Chapter 5

CHILD, FRANCIS JAMES (1825-1896), American scholar and educationist, was born in Boston on the 1st of February 1825. He graduated at Harvard in 1846, taking the highest rank in his class in all subjects; was tutor in mathematics in 1846-1848; and in 1848 was transferred to a tutorship in history, political economy and English. After two years of study in Europe, in 1851 he succeeded Edward T. Channing as Boylston professor of rhetoric, oratory and elocution. Child studied the English drama (having edited _Four Old Plays_ in 1848) and Germanic philology, the latter at Berlin and Göttingen during a leave of absence, 1849-1853; and he took general editorial supervision of a large collection of the British poets, published in Boston in 1853 and following years. He edited Spenser (5 vols., Boston, 1855), and at one time planned an edition of Chaucer, but contented himself with a treatise, in the _Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences_ for 1863, entitled "Observations on the Language of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales," which did much to establish Chaucerian grammar, pronunciation and scansion as now generally understood. His largest undertaking, however, grew out of an original collection, in his British Poets series, of _English and Scottish Ballads_, selected and edited by himself, in eight small volumes (Boston, 1857-1858). Thenceforward the leisure of his life--much increased by his transfer, in 1876, to the new professorship of English--was devoted to the comparative study of British vernacular ballads. He accumulated, in the university library, one of the largest folklore collections in existence, studied manuscript rather than printed sources, and carried his investigations into the ballads of all other tongues, meanwhile giving a sedulous but conservative hearing to popular versions still surviving. At last his final collection was published as _The English and Scottish Popular Ballads_, at first in ten parts (1882-1898), and then in five quarto volumes, which remain the authoritative treasury of their subject. Professor Child worked--and overworked--to the last, dying in Boston on the 11th of September 1896, having completed his task save for a general introduction and bibliography. A sympathetic biographical sketch was prefixed to the work by his pupil and successor George L. Kittredge.

CHILD, SIR JOHN (d. 1690), governor of Bombay, and in fact if not in name the first governor-general of the British settlements in India, was born in London. He was sent as a little boy to his uncle, the chief of the factory at Rajapur; and in 1682 was appointed chief of the East India Company's affairs at Surat and Bombay, while at the same time his brother, Sir Josiah Child (q.v.), was governor of the company at home. The two brothers showed themselves strong men and guided the affairs of the company through the period of struggle between the Moguls and Mahrattas. They have been credited by history with the change from unarmed to armed trade on the part of the company; but as a matter of fact both of them were loth to quarrel with the Mogul. War broke out with Aurangzeb in 1689, but in the following year Child had to sue for peace, one of the conditions being that he should be expelled from India. He escaped this expulsion by his death in 1690.

CHILD, SIR JOSIAH (1630-1699), English merchant, economist and governor of the East India Company, was born in London in 1630, the second son of Richard Child, a London merchant of old family. After serving his apprenticeship in the business, to which he succeeded, he started on his own account at Portsmouth, as victualler to the navy under the Commonwealth, when about twenty-five. He amassed a comfortable fortune, and became a considerable stock-holder in the East India Company, his interest in India being accentuated by the fact that his brother John (q.v.) was making his career there. He was returned to parliament in 1659 for Petersfield; and in later years sat for Dartmouth (1673-1678) and for Ludlow (1685-1687). He was made a baronet in 1678. His advocacy, both by speech and by pen, under the pseudonym of Philopatris, of the East India Company's claims to political power, as well as to the right of restricting competition with its trade, brought him to the notice of the shareholders, and he became a director in 1677, and, subsequently, deputy-governor and governor. In this latter capacity he was for a considerable time virtually the sole ruler of the company, and directed its policy as if it were his own private business. He and his brother have been credited with the change from unarmed to armed traffic; but the actual renunciation of the Roe doctrine of unarmed traffic by the company was resolved upon in January 1686, under Governor Sir Joseph Ash, when Child was temporarily out of office. He died on the 22nd of June 1699. Child made several important contributions to the literature of economics; especially _Brief Observations concerning Trade and the Interest of Money_ (1668), and _A New Discourse of Trade_ (1668 and 1690). He was a moderate in those days of the "mercantile system," and has sometimes been regarded as a sort of pioneer in the development of the free-trade doctrines of the 18th century. He made various proposals for improving British trade by following Dutch example, and advocated a low rate of interest as the "_causa causans_ of all the other causes of the riches of the Dutch people." This low rate of interest he thought should be created and maintained by public authority. Child, whilst adhering to the doctrine of the balance of trade, observed that a people cannot always sell to foreigners without ever buying from them, and denied that the export of the precious metals was necessarily detrimental. He had the mercantilist partiality for a numerous population, and became prominent with a new scheme for the relief and employment of the poor; it is noteworthy also that he advocated the reservation by the mother country of the sole right of trade with her colonies. Sir Josiah Child's eldest son, Richard, was created Viscount Castlemain in 1718 and earl of Tylney in 1731.

