may reveal the degree of his 
 conscious guilt. In doubtful cases he should 
 be given the benefit of the doubt ; in cases that 
 show conclusively both consciousness and de- 
 liberate evil, or wilfulness, he should learn that 
 "the way of the transgressor is hard." The 
 very best punishments are those which can be 
 linked with the misdeed — the retributive pun- 
 ishments. They appeal to his sense of justice, 
 are more impersonal in that they do not afford 
 special indulgence to parental displeasure, and 
 appear to him as the direct consequence of his 
 deed. For instance : if the child has been given 
 a distinct task and has shirked it, and afterward 
 an opportunity for pleasure arises, he should 
 not be allowed to take part, because the en- 
 forced task still awaits his attention. He must 
 recognize that the omission of his duty brought 
 the unpleasant result. It is the law of cause 
 and effect, — as a man sows, so will he reap. 
 
 A series of such disagreeable consequences 
 will impress him with the inevitableness of the 
 
76 Child Culture 
 
 relation, unless the weak parent intervenes and, 
 by permitting him to forego the after effects, 
 spoils the lesson, or punishes him by some 
 means unrelated to the act. The consequences 
 are often as unpleasant for the parent as for 
 the child, and the temptation to weaken is very 
 great ; but if one cannot be consistent and firm, 
 it is impossible to train the child as he should 
 be trained, and the consequences that are de- 
 feated now are only retarded, for every wrong 
 is punished or atoned for sooner or later. 
 
 In the Divine Comedy, Dante inflicts on the 
 lost souls of the Inferno the punishments that 
 fit their sins. The soul which had been arro- 
 gant in life is there in filth and mire disguised. 
 The man who had been remarkable for the ex- 
 treme irascibility of his temper turns on him- 
 self his avenging fangs. The heretics are pun- 
 ished in the city of Dis in tombs burning with 
 intense fire. The souls of tyrants, who were 
 given to blood and rapine, in the seventh circle 
 rail aloud their merciless wrongs. The hypo- 
 crites are punished by being compelled to pace 
 around the gulf under the pressure of caps and 
 hoods that are gilt on the outside but leaden 
 within. The selfish, they who have betrayed 
 their benefactors, are wholly covered with ice 
 in the lower stratum of the Inferno, for selfish- 
 ness is the most ineradicable of sins. 
 
 In training the child to orderly habits this 
 
Punishment and Reward 77 
 
 method is also most efficacious ; if the disorder 
 he creates is left for another to restore, he is 
 encouraged to continue it, whereas if the res- 
 toration falls on him, he will soon discontinue 
 the habit; the greater the inconvenience he 
 suffers in consequence of his neglect, the more 
 it will impress him, and his sense of justice will 
 suffer no violation by sucli treatment. If the 
 child who leaves his clothes on the floor at 
 night on retiring is awakened and compelled to 
 arise and arrange them properly, the neglect 
 will not occur often. In this method of punish- 
 ment, however, regularity and perseverance are 
 imperative. 
 
 Cases occur in which it is impossible to mete 
 out the after effects of the deed, and some form 
 of punishment is in demand. The child might 
 be deprived of some pleasure or indulgence, or 
 indeed, almost any form of punishment may 
 then be resorted to, except such as the child 
 may feel to be a pure gratification of the par- 
 ent's displeasure, which induces a sense of in- 
 justice. 
 
 Corporal punishment is never inflicted except 
 in cases where one has some physical advan- 
 tage, and it seems cowardly to use one's supe- 
 rior strength on a weaker body. *' Do you know 
 why I whip you ? " asked a father of his little 
 boy. " Yes, sir, because you are the biggest," 
 replied the latter ; and too often in such pun- 
 
78 Child Culture 
 
 ishments there is an excitement of the animal 
 nature, insensible alike to the claims of right 
 and reason. One is apt to act impulsively in 
 such administrations of justice, whereas a little 
 delay, a little more thorough examination of 
 the child's defence, or of the circumstances, 
 might render the chastisement unnecessary, and 
 grant a juster decision. 
 
 As to the proper treatment of specific cases 
 there can be no rigid, unvarying rule suited to 
 all, or even to the same child at all times; chil- 
 dren differ so in their sensibilities and in the 
 degree of their amenability to punishment. 
 Some there are, who in childhood were victims 
 of frequent whippings, yet who seem to recall 
 them with relish and a feeling that they were 
 well deserved and most beneficial ; while in 
 others the remembrance arouses almost as great 
 indignation and rebellion as the actual admin- 
 istration aroused. The inference is, that for 
 the former a milder punishment would not 
 have sufficed, whereas for the latter the sever- 
 ity was unnecessary. Very good effects seem 
 to have resulted from both modes, so one can 
 formulate no data therefrom. The sentiment 
 of fear can only be effective by making a cow- 
 ard of the child. He follows the right only be- 
 cause he has not the courage to bear the pain 
 that would follow the course he wishes to fol- 
 low, and if he submits he still harbors a rebel- 
 
Punishment and Reward 79 
 
 lious spirit ; both results do injury to his char- 
 acter. 
 
 If corporal punishment may enter into the 
 sentiment of moriil authority it should not have 
 too much prominence, nor be permitted to en- 
 croach on other forms of punishment. In no 
 case should the parent show brutal anger to the 
 child, or he also will feel justified in being pas- 
 sionate and brutal. Indignation and not anger 
 should be the accompanying sentiment. The 
 justification of corporal punishment lies in its 
 application to cases of such serious nature that 
 they cannot be temporized with, but must be 
 met with the greatest severity possible, and in 
 the certainty that such acts, if not checked, 
 will cause the child to suffer later in life much 
 ruder consequences. The connection between 
 cause and effect can be explained to him, the 
 logical sequence of wrong giving it the stamp 
 of justice, and if one wishes the child to be 
 just, one must deal justly with him. Scoldings 
 and whippings should not be of frequent occur- 
 rence, as the child will become insensible to 
 them, and experience teaches that children 
 who are whipped for every offence are the most 
 unmanageable of all, and their parents are al- 
 ways at their wits' end to know what to do 
 with them. A child should never be punished 
 for accidents or inadvertencies in which there 
 is no conscious or intentional guilt. He must 
 
8o Child Culture 
 
 be thorouglilj instructed in the nature of 
 wrong, and even after conscious sins that are 
 the result of impulse, it would be most disas- 
 trous to punish him for the misdeed if his re- 
 morse is already awakened, for repentance and 
 reformation are all that punishment is to effect. 
 Consequentl}^ if they already exist, the inflic- 
 tion is not only superfluous but destroys what 
 genuine repentance he has felt. In this respect 
 the administration of justice in the home differs 
 from the civic administration ; the former, be- 
 ing educative, individual, and more for the 
 moral effect and development than for atone- 
 ment and the protection of society, greater 
 elasticity is permissible. To be effectual, cor- 
 poral punishment should be reserved for excep- 
 tional cases of rare occurrence, and open dis- 
 obedience. The essentially exceptional char- 
 acter of it makes it formidable and a powerful 
 means of impressing the child's mind. 
 
 As the object of punishment is to awaken 
 remorse, a moral color should pervade it, and 
 as the child matures, moral pain be substi- 
 tuted for physical pain. If the same offence is 
 repeated for whicli the child has once or twice 
 been whipped, that form of punishment should 
 not be continued, nor should he be punished 
 frequently for other grievous offences, for the 
 moral effect is soon exhausted, and frequency 
 makes the child accustomed to being punished, 
 
Punishment and Reward 81 
 
 — a deplorable result. It is better to cbange 
 tlie punishment; and even not to notice the 
 offence for awhile is sometimes advisable. 
 It is doubtful whether such chastisement is 
 ever inflicted by a thoughtful parent without 
 an after sentiment of regret and shame from 
 the feeling that after all it was only a vic- 
 tory of brute force, because he was the 
 stronger. It should never be administered ex- 
 cept where the parent is calm and dispassion- 
 ate, at which time it will be so distasteful 
 to him that he will suffer as much as the 
 child. 
 
 Let each reward be of the character of the 
 meritorious act ; spiritual effort should not be 
 rewarded by material gain. The child's self- 
 control should not be moved by appeals to his 
 physical gratification and pleasure, as it en- 
 courages that in him which is already too 
 prominent. How can a child develop true un- 
 selfishness, when the selfishness that already 
 exists is used to destroy another form of it ; it 
 only substitutes one form of error for another. 
 If the mother says to her child — " Give your 
 little brother some of your apple and I will buy 
 you another, or a finer one,*' his selfish spirit 
 alone is incited, aud though he thereupon share 
 his fruit, the act has not an element of merit, 
 for there was no unselfishness in it, — nothing 
 
82 Child Culture 
 
 but pure gain having prompted him. Higher 
 ideals should inspire him, such as love, desire 
 of another's respect, his own self-respect, the 
 impossibility of attaining peace and happiness 
 without goodness. By receiving right forms of 
 reward and punishment he will soon realize 
 that by well doing alone does contentment 
 come to him, that only by integrity and up- 
 rightness can he command the respect of his 
 fellow-man, that only by an extension of his own 
 sympathies can he create love in those around 
 him. Only by suffering the consequences of 
 ignorance, sin, and weakness, is the need of a 
 remedy urged. On this law of cause and effect 
 hangs the progress of the world ; it is inevita- 
 ble, just, and to man's ultimate benefit. The 
 recognition of this law is the aim and attain- 
 ment of punishment, and the wise man knows 
 that it is useless to try to thwart or to evade it, 
 that he can only adjust himself to it, and the 
 wise parent will bring out in his child's disci- 
 pline the divine law of justice and compensa- 
 tion. 
 
 " He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but 
 he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." 
 These words of Solomon have influenced 
 countless numbers of parents to the wielding 
 of the rod, but like many injunctions of the 
 Bible are probably symbolic. If by the " rod " 
 is meant "punishment," the proverb is a salu- 
 
Punishment and Reward 83 
 
 tary one ; but as so many of the practices of 
 the Old Testament were set at naught by 
 Christ in the higher law of the New Testament, 
 it is remarkable that these words of the king 
 with the seven hundred wives and three hun- 
 dred other lady friends, who, though he uttered 
 much wisdom, did not always practice it, but 
 fell from the grace of the Lord, — should have 
 such weight in all households, and in every 
 generation of parents. But all proverbs in 
 which another is the victim, are easier of re- 
 membrance and execution. 
 
 Rewarding children for goodness is a false 
 sentiment, and checks rather than aids their 
 right development, for it induces false motives. 
 Policy I Expediency ! Diplomacy ! These words 
 should have no place in the child's education. 
 Without a doubt the right way is also ulti- 
 mately the advantageous way, but if it were 
 not, it should still be the guide ; instead of 
 teaching that "Honesty is the best policy," 
 teach that honesty is the best principle^ even if 
 it were not the best policy ; that man must do 
 right whether it pays or not. When principle 
 is involved, the question, "Will it pay?" should 
 never arise. The child may be rewarded for 
 correcting himself of bad personal habits in 
 which no mortal question is involved, or even 
 for exceptional good work in his studies if the 
 effort has been a difficult one, although even 
 
84 Child Culture 
 
 that is ot doubtful .idvisability ; but for his 
 spiritual advancement, or moral rectitude, — 
 never. That is his duty to God, and should 
 not be placed on a low material plane. 
 
VII 
 
 THE VALUE OF PLAY 
 
 Nothing more clearly demonstrates the 
 fallibility and mutability of human views than 
 the fact that what is deemed sinfulness in one 
 generation becomes a chief agency of educa- 
 tion in another; the playful tendencies of 
 children were regarded by Puritan asceticism 
 as evidence of depravity, while they are now 
 admitted to be the heart of child-education. 
 In the child's early years play is the agency 
 that gives him health, acquaintance with his en- 
 vironment, and unconscious sympathy with the 
 natural, the human, and the divine. 
 
 * Physical impressions are at first the only 
 mediums possible for awakening the child's 
 sensibilities ; the impressions of that early 
 period should therefore be regulated, and not 
 
 left to chance It is not advised that 
 
 one shall enter the realm of babyhood, and in- 
 terfere with the infant's legitimate tastes by 
 pragmatic pedagogic reasoning, but that one 
 shall select his toys and plays wisely, and then 
 let him enjoy the emotional impressions they 
 create ; his toys speak to his feelings, his im- 
 agination, as nothing else can. The baby has 
 85 
 
86 Child Culture 
 
 not reached the age of investigation and has no 
 vulgar curiosity as to the internal arrangements 
 of his woolly bunny or kitten, but hugs it to 
 his breast and loves and reveres it in its en- 
 tirety.' As he advances in years and under- 
 stands and participates in games and play, these 
 should contain purpose and not be altogether 
 trivial in character ; if the moral and intel- 
 lectual powers, through evil heredity or other- 
 wise, are not properly balanced, rightly directed 
 plays may be made the agency for restoring the* 
 harmony. Play is an absolute necessity to his 
 physical life, which depends very greatly on 
 the exercise he takes, and no exercise is so 
 beneficial as that which has a motive, which is 
 therefore voluntary and pleasurable. Running 
 produces a healthy development of the lungs 
 and limbs attainable by no other method. 
 
 The work and business of life are so en- 
 grossing that in the ordinary household the 
 child is left to the atmosphere of servants, the 
 street and chance. The problem is how to 
 furnish fair, faithful environment for these 
 chrysalis breaking years, when the habits are 
 forming, the imagination is awakening, and the 
 emotions are quickening. A great deal may be 
 done through the medium of the child's play 
 and playthings. It is claimed that the periods 
 of man's life run parallel to the racial periods. 
 The races in their primitive savage states are 
 
The Value of Play 87 
 
 preeminently physicial, and struggle for the 
 mastery of the material world ; so the first 
 years of the child's life are absorbed in its 
 physical growth, and in securing concrete im- 
 pressions. Then, in the development of the 
 race follows the period when the intellectual 
 begins to join forces with the physical, and the 
 dawn of civilization rises in the skilled use of 
 the primitive man's hands, in his mastery of 
 numbers; and in the modification of the choric 
 dances and shouting songs to the dawning 
 music of civilization. This is the time of his 
 greatest triumphs, and is the corresponding 
 period in the child's life which must be bridged 
 for him that he may emerge from the purely 
 physical, and begin to realize his intellectual 
 and moral possibilities. 
 
 The child thinks only through symbols, that 
 is, he realizes his own concept of what he has 
 seen and heard. Froebel's plays and games 
 give him a symbolic education, and he is led 
 through a series of primitive occupations such 
 as plaiting, weaving, modeling, through games 
 and dances which bring into play all the social 
 relations. The purpose of the plays is manifold ; 
 to awaken the child's interest and sympathy ; 
 to lead him along the path the race has trod, 
 and to teach him self-government. If the 
 child has not access to the kindergarten, many 
 of the songs and much of the manual work of 
 
88 Child Culture 
 
 the Froebel System can be introduced into the 
 home, and when there are several children a 
 great number of the plays can be used. The 
 mother or superintendent of the plays should 
 not permit them to be carelessly produced, 
 nor to degenerate into mere romps. They 
 should be conducted by a woman educated in 
 the principles and theories underlying them. 
 The intellectual and moral development 
 through play is very important. The childish 
 heart opens spontaneously in play, and while 
 the barriers are down, the wise teacher can 
 enter and lead the child's sympathies as she 
 wishes. While his interest is aroused his emo- 
 tions are accessible, and through the emotions 
 one reaches his thought, thence his will, and 
 from his will the influence extends to his char- 
 acter. It is only necessary that his environ- 
 ment be right, for in his plays and in his grow- 
 ing personality he will reflect his environment. 
 The undirected plays of children are almost 
 always those of imitation ; in fact not only their 
 plays, but their manners and personalities are 
 the result of an unconscious imitation of the 
 persons who surround them in childhood. A 
 child who has for sole associates his father and 
 mother will be a small copy of one or both ; he 
 cannot interpret their actions, but he gives a 
 blind imitation of them. In intercourse with 
 brother, sister or playmate, just so far as his 
 
The Value of Play 89 
 
 sensibilities are moved, he imitates them, and 
 in imitation his habits are formed. It is, there- 
 fore, most important that while his habits are 
 crystallizing, his associates be of superior char- 
 acter, and if an underbred maid or street gamin 
 are his sole companions, what can one hope for? 
 By a varied contact, by receiving suggestions 
 from many sources instead of from only one or 
 two, he is compelled to make a choice, and thus 
 in the stress of the conflict of suggestions the 
 conscience is born and his ethical life dawns. 
 The friendships and companions should not, 
 therefore, be too limited, but should have some 
 variety, for variety of association is the soul of 
 originality. 
 
 By imitation the child learns to understand. 
 When he is imitating the fluttering and flight 
 of the bird or butterfly, he is entering into 
 sympathy with bird and butterfly life ; when 
 the boy, as father bird, roams out in search of 
 the worms for his baby birds, he not only expe- 
 riences the feelings of the father bird, but the 
 instincts of fatherhood, protection, and respon- 
 sibility are fostered in his own breast. As she 
 plays the mother sheep caring for her white 
 lambkins, the little girl's maternal instincts are 
 quickened, and she is for the moment the mother 
 of white lambkins, and learns to love her flock. 
 In all Froebel's plays he mirrors the instinct of 
 universal life ; he makes the child undergo " a 
 
90 Child Culture 
 
 systematized sequence of experience through 
 which he grows into self-knowledge, clear ob- 
 servation and unconscious perception of, the 
 whole circle of relationships," until the symbols 
 of the plays become the truth symbolized in 
 the child's character and personality. Froebel 
 believes in positives, not negatives in teaching; 
 in stimulants instead of in deterrents. Every 
 child is on the warpath for something to do, 
 and his interest is in objects, in the concrete ; 
 he wants his senses fed, he wants to examine, 
 to feel, to see and hear the material things of 
 this, to him, new world, and when he has taken 
 in the living facts, when he has perceived, com- 
 pared, and been instructed in his surroundings, 
 then he is ready to see and hear what others 
 have seen and heard. He must first know ob- 
 jects, then thoughts and their progress. 
 
 As soon as the child attains consciousness, 
 he manifests a taste for imitating every live 
 thing with which he comes in contact ; first the 
 sounds of the rooster, the dog, cat and cow ; 
 then the actions and instincts of these animals 
 should be observed. He also personifies still 
 life, and his father's cane becomes an uncon- 
 trollable charger, which he seeks to tame. The 
 little girl showers on her rag babies all the love 
 and affection which she has herself received 
 from her own mother ; every toy, no matter how 
 damaged or raemberless, plays a part in her 
 
The Value of Play 91 
 
 dramatic imagination, and the child meanwhile 
 grows in sympathy and in comprehension of 
 the ever widening circle of human relationships. 
 "Every conscious intellectual phase of the 
 mind is preceded by the symbolic stage." The 
 child illumines with his imagination all the 
 realties that surround him and tries to combine 
 his fancy with the fact ; he overlooks most 
 glaring deficiencies for the purpose of his play ; 
 a wooden post makes a superb father, and a 
 chair or table a most satisfactory mother, and 
 the fertility of his mind is manifest in the use 
 he makes of the materials supplied by his en- 
 vironment. As the play progresses the pictures 
 of father and mother emerge strangely like the 
 ones in the next room ; the quality of his own 
 father and mother speak out to the life in their 
 wooden representatives; the tenderness, care, 
 dignity, self-denial of the mother are all de- 
 picted, and alas ! also any impatience or other 
 imperfection of which she may have been guilty. 
 The child sacrifices nothing to ideality — he is 
 an intense realist. One may truly say that 
 heredity does not end, but only begins at 
 birth. 
 
 These plays embody very rich lessons for the 
 child. In the enactment of the role of mother, 
 so often played by little girls, in the kindly of- 
 fices which she takes pleasure in performing for 
 others, in her noble self-denial for her imaginary 
 
92 Child Culture 
 
 child, in her sense of responsibility then as- 
 sumed, the little player receives direct valuable 
 education, none the less so because it is uncon- 
 sciously imbibed. In impersonating the good 
 qualities of her mother, she has also appreciated 
 them, and by frequent repeatings they become 
 ingrained in her nature. If good qualities pre- 
 dominate in the parents, then more good quali- 
 ties will be reflected in the little imitation ; 
 qualities of the opposite character are likewise 
 reflected. If, then, by the imitations of its en- 
 vironment the child's nature is formed and in- 
 structed, how carefully guarded should be that 
 environment ; how the mother should every 
 moment protect her little one from evil, stimu- 
 late it to good, how she should use its games 
 and plays to instil right impressions, direct its 
 communications with nature, and give it con- 
 tact only with goodness, beauty and wisdom. 
 
 Parents labor hard and self-sacrificingly for 
 their child's material welfare and advancement, 
 but too often the mental growth, the formation 
 of its character and personality is left to chance, 
 or to beings so ignorant and incompetent, if 
 not immoral, that in their unfitness for better 
 things they engage to attend a child. The 
 child's attendant is often the least capable, most 
 poorly compensated domestic in the household, 
 when she should be the superior, and the 
 best paid. Pater-familias pays forty dollars per 
 
The Value of Play 93 
 
 month to some one to care for his horses, and 
 from ten to fifteen dollars for a maid to care for 
 his child. What matters it if cobwebs hang in 
 the corners, so long as none enter the child's 
 brain; what signifies it whether the kitchen 
 chef is adept at making entrees or pastries if 
 the child's heart and soul remain pure and 
 healthy ? Sidney Smith says, " If you make 
 children happy now, you will make them happy 
 twenty years hence by the memory of it." Let 
 the child have a joyous, natural, happy child- 
 hood in the best sense of happiness ; not by in- 
 dulging selfish, rude propensities, but by direct- 
 ing wisely his instincts into self-forgetfulness, 
 and consideration of the rights of all around 
 him, by unlocking to him the significance of 
 family and social relationships that he may grow 
 in sympathy with them. 
 
 " The further intellectual advantages of play 
 are the demands for concentration of attention 
 on the details and exigencies of the game, the 
 quick judgment necessary to success, and the 
 determined effort to execute the player's own 
 decision. These requirements produce the most 
 important of intellectual results — * The co- 
 ordination of the different parts of the brain ; 
 they develop mental alertness, directness in 
 conclusions, and the tendency to execute these 
 conclusions wisely and skilfully to the full ex- 
 tent of the individual's power.' 
 
94 Child Culture 
 
 "In play, moral qualities and powers are also 
 wrought into the child's character, which are 
 much more definite and thorough than those 
 developed by admonition. Self-control is re- 
 quired through the duties and demands of the 
 game, respectful submission to authority is a 
 rule which cannot be departed from ; energy is 
 cultivated by the needs of prompt, vigorous ef- 
 forts to succeed. Hopeful perseverance in over- 
 coming difficulties is the only road to victory, 
 and courage to rise again after defeat is taught 
 by the players repeating the struggle again 
 after every failure. All powers grow by self- 
 activity, by conscious putting forth of earnest 
 effort, and in games many intellectual and 
 moral activities are brought into play, and are 
 necessary to their success." ^ 
 
 Toys are valuable in promoting plays as they 
 appeal to the child's heart, and aid his imagina- 
 tion. A boy can realize himself much more of 
 a soldier if he is properly equipped with gun 
 and sword, breastplates, epaulets and vizor, 
 although sticks and brooms and paper caps 
 serve a very imaginative child admirably for 
 lack of better. A boy can realize himself a 
 much better engineer or conductor if he has an 
 engine with a real train of cars attached to it, 
 though a train of empty spools has been known 
 
 ' Educational Review Nov. 1894. Educational Value of 
 Play, by J. L. Hughes. 
 
The Value of Play 95 
 
 to puff and whistle and let off steam in won- 
 drous fashion. By the aid of toys the child at 
 least realizes much better the prototype which 
 he emulates and which has become his ideal, 
 therefore the toys of different nations reveal the 
 leading characteristics and aims of those na- 
 tions. In France the dolls are most artistically 
 dressed, are surrounded by much detail of 
 finery, and all the toys show versatility and in- 
 genuity. The toys in Germany are much more 
 substantially and less artistically made ; the 
 doll house with clean floors and stiff furniture 
 and the complete kitchen with all the accesso- 
 ries of the thorough housewife — the ideal char- 
 acter of the German woman. Then there are 
 beautiful, perfectly outfitted butchers' and bak- 
 ers' shops for boys, all representing the thrifty 
 trade life of the middle classes of Germany. 
 Some one has said : " If you tell me what your 
 children play with, we will tell you what sort 
 of women and men they will be ; so let this re- 
 public make the toys which will raise the moral 
 and artistic character of her children." 
 
 Kate Douglas Wiggin says in her chapter on 
 " Playthings " in " Children's Rights," " Every 
 thoughtful person knows that the simple nat- 
 ural playthings of the old-fashioned child, 
 which are nothing more than pegs on which he 
 hangs his glowing fancies, are healthier than 
 ftre the complicated modern mechanisms in 
 
96 Child Culture 
 
 which the child has only to press the buttons 
 and the toys do the rest. 
 
