Part 5

One question has precedence of all others: Shall I interfere or not? To decide that question in the negative is to eliminate all the others. That it is necessary to do this, the conjunction of a quarrel and a luncheon party may demonstrate. The critical time comes when there is no luncheon party. To allow children some chance to settle their own differences is as certainly an act of discipline as it is to settle every difference for them. It is none the less discipline for the children because it seems to be chiefly self-discipline. A younger sister once had a grievance; she made her protest with a strident whine. Annoyed by the outburst, her mother descended upon the whole crew, wormed out the merits of the case, and with an even hand apportioned among the offenders penalty or reproof. Having profited, as it happened, by this occurrence, the small girl, the next time she wished to gain an advantage over the others, resorted to the same whining outcry. Immediately the three older children fell to playing church. With a loud and discordant hymn, they designed to drown the sound of protest. Though at this time in the right, they preferred not to take the risk. Already well trained by her children, that mother was quick to remain where she was. It sometimes requires alertness to do nothing. Just though her interference had been, she saw that it not only had encouraged in one child an annoying mode of complaint, but also had suggested to the others a noisy mode of averting judgment. Thereafter it seemed easier for her to hesitate before participating in her children's controversies. How can children experiment with the principles with which their elders have tried to endow them, except upon those occasions when those didactic elders do not interfere? How, on the other hand, can those same elders see what effect their precepts have had, unless the children can begin a quarrel on the chance that they may end it themselves? Deliberately to determine not to interfere in a children's quarrel comes not of grace but of labor. Any one can lapse into indifference as to the merits of a dispute between two youngsters, but only one who has come through affliction to self-control can at the same time maintain an acute interest in the triumph of the just cause and keep his hands off. The virtue of non-interference is not a gift, it is an achievement.

Occasions which demand interference, however, occur frequently enough to supply with plenty of exercise any normally active parental mind. Whenever it is clearly best that the children should not be allowed to end their quarrel themselves, the parent who is not in search merely of self-complacency can ask himself a number of questions. Usually, the time for asking and answering those questions is very brief. The exercise is vigorous while it lasts. On the way from the living-room to the nursery, the hastening parent can, for example, perform this rapid mental scale passage: To what purpose am I interfering? Is it to suppress a noise? or to avert a danger? or to teach courtesy? or to instruct in morals? or to do justice? or to establish an amicable basis? Later, and perhaps more deliberately, he will run over this scale of questions: What means shall I use? Shall it be force? or argument? or ridicule? or explanation? or advice? or instruction? or command? or punishment? It requires practice to pounce upon the note principally out of tune in a wealth of discord, and then to choose the one tool that will set it right; but then, there is no vocation more exciting than parenthood.

The noise of a quarrel may be its most serious offense. We can admit that fact without accepting as an invariable rule the maxim of our nervous, overwrought ancestors, Children should be seen and not heard. At times it seems, indeed, as if the present age were too phlegmatic. There are people for whose nerves children should be made to have some regard; there are invalids who do not thrive on din; there is necessary work which cannot be done in the midst of a racket; there are neighbors who declare, with some show of right, that they regard monopoly in noise as against public policy. So, whether for the sake of cousin Bettina's nerves, or a tired mother's rest, or a busy father's conference with a creditor, or merely for the sake of reputation with the neighbors, it may be best to disregard all other factors and insist on quiet. That seems clear enough. The trouble with us pretentious grown-ups is that usually when we undertake to stop a quarrel because it is disturbing, we delude ourselves into thinking that we have some high moral purpose. We can expose our own fatuity by simply inquiring of ourselves, when we begin our preachment, Would we have interfered if this quarrel had not been so strepitous? It is one of the annoyances in the training of children that if we are to be honest with them, we must be honest with ourselves. I do not see how that can be helped. And with children honesty is prerequisite to authority. To pretend that we chiefly want them to be good at a time when really we chiefly want them to be quiet is to renounce all influence over them when really we arrive at the point of chiefly wanting them to be good. That is reason enough for being honest with them. So when we set out towards a quarrel with the determination of suppressing a noise, we shall, if we are honest, deal with the quarrel, not as turpitude, but as noise. We may not be able to persuade the contestants of the existence of nerves, or headaches, or creditors, or neighbors, or even of our own reasonableness; but we shall at least probably succeed in conveying to them the genuineness of this single idea that is uppermost in our own mind: if you can't quarrel quietly, you shall not quarrel at all. If later we wish to impress upon them the necessity of being considerate of others, we can use that specific quarrel as an illustration without risking with them our reputation for singleness.

A quarrel may involve something which, even more than noise, demands instant interference. Two small boys were in an altercation. The older had a ball. The younger wanted that ball with a consuming hunger. The nearest weapon at hand was the discarded shaft of a golf club. Seizing it, he began his attack with reckless fury. The sound of a blow upon a piece of furniture followed by an outcry of fear brought their father to the room. His thought was not for anybody's manners or morals, nor for the disturbance, nor for a just settlement of the contest; it was for the defenseless boy's head. There was but one possible measure: immediate and forcible confiscation of the club. This was frankly not punishment--which would have involved a moral judgment--but simply humane intervention. The announcement that the club was to remain confiscated for a week merely emphasized the extent of the intervention, not the severity of a punishment. The incident might have served as an occasion for a lecture upon the danger of the wanton use of weapons; as a matter of fact, I believe, it was, of a sort; but--

"Oh, daddy, it was my ball!"