See also Macaulay, _History of England_, vol. iv.; R. Grant, _Sketch of the History of the East India Company_ (1813); D. Macpherson, _Annals of Commerce_ (1805); B. Willson, _Ledger and Sword_ (1903). (T. A. I.)

CHILD, LYDIA MARIA (1802-1880), American author, was born at Medford, Massachusetts, on the 11th of February 1802. She was educated at an academy in her native town and by her brother Convers Francis (1795-1863), a Unitarian minister and from 1842 to 1863 Parkman professor in the Harvard Divinity School. Her first stories, _Hobomok_ (1824) and _The Rebels_ (1825), were popular successes. She was a schoolmistress until 1828, when she married David Lee Child (1794-1874), a brilliant but erratic Boston lawyer and journalist. From 1826 to 1834 she edited _The Juvenile Miscellany_, the first children's monthly periodical in the United States. About 1831 both she and her husband began to identify themselves with the anti-slavery cause, and in 1833 she published _An Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans_, a stirring portrayal of the evils of slavery, and an argument for immediate abolition, which had a powerful influence in winning recruits to the anti-slavery cause. Henceforth her time was largely devoted to the anti-slavery cause. From 1840 to 1844, assisted by her husband, she edited the _Anti-Slavery Standard_ in New York City. After the Civil War she wrote much in behalf of the freedmen and of Indian rights. She died at Wayland, Massachusetts, on the 20th of October 1880. In addition to the books above mentioned, she wrote many pamphlets and short stories and _The (American) Frugal Housewife_ (1829), one of the earliest American books on domestic economy, _The Mother's Book_ (1831), a pioneer cook-book republished in England and Germany, _The Girls' Own Book_ (1831), _History of Women_ (2 vols., 1832), _Good Wives_ (1833), _The Anti-Slavery Catechism_ (1836), _Philothea_ (1836), a romance of the age of Pericles, perhaps her best book, _Letters from New York_ (2 vols., 1843-1845), _Fact and Fiction_ (1847), _The Power of Kindness_ (1851), _Isaac T. Hopper: a True Life_ (1853), _The Progress of Religious Ideas through Successive Ages_ (3 vols., 1855), _Autumnal Leaves_ (1857), _Looking Toward Sunset_ (1864), _The Freedman's Book_ (1865), _A Romance of the Republic_ (1867), and _Aspirations of the World_ (1878).

See _The Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a Biographical Introduction by J.G. Whittier_ (Boston, 1883); and a chapter in T.W. Higginson's _Contemporaries_ (Boston, 1899).