 " The electric talking doll, for example ; im- 
 agine a generation of children brought up on 
 that ! And the toymakers are not even con- 
 tent with this grand personage, four feet high, 
 who says : ' Papa !' * Mama ! ' She is passee al- 
 ready ; they have begun to improve on her I 
 An electrician described a superb new altruistic 
 doll, fitted to the needs of the present decade. 
 You are to press a judiciously located button 
 and ask her the test question which is, if she 
 will have some candy ; whereupon with angelic 
 detached movement — smile (located in the left 
 cheek) she answers : ' Give brother big piece ; 
 give me little piece I * If the thing gets out of 
 order (and I devoutly hope it will) it will 
 doubtlessly return to a state of nature, and 
 horrify the bystanders by remarking : * Give 
 me big piece ; give brother little piece ! * 
 
 " Think of having a gilded dummy like that 
 given you to amuse yourself with ! Think of 
 having to play, to play, forsooth with a model 
 of propriety, a high-minded monstrosity like 
 that ! Doesn't it make you long for your dear 
 old darkey doll with the raveled mouth, and 
 the stuffing leaking out of her legs ; or your 
 beloved Arabella Clarinda, with the broken 
 nose, beautiful even in dissolution — " creatures 
 not too bright or good for human nature's daily 
 
The Value of Play 97 
 
 food ? " Banged, battered, hairless, sharers of 
 our mad joys and reckless sorrows, how we 
 loved them in their simple ugliness ! With 
 what halo of romance we surrounded them! 
 With what devotion we nursed the one with 
 the broken head, in those early days when new 
 heads were not to be bought at the nearest 
 shop ! And even if they could have been pur- 
 chased for us, would we, the primitive children 
 of those dear, dark ages, have ever thought of 
 wrenching off the cracked blonde head of Eth- 
 elinda and buying a new strange, nameless bru- 
 nette head, gluing it calmly on Ethelinda's 
 body, as a small acquaintance of mine did last 
 week, apparently without a single pang ? 
 Never ! A doll had a personality in those 
 times, and has yet, to a few simple backwoods 
 souls even in this day and generation.'* 
 
 The imitations of real life appeal to the min- 
 iature man and woman ; they are adapted to 
 his and her size and symbolize the real things 
 which will interest them later. The little boy 
 sells the apples out of his toy cart with all the 
 dignity, tone and commercial spirit of the real 
 tradesman of whom he buys, and with the de- 
 light which an ever-varying trade confers. How 
 many battles the boy fights with his toy im- 
 plements of war before a real battle is forced 
 upon him ; how much responsibility the little 
 girl assumes in the management of her large 
 
98 Child Culture 
 
 family of dolls, in the manage of her doll house, 
 and the conduct of her kitchen, before she en- 
 ters on the real duties of motherhood ! The 
 child's powers are developed definitely by those 
 symbols which form a bridge between the mi- 
 crocosm and the macrocosm, between the little 
 man with his small capacities and the great is- 
 sues of life. They generate the powers in em- 
 bryo, which, in full development give him the 
 conquest of all the elements and forces of life, 
 and which, when mastered, surrender to him a 
 power which seems almost divine. 
 
 Most parents appreciate the need of play in 
 the child's life, even if they do not know the 
 elements that renders it wholesome and profit- 
 able. 
 
 Let us examine into the pleasures provided 
 the older boys and girls. 
 
 It can scarcely be claimed that in America 
 the older children, the youth are in this regard 
 maltreated or unduly restricted, although a bet- 
 ter balance might be established. In one 
 family the whole aim seems to be to repress the 
 animal spirits and love of pleasure, to give 
 them no indulgence, while in more families a 
 continual round of gaiety becomes the object 
 of the young man's and. young woman's ex- 
 istence ; they demand it as imperatively as 
 they do their food. It seldom occurs in cases 
 of unnatural restriction and of neglect to pro- 
 
The Value of Play 99 
 
 vide legitimate amusements, that there is not a 
 rebound ; for the instinct for diversion is as 
 natural as any instinct in man's constitution, 
 and all attempts to destroy natural instincts 
 terminate in revolt and reversion. Neither 
 should the immoderately inclined young people 
 be permitted to indulge their bent, but it is the 
 duty of all parents to provide a modicum of 
 wholesome amusement and recreation for the 
 youth of the home, in the home, and by so 
 doing the privilege of directing their children's 
 pleasures will remain with the parents. 
 
 By far the best amusements are those that 
 contribute to the general vitality and physical 
 development — all out-of-doors sports, which, 
 however, to be beneficial should be regular, 
 and not spasmodic as is too often the case. 
 Nothing contributes more to a healthy frame 
 of mind and banishes every taint of the morbid 
 as a free circulation of the blood induced by 
 an abundance of exercise and oxygen. Danc- 
 ing is good if the benefit is not counterbal- 
 anced by late suppers, late hours, and ill venti- 
 lated rooms. Wise parents provide their girls 
 and boys with elevated pleasures at home, that 
 they may have no temptations to seek them 
 elsewhere ; they let them feel that the freedom 
 of the house is theirs, that they may extend 
 its hospitality at any time with no, or with 
 only short, notice ; and if one can offer nothing 
 
loo Child Culture 
 
 but crackers and cheese, it being served 
 daintily and with a gracious welcome, there is 
 nothing of which to be ashamed. One's table 
 appointments should always be such that they 
 will bear the scrutiny of an unexpected guest. 
 
 It is not advisable to permit young people to 
 pass the night away from home ; the habit is 
 open to so many abuses. 
 
 The drama, also, by judicious selections may 
 be employed not only for pleasure but also for 
 profit ; but parents must carefully choose plays 
 containing the right elements. The average 
 play is not, it is to be regretted, of an elevat- 
 ing character, and many are undisguisedly im- 
 moral; therefore it is most unwise to permit 
 young girls and boys to attend them indiscrim- 
 inately. There are, however, dramatic produc- 
 tions that are as powerful pleaders for good 
 morals, elevated sentiment, high-minded de- 
 termination, as many sermons one hears in the 
 pulpit, and when the stage can, like good litera- 
 ture, exert such a potent ethical influence, it is 
 lamentable that it does not do more in that di- 
 rection. One may as well say, because there 
 are pernicious books, that one will not read at 
 all, as to decline to discriminate in the matter 
 of the stage. Since the quality of the supply 
 must under existing conditions be regulated by 
 the demand, the present predominance of the 
 unfit and the superficial would indicate a de- 
 
The Value of Play loi 
 
 generate public taste. The drama can never 
 become the educational elevating amusement it 
 should be until it is subsidized by government 
 or private endownment. It should be lifted 
 above the pecuniary necessity of catering to 
 the uncultured, sensuous public, under whose 
 patronage it must continue to degenerate. All 
 who desire its reform and its great educational 
 possibilities should support only clean elevating 
 plays and encourage all effort to render it inde- 
 pendent financially. 
 
 There are many amusements harmless, even 
 beneficial in themselves, that are condemned 
 because of the abuse to which they are subject, 
 but it is much wiser to strike directly at the 
 wrong, and not let the abuse of a good thing 
 vitiate the right and legitimate use of it. 
 
 Paul Bourget says that America's greatest 
 social vice is her excessiveness ; this is a weak- 
 ness of new countries as well as of the new 
 rich ; they incline to overdo. It has its root in 
 social rivalry, struggle for prestige, and love of 
 display. Next to charity and self-sacrifice, 
 moderation is the greatest social virtue, and in- 
 dicates good taste, good sense, and refinement, 
 in all who practice it. 
 
VIII 
 
 SELF-BELIANCB 
 
 Routine is the method by which the child's 
 habits are established, but an excess of routine 
 kills spontaneity and renders him mechanical. 
 This was the serious defect of the old educa- 
 tional method ; routine, unmeaning words and 
 empty forms directed the child's mental and 
 moral life ; he was treated as a machine and no 
 account taken of his nature or individual needs. 
 
 The basis of modern education is the unfold- 
 ing of the child's powers in proportion to his 
 age, the measuring of his ability, the arousing 
 in him of the spirit of the pioneer and of the 
 discoverer rather than that of an imitator. It 
 looks toward the creation of an accountable be- 
 ing who understands rather than memorizes, 
 who knows things rather than their signs. 
 
 A well regulated liberty from the first should 
 be accorded him. That which he desires to do 
 and which is within reason, grant at the first 
 asking, without urging or entreaty on his part. 
 Consent with pleasure, and refuse unwillingly, 
 but if wisely, then also irrevocably. If his im- 
 portunities cause you to yield once, he will for- 
 ever after strive, by importuning, to weaken 
 102 
 
Self-reliance 103 
 
 your decisions, and this conflict and wavering 
 between the child's and parent's will is the 
 worst possible training ; it were almost better 
 to let the child be master all the time than for 
 first one and then the other to assume the su- 
 premacy. 
 
 Both in thought and conduct the child should 
 depend upon himself as much as possible ; the 
 parents should guide his thoughts rather than 
 inflict their own on him ; they should, when 
 necessary to aid him, instruct rather than ac- 
 commodate him. Parents seem to enjoy the 
 child's dependence on them and to defer the 
 period of self-reliance as long as possible, think- 
 ing perhaps, that the child may, at a later age, 
 be spared the unpleasant consequences of inex- 
 perience ; but as he learns mainly by experi- 
 ence, and cannot altogether escape the rude 
 teacher, he in reality gains nothing by a longer 
 period of helplessness. His faculties grow by 
 self-activity alone, and neither his mother's 
 perception nor her experience can be a total sub- 
 stitute for his own. 
 
 The more perfect the child's knowledge of 
 the material world, the more he perceives, com- 
 pares, and discovers, the relations and uses of 
 the concrete, the greater will be his mental 
 power when he begins to judge and to compare 
 ideas. If he employs his own intelligence, 
 learns by his own efforts, is not ruled by the 
 
104 Child Culture 
 
 opinion of others, but by his reason and insight, 
 he will attain a mental vigor and understanding 
 which is never possessed by those who receive 
 and depend on the authority of other people. 
 Be his knowledge ever so little, let it be so far 
 fundamental ; let it be largely self-perceived 
 and free from prejudice. He should understand 
 and value at first those things that are most 
 useful to him and depend on himself for all tliat 
 is within his capabilities, for self-reliance is the 
 basis of strengtli and power. While books and 
 traditions contain valuable truth, they contain 
 no truth which is not discernible at its source, 
 and the child should glean his knowledge as 
 often as is possible by his perception of the first 
 truth whence the book was derived. He should 
 verify opinions and traditions by passing them 
 through the crucible of his own understanding 
 and judgment, he should let the light of his 
 own thought flash on the so-called truth he 
 would re-discover, else as Emerson says, "To- 
 morrow a stranger will say with masterly good 
 sense precisely what we have thought and felt 
 all the time, and we shall be forced to take with 
 shame our own opinion from another." 
 
 The child's knowledge is not large enough, 
 his power of thought is not mature enough to 
 create perfect or final judgments or weighty 
 opinions, but if, during his years of training 
 and formation he acquire the habit of a blind 
 
Self-reliance 1 05 
 
 acceptance of current views, he will never be- 
 come an original thinker, nor ever express his 
 own individuality in thought or deed. He must 
 in these crystallizing years be inspired with a 
 respect for his own convictions, admitting al- 
 ways the possibility of their fallibility and 
 granting due tolerance to the views of other 
 people. A man must be himself and take him- 
 self for better or for worse as his portion. The 
 issue will be safe and good if he puts his heart 
 into his work and faithfully lives his most en- 
 lightened convictions, for only by the expres- 
 sion of his best and highest self can peace or 
 power be his. 
 
 It has been the greatness of all great men 
 that they have perceived for themselves, trusted 
 themselves, felt the right in their hearts and 
 have expressed it in all their being. One need 
 not be aggressive, neither need one always be 
 conciliating. A boy who has not had the con- 
 ventional spirit pressed upon him, who has not 
 been cowed out of all original expression, is 
 naturally independent and individual in his 
 opinions. He tries and sentences people and 
 facts on their merits, his verdict is genuine and 
 independent, and even if it errs, or is silly, it 
 is at least his own and will improve in quality 
 with an enlarged vision. Emerson, who never 
 hesitates to speak truly and boldly, says : " So- 
 ciety everywhere is conspiring against the man- 
 
lo6 Child Culture 
 
 hood of every one of its memhers. Society is 
 a joint stock company, in which the members 
 agree, for the better securing of his bread to 
 each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and 
 culture of the eater. The virtue in most re- 
 quest is conformity. Self-reliance is the aver- 
 sion. It loves not realities and creations but 
 names and customs." 
 
 It does not follow that because one has faith 
 in one's own convictions one need be always as- 
 serting or proclaiming them ; one can prac- 
 tice them in living, without intruding them on 
 others. The lives of the majority of men are 
 not emanations from within, but rather specta- 
 cles for the edification of neighbors and friends, 
 and this living on the circumference of life is 
 the dry-rot of the soul. Such persons never 
 come to themselves ; they have no knowledge 
 of their inherent tastes, opinions, or principles ; 
 they have accepted those they found floating 
 near them, and their lives and conduct have 
 conformed to this artificial light which they 
 have mistaken for the light of day. 
 
 * Modern life finds itself cumbered with an 
 immense system of institutions, inherited tradi- 
 tions, established dogmas and customs, which 
 have come to it from the past. To this effete 
 system the moderns try at first to adjust them- 
 selves ; but they find themselves hampered by 
 it ; it does not correspond to the wants of actual 
 
Self-reliance 107 
 
 life ; therefore they now endeavor to reconstruct 
 the system to fit modern needs. The want of 
 correspondence between the new wine of the 
 nineteenth century and the old bottles of for- 
 mer periods is now recognized, and a banish- 
 ment of the discord is being effected.' 
 
 Goethe, the great liberator of modern Euro- 
 pean ideas, tells us ; " Through me the German 
 poets have become aware that as men must live 
 from within outward, so the artist must work 
 from within outward, seeing that, make what 
 contortions he will, he can only bring to light 
 his own individuality." ** Goethe," says Mat- 
 thew Arnold, " broke away from routine think- 
 ing, and was a profound, imperturbable natural- 
 ist; he puts the standard once for all inside 
 every man, instead of outside him ; when he is 
 told such a thing must be so, there is immense 
 authority and custom for its being so, it has 
 been held to be so for a thousand years, he an- 
 swers with Olympian politeness, 'But is it so? 
 Is it so to me ? ' " 
 
 A man must conceive his own duty, and ex- 
 ecute it in his own way, though there are many 
 persons who think they know another's duty 
 better than he knows it himself. Our great 
 philosopher has said : " It is easy in the world 
 to live after the world's opinion ; it is easy in 
 solitude to live after our own, but the great 
 man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps 
 
)o8 Child Culture 
 
 with perfect sweetness the independence of 
 solitude." 
 
 A man's possessions should be rooted in him- 
 self to have real value, then no matter how 
 often he is dispossessed of them he can regain 
 them, and no robber can really rob him ; a man 
 has no real strength until he can dispense with 
 all foreign support and stand alone by his own 
 inherent abilities. The intellectual powers 
 grow by the study of master minds, but such 
 study should always be a means not an end ; 
 the final opinion should be a transformation 
 from the alien thought to the individual 
 thought and self-expression. An adopted 
 thought can be only half possessed ; that it 
 may nourish, it must become one's very own, 
 so that one can present no other. 
 
 It is by the exercise of self-trust that a man 
 ascertains his power ; it is by detaching himself 
 from slavish concurrence to form and anti- 
 quated opinion, that he learns his own resources 
 and his own talent. 
 
 It is only by independence of thought and 
 judgment that a man can cleave to the truth, 
 and why should not young as well as old be 
 permitted to construe an expressed view, to dis- 
 agree with it, or to dissent from it, provided 
 the difference of opinion be offered inoffensively 
 and without rudeness. But if a man is to be a 
 law unto himself, there is manifold necessity 
 
Self-reliance 109 
 
 that his sight be clear, his will faithful, and his 
 heart inspired for the highest. If he choose for 
 himself, his choice should be a more exalted one 
 than that society has chosen for him. To be a 
 non-conformist, an eccentric, a bizarre personal- 
 ity is not the motive of true individuality, and 
 if one's apostasy contains no higher elements 
 than the doctrine or opinion one is deserting, if 
 the new principle leads to no greater purpose 
 than the old, then it probably contains false or 
 weak elements, which had better be revised. 
 Every man has a natural bent, which, if it does 
 not degrade him, he should follow; this new 
 direction, this differencing of one man's mind 
 from other men's minds constitutes a man's 
 bias ; it is his special constitution, his individ- 
 uality. ''Every individual has a bias, which, 
 if he hopes to attain his legitimate power in the 
 world, he must obey. It is his magnetic needle, 
 which points always in one direction to his 
 proper path, with more or less variation from 
 another man's. He is never happy, nor strong 
 until he finds it, keeps it, learns to be at home 
 with himself, learns to watch the delicate tints 
 and insights that come to him, and to hav6 the 
 entire assurance of his own mind. In morals 
 this is his conscience, in intellect his genius, in 
 practice, talent — not to imitate or surpass a 
 particular man in his "WAY, but to bring out 
 your own way." 
 
no Child Culture 
 
 The number of men is comparatively small 
 who appreciate the necessity of resting on the 
 real, of speaking their own thoughts and living 
 their own lives. A man's surroundings and 
 furnishings should bespeak in every detail his 
 individuality, and if he be true to himself they 
 will; even his expenditure should be his own, 
 and for things which appertain to his own 
 thoughts, tastes and individuality. An artist 
 surrounds himself with works of art which 
 serve as studies and contemplations to him. It 
 is these on which his thoughts love to dwell. 
 A literary man's great delight is in his books, 
 and an ample library is his greatest satisfaction ; 
 the musician expends his means on opportuni- 
 ties for listening to good music. Every man's 
 purchases should represent the real proprietor, 
 else they are a sham and a delusion. 
 
 There are also men who misinterpret their 
 natures, who excuse every weakness and defect 
 by asserting " that they cannot help it, that it is 
 their nature." They mean their untrained in- 
 stinct ; it is their higher nature and not their 
 lower selves which they should nominate 
 "their nature." Man's higher nature is the 
 sum of his natural tendencies redeemed by his 
 best thought, and his best spiritual insight, and 
 when he practices these, it will not be in ex- 
 tenuation of uncontrolled weakness. 
 
 The new education gives much more atten- 
 
Self-reliance 1 1 1 
 
 tion than did the old to the individual traits of 
 character, but still not enough. In conse- 
 quence of levelling educational systems, the 
 present generation is still cast too nearly in one 
 mental mould. Independent, individual thought 
 and action are not sufficiently encouraged. 
 We follow the fashion in everything ; the child 
 is not educated according to his individuality, 
 but according to a prescribed course, or because 
 other children are being educated on those 
 lines. But despite the levelling process of the 
 present educational system, every community 
 produces a few who rule their fellows because 
 of their superior powers. The control is made 
 easier for these leaders by the fact that the ma- 
 jority have suffered from the levelling of their 
 powers. So the strong minded, the strongly in- 
 dividualized men become the leaders of com- 
 munities, states and nations. Monopolies and 
 combinations, the great modern financial suc- 
 cesses are made easy under systems which sup- 
 press individuality. The large majority is ruled 
 by a small minority of master minds. 
 
 Who are the men who succeed in the finan- 
 cial world ? They are not always good men, nor 
 educated men, nor brilliant, nor even skilled 
 men. What then is the essential of all sus- 
 cess ? Is it not the force of individualism, of 
 certain elements of character ? It is therefore 
 clear that the greater number of strong, well 
 
112 Child Culture 
 
 developed individuals there are in the world 
 the more widely will the wealth of the world 
 be dispensed, the more will that power, other- 
 wise centralized, be diffused among the many. 
 Education must therefore give each individual 
 an opportunity to develop all his latent power. 
 This is the trend of modern social ethics. 
 The mental and moral faculties and the physi- 
 cal powers must have an harmonious develop- 
 ment, no one being developed to excess, or at 
 the expense of the other. Inharmonious devel- 
 opment arises either from a false view of life, 
 or from lack of sympathy with one's environ- 
 ment. By training the perceptions to individ- 
 ual investigation of the world of nature, by 
 teaching the child to think for himself and to 
 live from within, by giving him all facility for 
 expressing his real, individual self, much is done 
 in the right direction. Some one has said the 
 essential of great financial achievement is to 
 combine a great caution with a great venture ; 
 so in the development of individuality, great 
 conservation of all that is good in existing con- 
 ditions should combine with a fearlessness to 
 cast off all that is found to be prejudice, empty 
 form, and inane tradition. 
 
IX 
 
 CHARACTER 
 
 Character is the resultant of every force 
 from within or without which has operated on 
 a man since the first moment of his existence. 
 Nowhere in life is he called upon to bear testi- 
 mony when character is not a dominant force. 
 
 The basis of great character is love of truth 
 and its application, perfect justice. There have 
 been men, who, though nominated "great," 
 possessed not this power, and " greatness '* is 
 by no means synonymous with "great charac- 
 ter." Napoleon was intellectual and had a 
 penetrating insight; we admire him for his 
 enormous self-trust, but he was not just, and 
 lacked other elements of a great character. 
 Numberless heroes have won fame by sublime 
 daring and large adventures, possessing great 
 courage, — one feature of strong character, — 
 lacking some of its other essentials. The 
 morals and the intellect must combine to pro- 
 duce the true quality, and the great intellect is 
 less indispensable than the virtuous principles. 
 Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau and Byron were 
 brilliant men, possessing in an eminent degree 
 the intellectual quality, but they were not 
 
 113 
 
1 14 Child Culture 
 
 really great as men. The man of character is 
 always superior to his achievements, is himself 
 greater than anything he has said or done, for 
 his power is never exhausted. He has profound 
 convictions, faces the reality, and is persuaded 
 through his own perceptions. Character is the 
 moral order incorporate in the individual, and 
 truth and justice are the chief mediums of its 
 manifestation. It is difficult to enumerate the 
 merits of the man of character ; he is too great 
 to be measured, and no praise that is bestowed 
 seems sufficient to depict him. 
 
 The greatest intellectual gifts are denied to 
 a man after his birth, but anyone can, by force 
 of will and perseverance, improve the bias of 
 his character to a degree that almost consti- 
 tutes regeneration. He need only appreciate 
 the grandeur and beauty of this higliest form 
 of nature, and his desire and determination to 
 achieve indicate his ability thereto. A man's 
 antagonisms create his power, and that which 
 he fights for and against reveals the quality of 
 his nature, and the degree of his development. 
 As long as his obstruction is material, just so 
 material is he ; as he refines, his checks become 
 finer ; as he rises in the spiritual scale, his an- 
 tagonisms take a spiritual form; his battles are 
 always in the line of his development, and the 
 great results of all his struggles are the addi- 
 tions they have made to his character. The 
 
Character 115 
 
 antagonisms which overcome a man are appar- 
 ently evil, but are in reality good, and the les- 
 sons that make wisdom can come only by fric- 
 tion and striving. If there were nothing to 
 master, on what would character bite its teeth 
 through ? Struggle is the law of life, and when 
 a man ceases to battle he ceases to be of inter- 
 est to himself or his fellow-man. Man comes 
 to nothing without antagonisms, and precisely 
 in proportion as he turns evil into good, and 
 transforms antagonism into muscle and charac- 
 ter, he is admirable ; without labor his muscle 
 has no means of development. How often does 
 that which appeared a man's greatest curse, 
 his insurmountable obstruction, prove his great 
 blessing, the powerful momentum of his life ! 
 
 Positive antagonism is essential to all great 
 achievement. What is virtue but victory? 
 What is purity but temptation resisted ? What 
 is sympathy but the power one's own suffering 
 gives one to feel for that of another? The 
 fruits of men's griefs are the harvests of their 
 lives. The carving of character is the work of 
 life ; it is begun before the child attains con- 
 sciousness; after that period it gradually de- 
 volves upon himself to learn the use of the 
 tools out of which this most beautiful and per- 
 fect work is to be hewn. 
 
 A great step in the development is the rec- 
 ognition of the unity of life, the omnipresence 
 
ii6 Child Culture 
 
 of law. When a man concurs in the divine 
 regulation, and sees that what is ought to be, 
 or is best, he becomes himself the law giver be- 
 cause he so fullj coincides with the will of the 
 great Dictator. By his intellectual insight he 
 presides over every situation, and by his con- 
 senting spirit becomes one with the Designer. 
 The man of deepest thought will be the strong- 
 est character, for his thought and affection 
 have joined his will to the will of Divine 
 Providence. The strong character sees but 
 one way to go and goes that way unhesitat- 
 ingly. The forces that seem to retard and 
 block his path do not obstruct from his view 
 the unity which he has recognized, and on 
 which he relies. Other men believe in luck, 
 may in times of trial believe in an evil genius, 
 but this man believes in Providence and its in- 
 evitable laws. 
 
 He also believes in the law of cause and 
 effect "God's chancellors of justice"; he knows 
 that " relation and connection are not sometime 
 and somewhere, but always and everywhere " ; 
 he knows that his fate and success are not the 
 playthings of chance, but are emanations of 
 himself, the fruit of his thought and conduct, 
 and that all evil is a result and can be con- 
 verted into a benefit. ( Every misfortune con- 
 tains a suggestion which, if wisely apprehended, 
 terminates in profit and triumph. Persons 
 
Character 1 1 7 
 
 make their circumstances more than their cir- 
 cumstances make them, and "The soul contains 
 the event that shall befall it ; " men are compli- 
 mented on their positions, but their merit un- 
 derlies the position and should receive the com- 
 pliment. There is no permanent good nor ill 
 fortune except of a man's own creation ; as 
 Emerson says — " A man will see his character 
 emitted in the events that seem to meet him, 
 but which exude from and accompany him.'* 
 The defect that exists in a man's heart or head 
 will be manifest in his conduct; he cannot act 
 one thing and be another, for the reality is dis- 
 tilled in his most unconscious act and manner. 
 A man's strength must extend into the farthest 
 roots of his being, else the first adverse circum- 
 stance will tear it out ; he must be poised so 
 that no tempest can move him from his anchor- 
 age. By the force of his character and the 
 mastery of the evils which beset him, he should 
 make everything conduce to his strength and 
 become his ally. No man's highest endeavor is 
 ever futile ; he must simply know what he most 
 desires, and working toward that end with per- 
 severance and concentration he will attain 
 it. There must, however, be no dissipation of 
 desire or force ; he must not seek all things, 
 but the one thing on which he determines and 
 toward which he never relaxes his effort, he 
 may depend. As Goethe says — "What we 
 
li8 Child Culture 
 
 wish for all our lives comes in heaps on us in 
 old age." 
 
 If a man desire and strive for many things, 
 he may attain the many in a less degree, but 
 his predominant wish will be best achieved. 
 
 An indispensable qualit}' of great character 
 is sincerity and truthfulness ; falseness is in- 
 compatible with any form of greatness. 
 Children are pronounced by unthinking persons 
 to be natural falsifiers, and their early dispo- 
 sition to misstate is taken as proof of original 
 depravity. Children speak untruth only when 
 they have heard it spoken by others ; nothing is 
 more common than lying to children. When 
 they misbehave they are promised all sorts of 
 things to conciliate and persuade them to better 
 conduct, and no fulfilment of such promises is 
 ever attempted. If a child out shopping, 
 desires confections or tempting fruit and pleads 
 or cries for it, the mother or nurse always says, 
 " Yes, wait until we are outside," or " Wait until 
 we reach another stand, and I will buy some," 
 but the promised purchase is not made. Why 
 can't parents say "no" when they mean no, 
 and raise no false expectations hj soothing 
 promises and faithless pledges. The child must 
 meet with refusals and denials in life and learn 
 to submit to them ; then why should he not re- 
 ceive his lesson and begin his experience when 
 truth demands it. If parents promise, they 
 
Character 1 1 9 
 
 should fulfil the promise at any cost of personal 
 inconvenience, that their child may not by their 
 example become a liar. Lying is a base thing; 
 while many practice it occasionally in some 
 form, every man is so offended at the imputa- 
 tion that to be called a liar is an affront difficult 
 to be wiped out. Many who would scorn to 
 tell a lie, do not decline to act one, to deceive, 
 to willingly create false impressions. 
 
 "The gain of lying," wrote Sir Walter 
 Raleigh to his son," is not to be trusted again, 
 not to be believed when we say truth." Mon- 
 taigne says of it — " Can we imagine anything 
 more vile than to be cowards with regard to 
 men and base with regard to God." 
 
 He who has not a good memory cannot in- 
 dulge in lying, "For," says Pope, "he will be 
 forced to invent twenty more to keep up the 
 one." 
 
 Children also speak falsely from confused 
 perception, and from carelessness. In narrating 
 circumstances, if the child has not observed 
 accurately, or does not remember, he supplies 
 the deficiency with imagined details. He is not, 
 until so instructed, aware of the imperfections 
 in his statements ; he must therefore be taught 
 accuracy of observation and of expression, and 
 when he deviates ever so little from the fact as 
 it actually occurred his attention should be 
 called to the defective statement. If the par- 
 
1 20 Child Culture 
 
 ents and the child's associates appreciate the 
 value and beauty of truthfulness, and them- 
 selves never depart from its practice, the child 
 will develop no untruthful tendencies in 
 thought or speech. Untruthfulness is oftener 
 the result of bad example, of the indifference 
 of parents to the virtue, of imperfect observa- 
 tion and heedlessness, than of innate depravity, 
 — which it however becomes if indulged in 
 with impunity. 
 
 Great characters are always replete with 
 power of self-direction and of large resolution. 
 The names that stand forth as conspicuous ex- 
 amples of these attributes in our own country, 
 Benjamin Franklin, Washington, Grant and 
 Lincoln, though they were of different charac- 
 teristics, held in common a great determining 
 power. Franklin was perhaps the most con- 
 scious of this group — he more directly sought 
 the growth of his virtues, and he tells us in his 
 autobiography how he practiced what he deemed 
 his most necessary virtue exclusively for a time 
 until he felt he had acquired that one, and then 
 he proceeded to the next ; how he daily made 
 self-examinations to ascertain the degree of 
 progress he was making. He ascribes to Tem- 
 perance his long continued health and a good 
 constitution ; to Industry and Frugality the 
 early easiness of his circumstances and the ac- 
 quisition of his fortune with all that enabled 
 
Character 12 1 
 
 him to be a useful citizen ; to Sincerity and 
 Justice, the confidence of his country and the 
 honorable employs it conferred upon him ; and 
 to the joint influence of the whole mass of the 
 virtues even in the imperfect state he was able 
 to acquire them, all that evenness of temper 
 and that cheerfulness in conversation which 
 made his company sought and agreeable even 
 to his younger acquaintance. 
 
 Grant's predominant trait was perhaps his 
 power of heroic resolution and his perseverance 
 in executing it. Lincoln's power of self-gov- 
 ernment was the trait that gave him such power 
 over others, but the salient, most admirable 
 feature of his great character was his deter- 
 mination never to shirk a responsibility; he 
 was always ready to recognize and accept his 
 duty, and to take the blame for any part that 
 was unfulfilled or that miscarried. 
 
 Through Shakespeare's characters we learn 
 that men are touched only by the external good or 
 evil that has a responsive chord in their breasts. 
 
 It is the ambition latent in Macbeth that was 
 touched into action by the prophecies of the 
 witches ; and the still greater ambition of Lady 
 Macbeth which held him to the fulfilment of 
 the deed. The witches represent the tempta- 
 tion, which, however, makes no appeal to a man 
 except at the point of his existing weakness. 
 In all Shakespeare's plays the tragedies are the 
 
122 Child Culture 
 
 results of the incompleteness of man's charac- 
 ter, his letting the lower forces of being occupy 
 the places that the higher forces should occuj)y. 
 So in man's life, his incompleteness results in 
 soul tragedies, though they may not prove 
 tragedies before the world. 
 
 In Hamlet, we have the lesson of the sin of 
 omission; all the graces of heart and mind 
 slip through the grasp of an infirm purpose. 
 The sin of omission may be as fatal as the sin 
 of commission ; it is as evil not to do the work 
 man feels called upon to do as to make a false 
 step. One must call forth all the powers of 
 being for right doing as well as for resistance 
 of evil, and weakness becomes sin unless one 
 uses human and superhuman effort to resist it. 
 
 Power is the supreme test of a man's char- 
 acter ; it is easy for the weak to be gentle, for 
 the man in adversity to be meek, but when a 
 man becomes prosperous and forceful he reveals 
 his true nature. 
 
 Activity, sobriety, justice, energy and love of 
 humanity are indispensable qualities of a great 
 character. 
 
 The value of great men lies not alone in 
 their direct accomplishments — not so much in 
 what they do as in what they are and the 
 strength which they supply their fellows. One 
 Howard purifies the prisons of the world ; one 
 Hampden strengthens a whole nation. 
 
Character 123 
 
 Decision of mind is found a prime charac- 
 teristic of all great men, and many otherwise 
 good and noble men fail all through life from 
 lack of resolution to plan, and courage to 
 firmly execute a course of action. This power 
 requires a union of calm judgment, moral cour- 
 age and unvarying purpose. Weak vacillation 
 of purpose may arise from lack of self-confi- 
 dence, from too great caution, or from strong 
 and varying impulse. The first should consider 
 that it is better for a man to err in judgment 
 sometimes than to go through life in trepida- 
 tion and hesitation. The man who is swayed 
 by his feelings should delay judgment in mo- 
 ments of impulse. The early education should 
 train the child to abstain from speech and ac- 
 tion in periods of intense feeling and of fever- 
 ish excitement. 
 
 Strength of character gives a man the power 
 to detach himself from his deed when finished 
 and from his decision when reached. He will 
 consider the question in all its bearings, weigh 
 various suggestions, and listen to the opinion 
 of others, but it is most important that he form 
 his own decisions. After full enlightenment 
 and due deliberation, the conclusions to which 
 he is compelled should be final, and he should 
 learn to rest on them. Many persons utterly 
 lack this ability, but continually perplex them- 
 selves by retraversing the same ground and 
 
124 Child Culture 
 
 reconsidering the same question. The power 
 to finally settle and dismiss questions which 
 demand self-sacrifice, and the refusal to revise 
 present decisions is a supreme test of a man's 
 strength of character, and it is a great economy 
 to the mind and heart. A man should reflect 
 on his past actions, and indeed cannot divorce 
 himself from their consequences, but it is use- 
 less to waste one's thought and feeling revising 
 one's best decisions. 
 
 The self-confidence which enables one to ac- 
 cept one's own decisions has allied to it the 
 danger of overvaluing one's own judgments. 
 Self-confidence may exist with a truly humble 
 mind and heart. Was Mr. Disraeli conceited 
 when he said that the house of commons would 
 one day listen to him ? A man who is conscious 
 of his own integrity, high motives, and earnest 
 endeavor may feel and express a confidence in 
 the ultimate result of his desires which they 
 who do not recognize them, cannot appreciate. 
 Such confidence may be the sole consolation 
 and support of a brave and noble mind in an 
 hour of temporary defeat. Courage and pluck 
 should command high admiration. Napoleon 
 said of the English that they did not know 
 when they were beaten. This is sometimes an 
 advantage, and one which all great nations and 
 great individuals have experienced. 
 
 There is, however, an egotism that renders a 
 
Character 1 25 
 
 man unteachable and incapable of melioration, 
 for it leads him to think himself already suffi- 
 ciently perfect. 
 
 Some men of great character have had this 
 self-pride in an inordinate degree, but the 
 greatest minds have been humble and willing 
 to receive instruction from any true source. 
 Emerson says : " Every man I meet is my 
 master in some point and can instruct me 
 therein ; " this attitude renders one receptive to 
 all the good and wisdom one meets, and is an 
 important condition of self-improvement. 
 
 The rude experience which contact with the 
 world brings a man, usually rubs down the 
 salient angularities of his own importance and 
 subdues his conceit to the point of its benefits. 
 In the formation of a virtuous character, a man 
 must constantly steer between the Scylla of 
 his virtues in exaggeration, and the Charybdis 
 of their allied vices, but he must not let this 
 necessity paralyze him. 
 
 The activity of brain, the effort to do and not 
 to wrap one's talent in a napkin and bury it, 
 but to put it out to usury, has been a feature of 
 all great men. 
 
 *' No matter how full a reservoir of maxims 
 one may possess and no matter how good one's 
 SENTIMENTS may be, if one has not taken advan- 
 tage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's 
 character may remain entirely unaffected for 
 
126 Child Culture 
 
 the better. With men's good intentions, hell 
 is proverbially paved. A "character," as J. S. 
 Mills says, " is a completely fashioned will ; " 
 and a will, in the sense in which he means it, 
 is an aggregate of tendencies to act in a firm, 
 prompt and definite way in all the principal 
 emergencies of life. A tendency to act only 
 becomes effectually ingrained in us in propor- 
 tion to the uninterrupted frequency with which 
 the actions take place, and the brain grows to 
 their use. When a resolve or a fine glow of 
 feeling is allowed to evaporate without bearing 
 practical fruit, it is worse than a chance lost ; 
 it works so as positively to hinder future reso- 
 lutions and emotions from taking the normal 
 path of discharge. 
 
 "There is no more contemptible type of 
 human character than that of the nerveless 
 sentimentalist and dreamer, who spends his life 
 in a weltering sea of sensibility and emotion, 
 but who never does a manly concrete deed. 
 Rousseau, inflaming by his eloquence all the 
 mothers of France to follow nature and nurse 
 their babies themselves, while he sends his own 
 children to the foundling hospital, is a classical 
 example of what I mean. But every one of us 
 in his measure, whenever, after glowing for an 
 abstractly formulated good, he practically ig- 
 nores some actual case among the squalid 
 "other particulars" among which that same 
 
Character 127 
 
 good lurks disguised, treads straight in Rous- 
 seau's path. All good is disguised by the vul- 
 garity of its concomitants in this workaday 
 world ; but woe to him who can recognize them 
 only when he thinks of them in their own pure 
 and abstract form. 
 
 " The habit of excessive novel reading and 
 theatre going will produce true monsters in this 
 line. The weeping of the Russian lady over 
 the fictitious personages in the play, while her 
 coachman is freezing to death outside, is the 
 sort of thing that everywhere happens on a 
 less glaring scale. One becomes filled with 
 emotions which habitually pass without prompt- 
 ing to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental 
 condition is kept up. The remedy would be 
 never to suffer oneself to have an emotion 
 without expressing it afterward in some active 
 way. Let the expression be the least thing in 
 the world — speaking genially to one's grand- 
 mother, or giving up one's seat in a horse car, 
 if nothing more heroic offers — but let it not fail 
 to take place. 
 
 " Just as we let our emotions evaporate they 
 get in a way of evaporating, so there is no rea- 
 son to suppose that if we often flinch from mak- 
 ing an effort, before we know it, the effort-mak- 
 ing capacity will be gone." ^ 
 
 Neither good will, fine emotions nor right 
 
 ^ Prof, William James; "Psychology," p. 147. 
 
128 Child Culture 
 
 feeling avail unless a man realizes on them, and 
 this realization has been a mark of all the great 
 characters to whom the world has given recog- 
 nition. 
 
CULTURE 
 
 Bacon's oft quoted saying that " Knowledge 
 is power " has been usually interpreted as mean- 
 ing that knowledge is a beneficent power. It 
 may be a power for good, and it may be as surely 
 a power for evil, for there is no connection be- 
 tween perfect familiarity with facts and an ap- 
 preciation of the great principles of life. 
 Knowledge of what is good and what is evil 
 avails nothing unless supported by the wisdom 
 to follow the one and to avoid the other. Hux- 
 ley says : " If I am a knave or a fool, teaching 
 me to write and read won't make me less of 
 either the one or the other, unless somebody 
 shows me how to put my reading and writing 
 to wise and good purposes." But add wisdom 
 and moral apprehension to the mental faculties, 
 and we have the power of virtue and the begin- 
 ning of culture. 
 
 That education does not culminate in virtue 
 is sadly exemplified by the moral standard of 
 some of the best educated people, lawyers, phy- 
 sicians, preachers, different professions, whose 
 members we find in the daily records of ras- 
 cality, and above all the politicians, whose 
 129 
 
130 Child Culture 
 
 names have become almost synonymous with 
 moral corruption. Education bears fruit only 
 where it is planted ; if it is sown in the mental 
 field alone, it reaps only in the mental ; if it is 
 sown in the physical field, it will be reaped 
 only in the physical. The professional man's 
 education may not extend beyond the nar- 
 rowest professional requirements, and in such 
 case bears no fruit in any other direction. 
 There must be the harmonious training of all 
 the faculties to make acquired knowledge effica- 
 cious for good. 
 
 Parkes speaks wisely when he says : " The 
 positive things which we chiefly need are first 
 education, next education, and the next educa- 
 tion, a vigorous development of the mind, the 
 conscience, of the affections; to assume that 
 any amount of intellectual education will pro- 
 duce rectitude without a parallel education of 
 the moral sense is a blunder ; in the union of 
 the two we have wisdom. Wisdom has been 
 well defined as "learning transformed to fac- 
 ulty," that is a fusion of knowledge, intellect 
 and morality, and he who blends these may be- 
 come a cultured man ; but it must be admitted 
 that the moral sentiment is the basis of true 
 culture. 
 
 Culture does not consist in a large accumula- 
 tion of knowledge, nor in profound learning, 
 though they serve it with nourishment, but it- 
 
Culture 131 
 
 self is an unfolding of the human spirit, and has 
 more relation to quality than to quantity of 
 knowledge. 
 
 It comes not by additions from without, but 
 is a development from within ; it is not the re- 
 sult of scholarship, but of growth, and is re- 
 vealed in the ripe sound nature it bestows. A 
 man may have vast knowledge and remain 
 without cultivation, or he may have a little 
 knowledge and a great deal of cultivation. To 
 be cultured is to absorb what one knows until 
 the heart and mind are saturated with it, until 
 it is a part of one, and one's whole nature is 
 matured by it. The green fruit and the ripe 
 fruit are of the same substance, but what a 
 difference in the flavor of the two ; the same 
 difference distinguishes the cultured and the 
 uncultured man. The cult is one of slow 
 growth, and cannot be forced without loss of 
 flavor, but grows steadily in the man who is re- 
 ceptive to its quality. To be a source of cul- 
 ture knowledge should be transformed into per- 
 sonality, and should not only refresh but also 
 enrich the man's nature. 
 
 The pedant's knowledge goes no further than 
 his mind ; that of the cultured man enters his 
 soul. It is the result of profound thought and 
 of imagination, of a perfect assimilation of his 
 facts, and such intimacy with them that they 
 are incorporated with his mind. The pedant is 
 
132 Child Culture 
 
 full of facts which he does not absorb, lacking 
 the receptive heart which would enable him to 
 do so. It is only by meditation on the vital re- 
 lation of the elements of a man's knowledge, by 
 connecting them with his soul that they become 
 thoroughly his own. The value of his culture 
 depends on the character of his reveries; if 
 they are on high and noble themes they enrich 
 his mind; if on idle and insignificant affairs, 
 the profit is small. But man can control his 
 meditations, and though they are largely un- 
 conscious they can also be largely directed to 
 worthy subjects. The training of one's mind 
 to dwell on great things instead of wasting it- 
 self in idle reverie is one of the most fruitful 
 sources of culture. Another deep source is the 
 contact with rich personalities ; nothing is more 
 educative than association with persons of high 
 intelligence ; he who has such opportunity gains 
 a high interpretation of life which illumines and 
 expands his own. 
 
 By contact with great ideas the individual 
 mind puts itself in touch with the universal 
 mind which broadens and enriches it. Culture 
 is based on ideas rather than on knowledge, the 
 latter being valuable to it in providing material 
 for its development. It is at once the highest 
 product of education, and the test of its power; 
 by it, man puts himself into heart relations 
 with the movements he is trying to understand; 
 
Culture 133 
 
 to comprehend thoroughly persons or situations 
 one must pass beyond their mental attitude into 
 the heart of them. 
 
 A salient characteristic of the man of culture 
 is his breadth ; he is by his superior develop- 
 ment delivered from a narrow horizon, a re- 
 stricted world, and becomes a citizen of the 
 Universe ; such men do not accept local ex- 
 periences and standards for universal experience 
 and standards, the mistake which the unculti- 
 vated man makes ; the former takes a wide sur- 
 vey and his experience gives him. poise and bal- 
 ance. By its wider knowledge and clearer 
 vision culture destroys philistinism to the core 
 and all other ' isms ' except altruism. 
 
 Another essential is genuineness, sincerity of 
 purpose. The man of culture must feel sin- 
 cerely, must appreciate truly the truths he 
 elevates. He who is only playing a part, who 
 wishes merely to shine before men, who is not 
 frank — only vain, is soon revealed to the gen- 
 uine man. The latter does not mistake the 
 veneer for the real article ; the latter consists 
 in though tfulness of others, generosity, mod- 
 esty, self-respect, true grace, and graciousness 
 of manner, all of which are truer tests than 
 knowledge of books, mental accomplishments 
 or any artificial acquirement. It is not much 
 more difficult to be than to pretend; if the 
 pretender made as great effort to secure the 
 
134 Child Culture 
 
 reality as lie exerts in the make believe, the 
 semblance would be unnecessary. 
 
 Culture has its root in egotism. We seldom 
 find a cultured man, who has not a strong ego, 
 a strong individuality, and it is this which has 
 secured him his mental advancement. The de- 
 sire to make self a worthy self, an enlightened 
 self, gives the man the determination which is 
 necessary for the effort and accomplishment. 
 Then, a man needs a large ego, that he may not 
 be lost in his books and arts, that he may ac- 
 quire them and not they acquire him. Culture 
 does not destroy his egotism, but trains away the 
 unhealthy elements, those, which if entertained 
 would prove a distemper, and preserves what is 
 necessary to sustain individual persistence. 
 
 Though generated and propelled by self-love, 
 culture should not and does not result in it. 
 It widens a man's horizon, it enlarges the scope 
 of his intellect so that he can take a just esti- 
 mate of himself, and that estimate is humility. 
 Egotism, therefore, exists as a cardinal neces- 
 sity, but must not be indulged beyond its 
 legitimate purpose. A man who lives on the 
 circumference of himself. His ideas, his fine 
 points, HIS possessions and circumstances is not 
 admirable. There is a limit to the interest 
 which a man's personal affairs, private history 
 has for another, to say nothing of the very bad 
 taste of making his affairs, accomplishments, 
 
Culture 135 
 
 talents and achievements paramount in every 
 conversation. Egotism is not a product of 
 culture, and having served as a valuable ad- 
 junct, should be whipped into the background. 
 The cultivated man's views are impersonal, 
 catholic, unrelated to self ; he sees freely and 
 without prejudice, and has larger sources of 
 conversation than himself and his neighbors. 
 
 Emerson says : " Incapacity of melioration 
 is the only mortal distemper. There are people 
 who can never understand any second or ex- 
 panded sense given to your words, or any hu- 
 mor, but remain literalists after hearing music, 
 poetry, rhetoric and art for seventy or eighty 
 years. They are past the hope of surgeon or 
 clergy. But even they can understand pitch- 
 forks and the cry of * fire ! ' and I have noticed 
 in some of this class a marked dislike to earth- 
 quakes." Culture presupposes a fertile, capa- 
 cious soil. There are some substances that 
 cannot be wrought or moulded, (" one cannot 
 make a statue out of punk '*), and there are 
 minds that admit of little culture or improve- 
 ment. However, because a soil will not grow 
 all things, it need not be deserted. 
 
 " But if my lot be sand where nothing grows? '' 
 
 *' Nay, who hath said it ? Tune a thankful psalm, 
 For, though thy desert bloom not as the rose, 
 It yet can rear thy palm." 
 
136 Child Culture 
 
 Open to the growing youth the delights of 
 the intellect, the joys of thought, imagination, 
 truth and beauty, and you emancipate him 
 from the slavery of his lower nature. Culture 
 is an antiseptic for materialism. " For the 
 young woman who has learned to find pleasure 
 in the great souls of the earth," says Heber 
 Newton, " the garish glory of Vanity Fair will 
 pale with the cheap tinsel and appear like the 
 spangled splendors of the stage when the gas is 
 turned off and the daylight steals in upon the 
 scene. Let a young man realize how much 
 solid pleasure he can find in books, and he will 
 apprise stocks and bonds on a lower scale than 
 that quoted in the exchanges." 
 
 Books, as the records of human thoughts, 
 are leading factors in the cultivation of the 
 mind. One's opinion gains in weight as one 
 has knowledge of many opinions, and culture is 
 familiarity with the best thought of the world. 
 
 The great books of the world perceive and 
 interpret the life of the world ; they are our 
 most constant teachers because they contain 
 the most complete experience of the thought, 
 acts, and passions of mankind. They bring the 
 past out of its grave, and bring us in vital con- 
 tact with it and its experiences. 
 
 The great literary Bibles of Homer, Dante, 
 Goethe and Shakespeare have the universal 
 element which connects them with all time and 
 
Culture 137 
 
 all places, which is the essential of all great 
 books and the feature which renders them im- 
 mortal. To read for culture one must get at 
 the heart of- books, must live with them and in 
 them, meditate on them and view the contents 
 from various sides. By such assimilation only 
 are one's soul and mind enriched by them. 
 