CHILD, the common term for the offspring of human beings, generally below the age of puberty; the term is the correlative of "parent," and applies to either sex, though some early dialectical uses point to a certain restriction to a girl. The word is derived from the A.S. _cild_, an old Teutonic word found in English only, in other Teutonic languages _kind_ and its variants being used, usually derived from the Indo-European root _ken_, seen in Gr. [greek: genos], Lat. _genus_, and Eng. "kin"; _cild_ has been held to be a modification of the same root, but the true root is _kilth_, seen in Goth. _kilthei_, womb, an origin which appears in the expressions "child-birth," "to be with child," and the like; the plural in A.S. was _cild_, and later _cildru_, which in northern M.E. became _childre or childer_, a form dialectically extant, and in southern English _childeren_ or _children_ (with the plural termination -en, as in "brethren"). There are several particular uses of "child" in the English version of the Bible, as of a young man in the "Song of the three holy children," of descendants or members of a race, as in "children of Abraham," and also to express origin, giving a description of character, as "children of darkness." During the 13th and 14th centuries "child" was used, in a sense almost amounting to a title of dignity, of a young man of noble birth, probably preparing for knighthood. In the _York Mysteries_ of about 1440 (quoted in the _New English Dictionary_) occurs "be he churl or child," obviously referring to gentle birth, cf. William Bellenden's translation (1553) of Livy (ii. 124) "than was in Rome ane nobill childe ... namit Caius Mucius." The spelling "childe" is frequent in modern usage to indicate its archaic meaning. Familiar instances are in the line of an old ballad quoted in _King Lear_, "childe Roland to the dark tower came," and in Byron's _Childe Harold_. With this use may be compared the Spanish and Portuguese _Infante_ and _Infanta_, and the early French use of _Valet_ (q.v.).

_Child-study._--The physical, psychological and educational development of children, from birth till adulthood, has provided material in recent years for what has come to be regarded as almost a distinct part of comparative anthropological or sociological science, and the literature of adolescence (q.v.) and of "child-study" in its various aspects has attained considerable proportions. In England the British Child Study Association was founded in 1894, its official organ being the _Paidologist_, while similar work is done by the Childhood Society, and, to a certain extent, by the Parents' National Educational Union (which issues the _Parents' Review_). In America, where specially valuable work has been done, several universities have encouraged the study (notably Chicago, while under the auspices of Professor John Dewey); and Professor G. Stanley Hall's initiative has led to elaborate inquiries, the principal periodical for the movement being the _Pedagogical Seminary_. The impetus to this study of the child's mind and capacities was given by the classic work of educationists like J.A. Comenius, J.H. Pestalozzi, and F.W.A. Froebel, but more recent writers have carried it much further, notably W.T. Preyer (_The Mind of the Child_, 1881), whose psychological studies stamp him as one of the chief pioneers in new methods of investigation. Other authorities of first-rate importance (their chief works only being given here) are J. Sully (_Studies of Childhood_, 1896), Earl Barnes (_Studies in Education_, 1896, 1902), J.M. Baldwin (_Mental Development in the Child and the Race_, 1895), Sigismund (_Kind und Welt_, 1897), A.F. Chamberlain (_The Child_, 1900), G. Stanley Hall (_Adolescence_, 1904; he had from 1882 been the leader in America of such investigations), H. Holman and R. Langdon Down (_Practical Child Study_, 1899), E.A. Kirkpatrick (_Fundamentals of Child-study_, 1903), and Prof. Tracy of Toronto (_Psychology of Childhood_, 5th ed., 1901); while among a number of contributions worth particular attention may be mentioned W.B. Drummond's excellent summary, _Introduction to Child Study_ (1907), which deals succinctly with methods and results; Irving King's _Psychology of Child Development_ (1906, useful for its bibliography); Prof. David R. Major's _First Steps in Mental Growth_ (1906); and Miss M. Shinn's _Notes an the Development of a Child_ (1893) and Mrs Louise E. Hogan's _Study of a Child_ (1898), which are noteworthy among individual and methodical accounts of what children will do. In such books as those cited a great deal of important material has been collected and analysed, and a number of conclusions suggested which bear both on psychology and the science of education; but it must be borne in mind, as regards a great deal of the voluminous literature of the subject, that it is often more pertinent to general psychology and hygiene than to any special conclusions as to the essential nature of a child--whatever "_a_ child" generically may be as the special object of a special science. The child, after all, is in a transition stage to an adult, and there is often a tendency in modern "child students" to interpret the phenomena exhibited by a particular child with a _parti pris_, or to exaggerate child-study--which is really interesting as providing the knowledge of growth towards full human equipment--as though it involved the discovery of some distinct form of animal, of separate value on its own account.