 Books are of value to a child only when he 
 is ready for them, when his faculties of per- 
 ception and observation are well developed to 
 the point of assimilation. In his early years 
 his playmates, his games, his everyday life are 
 his best instructors. Children are not ani- 
 mated vessels to be pumped into ad libitum ; 
 their consciousness, their power of realization 
 is at first very weak and not capable of grasp- 
 ing abstract thoughts. Let the hands touch, 
 the ears hear, the eyes see as much as possible 
 what the brain is to know. Bridge the chasm 
 between the abstract and the concrete, and let 
 the child read nothing, recite nothing in ad- 
 vance of his perfect understanding. Only 
 knowledge and ideas which we have fully real- 
 ized and comprehended nourish the mind ; the 
 others make no impression or produce mental 
 dyspepsia. A child that is crammed with facts 
 unrelated to his experience, never develops a 
 taste for knowledge ; a healthy instinct rebels 
 against receiving that which it cannot digest. 
 A boy always enjoys and makes greater strides 
 
138 Child Culture 
 
 in the studies which as he expresses it " he sees 
 the good of ; " he is by nature eager to know, 
 but this desire is often rendered passive by 
 forcing him prematurely. He is perfectly will- 
 ing to wear the clothes that fit him, or which 
 he feels may ever fit him, but he rebels against 
 working for those that are not shaped for him, 
 and to which he will never grow. 
 
 A man of deep culture is a citizen of the 
 world, and his craving for the deeper experi- 
 ence and wider knowledge which travel affords 
 is the result of this citizenship. A well poised 
 intelligently directed life, stands both in local 
 and universal relations and is thereby rendered 
 vital, rich, and broad. Travel as a means of 
 culture is advantageous only to those who have 
 mental equipment for it ; it is robbed of half its 
 educational value unless one carries with him a 
 knowledge of what he is to see, and in propor- 
 tion to that knowledge is his mind enriched. 
 No American abroad sees in what he beholds 
 more than he carries in his memory and imagi- 
 nation. What can Westminster Abbey signify 
 to the man who is ignorant of the biographies 
 of its memorials; or Venice and Florence, to 
 one who knows not their past? One who knows 
 and understands the life and art of the past, even 
 though he see not their visible records has more 
 culture than he who sees but comprehends 
 them not. 
 
Culture 139 
 
 A mark of the man of culture is his absence 
 of pretension. The more real value a man has 
 the less he cares about an exhibition of it. To 
 the unitiated man appearances are all ; if you 
 show no appreciation of him, he forces your at- 
 tentions by boasting of his eminence in some 
 direction ; he promises much, and the one ob- 
 ject of his life is to be conspicuous. Boys and 
 girls who have been brought up with well-in- 
 formed people show in their manner an un- 
 speakable grace ; they are retiring, modest, self- 
 respecting ; promise little and perform much, 
 and possess that repose of manner which is the 
 badge of the perfect lady and gentleman. Self- 
 command, cheerfulness and perfect repose are 
 the great elegances of the best society. All 
 that adds sweetness and polish to society, that 
 softens the asperities of life, discloses a civiliza- 
 tion in flower. 
 
 Every nature has in its depths a fund of en- 
 thusiasm which seeks expansion, and the object 
 of education should be to direct this to worthy 
 objects — the good and the beautiful. 
 
 Art is the expression of the culture of the 
 imagination through the artist's personality. It 
 contains the thought and life of the race to 
 which it belongs, the last results of its experi- 
 ences. " The interpretations of life which the 
 Greek, the Roman and Hebrew races have left 
 us are revelations of their character and life ; 
 
140 Child Culture 
 
 they symbolize their highest thoughts, the deep- 
 est feeling, the most searching experience, the 
 most strenuous activity of these races. In them 
 are experienced and represented the inner and 
 essential life of each race, in them the soul of 
 the older world survives." These interpreta- 
 tions constitute in their highest forms the su- 
 preme art of the world and are the richest educa- 
 tional material accessible to man. Every cul- 
 tured person is at least an interpreter and 
 appreciator of art, admires expressions of the 
 beautiful, and should be capable of imagining 
 beautiful and graceful things. Because art is a 
 product of the imagination it can also be a pro- 
 ducer of it ; one who is lacking in imagination 
 can find no better school for its development 
 than the study of works of art. 
 
 Poetry expresses the relation of form to emo- 
 tion and thought, " the spirit of things," " the in- 
 finite in things," and is within the scope of the 
 youngest and of the ripest minds. In this 
 scientific age there is danger of utilitarianism 
 drawing into its vortex all the intellectual life 
 and interest ; let us not permit it ; let us instil 
 into our youth an appreciation of the beautiful 
 as well as of the useful. Help them to know 
 and to understand the poetry, to which at some 
 periods of life we delight to return, sometimes 
 for soothing in sorrow, sometimes for stimulus 
 to hope. 
 
Culture 141 
 
 In young people appeal must be made to the 
 heart and imagination before addressing the in- 
 tellect. The child feels its mother's love before 
 it has any intellectual conception of what love 
 is ; her gentleness and tenderness are the poe- 
 try of its young life. Life is full of poetry, if 
 we only apprehend it. 
 
 Beautiful pictures full of sense and sentiment 
 are valuable means for instructing the child's 
 taste and poetic understanding. JEsthetic qual- 
 ities are transmitted from generation to genera- 
 tion, and should be regarded as a precious 
 heritage, to be fostered and developed where 
 they exist, and to be created where they do not. 
 
 A desire for artistic enjoyment exists in some 
 degree in all human beings ; it is a legitimate 
 craving and should be gratified. Uncultivated 
 persons are better pleased with a flaring daub 
 than with a fine engraving, with the rhythm of 
 dance music than with sublime song and ora- 
 torio ; they understand the one and do not the 
 other; the taste needs refining and educating. 
 The conditions which made Greek art were the 
 education of an art-appreciating public as well 
 as of art-producing artists. Art gives to the 
 mind pure ideals; — Goethe, Ruskin and Tolstoi 
 have claimed a close connection between artis- 
 tic and moral beauty ; in both are expressed a 
 sense of the perfect, the harmonious, the ideal. 
 
 Works of art that are simple, healthy and 
 
 /#^L ^'^^^^^ 
 
 I XJNIVEKSITY \ 
 
142 Child Culture 
 
 elevating should be placed within the reach of 
 all. "If it is true," says a French writer, "that 
 the imagination of children, and especially of 
 the children of the masses is always more de- 
 veloped than their reasoning powers, does it not 
 follow, not merely that a place that it does not 
 at present occupy should be awarded to the 
 cultivation of the imagination, but that such 
 culture should take the most prominent posi- 
 tion in primary education." He also says, — 
 ** Beauty is the watchword of the Universe ; 
 beauty should be the watchword of education." 
 It is of great importance that every nascent 
 faculty be developed, and toward this develop- 
 ment is the trend of modern education, which 
 is however not yet perfected. Drawing is often 
 made dull and uninteresting to children by the 
 constant copying of technical objects, when 
 their taste is to give expression to their own 
 imagination. Drudgery and routine work are 
 essential, of course, but if the child learns only 
 to copy he will never acquire creative power, 
 but be an imitator all his life. 
 
 Art and music interpret and embellish life, 
 are a relaxation from material care, have an 
 elevating influence on the character beside the 
 genuine pleasure they afford. An appreciation 
 of both should be a part of every child's educa- 
 tion. By excluding trash, and securing to it 
 views of superior pictures, statues that are full 
 
Culture 143 
 
 of grace and symbol^ much may be done toward 
 forming a correct taste even in childhood. 
 
 In our tastes we reveal our characters ; if we 
 did not, they would not be tastes but instincts. 
 When you enter a stranger's house you can tell 
 by the furnishing what manner of man he is, 
 and just as truly does one's apparel reveal the 
 degree of refinement of the wearer. 
 
XI 
 
 LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 
 
 There has been recently organized in New 
 York City a " Society for the Improvement of 
 American Speech," the object of which, as the 
 name indicates, is to urge a purer, richer, more 
 correct use of the mother tongue. The neces- 
 sity of some effort to awaken an appreciation 
 of the importance and value of grammatically 
 correct and well selected language for the ex- 
 pression of thought, has at last impressed itself 
 on a few earnest persons, and the consideration 
 is a worthy one. 
 
 A striking weakness of the English language 
 as used in this country is its extreme poverty, 
 the very limited vocabulary that belongs to the 
 average boy and girl. Everything that satis- 
 fies the boy's physical, mental or moral taste 
 is " fine ; " everything that dissatisfies it is 
 "rank." With girls, every quality of excel- 
 lence is expressed in " splendid " or " elegant " 
 and the reverse is "horrid;" between a well 
 rendered opera and an ice cream soda there is 
 no distinction ; they and all their intermediates 
 are "elegant." The inherent quality of an 
 article is never analyzed to ascertain its true 
 144 
 
Language and Literature 145' 
 
 distinction and really to define it, but the gen- 
 eral nomination of " splendid " is supposed to 
 convey the fullest description. The elderly 
 principal of a " Young Ladies' Seminary " arose 
 in a meeting of the society before mentioned 
 and told of the difficulties he had experienced 
 in his efforts to enrich the vocabulary of the 
 pupils of his seminary. He said he had once 
 shown a young girl a picture of the " Falls of 
 Lodore," and asked her what she thought of 
 them ; she said they were " very pretty ; " he 
 asked her if that was all she could think to say 
 of them; she replied, "Yes, that is all; they 
 are very pretty ; " whereupon the old gentle- 
 man gave the eloquent, characteristic descrip- 
 tion of the falls with which we are all familiar. 
 It was most striking, — the contrast of that lit- 
 tle girl's poor "pretty," with the flow of words 
 and glowing description that followed. 
 
 It is not only desirable to have words 
 promptly at command, but one should en- 
 deavor to find the word that best conveys the 
 meaning. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, in his " Autobiography," 
 tells us that when he discovered his need of a 
 larger vocabulary, he took some of the tales of 
 the " Spectator " and turned them into verse, 
 and after a time when he had forgotten the 
 prose he turned them back into prose again. 
 Such patience and determined effort for the en- 
 
146 Child Culture 
 
 richmeut of one's power of expression must be 
 followed by definite results. Where can one 
 find a more accurate definition of a bat than 
 that given by a little boy to his teacher : " He's 
 a nasty little mouse with ingy rubber wings 
 and shoe string tail, and bites like the devil." 
 No biologist could better enumerate the char- 
 acteristics of the little creature. 
 
 Emerson said of Montaigne's words that they 
 were so rich that if you cut them they would 
 bleed. 
 
 Slang words and expressions are the bar- 
 nacles that cling to a language, and should be 
 discouraged for several reasons. Their use is 
 inelegant, they impoverish the language be- 
 cause one depends on a few slang phrases to 
 express many various thoughts ; and the objec- 
 tion of most importance, they rarely originate 
 correctly and therefore cannot qualify appro- 
 priately the subject to which they belong. For 
 instance : take the expression, '* that is a chest- 
 nut," meaning a stale thought ; there is no con- 
 nection or appropriateness between the word 
 " chestnut " and a stale topic ; it is not derived 
 from any radical that bears on the condition to 
 which it is applied. It is only when a new 
 word, or a new application of a word, is prop- 
 erly derived and enhances the quality, or gives 
 a better description of a subject, that its use is 
 permissible. Such words are only slang be- 
 
Language and Literature 147 
 
 cause they have not been authoritatively rec- 
 ognized, but they gradually become incorpo- 
 rated in the language, because of their adapta- 
 bility, and are the means by which a language 
 grows and is enriched. For example : the word 
 " spicy " conversation, indicates a highly fla- 
 vored conversation, and the word "trap" mean- 
 ing to ensnare are words that, while deflected 
 from their original use, are so well applied as 
 to be unobjectionable. 
 
 There are many teachers and otherwise 
 well educated persons at whose ungrammatical 
 use of the English language one is astounded ; 
 they are perfectly familiar with the rules that 
 prohibit the faults they make, but the contagion 
 of early surroundings or illiterate associates 
 bears more fruit than their knowledge, and 
 they have acquired the habit of saying, " I 
 seen " and " I done " until it is almost ineradi- 
 cable. How few there are of even the well 
 educated class whose conversation is absolutely 
 free from error, and who use really good, well- 
 constructed English, while the language of the 
 average person is replete with the grossest mis- 
 takes. If the vernacular were given more con- 
 sideration, and the art of expression inserted 
 and maintained in the child's curriculum from 
 the beginning, how many more correct conver- 
 sationalists there would be, and how the pleas- 
 ure of conversation would be increased. 
 
148 Child Culture 
 
 Next to the practice of speaking and narrat- 
 ing, composing is the best means of acquiring 
 a command of well selected words and fluency 
 in expression ; and the reading of good litera- 
 ture is also essential to the accomplishment. 
 
 One secret of literary power is the art of 
 putting the right word in the right place, and 
 White's "Words and Their Uses" and Mat- 
 thew's similar work are excellent books on the 
 use and fine distinction of words. A mean 
 diction weakens any verbal or written produc- 
 tion, while the right use of words elevates and 
 adorns the simplest tale. To enlarge one's vo- 
 cabulary, one must note the new, unfamiliar 
 words that one hears in conversation, or meets 
 with in reading. From the time a child is old 
 enough to handle a dictionary, he should make 
 constant use of it to ascertain the meaning, 
 origin, and pronunciation of unfamiliar words. 
 It is, however, chiefly by associating with intelli- 
 gent, cultivated persons, and by attending to 
 their language that one gains a cultured diction. 
 A knowledge of rules avails little if one does 
 not see the rules exemplified in models, there- 
 fore one's models should be sought in the best 
 literature. The essentials of good diction are 
 purity, propriety, and precision. 
 
 In pronunciation, one of the common errors 
 of uncultivated persons is the omission of the 
 final "g;" they say "readin," "eatin'," *'ridin'." 
 
Language and Literature 149 
 
 If the parents are uneducated and cannot aid 
 their children in acquiring good English and 
 establishing themselves in the use of it, they 
 should, if their means permit, secure for the 
 child the services of an educated governess ; or 
 if unable to do this, they should supplement 
 their own imperfect education with a study of 
 a simple grammar and a rhetoric. Being writ- 
 ten for young minds, these text-books are so 
 simple, clear and explicit that anyone can un- 
 derstand them, and the benefit derived is cer- 
 tainly commensurate with the labor the study 
 imposes. Only by repeated practice does one 
 perfect oneself in any accomplishment, and 
 to become a master of expression, a fluenr and 
 eloquent speaker, the child or the adult must 
 have frequent practice. It is therefore advis- 
 able when the child has read a story to have 
 him recount it in his own language, with the 
 best words and phraseology he can command; 
 a great improvement in style will soon be 
 noted. 
 
 When a child has learned to observe for him- 
 self, has held converse with nature, and has 
 some familiarity with the concrete world, he is 
 ready for books. Style is important, even in 
 the first stages of a child's reading ; he cannot 
 read slipshod, inferior, poorly expressed prose 
 without undergoing a degradation of taste ; if 
 the matter is insipid and the style cheap and 
 
150 Child Culture 
 
 tawdry, his standard of taste is lowered, and 
 his desire for the best things lessened. The 
 training during the unconscious period is defi- 
 nite and permanent, and when he is ready to 
 make conscious selection, he is guided by the 
 taste already developed. 
 
 In recent years the market has been flooded 
 with juvenile literature of every grade and 
 quality, much of it estimable and purposeful, 
 and more of it trashy and weak, if not perni- 
 cious. The legends and myths, history and 
 biography of the world have been brought to 
 the child's level, and are presented in simple 
 yet attractive form by skilled writers. While 
 many of these modern productions are merito- 
 rious, there are many pretended histories which 
 contain no elements of real value to the child, 
 but simply retail the vicious deeds of kings, 
 and fill the pages of the book with exciting 
 episodes which may gratify the young reader, 
 but are worse than valueless to him. The 
 pictures of these histories reveal their quality ; 
 if they present only brutal battles, and the one 
 idea is carnage and the clash of war, they will 
 not inspire him with high ideals or true heroism. 
 When so much good literature is at the service 
 of children it is unwise for them to waste their 
 time on inferior matter. The religious ideal 
 which sought to make a boy absolutely un- 
 worldly has been acknowledged an absurdity, 
 
Language and Literature 151 
 
 and stories are now substituted, which teach 
 him how to live worthily, and which instil good 
 morals and right conduct in a more practical 
 way. The tone of a book should be healthy 
 and hopeful, and should avoid morbid senti- 
 mentality and sensational or false standards. 
 There are still so-called " children's books " 
 that are written in language so difficult of com- 
 prehension, and in a style so mature that an 
 adult can scarcely understand them, and they 
 are like Greek to the child. The language for 
 children should be simple, though it need not 
 be confined to monosyllables ; it should be choice, 
 but never ponderous in expression. 
 
 ** Mother Goose " and other nursery rhymes 
 are the first loves of children, and though they 
 do not belong to the highest order of poetry 
 they are symmetrical and catchy, and seem to 
 fill an instinctive need of childhood. At a 
 " Mothers' Convention," recently held in 
 Chicago, the seal of condemnation was set on 
 " Mother Goose " and kindred rhymes, but 
 when mothers over the land stood aghast at the 
 prospects of such exclusion, and when investi- 
 gation of the constituency of the convention 
 was made, it was revealed that it was composed 
 largely of men and unmarried women, who by 
 reason of their inexperience were unqualified 
 to speak in the premises. Childhood in all 
 ages and all countries has been the same, and 
 
152 Child Culture 
 
 we may be sure that from the time of the 
 small Hebrews and Egyptians, the little folks 
 have always rhymed and have had some equiv- 
 alent for " Mother Goose ! " 
 
 The " Mothers' Convention " is said to have 
 objected that the verses were not literal state- 
 ments of fact ; that there was no reason to be- 
 lieve for instance that the rhyme, " Hey 
 diddle diddle, the cat's in the fiddle " was a 
 faithful portrayal of actual circumstance, and 
 that the statement that the *' cow jumped over 
 the moon" was at best a gross exaggeration. 
 God pity childhood when fancy must be excluded 
 from its verses, and they must deal exclusively 
 with scientific and unyielding facts. It is, how- 
 ever, consoling to reflect that platform resolu- 
 tions can never defeat nature, and that little 
 children will remain as they have always been. 
 In this realistic generation there are some who 
 would exclude every tale that is an emanation of 
 the imagination, all " fairy tales " from child 
 lore, but the cultivation of the imagination is as 
 important a part of the development of the 
 mind as is the training of the faculties of per- 
 ception, reflection and memory. The child's 
 imagination needs training more than it needs 
 exciting, and there is a great deal of truly 
 pernicious fairy lore. Anderson's and Grimm's 
 fairy tales are standards, and are mostly un- 
 objectionable, but the best myths for children 
 
Language and Literature 153 
 
 are the classical myths, which filled the im- 
 agination of the race in its childhood. These 
 are not only entertaining but also artistic and 
 instructive, because largely symbolic. Through 
 them the child is initiated into the art world 
 and literature of the early Greeks, still the 
 best art the world has known. Children listen 
 enraptured to the story of Achilles, of the true 
 and tender Hector, who could set aside his wife 
 and baby boy and respond to the call of his coun- 
 try to duty. They are thrilled with the efforts 
 of the Greeks to capture Troy and rescue the 
 beautiful Helen, and all the other heroic fea- 
 tures of the Trojan war so graphically described 
 in Homer's noble poem. Other good literature 
 of this class are Hawthrone's "Tanglewood 
 Tales " and his " Wonderbook,'* which are full 
 of a symbolism which the child may not ap- 
 preciate at the time, but will appreciate as he 
 matures. The child's reading should embrace 
 variety of matter, fact and fiction — biography 
 and romance, science and poetry, the real and 
 the ideal. One should not always impose one's 
 selection on him, but let him forage for himself 
 among a well chosen number. 
 
 If parents can remember what books made 
 the greatest impression on their lives, which 
 ones awakened healthy sentiment, inspired 
 them to generous action and enlarged the scope 
 of their minds, they have a safe practical guide 
 
154 Child Culture 
 
 to the books with which to surround their 
 children. The books that are read in child- 
 hood, in the formative period, influence the 
 character more than those that are read after 
 the character is formed; it is important, there- 
 fore, wisely to direct the child's reading, and to 
 note well how he reads. There is danger in 
 too much fiction ; children and adults may be 
 omniverous readers for the longest period and 
 yet not read one book that is of real value to 
 their lives. The best that can be done for a 
 child is to cultivate in him a taste for good 
 reading, for literature that inspires and elevates, 
 that so impresses his heart and mind, that he 
 goes forth therefrom a nobler soul and with a 
 higher purpose. The Bible is preeminently the 
 book of books; in it is the aggregation of 
 wisdom, knowledge, moral teaching and poetry; 
 it contains the most stately English, the most 
 complete system of ethics the world has yet 
 received. The New Testament can be read to a 
 child as soon as he can understand it, or it may 
 be given him to read himself, but from the 
 Old Testament selections only should be given, 
 for there are passages both in its story and 
 psalms that are morally unfit for any child to 
 dwell on. For the study of the Bible, even 
 children should go straight to the Bible and 
 not read the children's editions, from which all 
 real beauty and value have been expurgated ; 
 
Language and Literature 155 
 
 the "Book of Books " is a book of life and not 
 a book of letters. 
 
 The field of literature open to youths and 
 maidens is quite as extensive as that for the 
 younger children; for, though not so many 
 books are written for young people of this age 
 exclusively, they can read profitably many of 
 the works written for younger minds, and are 
 also now ready for many books that adults 
 read. Good biographies, histories and histori- 
 cal novels should now enter the catalogue, 
 though in simpler form many of these are also 
 understood and relished by the younger chil- 
 dren. The mother or father should take time 
 every day to read with the children, if only a 
 little while, because in the parents' company 
 children read more intelligently, and in good 
 reading there are many points that require ex- 
 planation ; little discussions impress the vital 
 points on the child's mind, and he more readily 
 assimilates the ideas. Shakespeare is an author 
 whose works may profitably be in constant 
 reading with both young and old. 
 
 Some children have little or no taste for 
 reading ; but one need not despair of such, for 
 books are only one means of culture, and 
 though they are valuable aids to the mind 
 there are many sources of knowledge besides. 
 Shakespeare puts wise words in the mouth of 
 Corin in "As You Like It" when he says* 
 
156 Child Culture 
 
 " He that wants money, means and conduct is 
 without three good friends — that the property 
 of rain is to wet, and fire to burn — that good 
 pasture makes fat sheep, and a great cause of 
 the night is lack of sun ; and he that hath 
 learned no wit by nature nor art may complain 
 of good breeding, or comes of very dull kin- 
 dred." 
 
 Poetry seems in danger of being overlooked 
 in this materialistic age, and parents should en- 
 deavor to instil early a taste for this form of 
 literature. How much the world would have 
 lost if its sweet singers, Longfellow, Whittier, 
 Tennyson, Burns and a host of others had not 
 lived and delighted it with their sweet and en- 
 nobling thoughts and aspirations. To them, 
 however, who read them not, who do not pay 
 heed to their lofty ideas and tender emotions, it 
 is as if they had not been. 
 
 There is as great disadvantage in too much 
 reading as in too little, for then it usurps 
 thought instead of feeding it. 
 
 The pictures in many of the modern books 
 are true works of art and are often more educa- 
 tive than the printed matter ; in others, they 
 are in the worst sense immoral and degrading. 
 Books containing such detestable daubs should 
 never be presented to a child, for his thoughts, 
 are as much influenced by the pictures as by 
 the reading matter. A few publishers have 
 
Language and Literature 157 
 
 made a specialty of artistic illustrations, and 
 the movement is most commendable. 
 