_Growth._--Into the psychical characteristics and development of the child and all the interesting educational problems involved it is impossible to enter here, and reference must be made to the works cited above. But a knowledge of the more important features of normal physical development has a constant importance. Some of these, as matters of comparative physiology or pathology, are dealt with in other articles in this work. One of these chief matters of interest is weight and height, and this is naturally affected by race, nutrition and environment. But while the standard in different countries somewhat differs, the British average for healthy children may here be followed. At birth the average weight of a baby is a little over 7 lb and the length about 20 in. The following are the averages for weight and height, taking the age in years of the child at the last birthday:--

+--------+----------+---------+----------+---------+ | Age. | Height, in inches. | Weight, in pounds. | +--------+----------+---------+----------+---------+ | | Girls | Boys | Girls | Boys | | | | | | | | 1 | 28.7 | 29 | 19.8 | 20.5 | | 2 | 32.5 | 32.5 | 25.5 | 26.5 | | 3 | 35 | 35 | 30 | 31.2 | | 4 | 38 | 38 | 34 | 35 | | 5 | 40.5 | 41 | 39.2 | 41.2 | | 6 | 42.8 | 44 | 41.7 | 44.4 | | 7 | 44.5 | 46 | 47.5 | 49.7 | | 8 | 46.6 | 47 | 52.1 | 54.9 | | 9 | 48.7 | 49 | 55.5 | 60.4 | | 10 | 51 | 51.8 | 62 | 67.5 | | 11 | 53.1 | 53.5 | 68 | 72 | | 12 | 55.6 | 55 | 76.4 | 76.7 | | 13 | 57.7 | 57 | 87.2 | 82.6 | | 14 | 59.8 | 59.3 | 96.7 | 92 | | 15 | 60.9 | 62 | 102.7 | 106 | +--------+----------+---------+----------+---------+

See also CHILDREN, LAW RELATING TO; CHILDREN'S COURTS; CHILDREN'S GAMES; INFANT; &c.

CHILDEBERT, the name of three Frankish kings.

CHILDEBERT I. (d. 558) was one of the four sons of Clovis. In the partition of his father's realm in 511 he received as his share the town of Paris, and the country to the north as far as the river Somme, and to the west as far as the English Channel, with the Armorican peninsula. In 524, after the murder of Chlodomer's children, Childebert annexed the cities of Chartres and Orleans. He took part in the various expeditions against the kingdom of Burgundy, and in 534 received as his share of the spoils of that kingdom the towns of Mâcon, Geneva and Lyons. When Vitiges, the king of the Ostrogoths, ceded Provence to the Franks in 535, the possession of Arles and Marseilles was guaranteed to Childebert by his brothers. Childebert also made a series of expeditions against the Visigoths of Spain; in 542 he took possession of Pampeluna with the help of his brother Clotaire I., and besieged Saragossa, but was forced to retreat. From this expedition he brought back to Paris a precious relic, the tunic of St Vincent, in honour of which he built at the gates of Paris the famous monastery of St Vincent, known later as St Germain-des-Prés. He died without issue in 558, and was buried in the abbey he had founded, where his tomb has been discovered.

See "Nouveaux documents sur le tombeau de Childebert à Saint-Germain-des-Prés," in the _Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires_ (1887).