 In reading, the important point is to select 
 subjects in which one is interested. It is as- 
 tonishing how carelessly people select what 
 they read. They seem to take by chance, and 
 not in accordance with a definite course marked 
 by individual taste and interest. They, like 
 the sailors of Ulysses, take bags of wind for 
 sacks of treasures. When one reflects how in- 
 numerable books are, and how very few the 
 hours for reading, is not the importance of a 
 restricted, well selected list most manifest? 
 There is a struggle for existence, and for a sur- 
 vival of the fittest among books as well as 
 among animals, and those which have long sur- 
 vived may be taken to have the right qualifica- 
 tions. A familiarity with the classic master- 
 pieces is always a good beginning, and then 
 one's taste becomes suflficiently true to make 
 wise choice of the moderns. A large part of 
 modern reading is devoted to reviews, maga- 
 zines and newspapers, and though they are 
 valuable in informing us on topics of current 
 interest, their use should be limited, and they 
 should not be permitted to usurp the time and 
 thought of permanent literature. To speak in 
 words better than my own : " It is no over- 
 statement to say that other things being equal, 
 the man who has the greatest amount of Intel- 
 
158 Child Culture 
 
 lectual resources is in the least danger from in- 
 ferior temptations, — if for no other reason, be- 
 cause he has fewer idle moments. The ruin of 
 most men dates from some vacant hour. Occu- 
 pation is the armor of the soul, and the train of 
 idleness is borne up by all the vices. I remem- 
 ber a satirical poem, in which the devil is 
 represented as fishing for men, and adapting 
 his baits to the taste and temperament of his 
 prey ; but the idler, he said, pleased him most, 
 because he bit the naked hook. To a young 
 man away from home, friendless and forlorn in 
 a great city, the hours of peril are those be- 
 tween sunset and bedtime, for the moon and 
 the stars see more of evil in a single hour than 
 the sun in his whole day's circuit. The poet's 
 visions of evening are all compact of tender 
 and soothing images. It brings the wanderer 
 to his home, the child to its mother's arms, the 
 ox to his stall, and the weary laborer to his 
 rest. But to the gentle -hearted youth who is 
 tlirown upon the rock of a pitiless city, and 
 stands 'homeless amid a thousand homes,' the 
 approach of evening brings with it an aching 
 sense of loneliness and desolation, which comes 
 down^pon the spirit like darkness upon the 
 earth. In this mood, his best impulses become 
 a snare to him, and he is led astray because he 
 is social, affectionate, sympathetic, and warm- 
 hearted. If there be a young man thus circum- 
 
Language and Literature 159 
 
 stanced within the sound of my voice, let me 
 say to him that books are the friends of the 
 friendless, and that a library is the home of the 
 homeless. A taste for reading will always carry 
 you into the best possible company, and enable 
 you to converse with men who will instruct you 
 by their wisdom, and charm you by their wit ; 
 who will soothe you when fretted, refresh you 
 when weary, counsel you when perplexed, and 
 sympathize with you at all times. Evil spirits 
 in the middle ages were exorcised and driven 
 away by the bell, book and candle : you want 
 but two of these agents, — the book and the 
 candle.'* 
 
 As remarked before, it is not the quantity of 
 reading one does that profits most, but the 
 quality of the matter, and above all, the manner 
 and the attitude of the reader. When one has 
 thoroughly assimilated a few of the great clas- 
 sical masterpieces and desires to extend his ac- 
 quaintance, he should next read the books 
 which suit the bent of his own mind, those 
 which most interest and instruct him, and that 
 have a tendency to fit him for his work in life. 
 One's mind only opens to that which interests 
 one ; if the attention is not absorbed, no mat- 
 ter how noble are the thoughts and sentiments 
 one is considering, they mean nothing to the 
 reader. The next essential to "interest" is 
 that a book should set one's mind in motion, 
 
i6o Child Culture 
 
 and the more it makes one think, and the 
 higher the themes it precipitates on the mind, 
 the better are its qualifications. But the 
 highest purport of a book is its practical use- 
 fulness, the degree with which it inspires one's 
 conduct, makes one resolute to follow what is 
 good and noble. These characteristics indicate 
 whether a book is adapted to an individual, 
 whether it is in one's special line of reading. 
 
 Next to knowing what to read, the important 
 question is how to read. " First, before you 
 peruse a book, know something about the au- 
 thor.** This insures one's interest from the be- 
 ginning, as one is always more interested in a 
 person's thoughts, with whom one has some ac- 
 quaintance, than with a stranger's. A bio- 
 graphical notice of the writer introduces one to 
 him ; a knowledge of his life, his character, 
 and the circumstances amid which the book 
 was composed enable one to read his works 
 much more intelligently. Next, "Read the 
 preface carefully." The reading of the preface 
 is the truest test of an accomplished reader ; 
 therein are found the author's motives for 
 writing the book, and we have a foretaste of 
 the volume itself; the preface is the appetizer 
 of the book. Now, " take a comprehensive 
 survey of the table of contents." If the preface 
 is the appetizer, the table of contents is the 
 bill of fare. It is like the map of a journey 
 
Language and Literature 161 
 
 showing us through what tracts our way lies, 
 and to what destinations it will lead us. An- 
 other important direction is, *' Give your whole 
 attention to whatever you read." The man who 
 has thoroughly comprehended even one great 
 book, who has analyzed its characters, scaled its 
 highest thoughts, felt its deepest pathos, would 
 be a formidable antagonist to a man of many 
 books, who, however, had skimmed through 
 them carelessly and inattentively. The next 
 point in manner of reading is " Be sure to note 
 the most valuable passages as you read." All 
 accomplished readers keep a notebook at hand 
 and jot down briefly any facts, arguments or 
 sentences that strike them. Without taking 
 notes one cannot be an intelligent reader, for 
 how can one be intelligent without discriminat- 
 ing, and if one discriminates one distinguishes, 
 and one cannot distinguish without affixing 
 some distinctive mark. All great scholars have 
 been great note takers, and have proved them- 
 selves in reading as in other things, men of 
 MARK. The last two injunctions are, " Write 
 out in your own language a summary of the 
 facts you have noticed " and ** Apply the re- 
 sults of your own reading to your everyday 
 life." Repetition in composition, by using 
 one's own arrangement and phraseology, fixes 
 the thought of a book much more securely in 
 one's mind, and gives one mastery of a subject 
 
l62 Child Culture 
 
 more completely than any other method. If 
 one cannot write a summary, one should speak 
 it ; try to communicate a clear and correct ac- 
 count of it to another. This habit is one of 
 the reasons why some men appear to have won- 
 derful memories. Whatever they hear or read 
 they tell to everyone they meet, and thus it 
 never leaves their minds. If you will neither 
 write it nor relate it to another, then at least 
 digest it by going over it in your mind; that is 
 indispensable. The last rule, "Apply the re- 
 sults of your reading to your everyday duties,'* 
 should need no elucidation. While one is read- 
 ing, one is using the minds of the authors ; they 
 support the reader's mind, and carry it along, 
 making it go through all their own processes. 
 This develops mental energy, but if nothing 
 else is done, he will remain a mere infant in in- 
 tellect. He must think for himself; he must 
 imitate their manner of thinking ; he must ap- 
 ply to his everyday duties those qualifications 
 which have made the author so great. After 
 his intercourse with the great souls of the past 
 he must prove himself to be clearer in head, 
 larger in heart, and nobler in action. This is 
 the great end achieved by books. If they only 
 make a man a book worm, they are little better 
 than waste paper. 
 
 Some may find these directions too arduous, 
 and may not wish to bother with reading bio- 
 
Language and Literature 163 
 
 graphies and prefaces, making notes and sum- 
 maries. To these, Pryde says : " You have 
 just two alternatives between which to choose. 
 If you are lazy and listless, if you have no de- 
 sire to become wiser and better — if in other 
 words, you are dolts and simpletons, then you 
 will continue to doze and dream over whatever 
 books come to hand, and will remain ignorant 
 forevermore. But if you are active and 
 earnest — if you wish to succeed in life — if you 
 covet the title of rational beings — if you have 
 the sense to appreciate good advice and the 
 resolution to carry it out, then you will read 
 according to a well-defined and rigid method." 
 
 Acknowledgment is made to David Pryde's * ' Highways 
 of Literature " for the directions in this chapter on " How 
 to Read." 
 
xn 
 
 MANNERS 
 
 A CODE of etiquette may refine the manners, 
 but the " heart of courtesy " which stamps the nat- 
 ural gentleman comes through instinct. Happy 
 is the child, and happy the man who has the 
 gift of a heart so gentle by nature and so con- 
 siderate, whose manners have such inborn grace, 
 that little or no training is required to fit him 
 for harmonious intercourse with his fellow-man. 
 This type of man is rare ; the average man re- 
 quires much training before his politeness be- 
 comes at all instinctive. The earlier in life 
 attention is bestowed on manners, the less diffi- 
 culty is there in establishing that unfailing 
 good breeding and polish which mark the per- 
 fect gentleman. 
 
 Some persons are averse to the acquirement 
 of fine manners, fearing that it means an adop- 
 tion of much ceremony, and a sacrifice of sin- 
 cerity and simplicity. If one is good-natured, 
 that prevents artifice, — if one is truly indul- 
 gent, no violation of sincerity is necessary. 
 
 The absence of a fixed aristocracy or reign- 
 ing set, the influx of emigrants, the constant 
 changes of fortune in the families of this coun- 
 164 
 
Manners 165 
 
 try, and the political changes by which first one 
 stratum and then another is left on top, render 
 a fixed standard of politeness difficult to estab- 
 lish. When social upheavals are less frequent, 
 the codes which govern social matters will be 
 more definite and more immutable. The most 
 reliable codes are those that emanate from peo- 
 ple of native refinement and taste, and from the 
 experience of broad and cultivated minds. A 
 noble and unselfish heart with very few pre- 
 cepts on the current usages of good society is 
 as trustworthy a guide as one needs ; the key- 
 note to good manners as to good morals being 
 that same Golden Rule " To do to others as we 
 would that they should do to us." A child who 
 is not trained to consider the rights and feel- 
 ings of others, and who has no reverence for 
 older people, will scarcely develop into a well 
 mannered man. Through thoughtlessness, 
 haste or ignorance he may be guilty of rude- 
 ness, but if his heart is right and his fault is 
 made known to him, he will not repeat it, for 
 no gentleman or lady will knowingly offend. 
 It is the parents* duty to enlighten the child, 
 and to train him into a proper observance of 
 his duties to his elders, his companions, and all 
 with whom he comes in contact. 
 
 As manners are the " lesser morals," no one 
 can be thoroughly well-bred who has not a 
 basis of good morals. He may have gracious 
 
i66 Child Culture 
 
 manners and an attractive personality, but the 
 defect will be revealed at some point of his con- 
 duct. All etiquette is but the superstructure, 
 the foundation of which is Christian principle 
 and Christian virtue, which again have their 
 root in Divine Love. Many truly conscientious 
 persons whose surroundings have lacked refine- 
 ment, and whose education has not redeemed 
 them from the effects of this lack, are most de- 
 sirous of knowing the means by which the 
 frictions of social intercourse may be avoided, 
 but they scarcely know how to acquire the 
 necessary knowledge. 
 
 There are many excellent works on such sub- 
 jects, which not only give the correct forms, but 
 which also instruct in the principles underlying 
 them, and give reasons for their adoption. 
 From the frequent lapses and delinquencies of 
 society, it is evident that a perusal or re -perusal 
 of some book on etiquette would benefit many. 
 The ill manners of the average American boy 
 and girl, man and woman, have been subjects 
 of severe criticisms by foreigners visiting in 
 this country. What good manners they do pos- 
 sess are accompanied by more sincerity than 
 those of foreigners, whose extremely ceremo- 
 nious manners alwa3^s savor of insincerity to 
 persons unaccustomed to them. 
 
 We must acknowledge that fine manners as 
 an art are not much cultivated in this country. 
 
Manners 1 67 
 
 Foreign children are certainly the superiors in 
 this respect of American children. I hold one 
 of the chief pleasures of a foreign sojourn to 
 be the witnessing of the respectful, well-bred 
 children there ; courtesy and self-restraint are 
 universal, and impertinent replies to parents 
 and elders are unknown. Everyone who has 
 lived abroad, and has had opportunity for ob- 
 serving, will admit the gratification which this 
 experience affords. How many children in this 
 country rise when addressed by an older per- 
 son who is standing, or when one enters a 
 room ? It is a mark of deference in which a 
 European cliild will seldom fail, and it is a fre- 
 quent sight at a hotel table to see a whole table 
 of children standing, while an older person also 
 standing is holding a brief conversation with 
 the parents, who of course have also risen. 
 Children are not indulged in those countries as 
 they are here. They are much more arbitrarily 
 governed and have not the familiar intercourse 
 with their parents which is enjoyed by our 
 children. 
 
 This intimate association has its advantages 
 as well as its disadvantages ; the American 
 child gives his parents much more of his confi- 
 dence than does the other, and hence the gain 
 is perhaps greater than the loss ; but the unhes- 
 itating obedience and invariable respect that are 
 practiced abroad cannot but command one's 
 
l68 Child Culture 
 
 approbation and admiration. The absolute mon- 
 archy of childhood that exists in many Amer- 
 ican homes would be considered a fairy tale in 
 those well disciplined families. 
 
 It is not my intention to set forth a code of 
 etiquette or of the usages which govern good 
 society ; this has been done so well in various 
 other publications that it is unnecessary; but I 
 will refer to a few essential points to which 
 special attention may profitably be called, both 
 because of their importance and because failure 
 in observing them is frequent. 
 
 Of these, none is more grievous than the one 
 just mentioned — the irreverence of children 
 toward their elders, and especially their moth- 
 ers and fathers. It is the greatest blemish that 
 exists on the childhood of this country to-day, 
 and the parents are more responsible for the 
 condition than are the children, for no parent 
 is fulfilling his duty to his child, or possesses his 
 proper quota of self-respect, who permits his 
 child to contradict him, to ridicule him, or to 
 treat him with any manner of rudeness. Is it 
 not a common act for a child to oppose his 
 opinions to his parents, to refuse to obey, to 
 retort impertinently, or to walk away while 
 being addressed? Whence arises this most 
 deplorable disrespect ? The child is not lacking 
 in parental affection as one might suppose. 
 The cause is not so serious as that, but it is 
 
Manners 169 
 
 probable, that while parents and children live 
 in such close and intimate association as they 
 do in most households, the child regards the 
 parents more as his equals than as his superiors, 
 and the parents foster the feeling in both its 
 worthy and unworthy aspects. Nothing is 
 more beautiful than a close companionship be- 
 tween parents and their children. A perfect 
 example and illustrious model has just been 
 revealed to us in the life of the late Eugene 
 Field, who was always a child among children 
 in his own family, his heart ever overflowing 
 with love and sympathy for their minutest joys 
 and sorrows. 
 
 But the sweetest companionship is compati- 
 ble with parental respect, and a determination 
 and perseverance on the parent's part can, and 
 will, sustain it. Not one instance of rudeness, 
 disrespect or flippancy should pass unnoticed, 
 nor unpunished if persisted in, and this attitude 
 may be maintained without any diminution of 
 confidence or of filial affection. 
 
 Reverence for the aged and solicitude for 
 their welfare is an indispensable quality of a 
 virtuous character. More than any, the feeling 
 of reverence needs quickening and strengthen- 
 ing, for lack of reverence is the besetting weak- 
 ness of the children and youth of the present 
 generation. 
 
 As well as the courtesy which the child owes, 
 
lyo Child Culture 
 
 I would emphasize that which is due the child. 
 This is too often ignored or regarded lightly. 
 The child's self respect and the respect he 
 shows others are strongly influenced by the re- 
 spect that is shown him. His failures in cour- 
 tesy aud good breeding should not be renaarked 
 upon in the presence of others. If it is desired 
 that he relinquish his seat in favor of another, 
 at any time or place, it should be courteously 
 suggested and not demanded. All of his indi- 
 vidual rights should be recognized and duly 
 respected. Such treatment will develop in him 
 a much more genuine regard and consideration 
 for others than the method which violates and 
 disregards all his inherent rights. If the 
 parents desire a friendly good morning from 
 him, they should greet him with the same. 
 They should never fail to thank him for atten- 
 tions, for nothing so surely begets politeness as 
 politeness. No child can become truly courte- 
 ous unless he is so in the everyday life of his 
 home. Good manners cannot be put off and 
 on as one does one's clothes, without visible 
 marks of unfamiliarity therewith. 
 
 The children whose education has rendered 
 them superior to their parents in mental attain- 
 ments should not consider that this advantage 
 excuses them from the duty of filial reverence, 
 but their gratitude for the advantages afforded 
 them should be manifestly increased. It is 
 
Manners 1 7 1 
 
 through the kindness and self-sacrifice of the 
 parents that the opportunities were afforded, 
 and it were worse than ingratitude to requite 
 them unworthily. 
 
 When the parents have guests, the younger 
 members of the family should pay them the 
 respect of their attention at least, even if they 
 do not participate in the conversation, and they 
 should not continue reading or be otherwise 
 preoccupied in their presence. 
 
 Another violation of good breeding is the at- 
 titude of many children toward the domestics 
 of the household. In many families their lot is 
 a hard one, including not only the frequent in- 
 justice and unkindness of the mistress, but the 
 tyranny and arbitrariness of the children. 
 Many families seem bent on getting all the 
 service they possibly can with as little requital 
 as possible ; they never consult the interest or 
 convenience of their servant ; no feeling of 
 sympathy or concern for her welfare ever enters 
 their selfish hearts, but the small wages paid 
 are supposed to make purchase of all her liberty. 
 When the heads of households manifest so little 
 humanity, is it any wonder if the child catches 
 the spirit of domination and wishes to be party 
 to the absolutism that reigns? Such a policy 
 results in no profit to its promoter, for a servant 
 is not long in recognizing the situation, and her 
 services become more and more reluctant. 
 
172 Child Culture 
 
 A tone of hostility between a family aud its 
 servants is an unfailing indication of vulgarity 
 and puts the stamp of low breeding on the 
 members of all homes that indulge in it. Serv- 
 ants are amenable to civility, and they should 
 be accorded every consideration and privilege 
 consistent with the domestic arrangements ; 
 children should be required to request a serv- 
 ice, not to command it. Scolding of servants 
 seldom avails, for the self-respecting ones will 
 not suffer it, and those who do suffer it are not 
 affected by it. The faults can be pointed out 
 without harshness, and correction urged with 
 civility, and if one asks them why they neg- 
 lected their duty, their own answer accuses 
 them better than the mistress can. Children 
 should not be permitted to make unnecessary 
 demands on them and cause them to run up 
 and downstairs for little services that can be 
 dispensed with, or that they can render them- 
 selves. Unless the service of a house be very 
 ample, this consideration should always be 
 shown. They should be permitted to eat their 
 meals without interruption if possible, as every- 
 one knows how unpleasant it is to be constantly 
 disturbed at one's meals, and it should not be 
 demanded of them that they remain sitting up 
 until midnight in view of some possible service 
 required; — it is very unreasonable to expect 
 them to work all day and lose sleep half the 
 
Manners 1 73 
 
 night too. Defects in principle should be dealt 
 with more severely than all others, and servants 
 who are deficient in good morals ought not to 
 be retained, as they are not only dangerous 
 themselves, but their influence in the household 
 is too pernicious to risk. 
 
 Even in their plays and games children can 
 be trained to gentleness and self-restraint with- 
 out diminution of their pleasure ; rudeness and 
 boisterousness add nothing to their real enjoy- 
 ment and are a serious disturbance to others. 
 They should be taught to hold personal defects 
 sacred, not only never to allude to them, but to 
 appear not to observe them ; they should also 
 disapprove of any infringement of this consid- 
 eration on the part of their playmates. 
 
 There is one slovenly habit to which both 
 young and old are subject in this country and 
 of which one sees less abroad : it is the litter- 
 ing of public places with refuse. Our streets, 
 parks, steamboats, cars, almost all places to 
 which the public has access, are rendered filthy 
 by expectoration and by the remains of food. 
 Picnic grounds are always left in the most un- 
 sightly condition, and unless some one in serv- 
 ice immediately removes the debris, it is very 
 offensive to the passer-by and to those arriving 
 on the spot later. It is an unclean practice and 
 children should be better trained. It is an easy 
 and simple matter to throw orange peels, egg 
 
174 Child Culture 
 
 shells and other refuse into the empty lunch 
 baskets, and dispose of them properly on reach- 
 ing home. Everywhere, streets are now being 
 provided with receptacles for waste matter, and 
 they should be used for the purpose intended, 
 and not become additional "wastes" them- 
 selves. In the home, no signs of luncheon or 
 refreshment should be visible, but everything 
 removed promptly, each room containing a 
 waste basket for the reception of nutshells, etc. 
 
 Traveling is one of the greatest tests of good 
 breeding; space being limited, friction more 
 easily arises, and conveniences being few, only 
 a constant regard for the interests of others 
 prevents trespass. The toilet rooms should al- 
 ways be left as one would wish to find them ; 
 when all the seats are required, one should be 
 very careful not to utilize more than one is en- 
 titled to. In the matter of ventilation and 
 open windows, the pleasure of others should be 
 considered as well as one's own, and great for- 
 bearance shown to the unavoidable disturbances 
 of babies and children. Mothers suffer agonies 
 themselves when their babies cry and they are 
 conscious that others are being annoyed, but 
 they cannot always control the annoyance, and 
 one should be as indulgent as possible. 
 
 At no time and place are good manners and 
 good breeding more manifest or more imperative 
 than in visiting friends. It requires infinite 
 
Manners 1 75 
 
 tact, much good sense and thought, to spend 
 days and weeks in another's home, and so to 
 regulate one's time and presence as to make no 
 superfluous bestowals of either. One essential 
 is to be agreeable to whatever is proposed for 
 one's entertainment, and to participate as fully 
 as possible in the pleasures arranged for one ; 
 persons who express indifference and distaste 
 to every suggestion that is made for their en- 
 joyment are never popular guests, and one visit 
 usually suffices that particular hostess. The 
 guest should see that the hostess meets all the 
 visitors who call on her, and should make no 
 engagements with others without first consult- 
 ing and gaining the approval of her friend. 
 Promptness at meals, and careful attention to 
 the regulations of the house are required, as 
 well as great consideration in the demands on 
 the service of the domestics. If one is visiting 
 in a family in which the members by reason of 
 scarcity of servants attend to their own rooms 
 or do part of the work of the house, one should , 
 take care of one's own room, or at least make 
 the bed and attend to the disposal of one's! 
 wearing apparel, and at all times keep the room 
 as tidy and well ordered as possible. One can- 
 not be too careful of misusing and damaging 
 the furniture in the friend's house, and whether 
 it be costly or inexpensive, it should receive 
 equal consideration. Persons who are accus- 
 
176 Child Culture 
 
 tomed to fine furnishings and surroundings are 
 the most particular in this regard. One should 
 have a book or a piece of work in which one is 
 interested, and which, when she cannot be pres- 
 ent, the hostess naay consider a resource for the 
 guest. At certain times of the day, (if the 
 hostess is preoccupied in the morning, let it be 
 the morning, or if it seems more convenient, 
 during a part of the afternoon) guests should 
 withdraw and give the hostess a little time for 
 her personal affairs and for recuperation. Noth- 
 ing is more irksome and wearisome than con- 
 tinuous society, however enjoyable it may be at 
 intervals. On returning from entertainments 
 late at night, it is scarcely necessary to suggest 
 that the guest come in as noiselessly as possi- 
 ble, and no sound be made that can disturb 
 the sleeping family. Perhaps the most impera- 
 tive rule of visiting is that nothing that trans- 
 pires of a discreditable nature, or which might 
 elicit criticism, shall ever pass one's lips; no 
 greater breach of delicacy or good breeding can 
 be committed. 
 
 The requirements of polite visiting are too 
 many to enumerate here, but a general 
 thoughtfulness and a consideration of the sug- 
 gestions here made will enable one to avoid the 
 chief offences to which the untrained visitor is 
 liable. The hostess, on the other hand, has to 
 pursue a middle course in the entertainment of 
 
C UNIVERS: 
 Manners ^**^£^^3-77 
 
 a guest, to steer between overattention and 
 neglect. Every guest feels better and freer if 
 she is not overwhelmed with attention, if she 
 is occasionally left to her own resources, for 
 she is then assured that her presence is making 
 no inconvenient demands on her hostess. 
 
 The etiquette of calls and cards is so compli- 
 cated that an elucidation thereof would require 
 several chapters, but a few cardinal points may 
 be suggested here. While it is the privilege in 
 all but the largest cities and Washington, of 
 the older residents to call on the newcomer, 
 even before they have met, it is better not to 
 make such calls hastily, except in the case of 
 near neighbors. Others should have met the 
 lady and feel sure that their acquaintance is 
 desired ; but one may always call when re- 
 quested by a common friend to do so* 
 
 First calls must invariably be returned, and 
 should be returned within a week; if the ac- 
 quaintance is not desired, further calls may be 
 omitted, but return of the first call is impera- 
 tive. After a dinner party a call must be 
 made in person and promptly ; after other forms 
 of entertainment one is privileged to send or 
 leave a card without asking for the hostess, ex- 
 cept on her day at home, when one must see 
 her. One should never hand one's card to the 
 hostess, for the card acts as one's representa- 
 tive, and the two should not meet the hostess 
 
178 Child Culture 
 
 together. If on entering a drawing-room the 
 hostess is there, the card can be laid on the 
 table, or returned to the card case. 
 
 Ladies who have a very large circle of friends 
 to whom they cannot pay personal visits an- 
 nually, give " At Homes " or receptions in place 
 of calls, and such invitations substitute a per- 
 sonal call. No regrets or acceptances are ex- 
 pected before these functions ; one leaves a card 
 at the door on entering, or if one cannot attend 
 one may send one's card by mail or proxy or 
 call afterward. No one has the privilege of 
 entertaining a lady except at an "At Home," 
 until calls have been exchanged, and when one 
 receives invitations from persons who have 
 omitted the preliminary attention, one should 
 not accept, for though the intention may be 
 good, and the omission is doubtless made in ig- 
 norance, it is the duty of every woman in 
 society to know and to conform to the usages 
 of "good society." If one wishes to be excused 
 from a caller it should be done at the door be- 
 fore she is admitted, and never after, as she 
 may feel that it is a personal refusal. Callers 
 should never forget to ask and leave cards for 
 the lady of the house when calling on a visitor 
 in the house, and likewise, visitors should be 
 requested both by the hostess and her callers to 
 meet all of the latter who call. 
 
 It is extremely negligent when an entertain- 
 
Manners 1 79 
 
 ment is given in compliment to a visitor for 
 the invited guests to neglect that visitor. She 
 is, by the circumstances, entitled to the most 
 cordial attention from all present ; a disregard 
 of this courtesy is not only extremely mortify- 
 ing to a hostess and her guest, but would war- 
 rant her being thoroughly ashamed of the in- 
 vited guests. 
 