CHILDEBERT II. (570-595), king of Austrasia, was a son of Sigebert. When his father was assassinated in 575, Childebert was taken from Paris by Gundobald, one of his faithful _leudes_, to Metz, where he was recognized as sovereign. He was then only five years old, and during his long minority the power was disputed between his mother Brunhilda and the nobles. Chilperic, king at Paris, and King Gontran of Burgundy, sought alliance with Childebert, who was adopted by both in turn. But after the assassination of Chilperic in 584, and the dangers occasioned to the Frankish monarchy by the expedition of Gundobald in 585, Childebert threw himself unreservedly into the arms of Gontran. By the pact of Andelot in 587 Childebert was recognized as Gontran's heir, and with his uncle's help he quelled the revolts of the nobles and succeeded in seizing the castle of Woëwre. Many attempts were made on his life by Fredegond, who was anxious to secure Gontran's inheritance for her son Clotaire II. On the death of Gontran in 592 Childebert annexed the kingdom of Burgundy, and even contemplated seizing Clotaire's estates and becoming sole king of the Franks. He died, however, in 595. Childebert II. had had relations with the Byzantine empire, and fought in 585 in the name of the emperor Maurice against the Lombards in Italy.

CHILDEBERT III. was one of the last and feeblest of the Merovingians. A son of King Theuderich III., he succeeded his brother Clovis III. in 695, and reigned until 711.

See B. Krusch, "Zur Chronologie der merowingischen Könige," in _Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte_, xxii. 451-490. (C. PF.)

CHILDERIC, the name of three Frankish kings.

CHILDERIC I. (c. 437-481), king of the Salian Franks, succeeded his father Merwich (Merwing) as king about. 457. With his tribe he was established around the town of Tournai, on lands which he had received as a _foederatus_ of the Romans, and for some time he kept the peace with his allies. About 463, in conjunction with the Roman general Egidius, he fought against the Visigoths, who hoped to extend their dominion along the banks of the Loire; after the death of Egidius he assisted Count Paul in attempting to check an invasion of the Saxons. Paul having perished in the struggle, Childeric delivered Angers from some Saxons, followed them to the islands at the mouth of the Loire, and massacred them there. He also stopped a band of the Alamanni who wished to invade Italy. These are all the facts known about him. The stories of his expulsion by the Franks; of his stay of eight years in Thuringia with King Basin and his wife Basine; of his return when a faithful servant advised him that he could safely do so by sending to him half of a piece of gold which he had broken with him; and of the arrival at Tournai of Queen Basine, whom he married, are entirely legendary. After the fall of the Western Empire in 476 there is no doubt that Childeric regarded himself as freed from his engagements towards Rome. He died in 481 and was buried at Tournai, leaving a son Clovis (q.v.), afterwards king of the Franks. His tomb was discovered in 1653, when numerous precious objects, arms, jewels, coins and a ring with a figure of the king, were found.

CHILDERIC II. (c. 653-673), king of Austrasia, was a son of the Frankish king Clovis II., and in 660, although a child, was proclaimed king of Austrasia, while his brother, Clotaire III., ruled over the rest of the dominions of Clovis. After the death of Clotaire in 670 he became ruler of the three Frankish kingdoms, Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy, but soon quarrelled with some supporters in Neustria, and was assassinated whilst hunting. He was buried at St Germain near Paris.

CHILDERIC III. (d. c. 751), king of the Franks, was the last king of the Merovingian dynasty. The throne had been vacant for seven years when the mayors of the palace, Carloman and Pippin the Short, decided in 743 to recognize Childeric as king. We cannot say whose son he was, or what bonds bound him to the Merovingian family. He took no part in public business, which was directed, as before, by the mayors of the palace. When in 747 Carloman retired into a monastery, Pippin resolved to take the royal crown for himself; taking the decisive step in 751 after having received the celebrated answer of Pope Zacharias that it were better to name king him who possessed the power than him who possessed it not. Childeric was dethroned and placed in the monastery of St Omer; his son, Theuderich, was imprisoned at Saint-Wandrille.

See W. Junghans, _Die Geschichte der fränkischen Könige Childerich und Clodovech_ (Göttingen, 1857); J.J. Chiflet, _Anastasis Childerici I. Francorum regis_ (Antwerp, 1655); J.B.D. Cochet, _Le Tombeau de Childeric I, roi des Francs_ (Paris, 1859); and E. Lavisse, _Histoire de France_, tome ii. (Paris, 1903).