 Well-bred people always converse in low 
 tones and never laugh boisterously ; especially 
 at public entertainments is it selfish to speak 
 or to make any noise that can disturb the per- 
 sons in the adjacent seats. Children should be 
 instructed in the art of doing every act in the 
 best manner ; in passing or handing a chair it 
 is unnecessary to strike it against anything, or 
 to touch anyone with it. Perfect repose of 
 manner is the greatest elegance ; in the details 
 of life persons show their good or ill breeding 
 even more than in the large observances. 
 Prompt acknowledgment of all attention, 
 prompt responses to invitations, the courtesy 
 of an early call after invitations and entertain- 
 ments, mark the degree of one's refinement. 
 In approaching a lady with an umbrella in her 
 hand, a man should raise his high enough to 
 pass without interfering. In all carrying of 
 umbrellas, canes and sunshades, one should 
 take care, for it is very annoying to feel the 
 points attacking one's hat or face, and one's 
 
l8o Child Culture 
 
 companion will suffer a great deal rather than 
 mention it. In making way through a crowd, 
 one should never jostle or push, but gently and 
 patiently await an opening. In the use of fans, 
 much unnecessary discomfort is caused others 
 by fanning them as well as oneself, for while 
 the one wielding the fan may be too warm, her 
 neighbor may be shivering, and the draught 
 created by the fan most unpleasant to her. 
 
 One's manner of sitting, standing, walking, 
 every act and movement betray the degree of 
 one's breeding, and should be considered until 
 the best manner becomes second nature, and is 
 done unconsciously. One makes a circle from 
 the unconscious to the conscious, and then back 
 to the unconscious again. 
 
 . The subject of manners is inexhaustible, and 
 an entire book might profitably be given to its 
 consideration, but in this limited space only a 
 few of the most frequent delinquencies can be 
 noticed. 
 
 A constantly changing society admits of 
 many interlopers, who, having money and en- 
 tertaining handsomely, have gained access to 
 good society. Having successfully attained a 
 coveted place, they are most disdainful of all 
 new aspirants; having so recently climbed the 
 social ladder themselves, their sole thought and 
 pleasure is to keep off all others, and the *' ex- 
 clusives" of society are usually found among 
 
Manners 181 
 
 its recent additions. Snubbing is the delight of 
 parvenues, and none are so tenacious of their 
 position and hedge it around so closely as they 
 who hold it uncertainly. 
 
 On the other hand, when the restriction is in 
 behalf of good breeding and genuine worth 
 and culture, no one can complain ; in such case 
 the exclusions are in the interest of the admis- 
 sions, and all who are entitled to enter will ap' 
 predate the advantage of the regulation. 
 
XIII 
 
 HABITS OF CHILDHOOD 
 
 " Habit a second nature ! Habit is ten times 
 nature," the Duke of Wellington is said to have 
 exclaimed, and the degree to which this is true 
 no one probably can appreciate as well as one 
 who is a veteran soldier himself. The daily 
 drill and the years of discipline end by fashion- 
 ing a man completely over again, with respect 
 to most of the possibilities of his conduct. 
 
 " There is a story," says Professor Huxley, 
 " which is credible enough, though it may not 
 be true, of a practical joker, who, seeing a dis- 
 charged veteran carrying home his dinner, sud- 
 denly called out, ' Attention ! * whereupon the 
 man instantly brought his hands down and lost 
 his mutton and potatoes in the gutter. The 
 drill had been thorough, and its effects had be- 
 come embodied in the man's nervous struc- 
 ture. 
 
 " An acquired habit, from the physiological 
 point of view, is nothing but a new pathway of 
 discharge formed in the brain, by which cer- 
 tain incoming currents ever after tend to 
 escape ; and the functions of perception, mem- 
 ory, reasoning, the education of the will, are 
 182 
 
Habits of Childhood 183 
 
 results of formations de novo of just such path- 
 ways of discharge. The habits of an elemen- 
 tary particle cannot change, because the par- 
 ticle is itself an unchangeable thing ; but those 
 of a compound mass of matter can change, 
 because they are in the last instance due to the 
 structure of the compound, and either outward 
 forces or inward tension can turn the structure 
 into something different from what it was ; that 
 is, if the body be plastic enough to maintain its 
 integrity and be not disrupted when its struc- 
 ture yields. Plasticity, then, in the wide sense 
 of the word, means the possession of a structure 
 weak enough to yield to an influence, but 
 strong enough not to yield all at once. Organic 
 matter, especially nervous tissue, seems en- 
 dowed with a very extraordinary degree of 
 plasticity of this sort, so that we may say with- 
 out hesitation, that the phenomena of habit in 
 living beings are due to the plasticity of the 
 organic materials of which theit bodies are 
 composed. At the outset, more force is re- 
 quired to overcome ; the overcoming of the 
 resistance is a phenomenon of habituation. In 
 the nervous system itself, it is well known how 
 many so-called functional diseases seem to keep 
 themselves going simply because they happen 
 to have once begun, and how the forcible cut- 
 ting short by medicine of a few attacks is often 
 sufficient to enable the physiological forces to 
 
184 Child Culture 
 
 get possession of the field again, and to bring 
 the organs back to functions of health. And, 
 to take what are more obviously habits, the 
 success with which a weaning treatment can 
 often be applied to the victims of unhealthy 
 indulgence of passion, or of mere complaining, 
 or irascible disposition, shows us how much the 
 morbid manifestations themselves were due to 
 the mere inertia of the nervous organs, when 
 once launched on a false career. 
 
 "Habit simplifies our movements, makes 
 them accurate, and diminishes fatigue. Man is 
 born with a tendency to do more things than 
 he has ready made arrangements for in his 
 nerve centres. If practice did not make per- 
 fect, nor habit economize the expense of nerv- 
 ous muscular energy, he would be in a sorry 
 plight. As Dr. Maudsley says in ' Physiology 
 of Mind : * * If an act becomes no easier after 
 being done several times, if the careful direc- 
 tion of consciousness were necessary to its ac- 
 complishment on each occasion, it is evident 
 that the whole activity of a lifetime might be 
 confined to one or two deeds — that no progress 
 could take place in development. A man might 
 be occupied all day in dressing or undressing 
 himself; the attitude of his body would absorb 
 all his attention and energy, the washing of 
 his hands or the fastening of a button would 
 be as difficult to him on each occasion as to the 
 
Habits of Childhood 185 
 
 child on its first trial, and he would further- 
 more be completely exhausted by his exer- 
 tions — therefore habit diminishes the conscious 
 attention with which our acts are performed. 
 
 " Habit is thus the enormous flywheel of so- 
 ciety, its most precious conservative agent. It 
 alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of 
 ordinance, and saves the children of fortune 
 from the uprising of the poor. It alone pre- 
 vents the hardest and the most repulsive walks 
 of life from being deserted by those brought 
 up to tread therein. It keeps the fisherman 
 and the deck hand at sea through the winter ; 
 it nails the countryman to his log cabin and his 
 lonely farm through all the months of snow ; 
 it protects us from invasion by the natives of 
 the desert and the frozen zone. It dooms us 
 all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines 
 of our nurture or our early choice, and to 
 make the best of a pursuit that disagrees, be- 
 cause there is no other for which we are fitted, 
 and it is too late to begin again. It keeps dif- 
 ferent social strata from mixing. 
 
 *' Already at the age of twenty-five, you see 
 the professional mannerism settling down on 
 the young commercial traveller, on the youug 
 doctor, on the young minister, on the young 
 attorney. If the period between twenty and 
 thirty is the critical one in the formation of in- 
 tellectual and professional habits, the period 
 
i86 Child Culture 
 
 below twenty is more important still for the fix- 
 ing of the personal habits, such as vocalization, 
 pronunciation, gesture, motion and address. 
 Hardly ever is a language learned after twenty 
 spoken without a foreign accent ; hardly ever 
 can a youth transferred to the society of his 
 betters unlearn the nasality and other vices of 
 speech bred in him by the association of his 
 growing years. Hardly ever, indeed, no mat- 
 ter how much money there be in his pocket, 
 can he ever learn to dress like a gentleman 
 born. 
 
 " The great thing in all education is to make 
 our nervous system our ally instead of our 
 enemy ! It is to fund and capitalize our acqui- 
 sitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the 
 fund. For this we must make automatic and 
 habitual as early as possible, as many useful 
 actions as we can, and guard against the grow- 
 ing into ways that are likely to be disadvanta- 
 geous to us, as we should guard against the 
 plague. The more of the dictates of our daily 
 life we can hand over to the effortless custodian 
 of automatism, the more our higher powers of 
 mind will be set free for their own proper 
 work."^ 
 
 In Professor Bain's Chapter on " The Moral 
 Habits " we are given the following maxims : 
 The first is that in the acquisition of a new 
 
 *Prof. Wm. James: "Psychology." 
 
Habits of Childhood 187 
 
 habit, or the leaving off of an old one, we must 
 take care to launch ourselves with as strong 
 and decided an initiative as possible. Accumu- 
 late all the possible circumstances which shall 
 reinforce the right motives ; this will give your 
 new beginning such momentum that the temp- 
 tation to break down will not occur as soon as 
 it otherwise might, and every day during which 
 a breakdown is postponed, adds to the chances 
 of its not occurring at all. 
 
 The second maxim is : " Never suffer an ex- 
 ception to occur till the new habit is securely 
 rooted in your life." Continuity of training is 
 the great means of making the nervous system act 
 right. Professor Bain says : " The peculiarity 
 of the moral habits contradistinguishing them 
 from the intellectual acquisitions, is the pres- 
 ence of two hostile powers, one to be gradu- 
 ally raised into the ascendant over the other. 
 It is necessary above all things, in such a situ- 
 ation, never to lose a battle. Every gain on 
 the wrong side undoes the effect of many con- 
 quests on the right. The essential precaution, 
 therefore, is to regulate the two opposing powers 
 that the one may have a series of uninterrupted 
 successes, until repetition has fortified it to 
 such a degree as to enable it to cope with the 
 opposition under any circumstances : this is the 
 theoretically best career of mental progress! 
 The great need of securing success at the out- 
 
i88 Child Culture 
 
 set is imperative. Failure at first is apt to 
 damp the energy of all future attempts, whereas 
 past experiences of success nerve one to future 
 vigor." 
 
 The force of habit is strongly exemplified in 
 the case of an old woman who lived in extreme 
 poverty in the top story of a miserable tene- 
 ment. Some philanthropic friends, pitying her 
 meagre sustenance and wretched quarters, ar- 
 ranged for her to spend two weeks in the coun- 
 try, where green grass, pure air, and fresh milk 
 and eggs would be hers. She went anticipating 
 great pleasure. In a few days those ladies 
 chanced in the building again and were told that 
 the old lady had returned ; they were much sur- 
 prised and went up to her room to ascertain 
 the cause of the short sojourn. They asked 
 her if she had not been well treated and well 
 fed. She replied : " Yes, they did everything 
 for me, but I was lonesome. I have lived all 
 my life in the excitement of tenement life, and 
 I missed it, and I thought 'people were better 
 than stumps.' " 
 
 In infancy and childhood the mind and dis- 
 position are as plastic as clay, and may be 
 moulded to whatsoever is desired. If the aim 
 be definite, the methods judicious and sustained, 
 it is impossible to calculate what perfect habits 
 can be formed and fixed. There is not suffi- 
 cient appreciation of the importance of training 
 
Habits of Childhood 189 
 
 at this earlj period, hence the time is not util- 
 ized to its best advantage ; habits are, how- 
 ever, constantly crystallizing, and when the 
 parents awaken to the necessity of attending 
 to them, they are already fixed to a degree, and 
 then follows the labor of correcting what at 
 first might have been prevented. The prevent- 
 ive method is much the easier for parents and 
 child, and much the wiser. 
 
 The habit of obedience, already urged in a 
 previous chapter, is one of the first to be formed 
 as on it hang the others. It is largely by in- 
 judicious demands and by irregular and incon- 
 sistent exactions that the habit of disobedience 
 is created and fostered. If no one spoils and 
 no one teases the child, he will be found ame- 
 nable to the voice of authority. 
 
 Habits of personal cleanliness are never 
 formed if not from babyhood, or in early 
 childhood. The daily ablution from head to 
 foot should be as regular a practice as the daily 
 meal, likewise should the cleansing of the 
 teeth and nails. It is not imperative that the 
 child be at all times immaculately clean. He 
 cannot play with pleasure and spirit if his mind 
 be constantly fixed on guarding his body and 
 clothing from contact with mother earth ; the 
 contact is decidedly wholesome, and his mind 
 gains more than his body loses by a free and 
 familiar association with her occasionally. If 
 
igo Child Culture 
 
 he has a daily bath and presents himself at 
 table with clean face, hands, nails, and clothing, 
 and well brushed hair, he is doing all in the ac- 
 quisition of habits of personal cleanliness that 
 should be required of him. The child's teeth 
 are often overlooked in the toilet, and because 
 the first ones are temporary some parents hold 
 them unworthy of the daily scrubbing; the 
 more care the first ones receive the longer they 
 last, and that adds to the permanency of the 
 later ones. For the purpose of cleanliness and 
 to avoid indigestion and toothache, this atten- 
 tion is demanded ; if the habit of daily cleans- 
 ing the teeth is not formed simultaneously with 
 other personal habits, it is much more diflBcult 
 to establish later. 
 
 Almost all children, except babies, sleep too 
 little ; when the little bodies begin to run 
 around, they are so actively and so perpetually 
 in motion, and at the same time growing, that 
 they require a great deal of rest to enable them 
 to recuperate fully. Children under six years 
 of age require at least one short nap every day 
 and early bed hours ; after that age the early 
 retiring should continue, seven o'clock in win- 
 ter and eight o'clock in summer being none too 
 early bed hours for boys and girls under ten. 
 
 Nothing, except exercise, so composes the 
 nerves or maintains them in wholesome con- 
 dition as ample sleep. Until they are quite 
 
Habits of Childhood 191 
 
 grown all girls and boys should be permitted to 
 sleep as late as they wish once a week ; thus 
 the system recuperates and incipient illness, to 
 which the system is always more liable when in 
 a semi-exhausted condition, is averted. 
 
 Of overeating a physician says : *' In all my 
 knowledge of children, I have found most of 
 them diseased before five years of age with ir- 
 regular and injudicious eating. Dyspepsia is 
 not an adult disease, but its beginnings are in 
 childhood. I profess to know, and I can verify 
 my assertion, that there are more dyspeptics 
 under five years of age than there are over that. 
 I do not know many children that are not dys- 
 peptic. The miseries of childhood and youth 
 are mostly of this sort. I have made some 
 careful observations of children during my pro- 
 fessional calls, and I assure you that at least 
 nine out of ten are eating when seen by me. I 
 can only presume that they are eating most of 
 the time. The staple food of very young chil- 
 dren is cookies and fruit. Of the fruit eaten 
 at proper times I can say no evil, but of the 
 cake there is no good to be said. The special 
 damage is from the perpetual working of the 
 stomach and bowels. I do not think it is so 
 much the upper digestive tract as the lower 
 that gets the damage." Irregularity in eating 
 creates a morbid and irregular appetite ; a slice 
 of bread and butter and a little fruit once be- 
 
192 Child Culture 
 
 tween meals are all that are required for a child 
 past babyhood and under six years of age, and 
 after that age the fruit should suffice. If their 
 appetites are adequately gratified at meals this 
 collation between meals will satisfy them, and 
 their appetites will be unspoiled for the next 
 meal. 
 
 Order is another important habit which is 
 much more easily acquired in childhood than 
 at a later period ; they who have the most serv- 
 ice at their command, who have some one to 
 gather up and dispose of all their clothing as it 
 is removed, have no opportunity at the forma- 
 tive period of obtaining orderly habits. The 
 maid can be present to render what service is 
 necessary, but she should instruct the child to 
 open out and tidily arrange his wearing apparel 
 himself when he takes it off. When one sees 
 grown girls and boys leave their clothing on the 
 floor as they have stepped out of it, or throw it 
 in heaps on a chair, one can only infer a failure 
 on the parents' part to properly train them at 
 the right period ; for one can struggle and strive 
 to remedy the neglect later, but after the bad 
 habit has been established the correction is a 
 stupendous task. I have seen a child in whom 
 the right habit was fixed undress himself when 
 half asleep, and never fail to properly arrange 
 his clothes. 
 
 One may distrust the intellect and the moral- 
 
Habits of Childhood 193 
 
 ity of people to whom disorder is of no conse- 
 quence, for what surrounds us reflects very 
 largely what is in us. 
 
 Habits of industry, of virtue, of prayer, of 
 courtesy, and of attention and application, are 
 all much more easily contracted before their 
 opposites are established; and if the positive 
 ones are not first acquired the negative ones 
 will form themselves. 
 
 Too much commendation cannot be given the 
 habit of punctuality ; if the value of one's own 
 time is not appreciated one should show con- 
 sideration for that of another. Persons of re- 
 sponsibility are always more sensible to the 
 mischief of wasting minutes, and many busi- 
 ness men are patronized and preferred on ac- 
 count of their recognized promptness and punc- 
 tuality. Reliableness in regard to all engage- 
 ments and economy of time are virtues of nearly 
 all high-bred people. 
 
 It is a bad habit of school children to study 
 after dinner in the evening ; the body and mind 
 are then both weary from the day's activities, 
 and while the dinner is in process of digestion, 
 the blood should not be diverted from the di- 
 gestive organs to the brain. The best time for 
 study is in the early morning, when the head is 
 clear and the body refreshed, but as that time 
 is inconvenient to many, the next best time is 
 before dinner, after the exercise and recreation 
 
194 Child Culture 
 
 of the afternoon have rested the brain from 
 the fatigue of school work. An hour and a 
 half before dinner for the heavier and more 
 difficult work, and an additional hour and a 
 half for the lighter studies just before bedtime, 
 are all that any schoolgirl or boy should be re- 
 quired to give outside of school hours ; and for 
 children under ten, half that time should suf- 
 fice. No child should be either urged or per- 
 mitted to study longer, as from seven to nine 
 hours a day of mental effort are all that the 
 brain or eyes can endure without injury. 
 
 A child's natural modesty should never be 
 marred by word or deed. It is my belief that 
 it is always violated if the child is bathed or 
 undressed by a stranger after his sixth year; 
 unless he has a nurse to whom he is habituated 
 for this attention the mother herself should 
 assist him. Maids too often jokingly, coarsely 
 or otherwise, molest tlie sense of decency that 
 every properly trained child feels, so that after 
 the age of consciousness, he should be guarded 
 from such opportunities; he should have his 
 own dressing-room and never be exposed even 
 to the view of other children. Modesty soon 
 becomes a fixed habit, and its possessor will 
 respect it in others and rebel against any viola- 
 tion of it in himself. Modesty and decency of 
 conduct do not insure purity, but they are 
 elements thereof. Not only is ignorance not 
 
Habits of Childhood 195 
 
 purity but it is oftener the destroyer than the 
 conservator of it, and many girls and boys 
 adopt unclean practices from utter ignorance of 
 their injury and bad effects. Before twelve 
 years, they can only be closely guarded and 
 watched, with a general caution not to tamper 
 with their bodies. After that age, it is the 
 mother's duty to make some explanation to the 
 girl and boy, which shall impress upon them the 
 sacredness of sex and somewhat of its func- 
 tions. Many mothers dislike doing this, fear- 
 ing they may be robbing their children of their 
 innocence. There are few cases in which such 
 information at the age named would be pre- 
 mature, since girls and boys after that age will 
 observe, will be curious, and will receive expla- 
 nations from some source, and it can be given 
 by no one so judiciously and with such a con- 
 servation of purity as by the mother. There 
 may be some advantage in communicating this 
 knowledge earlier, but there are also many ob- 
 jections to premature disclosures, and in most 
 cases, if the associations have been right, cu- 
 riosity is not awakened earlier. If a child how- 
 ever asks, and his reason is sufficiently devel- 
 oped to understand, the mother can explain as 
 far as she thinks wise, or will satisfy him, but it 
 SHOULD BE THE TEUTH as far as it goes, and 
 the subject should never be treated otherwise 
 than with earnestness and respect. 
 
XIV 
 
 HABITS OF YOUTH 
 
 The more one observes the development of 
 luiman nature, the more is one impressed with 
 the fact that next to the irretrievableuess of 
 birth comes the irretrievableness of early train- 
 ing and education. The momentum of life and 
 endeavor receive direction during the early 
 years, and right inspiration must be given 
 while the heart and mind are plastic, and be- 
 fore the habits are completely formed, else one's 
 nature becomes less receptive to it. Habits are 
 partly formed before the age of consciousness, 
 but the spiritual inspirations come after that 
 period, and he who welcomes their advent con- 
 tinues to have moral awakenings all through 
 life ; if, however, during the impressionable 
 period the inspirations are disregarded, their 
 voice becomes less and less distinct. When one 
 realizes the stupendous responsibility involved 
 in the training of the young heart and mind 
 and how often the opportunity is lost in igno- 
 rance and neglect, one must deeply deplore that 
 the importance of this training is so often un- 
 appreciated. 
 
 At the critical time when the ideas are awak- 
 196 
 
Habits of Youth 197 
 
 ening, when the heart is searching for its 
 anchorage and the character is building, the 
 minds of innumerable boys and girls receive no 
 higher nourishment than that afforded by the 
 study of arithmetic, history, geography, some- 
 times a little music and dancing; and the 
 thoughts are entirely occupied with these and a 
 few pastimes. The deeper motives and high 
 principles of life are either ignored, or are made 
 secondary ; how can nobleness and high-mind- 
 edness issue from such sowing ? The good 
 grain must be sown all along, and though it 
 may be for a time apparently unproductive, 
 some day it will put forth the blade and come 
 into ear ; when the need comes the growth will 
 be revealed. 
 
 Happiness is not dependent on material con- 
 ditions except in the imaginations of those who 
 view life falsely ; pleasure may be increased by 
 a plethoric purse, but pleasure and happiness 
 are themselves frequently divorced, and is not 
 that happiness which is not dependent on sen- 
 suous enjoyment the higher and the more en- 
 during? If pleasure has been the object of 
 existence in early life, when one reaches the 
 meridian and is less eager for the enjoyments 
 which animal spirits crave, life seems very dark 
 and unattractive because the higher intellectual 
 and spiritual resources have been undeveloped. 
 
 It is not advised that young men and women 
 
198 Child Culture 
 
 renounce the world and all its pleasures, hut 
 that these shall not always have first place to 
 the exclusion of the nobler aims of life. Urge 
 upon young men the value of a symmetrical 
 development so that while they need not deny 
 the benefits of money and of business energy 
 and enterprise, they do not make of material 
 gain a Juggernaut Car that shall override and 
 crush out all the better spirit and nobler ele- 
 ments of life. Impress upon them that its 
 possession is not worth doing wrong for, that 
 nothing in this life is worth doing wrong for; 
 also that with the acquisition of wealth they 
 shall recognize the responsibility and moral 
 guardianship thereof. Teach them that almost 
 more difficult than knowing how to acquire is 
 knowing how wisely and beneficially to expend 
 it ; that it must not be a means of self-indul- 
 gence only, but a power of good for others as 
 well. 
 
 Young men should be educated to appreciate 
 the higher qualities of womanhood, the pure 
 soul, the strong conscientiousness, the womanly 
 tenderness, and where these can be found 
 united with a sound education there is a basis 
 of a happier marriage than one in which the 
 attraction is a pretty face, a shapely figure and 
 a goodly fortune. 
 
 It depends on the man's education and the 
 influences of his own home life what qualities 
 
Habits of Youth 199 
 
 he will seek in a wife, and if his own principles 
 are fixed and his nature elevated above purely 
 sensual lurings, he will consider the right quali- 
 fications in the selection of his life companion. 
 A young man can surround himself with no 
 greater safeguard than a confidential relation 
 with his mother ; many young men consider it 
 a concomitant of their manhood and growing 
 dignity to be very reticent about all their af- 
 fairs as soon as they commence associating with 
 young women, thus depriving themselves of a 
 potent influence at a time when it is most ad- 
 vantageous. A few mothers are indiscreet and 
 do not well guard the confidences that are re- 
 posed in them, and this naturally causes a 
 young man to discontinue them. If the mother 
 is wise and has the right sympathy with human 
 nature as manifest in the youthful heart, if she 
 sacredly guard confidential disclosures, her sons 
 and daughters will be encouraged to confide in 
 her. It depends on the spirit in which the con- 
 fidences are met whether the confider will con- 
 tinue to hold them desirable ; if the mother is 
 harsh, or curious, or too communicative, she 
 has only herself to blame, if the cautious con- 
 siders these disadvantages ; but the joy and 
 profit of a frank relation between a wise mother 
 and son, or between mother and daughter, is 
 inestimable. When it is denied a careful in- 
 vestigation of the cause may convince the 
 
200 Child Culture 
 
 mother that either she has not sought it or that 
 she has, by injudicious treatment, forfeited the 
 privilege. 
 
 The evils of intemperance are so undeniable 
 and work such havoc with the material, moral 
 and mental condition of so many otherwise 
 good and capable men that it should not be 
 necessary to warn a young man against such a 
 danger. Somewhere I have said that the possi- 
 ble abuse of a good thing should not vitiate the 
 right use of it; but, except as medicines, are 
 alcoholic spirits ever a good thing ? Even as 
 such, there are excellent substitutes that are far 
 less perilous. If one considers in the abstract 
 the lunacy of anyone putting a bottle of mad- 
 ness into his brain, one realizes the weakness 
 of drinking intoxicating beverages. The ex- 
 cuse, of course, always is, that a little is not 
 injurious, but rather beneficial, and every drunk- 
 ard was at first a confident, temperate drinker. 
 True, there are temperaments that never de- 
 velop an inordinate taste for strong drinks, that 
 never lose the power to taste and stop. Yet so 
 long as there are thousands struggling with 
 Laocoon fierceness to cast off the dreadful ser- 
 pent that has enveloped them, so long as the 
 harmless limit is being constantly passed by 
 those who held themselves proof against it, and 
 so long as crimes, suicides and the records of 
 police courts and insane asylums bear testi- 
 
Habits of Youth 201 
 
 inony to the strength of its grasp and its deg- 
 radations, — the only safe course for a young 
 man, who can have no assurance of the immun- 
 ity of his temperament from the fatal taste, is 
 entirely to decline. Until the taste for drink 
 and the habit of intemperance are acquired, it 
 can be no hardship to abstain from the use of 
 liquor, and when the benefits and dangers are 
 so disproportionate the wisdom of total absti- 
 nence must be conceded. 
 
 Tobacco, owing to the presence of the poi- 
 sonous nicotine in its composition, injures the 
 brain, deranges the nervous system, lowers the 
 life forces, and injures the heart and lungs. To 
 the young it is more injurious than to the ma- 
 ture man, for in the former it saps the founda- 
 tions of health, and dwarfs the body and mind 
 before they have attained their full develop- 
 ment. To the highly organized temperament, 
 to the man whose sensibilities are heightened 
 by culture, and to men of sedentary occupa- 
 tions, it is an unmitigated evil, for the more 
 sensitive the nerves, the more is the irritation 
 felt, and the professional man has not the 
 counteraction of physical exercise that the 
 laboring man has. The cigarette habit is the 
 worst form of the use of tobacco, and the insane 
 asylums of to-day are being constantly recruited 
 from excessive smokers of the cigarette; if the 
 habit of smoking must continue, then to reduce 
 
202 Child Culture 
 
 the evil to a minimum, let it be limited to a 
 moderate use of the cigar. The derangement 
 of the nervous system by the use of tobacco 
 suggests the use of the more soothing and 
 sedative alcohol, and tobacco users are always 
 easier victims to the more dangerous habit of 
 alcoholic intemperance. 
 
 The greatest obstructions to the higher de- 
 velopment of young womanhood are the en- 
 snarements of the pleasures and frivolities of 
 life. If inordinate vanity and inordinate love 
 of pleasure could be stricken from the category 
 of feminine weaknesses the elevation of wom- 
 an's thought and the purification of her charac- 
 ter would be greatly promoted. These weak- 
 nesses are the barnacles that weigh down 
 woman's spiritual and intellectual nature more 
 frequently than all others. A false view of 
 life engenders a love of display, a strife for 
 social prestige and a desire to outshine com- 
 panions until these ambitions become the lead- 
 ing motives of life. Right home education and 
 a distilling of the principles of true Christianity 
 should correct such false views and afford nobler 
 visions of the great spiritual and intellectual 
 possibilities of her nature. Good morals are a 
 woman's greatest strength, and though a high 
 standard for herself and her girl friends is usu- 
 ally exacted, the character of the gentlemen 
 friends is often overlooked or condoned. She 
 
Habits of Youth 203 
 
 cannot always avoid meeting men of doubtful 
 morals, but she can prevent such from visiting 
 her if their laxity be known. At least the 
 acquaintance of a known libertine should be 
 declined, and admission in the home and to 
 one's friendship only accorded those of irre- 
 proachable morals. 
 
 One of the greatest trials to which a woman 
 is subject, is when she becomes the victim of 
 an unrequited affection. It is doubtful if even 
 the fulfilment of the suggestion of radical 
 thinkers that women may indicate their prefer- 
 ence to the point of proposing themselves, 
 would remedy the painful experience. If the 
 object of her affections is interested, he will 
 not be slow to ascertain the extent of her in- 
 terest, and if he is not, she would only add 
 humiliation to her already unhappy condition. 
 There are many delicate ways of expressing 
 one's preference if one feels safe in doing so, 
 and the idea of woman's taking the initiative 
 is so repugnant to men as well as to most 
 women that its further consideration is useless. 
 If a woman finds herself succumbing to ^ love 
 possibly unreciprocated, she can stifle it in the 
 beginning by avoiding its object, and this 
 method though a courageous one, will save her 
 greater misery. If the partiality is already well 
 advanced before she realizes or admits it, she 
 cannot escape suffering, and will have to bear 
 
204 Child Culture 
 
 the inevitable with fortitude, and seek the 
 remedies of intense intellectual activity, physi- 
 cal exercise, prayer, and above all — time. By 
 indulgence love becomes more unmanageable, 
 and the only safeguard is a strict avoidance of 
 the dangerous pleasure of the young man's 
 society. Such action entails great self-disci- 
 pline, but the advantage of this self-control to 
 the character is very great. The offer of a 
 young man's heart is the greatest compliment 
 that can be paid one, and if it is not accepted 
 the declining should be made in a way to afford 
 him as little mortification as possible, as the 
 disappointment itself is a sufficiently severe 
 blow. The refusal, however, should be unmis- 
 takable, that his hopes may not be fed ; it is 
 kinder to have no uncertainty. When a young 
 man's attentions become marked and one is 
 resolved against the suit, the resolve should be 
 indicated, for it is very cruel to coquette with 
 a young man's feelings only to overthrow them 
 at last. Under any circumstances such pro- 
 posals should be held sacred, and no one but 
 the girl's parents is entitled to know of them. 
 Many girls are so proud of their conquests that 
 they lure lovers to the point of declaring them- 
 selves and then boast of their victories; such 
 heartless coquetry is in the last degree selfish 
 and reprehensible, and the vaunting of one's 
 proposals unwomanly and in the worst possible 
 
Habits of Youth 205 
 
 taste. The acceptance of valuable gifts from 
 gentlemen is also to be deprecated, and books 
 or flowers occasionally or as anniversary pres- 
 ents, are all that should be received. The be- 
 stowal of gifts by anyone should be recognized 
 as a privilege on the part of the giver as well 
 as of the recipient, for refined persons have a 
 delicacy in being placed under obligations to 
 persons whom they do not especially esteem. 
 The fittest expression of one's good feeling and 
 generosity is a gift of one's own workmanship. 
 Such presentation is not only a greater compli- 
 ment but also evinces greater sincerity than 
 does the giving of a purchased present. 
 
 However warm one's friendship may be, or 
 however close the association, a certain degree 
 of reserve should be maintained, and the 
 privacy of one's most intimate friend should 
 be respected. Young women should also guard 
 against the folly of confiding their private 
 affairs to their friends, enjoining on them a 
 secrecy they are not able to observe themselves ; 
 for nothing is truer than that if one cannot 
 guard one's own tongue in behalf of one's own 
 interest, one cannot expect that the confidante 
 will practice greater self-control. One, too, is 
 so often deceived in the loyalty and disinterest- 
 edness of one's friends, and in the enthusiasm 
 of friendship one's faith in the other's constancy 
 is apt to be very exalted. At the same time we 
 
2o6 Child Culture 
 
 should be worthy of the confidence of those 
 who trust us, and when we have pledged our- 
 selves to secrecy we should be as scrupulously 
 faithful to it as to an oath, and never receive 
 confidences that we do not intend to respect. 
 
 The oiBfice of true friendship is to aid one's 
 friend to his best development, to warn him 
 when he is doing wrong, to suggest the flaw in 
 his character or conduct, and to guard him 
 against a secret enemy and against his own im- 
 prudence. This ideal relation is possible only 
 between persons of rare sagacity and breadth 
 of character ; nevertheless it is the perfect re- 
 lation. The true friend does not carry inex- 
 cusable and causeless gossip which is only vi- 
 cious and information of which the recipient is 
 powerless to avail himself; but if slander is 
 abroad, and the knowledge of it enable the 
 slandered friend to refute or dislodge an unjust 
 accusation, then it is the office of friendship to 
 warn and to give the friend an opportunity of 
 justifying himself. 
 
 Perhaps, instead of enumerating the various 
 errors and quicksands into which thoughtless 
 girls and young women are apt to be drawn, a 
 suggestion of the principles which should guide 
 their conduct would be briefer and more profit- 
 able. If they will establish and adhere to a 
 line of conduct including only the highest 
 standards ; if they will live less at random, but 
 
Habits of Youth 207 
 
 will study themselves, their powers and passions, 
 and marshal these into a perfect possession, 
 this self-knowledge, self-mastery, and self-con- 
 fidence, at once give motive and direction to 
 their thoughts and conduct. Perfect self-pos- 
 session is necessary to perfect poise of mind 
 and character, and the greatest essential of 
 all improvement is to find oneself. Self-pos- 
 session is self measurement, and they who do 
 not measure themselves make little progress in 
 their own development. This self-confidence 
 will also evolve the courage which enables a 
 man or woman to live his or her own life, and 
 not to be directed by the opinion of others, but 
 by personal convictions, fearing nothing but the 
 reproaches of the small voice that rises noise- 
 lessly within. 
 
 There is much agitation in current times over 
 the preeminence of the sexes, whether man is 
 superior intellectually to woman, or woman to 
 man ; whether he is more capable, whether she 
 is more moral, and though the disadvantages 
 which originally precipitated these questions 
 have been largely removed, the discussion still 
 continues. Sex is not chiefly a physical differ- 
 ence, nor is intellect more characteristic of one 
 sex than of the other, but the distinction of sex 
 is in spirit; it is the masculine or feminine soul 
 that makes a true man or woman. Sometimes 
 a physical man has the spiritual attributes of 
 
2o8 Child Culture 
 
 woman ; sometimes a physical woman has the 
 masculine spirit ; but the highest order of men 
 and women are they who possess their own 
 quality in the highest degree. A woman may 
 have a Titanic mind and still possess the highest 
 womanly qualities of soul — the eternal feminine; 
 there is no incompatibility between a high 
 order of intellect and ineffable tenderness, 
 womanly receptivity, and perfect purity, though 
 the prejudice of the world has impeded the de- 
 velopment of this combination. Both sexes are 
 necessary to the best progress of the world ; in 
 the family the man and woman have joined 
 hands and interests and walk abreast, neither 
 in advance of the other ; why cannot this worthy 
 precedent be adopted in the civil, social and in- 
 dustrial world as well ? Let both be recognized 
 and both aid in the administration of affairs, 
 the man doing the more aggressive work as 
 befits his masculine endowments, and the 
 woman doing the no less important but more 
 feminine part. No woman will be drawn into 
 political fields except those who are especially 
 fitted therefor ; and women whose hearts are by 
 nature domestic will remain domestic ; no ropes 
 can hold to that sphere those who are not so 
 qualified. 
 
 Through intellectual and ethical evolution 
 woman will gradually come into all her rights 
 and powers, if she only keep the goal in view, 
 
Habits of Youth 209 
 
 and no revolution or agitation will procure them 
 to her so speedily as will a faithful development 
 of her best self, and a faithful rendering of the 
 obligations already hers. 
 
XV 
 
 DOMESTIC ECONOisrr 
 
 Turning to the strictly practical side of 
 home life, there is much knowledge of the 
 house proper, its care and economy, that is not 
 only advantageous but indispensable to its good 
 keeping. 
 
 The modern house is fitted with a complica- 
 tion of pipes that are necessary for its ventila- 
 tion, heating, water supply, lighting and re- 
 moval of waste matter. From these, so long as 
 they are in good repair and properly cared for, 
 little or no danger arises, but when they are 
 out of condition they distil poisonous gases, 
 dealing sickness and death to the occupants 
 who breathe them. Correct construction of the 
 drains and proper connection with the house 
 are insured in cities by the surveillance of san- 
 itary authorities, but the care of the interior 
 traps and basins and the ventilation of the 
 house are often neglected. How seldom does 
 the air of a house seem pure and sweet to one 
 entering from the fresh air outside ; when, how- 
 ever, one has breathed the same air for a short 
 time, the impurity is less noticeable, yet the air 
 inside should always bear comparison with the 
 210 
 
Domestic Economy 211 
 
 oxygen laden air of outdoors, and a stuffy, close 
 atmosphere indicates ill ventilation. 
 
 Many diseases are slowly produced by con- 
 tinued breathing of bad air, and the source is 
 seldom suspected because its effects are so 
 gradual. The blood that circulates through 
 the body and carries vitality to the tissues is 
 pumped from the heart to the lungs for aeration, 
 and when it has made the circuit of the body, 
 returns to the heart impoverished and charged 
 with foul air, and must each time be supplied 
 with fresh oxygen in the lungs which relieves 
 it of the impure gases that it brings ; this cor- 
 rection is in proportion to the supply of pure 
 fresh air that it there receives. When the 
 oxygen is not forthcoming the poisoned car- 
 bonic acid gas continues to circulate through 
 the system in its devitalized condition, and de- 
 vitalizing all the organs which it is intended to 
 nourish, makes them an easy prey to germs and 
 various diseases. The sources of impure air in 
 the dwelling are the exhalations of the inmates 
 and the products of combustion derived from 
 artificial lights and food, and were it not for the 
 air that sifts through doors and windows, crev- 
 ices and even the walls of houses, one could 
 only live in them a comparatively short time. 
 Open grates and hot air draughts are the usual 
 means of securing change of air, and when these 
 are lacking, ventilation should be provided by 
 
212 Child Culture 
 
 other indirect inlets and outlets, in order not 
 to depend on the direct draught of windows in 
 cold weather. 
 
 Sunshine is another essential of good health, 
 and should be admitted into every room a part of 
 each day. Especially should the children's 
 nursery be the sunniest room of all, for dark 
 rooms not only render children delicate but are 
 very depressing to the spirits. In the selection 
 of a dwelling, there is no more important con- 
 sideration than a sunny exposure and plenty of 
 windows for the admission of light with which 
 no consideration of carpets should interfere, 
 for it is better for them to bleach and pale 
 than for the inmates of the house to do so ; and 
 then one can always find floor coverings that 
 the sun does not damage. 
 
 The waste pipes of a house should be under- 
 stood by the housekeeper, as should the manner 
 of ventilating and flushing the pipes, and the 
 special kind of trap in use ; foul germs are 
 generated in the sewers, which, if not guarded 
 against, will find their way into the house ; 
 lavatories, sinks, baths and basins are sources 
 of danger if not properly managed. Frequent 
 flushings and a supply of water in the traps 
 are necessary, while basins and sinks must be 
 absolutely cleaned and closed when not in use. 
 
 The kitchen, laundry and refrigerator waste 
 pipes are more liable to stoppage from the 
 
Domestic Economy 213 
 
 collection of grease in the water that passes 
 through them ; they should, therefore, at least 
 once a week be flushed with hot water and con- 
 centrated lye, and all waste pipes especially 
 the water-closet pipes are safer for an occa- 
 sional use of disinfectant solutions. Cesspools 
 are unhealthy modes of disposing of waste 
 matter, and are a menace in or near a dwelling, 
 often producing typhoid and other fevers. 
 
 The entire house should be constructed and 
 furnished in a manner that best secures its 
 cleanliness. Close fitting carpets and heavy 
 draperies are dust traps, the latter especially 
 great germ holders. The healthiest and clean- 
 est method of treating the floor, if it is not of 
 hard wood, is to paint and varnish, or stain and 
 polish it all over, and to cover it with rugs that 
 can be taken up and shaken frequently ; then 
 one knows there is no accumulation of dust un- 
 derneath, and housecleaning remains no longer 
 the housekeeper's dread, for it may then be a 
 gradual process instead of a semi-annual agony. 
 Muslin and lace curtains that are easily laun- 
 dered are the least objectionable, and all that are 
 necessary for the bedrooms at least. Heavy 
 curtains gather and hold dust and germs so 
 tenaciously that they are better dispensed with. 
 For decoration, paint is preferable to wall 
 paper, for the latter affords lodgment to germs 
 and to insects of various kinds. 
 
214 Child Culture 
 
 Beds and springs should be thoroughly 
 dusted inside and out and wiped with a wet 
 cloth, and the mattress brushed with a stiff 
 broom in every crevice once a month, while at 
 least twice a year, the entire woodwork of the 
 inside of the bed should be washed with very 
 cold water, as warm water tends to breed rather 
 than to destroy animal life. Beds should be 
 opened up and the mattresses raised for a free 
 circulation of fresh air each day, and ought 
 never to be made up until they have been thor- 
 oughly ventilated with outside air. 
 
 Man and gas light each use up the oxygen of 
 a room and fill the air with carbonic acid gas ; 
 a room, therefore, that is lighted artificially re- 
 quires more ventilation. 
 
 People who live in overheated rooms are less 
 vigorous than those who live in a moderately 
 low temperature. To obtain the right degree 
 of heat in cold weather is a difficult art ; 65"^ F. 
 is the right temperature for a room for ordinary 
 persons ; for convalescents, babies, old people, 
 or those affected with bronchitis a temperature 
 of 70^ is advisable. 
 
 Waste that contains any organic matter 
 whatever, either in a state of decomposition or 
 ready to decompose, should be quickly removed 
 and disposed of in such a manner as not to 
 affect the healthfulness of any place. No ac- 
 cumulation of vegetable matter should be per- 
 
Domestic Economy 215 
 
 mitted in cellar or kitchen, but should be 
 burned or removed regularly and frequently. 
 
 Illness and premature death are, as a rule, 
 attributable to three conditions : (1) injuries 
 and accidents of various kinds ; (2) germs pro- 
 ducing infectious fevers and kindred diseases ; 
 (3) habits of life, causing various chronic dis- 
 orders. Chronic diseases of the internal organs 
 are due to one's habits of life, though no symp- 
 tom of the disease may be manifest for many 
 years. The slight daily excess in food or drink 
 and insufficient fresh air and exercise are 
 sources of irritation to the system which may 
 not be felt at the time, but which gradually 
 continued for twenty or more years cause some 
 organ to succumb. An overstimulating diet 
 with little muscular exercise is as pernicious in 
 time as an insufficiency of food ; continued 
 overwork of either brain or muscles finally 
 prostrates the nervous system, and temperance 
 in all mental and physical indulgences is the 
 only sure way of holding ill health at bay. 
 
 Dirt is the natural home of infectious germs, 
 and dirty people are seldom healthy, for the ac- 
 cumulation clogs the pores and obstructs one 
 means of discharge of waste matter, thus 
 throwing additional impurities on the system, 
 or on the other organs. Germs, when not con- 
 veyed directly from person to person, find lodg- 
 ment in dirt ; if it were possible for a whole 
 
2i6 Child Culture 
 
 nation to be absolutely clean, infectious dis- 
 eases would probably die out. No adornment 
 of the person renders it so attractive as perfect 
 cleanliness, and it is due others as well as one- 
 self. 
 
 What is moderation in food and exercise in 
 one person, may be excess in another, and that 
 which is beneficial to one may be harmful to 
 another. A man laboring hard out-of-doors, 
 can eat with impunity a hearty meal, from 
 which a man of sedentary habits would suffer. 
 A man who lives out in the air and sun re- 
 quires less sunlight and air in his dwelling than 
 does he who seldom goes outside. 
 
 Housekeeping is woman's special vocation, 
 and whatever her means or her position in life, 
 ignorance of the best methods of managing her 
 home is a great deficiency. She must possess 
 not only a theoretical but also a practical 
 knowledge of the details of the various work 
 of a house before she is competent to direct its 
 performance. In this country, when the for- 
 tunes of families are subject to sudden changes, 
 and when even the possession of wealth cannot 
 always secure efficient aid, domestic accom- 
 plishments are peculiarly indispensable, and if 
 young girls have some training in this direction 
 in their mother's home, they are spared much 
 inconvenience and embarrassment when they 
 later preside over their own. The better one's 
 
Domestic Economy 217 
 
 understanding of the management of a house, 
 the greater the economy of both time, labor 
 and expenditure, for notwithstanding the im- 
 portance of these matters, they should not be 
 permitted to consume time to the exclusion of 
 the cultivation of the higher nature. By sys- 
 tem and good arrangement, all the work may 
 be done in order and due season, and much 
 time be left for other things. The household 
 duties of some women are never completed; 
 they can find no time for the cultivation of 
 their minds or for the claims of philanthropy ; 
 let such make a scrupulous examination of 
 their work, and by cutting off all that is super- 
 fluous, and considering the relative importance 
 of the various duties, they will find that such 
 retrenchment will spare them some hours for 
 better things. If a woman be compelled to do 
 her own cooking, and she confine it to the 
 preparation of simple, wholesome, nutritious 
 food, and waste no time on pies, cake, pud- 
 dings, or other deserts, she saves herself much 
 time and her family much indigestion, and if 
 the time thus saved be used in her or her chil- 
 dren's mental improvement, has she not made 
 a wiser use and distribution of time and effort? 
 If the sewing of the family devolve upon the 
 mother, and if the clothing be made simply, 
 and tucks, ruffles, and embroideries omitted, 
 some time can be saved, and the children will 
 
2i8 Child Culture 
 
 be none the worse off for the omission of these 
 superfluities. It is the superfluous work which 
 profits no one and which is as often a disad- 
 vantage that consumes the time of overworked 
 women, and after years of such waste they 
 sometimes realize their mistake. When a 
 woman's leisure time is limited, it is far wiser 
 to spend it in good reading, or in out-of-door 
 exercise, or even in complete rest, than in em- 
 broidering, or in putting additional phylacteries 
 to her children's garments. A due regard for 
 the relative value of the work to be done and 
 a judicious distribution of one's time and labor, 
 will prove great economizers of both. 
 
 The housekeeper who presides over an estab- 
 lishment containing one servant or more will 
 also find that a systematic regulation of the 
 work of the house, assigning to each servant 
 and to each day and hour its specific work, 
 effects a great saving of time and care. All 
 good housekeepers are systematic, and the serv- 
 ice in such houses is greatly facilitated. There 
 is always time enough for everything that one 
 truly desires, or ought to do ; if there is an ap- 
 parent lack of time, the fault is certainly in the 
 arrangement, and a wiser one should be sought. 
 
 The amount of domestic work that it be- 
 comes one's duty to perform personally depends 
 on one's circumstances; there are many who 
 having ample means have no necessity of ren- 
 
Domestic Economy 219 
 
 dering any assistance in the work of the house, 
 but such work is very beneficial to health, and 
 every young woman should assume the care of 
 some part of it, if it is no more than the care of 
 her own room. Her knowledge extends if she 
 interests herself at different times in the various 
 departments of the work. She thus gains a 
 practical acquaintance with the various kinds 
 of house duties which will be of service to her 
 whether she is compelled to do her work in her 
 own home or only to superintend it. 
 
 Meritorious as is the performance of one's 
 household duties, it is in better taste to keep 
 its machinery enclosed and not exposed to view, 
 so that its existence will be known only by the 
 happy results. It is difficult for a person whose 
 whole mind and interest are engrossed with 
 domestic affairs not to intrude these matters on 
 her friends, but they are not edifying topics of 
 discussion, and the companion can scarcely feel 
 the interest in them that the speaker does; 
 therefore with their private consideration and 
 performance they should be dismissed from the 
 mind if possible, certainly from the conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 It is hoped that everyone recognizes the slov- 
 enliness of engaging in kitchen or any other 
 kind of domestic work in other clothing than a 
 wash dress, and a clean apron, and the hair cov- 
 ered. Neither mistress nor maid should attempt 
 
220 Child Culture 
 
 to cook, sweep or dust, in a silk or cloth dress, 
 but should be appropriately equipped for such 
 work. If the table glass and china are abso- 
 lutely clean, well wiped and free from lint, they 
 may be very plain and inexpensive. Though 
 the food offered be very simple, if it is well 
 cooked and served, one need have no hesitancy 
 in inviting one's most aristocratic friend to share 
 it, for true hospitality consists in something 
 higher than the material offering, and a cordial 
 and gracious welcome are grateful substitutes 
 for rich entrees and cut glass. One need never 
 be ashamed of any economy that is necessary, 
 and it is an absurd weakness to try to appear 
 richer than one is. 
 
 When girls and boys arrive at the age of dis- 
 cretion they should know their father's circum- 
 stances and the family expenses and should be 
 ready to adapt themselves to both. No one can 
 retain his or her self-respect, or is entitled to 
 the respect of others, who lives, dresses or en- 
 tertains beyond what he can reasonably afford, 
 and the day of retribution, though sometimes 
 delayed, arrives surely. If young people are 
 given an allowance as liberal as the family's 
 financial circumstances admit of they learn tlie 
 value of money, the best means of using it, and 
 acquire much better judgment in their pur- 
 chases than when the parents can be called on 
 ad libitum. 
 
Domestic Economy 22 1 
 
 Every girl should learn some profession, trade, 
 or art by which she can, if ill fortune overtake 
 her, maintain herself independent of relatives 
 and friends. If she possess special gifts or 
 talent, these will indicate the direction of her 
 cultivation, and though she may learn many 
 things in moderation, she should acquire one 
 thing in perfection. Everyone has some possi- 
 bility or adaptability which if properly trained 
 will secure her against want and temptation, 
 for though fortune may be favorable to-day, she 
 may frown to-morrow, and when one's resources 
 are developed in prosperity one can meet ad- 
 versity more calmly. A family does not live 
 within its means that does not provide for sud- 
 den emergency, temporary loss of employment 
 or for the death of the bread winner. A por- 
 tion of the income should therefore be held as 
 a reserve, or contingent fund. As Emerson 
 says : " When the income by ever so little ex- 
 ceeds the outgo, we have the beginning of 
 wealth." The greatest wealth is health, and no 
 economy that is practiced at the expense of 
 health or of a reasonable cultivation of the 
 mind, can be accounted true economy. A stout 
 roof, wholesome food, substantial and sufficient 
 clothing, are all in the interest of thrift, and 
 unwise economies are often the worst extrava- 
 gancies. 
 
XVI 
 
 CIVIC DUTIES 
 
 The sober quiet sense of what a man owes 
 to the community in which he is born, has been 
 found specially hard to maintain, says Mr. 
 Bryce, in modern times and in large countries. 
 It is comparatively easy in small republics or in 
 cities, but with a vast population, the individual 
 is lost in the multitude. Mr. Bryce, however, 
 exhorts us to remember the civic virtue, and 
 tells how it may best be inculcated in the 
 young. We must cultivate three habits, to 
 strive to know what is best for one's country as 
 a whole ; to place when one knows it, the 
 country's interest above party feeling or class 
 feeling, or any other sectional passion or mo- 
 tive ; to be willing to take trouble, personal 
 and even tedious trouble, for the well-governing 
 of every public community one belongs to, be 
 it a township or parish, a ward or a city, or the 
 nation as a whole. And the methods of form- 
 ing these habits are two, which of course, can- 
 not in practice be distinguished, but must go 
 hand in hand, — the giving of knowledge re- 
 garding the institutions of the country — 
 knowledge sufficient to enable the young citi- 
 
Civic Duties 223 
 
 zen to comprehend the workings — elements 
 which still dazzle imagination from the conflicts 
 of fleets and armies of the past. Current his- 
 tory or elementary politics, Mr. Bryce thinks, 
 would be easier to teach than history in the 
 usual sense of the term. 
 
 The young, to the extent of their under- 
 standing, should not only be instructed in the ' 
 political government of city, state and nation, 
 but what is more important, they should be 
 stimulated to an interest in public affairs and 
 inspired with a sense of civic duty. As they 
 mature, the young man's and young woman's 
 interest will be proportioned to the interest 
 which the parents and their associates in the 
 home manifest in such affairs. In England, in- 
 terest in public affairs and knowledge of politi- 
 cal movements are much more general than 
 with us ; all well educated women are conver- 
 sant with the political situation, its current 
 opportunities, possibilities, and probabilities, 
 and they enter into discussions of these sub- 
 jects as freely as do the men. In this particular 
 they are in advance of the average American 
 woman ; the intellectual life of the latter, while 
 often profound, does not turn in the direction 
 of politics or interest in public affairs, except 
 occasionally to their philanthropic side. In 
 some of the larger cities a few women are be- 
 ginning to interest themselves actively in the 
 
224 Child Culture 
 
 progress and improvement of tliose cities, and 
 the results are eminently satisfactory. It re- 
 quires no more time to participate in a confer- 
 ence about municipal improvements than to 
 attend teas, receptions and card parties, and the 
 benefit to the community is vastly greater. 
 The woman who has children needing her pres- 
 ence or has other duties at home, should neglect 
 them neither for her own pleasure nor for the 
 profit of any municipality, however great her 
 interest in it may be. Yet may not the many 
 women who have no children, or whose families 
 are grown, or they who prefer to spend their 
 leisure hours in advancing the civic and social 
 life that surrounds them to joining in the usual 
 frivolities of fashionable life — may not these 
 women be worse employed ? It is not the op- 
 portunity which draws women from the domes- 
 tic life but dissatisfaction with the close con- 
 finement, or a greater taste for outside pleas- 
 ures ; and yet desertion for the causes of 
 frivolity is never censured as is desertion for 
 intellectual purposes. If she does not take an 
 active part, every woman should at least under- 
 stand and interest herself in the civic life, in 
 the material, social and moral progress of 
 humanity, and know all of the vital movements 
 of the country and of the world. 
 
 In many families there is an utter dearth of 
 knowledge or concern of public affairs ; the 
 
Civic Duties 225 
 
 conversation revolves in the most circumscribed 
 orbit, on the most insignificant occurrences 
 which profit no one, and which ultimately nar- 
 row the mind and impoverish its quality. 
 
 There is no excuse for man's civic laxity; 
 public spirit and the promotion of human re- 
 forms, however unbecoming the consideration 
 of a woman they may be held, never reflect 
 anything but glory on man. His only possible 
 impediment is that they sometimes clash with 
 his private interests, but until it becomes his 
 pleasure he should hold it his duty to perform a 
 part of the disinterested service which every city 
 requires, and hold himself to a degree responsi- 
 ble for municipal stagnation and corruption. 
 
 To create an interest in the younger members 
 of the household one need only to make public 
 affairs, philanthropic movements, and social 
 progress topics of conversation, and to feel and 
 manifest a genuine interest in them ; the inter- 
 est of the girls and boys will soon be aroused 
 if it does not grow to exceed that of the 
 parents. In how many families are such move- 
 ments discussed or even touched on ? Unless 
 there is a menace of war or a presidential 
 election is impending, the average family is as 
 unconscious and ignorant of social and political 
 conditions as was Robinson Crusoe on his 
 lonely isle. For the right education of their 
 children, parents should inform themselves and 
 
226 Child Culture 
 
 cultivate familiarity witli public affairs and 
 with the progress of huniauity iu general. For 
 this reason, if for no other, the mother should 
 enlarge her view and her interests that she may 
 contribute to this development of her family, 
 for she is responsible for the citizenship of her 
 children. Politically the non-voters cannot do 
 a great deal, but they can do something ; they 
 can desire the laws that bespeak the greatest 
 moral elevation, the noblest living of humanity, 
 and they can strive for the men who stand for 
 the ethical as well as for the material advance- 
 ment of the country, regardless of party or 
 sectional prejudices. 
 
 Religiously and philanthropically, the dis- 
 franchised class and the future voters can ac- 
 complish a great deal more. If parents are not 
 themselves religiously inclined there are still 
 many reasons why they should not neglect the 
 religious life, and why they should contribute 
 to the maintainance of a church and of good 
 works. If their spiritual lives are poor and 
 sterile, the inference is that their souls have 
 lacked the culture which enriches the spiritual 
 nature. By uniting with some denomination 
 with whose creed they can sympathize, it mat- 
 ters little which, they place themselves in posi- 
 tion to acquire that soul culture and develop- 
 ment of which their attitude toward religion 
 indicates their need. If they feel that it is too 
 
Civic Duties 227 
 
 late to secure such development in themselves, 
 they will certainly not deprive their children of 
 the spiritual enrichment and ethical nurture 
 which such an alliance affords. The theology 
 and dogma of religion are less appealing to 
 persons who are not by heredity, tradition, or 
 early religious training imbued with a taste for 
 it; and many such decline religion in the belief 
 that dogma and creed are its chief constituents; 
 whereas if they would yield themselves to its 
 spirit, — the heart of religion, they would find it 
 very attractive and elevating. 
 
 If one recognizes in religion the foundation 
 of morals, if one approves of the existence of 
 churches, then one must admit that it is one 
 man's duty as well as another's to aid in sup- 
 porting them. Any public institution that re- 
 quires support should receive contributions from 
 all who desire to see it prosper, as its existence 
 can only be coextensive with its maintainance. 
 There is as much spiritual poverty among the 
 finely clad and richly housed who never open 
 their purses for the support of church or char- 
 ity as there is in the tenement districts ; and 
 the poverty of the former is far less excusable 
 than that of the latter class, for the remedy is 
 more accessible. No one individual and no one 
 organization can solve the problem of human 
 misery and human impediment, but every man 
 can do something toward such solution. 
 
228 Child Culture 
 
 It is not, however, by the opening of purses 
 and the handing over of a few dollars, or a few 
 hundreds, that philanthropy is best served; 
 relief is at best but a superficial remedy and is 
 oftener a factor in the creation of poverty. 
 Gifts to the unworthy encourage them to con- 
 tinue their worthlessness, and indiscriminate 
 charity is nothing more than a pauper factory. 
 It is a great temptation and an easy discharge 
 of benevolence to give alms to the beggar who 
 moves us with a pitiful tale, and many persons 
 think they do nobly when they thus acquit 
 their feelings. They do not consider the fact 
 that the spirit of beggary is thus fostered, and 
 that it is far more humane and just, to ascertain 
 the cause of the condition and to seek its re- 
 moval. Except in temporary cases, it is found 
 that the cause lies in serious mental, moral, or 
 physical defect, often congenital and seldom 
 curable. Prevention is the watchword of the 
 nineteenth century and will be much more that 
 of the twentieth. The most that can be done 
 for the poisonous tree of adult age is to lop off 
 its branches and prevent their overrunning, and 
 while humanity demands this, the great strokes 
 should be at the root, and radical reform be 
 effected through the child, — the process, — pre- 
 vention. The foundation of all human progress, 
 mental, moral and material, lies in the right 
 education of human nature. The kindergarten 
 
Civic Duties 229 
 
 is one source of right development, and its prin- 
 ciples extended to child life in the home em- 
 phasize that education, and the resulting bene- 
 fits. It is not only among the poor that human 
 nature needs direction, but quite as much 
 among the well-to-do and the wealthy, whose 
 power gives increase of responsibility. Some 
 one says truly: — "If the kindergarten is the 
 luxury of the children of the rich, it is the vital 
 necessity of the children of the poor. Its per- 
 sonal touch is the best substitute for that which 
 home ought to give them but cannot. Its meth- 
 ods develop individuality, its occupations train 
 to dexterity, and awaken that solemn joy of duty 
 done which is the best guarantee of persevering 
 industry. Its plays teach the control of im- 
 pulse, develop imagination, and ally it with 
 conduct, as Matthew Arnold has taught us that 
 the social order requires. More than all, these 
 plays are a revelation of joy, that divine ex- 
 perience without which, perfection either of 
 conduct or character, cannot be attained. And 
 what shall we say of those sweet affections, 
 those mutual forbearings, those glad ministra- 
 tions, that simple reverence for things holy, 
 which are the very soul of the kindergarten 
 system ? Simply these alone are exclusive of 
 that kind of dependence which is unworthy of 
 human nature. Here then, in the kinder- 
 garten, we find a ground of hope for the child 
 
230 Child Culture 
 
 of the tenement house ; an awakened intelli- 
 gence, which, better than all truant laws, will 
 secure his further education ; a delight in duty 
 which will keep him steady at his work ; a 
 stability of character which will fortify him 
 against temptation ; a warmth of heart which 
 will keep him true to family and social pieties ; 
 a sense of obligation which will make him a 
 conscientious citizen ; an awakening to joy 
 which restores to him his birthright as a man. 
 Not that life will thereby become an easy 
 thing. Life, for nearly all the children of the 
 poor, must continue to be a bitter struggle, 
 until the children of the rich awaken to a sense 
 of the obligation of privilege. But the struggle 
 for an independent, self-respecting manhood 
 will no longer be against desperate odds, for 
 the three years of kindergarten with the subse- 
 quent training which they alone make possible, 
 are enough to waken to life that character 
 which makes a man master of himself and of 
 the conditions which environ him." 
 
 It has been already suggested and the idea 
 will gain weight with time and experience, that 
 criminal and viciously immoral parents should 
 not be entrusted with the rearing of their off- 
 spring, for criminality is thereby multiplied to 
 the number of the progeny of such parents; 
 not by the fact of vicious heredity alone, but 
 by the fact of their environment and solidarity. 
 
Civic Duties 231 
 
 The right of separation of children from their 
 parents because of physical abuse is recog- 
 nized, and is not the soul to be considered as at 
 least the equal of the body ? The family is a 
 sacred, God-given institution, and in its rightful 
 conditions the dearest and sweetest relation of 
 man on earth. But when it deteriorates to the 
 point of imperiling the soul, the severing of 
 such ties becomes no hardship ; even if it were, 
 the affection of vicious parents should be sacri- 
 ficed to the spiritual welfare of the child, and 
 if their love be right and true, they will con- 
 cede the necessity. What are only tendencies 
 in childhood become fixed qualities and often 
 diseases in adult age, and while every effort 
 should be made for recovery even there, results 
 of such efforts are far from encouraging. Until 
 preventive methods have been established and 
 have done their good work, alleviation must 
 continue, but an intelligent study of the cause 
 of the situation should accompany the relief, 
 and as much thought and prescription be given 
 the source as is given its effects. 
 
 Incompetency is as prolific a cause of poverty 
 as can be found, and the best philanthropy is 
 now directing its efforts to the industrial train- 
 ing of inefficient indigents which shall remove 
 such incapacity. The only true charity is that 
 which helps a man to help himself, and every 
 opportunity should be afforded the man or 
 
232 Child Culture 
 
 woman who is willing, but, for any cause, un- 
 able to do his or her best work. 
 
 Some service should always be exacted of the 
 recipient of relief, if he be not prostrated by 
 sickness or otherwise disabled. Continuous 
 poverty is a disease and should be treated as 
 such, at the same time relief should be admin- 
 istered in a manner that will, as little as pos- 
 sible, mar the applicant's self-respect, for when 
 that is lost the case becomes more hopeless. 
 Whatever is given should be clean, wholesome, 
 and offered in a spirit that will not degrade the 
 recipient, but on the contrary awaken his self- 
 respect. 
 
 Devitalization is another cause of continued 
 poverty, for a body that is not well nourished 
 cannot generate the energy and vitality neces- 
 sary to sustain it in labor. 
 
 Ignorance of the best use of money, the 
 proper foods, the most nourishing preparation 
 of the same, are all impediments which obstruct 
 the path of thrift, and it is the office of the 
 state and of philanthropists to redeem the poor 
 from their ignorance and to educate them in- 
 dustrially. Cooking schools will be more ap- 
 preciated by future philanthropists, and sewing 
 schools for children and young girls are indis- 
 pensable adjuncts to thrift and economy ; it is 
 astonishing in visiting among the poor to note 
 how many women who have reared families 
 
Civic Duties 233 
 
 have no use of the needle, and to reflect what 
 a serious detriment such ignorance is to the 
 economy and good order of a family. " Bear 
 ye one another's burdens " is a text of Scrip- 
 ture, which also adds " For every man must 
 bear his own " — that is when by the assistance 
 of his more fortunate fellow-man he has been 
 made capable of bearing them himself. The 
 altruistic education must have its beginning in 
 youth; from children contributions to charity 
 should never be exacted, for if they be not 
 emanations of the spirit of love and helpful- 
 ness, they are valueless. The child's whole 
 education should tend to the end to make him 
 less selfish, less self-centred, more impersonal 
 than he is by nature, and to feel that no man 
 has the moral right to live for himself alone ; 
 then, no suggestion of generosity will be neces- 
 sary — it will be the result of his development. 
 While all possible aid should be extended the 
 worthy and unfortunate poor, more effort should 
 be made to distinguish these from the unworthy, 
 the professional mendicant. The soft head and 
 the soft heart induce beggary, and create the 
 professional beggar, who asks no better subsist- 
 ence than what comes from this softness. To 
 administer charity wisely and justly requires 
 much hard will and sound judgment. The 
 world contains many sentimentalists who are 
 unwilling to mete justice to a man, no matter 
 
234 Child Culture 
 
 how unworthy he may prove himself; their 
 sensitive hearts refuse to witness suffering, 
 however well deserved it may be ; but true 
 philanthropy and justice are inseparable. 
 
 The pleasure of ministering to human needs 
 and of relieving human misery and pain is 
 very alluring, and refusal to extend aid a great 
 self-denial, but when one knows that such 
 methods only beget poverty and manifold un- 
 worthiness, one has not the right to gratify 
 one's own feelings to the detriment of wisdom 
 and justice? If a man who is able will not 
 work when he has an opportunity, he should suf- 
 fer, and hunger and freeze until be is driven by 
 suffering and necessity to the right activity; 
 no man has a right to be a consumer who is not 
 in some degree a producer. All of God's laws 
 are hard when broken, and shall man intervene 
 between the wrong-doer, and the just results 
 and retribution of wrong-doing, when God him- 
 self in his immutable laws has linked them ? 
 Man should be ready to recognize the rights of 
 others, and when he recognizes them he will 
 know his duty, and should fulfil it whether it 
 be a pleasant or an unpleasant one. 
 
 Society can advance only in so far as the in- 
 dividuals which constitute it are advanced, and 
 individual interest is promoted by association 
 and cooperation ; the social man and the indi- 
 vidual are one and inseparable, and act and 
 
Civic Duties 235 
 
 re-act on each other. Socialism, the shibboleth 
 of modern times can have but one just solution 
 of its problems. Though the real and personal 
 property of the globe were evenly apportioned 
 once a year, at the close of the year the capable 
 and clear-sighted men would have increased 
 their portion a hundredfold, and the weak and 
 incapable ones would have lost theirs ; so it is 
 impossible to devise means that will prevent 
 greater accumulations falling to the master 
 minds of the earth, except forcibly and arbi- 
 trarily to maintain an even distribution ; that 
 would mean stagnation in every department of 
 human enterprise, and standstill to all human 
 progress. Therefore, the only just solution of 
 the difficulty is the acknowledgment on the 
 part of the possessors of wealth of a moral 
 trusteeship, of a moral obligation to use sur- 
 plus wealth for the general good. Such recog- 
 nition can be effected only by the right moral 
 education of the youth of the present gener- 
 ation, who will be the capitalists of the future. 
 Only by the mental and moral education of the 
 moneyed class, and by the moral and industrial 
 education of the indigent class, can the prin- 
 ciples of cooperation be put in operation. 
 Every consideration of policy and progress, as 
 well as the higher claims of humanity, calls for 
 a larger recognition of the inherent right of 
 those who do the manual work of the world ; 
 
236 Child Culture 
 
 and the ruling factors of industry and society, 
 the men of influence and power, should apply 
 the cooperative principle to institutions which 
 they control. 
 
 Industrial institutions for the education of 
 those who may be made capable and for the 
 employ, at less wages, of such as are inher- 
 ently weak and can never be competent, must 
 be created and largely maintained by the cap- 
 ital of the prosperous. The number of such in- 
 stitutions should be limited only by the num- 
 ber of persons requiring such education and 
 such assistance, but they should not compen- 
 sate the same as self-sustaining industries not 
 operated for philanthropic purposes. Charity 
 work should be hard and underpaid and de- 
 cidedly disadvantageous compared with regular 
 work, otherwise it encourages men to depend 
 upon it who might find work by their own 
 efforts elsewhere. Charity institutions are only 
 intended as last resorts when all others have 
 failed. The right methods of philanthropy are 
 those which inculcate the lessons of self-help, 
 of individual responsibility, rather than de- 
 pendence on outside aid. It is only by com- 
 bining the various elements of industry into 
 free, voluntary and strong organizations nnder 
 the direction of wise and efficient manage- 
 ment that the end of true economy may be 
 subserved and the competition of the world be 
 
Civic Duties 237 
 
 regulated. It is the underpaid labor competing 
 with justly compensated labor ; it is the workers 
 under the sweating system that degrade the 
 dignity of labor, reduce its payment to starva- 
 tion wages, and constitute the workman's worst 
 foe. This is the foe that he should resist more 
 than he resists the capitalist, for the latter will 
 then have no alternative but to give laborer's 
 wages above the pauper level of subsistence. 
 
 Upon this subject the great Mazzini gave the 
 Italians wise counsel : " The remedy is to be 
 found in the union of labor and capital in the 
 same hands. Association of labor and the 
 division of the fruits of labor, or rather the 
 profits of the sale of its production in propor- 
 tion to the amount and value of the work done 
 by each, this is the social future." 
 
 The ideal solution of the problem of wage- 
 earning is the moral concession of the capital- 
 ist ; whether this method will ever be practica- 
 ble remains to be demonstrated. When one 
 realizes the intense greed of wealth, the hard 
 crust of selfishness in which some men are en- 
 cased, it seems a vision of far futurity, and the 
 poor wage-earner may not be able or willing to 
 abide this millenium. When times are pros- 
 perous, he gets only a bare living, the " market 
 price of his labor," although the proprietor may 
 earn fifty per cent, net on his industry ; but 
 when hard times break over a community they 
 
238 Child Culture 
 
 who shared not in the profits of prosperity are 
 compelled to *' share the losses " and submit to 
 a reduction of wages. If the stipend of the 
 wage-earner were based on the profits of the 
 business, then it would be entirely just that he 
 should share in the losses sustained in an in- 
 dustrial panic. 
 
 If moral and economic arguments are un- 
 heeded, monopolies may in time have legal force 
 brought to bear on them, compelling them to 
 share in a limited degree the profits of their 
 industries. The ordinary employer is under 
 the same pressure as the laborer; he is com- 
 peting strenuously and against great odds with 
 the large monopolies, and cannot afford to in- 
 crease the wages of his workmen. It is the 
 great employers who control immense capital 
 that reap the immense profits, and can afford 
 to share them. 
 
 But to bring this subject more strictly within 
 the confines of its own domain, there is a phi- 
 lanthropy within the reach of every house- 
 keeper, which all who have not the leisure or 
 inclination to pass beyond the limits of the 
 home can practice ; that is a consideration of 
 the servants of the menage. How few Ameri- 
 can girls one finds engaged in domestic service ! 
 Nearly all are immigrants or of foreign parent- 
 age. Doubtless one cause of the reluctance to 
 enter such service is the loss of individuality it 
 
Civic Duties 239 
 
 entails, and the fact that in the average house- 
 hold so little consideration is given the comfort 
 and welfare of the servants. If the girl is the 
 sole servant she is doomed to a solitary exist- 
 ence ; she has no one with whom to converse, 
 or to sympathize with her ; being the only serv- 
 ant she has fewer opportunities of escaping 
 from her solitude, as she is always more indis- 
 pensable than where there are several servants. 
 She has, however, the advantage of occupying 
 her room and bed alone, and this privacy is so 
 precious to some girls that they are willing to 
 endure all the disadvantages of being a lone 
 servant to have that one privilege. No matter 
 how many servants there are, they should each 
 have a separate bed and a private washroom ; a 
 self-respe6ting girl has the same sense of mod- 
 esty as her mistress has, and finds it as great a 
 hardship to be compelled to perform the details 
 of her toilet before the eyes of another. A half 
 hour of leisure, at least, should be accorded 
 servants in the afternoon that they may recuper- 
 ate and freshen up their toilets. If they rise 
 at five or six o'clock, they should not be obliged 
 to wait for a cup of coffee until after the family 
 breakfast at perhaps nine or ten o'clock. If it 
 is a serious derangement of household affairs 
 for them to have their breakfast earlier, they 
 should be permitted coffee, bread and butter, 
 previous to the regular breakfast ; the time from 
 
240 Child Culture 
 
 eight in the evening to nine the next morning, 
 — three hours after rising — is too long a fast to 
 require of them. When a girl has been con- 
 fined to the house all day, especially if her oc- 
 cupation is of a sedentary nature, she should be 
 encouraged to go out for exercise and fresh air 
 in the evening, and even to seek the society of 
 her friends. Carefully selected books and sto- 
 ries should be placed at the disposal of servants 
 for perusal in leisure moments, and many little 
 considerations shown which will attach them to 
 the family and make them feel that they are 
 in a Christian home. In many ways domestic 
 service is more educative to a girl than shop or 
 factory work can be, for if she is in contact 
 with refined, cultured people, she is instructed 
 in habits of order and neatness and the art of 
 decent living which will be advantageous to her 
 when she goes to a home of her own. The as- 
 sociation, morally, should also benefit her, and 
 the observation of the ways of superior, well- 
 disciplined people — if she is so fortunate as to 
 serve such — should be a distinct gain to her. 
 Mothers and housekeepers have a greater re- 
 sponsibility in this matter than they often real- 
 ize ; we are all our sisters' keepers, and no one 
 should go forth from our roof and our employ 
 without an increase in knowledge, more refined 
 manners and higher principles than when she 
 entered under it. 
 
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