"No, daddy, really it wasn't!"

All such discussion as to the merits of the dispute was quashed. Likewise was stifled all inclination on the part of the intervening parent to deliver a lesson on the evils of an ungovernable temper. That might not have been confusing, if it could have been made distinct from the act of intervention; but it was not necessary. The fault was not an excess of temper so much as a thoughtless or ignorant use of power. At least, that was the judgment on which this father acted. Whether he was right or wrong is not to the point; what is to the point is that he formed his judgment, acted upon it, and did not obscure the issue by confusing the consequences--or possible consequences--of a deed with its moral character.

Just as the physical consequence of a quarrel may be more important than its moral aspects, so may be its significance as an exhibition of manners. When their elders hopelessly intermingle precepts as to the amenities with deliverances upon ethics, children can hardly be blamed if they come to regard murder as in the same category with the wearing of tan boots to the accompaniment of a frock coat. An altercation marked by vulgarity, or even by nothing more than delinquencies in courtesy, may be more distasteful to grown-ups than one involving meanness or deceit. In such a case we may give interference the form of an expression of disgust, and keep the issue clear. If, however, we allow it to take the form of punishment, we might as well admit to ourselves that we are engaged not in disciplining children but in relieving our own feelings, and be grateful that we have at hand such an outlet for our emotions.

Occasionally there arises a quarrel which supplies a text for a moral lesson. A quarrel of this sort arose one day between a small boy of five or six and his sister a year or two older. The mother of these two had issued a command to the younger that he take off his wet shoes. In a few minutes she heard the sound of struggle. It called for investigation. There on the nursery floor was the lad, tearful and angry; near at hand his sister, reproachful and indignant. It appeared that his neglect of the order had aroused her to action. He resented her assumption of authority; she resented his resentment. The case was not as simple as it appeared to be. Punishment of the small boy without explanation would have seemed to him like punishment for disobedience toward a sister who was without authority. On the other hand, a rebuke of the sister for unwarranted assumption of authority would have seemed to her like a rebuke for loyalty to her mother. It was a case, not primarily for punishment or even for rebuke, but for moral instruction, or, if you prefer, explanation.

As an occasion for the doing of justice, a quarrel among children often presents great perplexities. It is hard for a mother to be a just judge between her children. This is partly because she is so practiced in partiality for her children that she revolts at the apparent hardness of impersonal fairness; partly because she frequently cannot ascertain the facts. A mother who loves justice while she loves her children will not be quick to ascend the bench. Sometimes, however, she must. There was once called, for instance, the case of Ronald _vs._ Dan. After a statement of the case made in turn by the two litigants, and confirmed or corrected by the visiting playmate Davy, the facts seemed to be as follows: The boys were cutting advertising pictures out of newspapers. Each of the boys had his own pile of newspapers which was his property. Dan had on one of his papers a picture which he did not care for, but which Ronald cared for very much. No sooner had Ronald expressed his desire for this picture than Dan crumpled the paper up in his hand and threw it into the waste-basket. Hence the complaint. The act was undeniably one of meanness; it was done with the intent to exasperate; but it transgressed no rights. The paper was Dan's property, to be disposed of as he pleased. Ronald had not the slightest claim upon it. This was clearly understood. While the trial was in progress, Davy, the witness, fished the paper out of the waste-basket, where it had become the personal property of nobody, cut out the picture, smoothed its wrinkles, and presented it to the grateful Ronald. Justice to Dan had compelled the recognition of his right to do with his own as he pleased. Judgment rendered for the defendant. Could any mother be satisfied with that outcome? So far as determining whether punishment was to be measured out, that ended the case. Strictly observing as between herself and her children their property rights, that judge could not refuse to enforce those rights as among themselves. This case, however, raised another question than that of justice.

This was the question of future amity. The generous action of Davy, the witness, made it possible to use the incident for furthering not only just but also happy relations among the children. It made the defendant somewhat ashamed of himself, although of course it did not in the least obscure to his mind the consciousness that the judge had dealt with him justly. It moreover restored the sun to the complainant's cloudy face. Thus at the same time it impressed on the mind of the guilty a sense of his own meanness and effaced the memory of that meanness from the mind of the aggrieved. It is not always that a judge has a Davy at hand. It will not, however, necessarily confuse matters if she act the part of Davy herself. It is sometimes possible thus to give a practical demonstration of the fact that the spoils of justice are not always satisfying.

As in walking, so in living with our fellows, some friction is necessary. To deprive a child of friction with other children is to keep him in slippery places. Unless we wish to teach him how to elude his kind, we shall not begrudge him his wholesome contests of skill, of wit, of strength, of temper. We shall only take care that he does his fighting fairly and not on too slight a provocation, that he knows how to yield to the weakness of another, that he does not learn to whine or snivel, that he does not become a tale-bearer, that he can take defeat or rebuke without callousness and without a whimper, that he becomes capable of forgetting his resentments and his personal triumphs over others, and that of all his victories, he learns to value most those which he wins over himself.

VI

THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM

The master of the house had returned from a visit to the country home.

"Whom do you suppose I saw to-day?"

The children could not imagine.

"Old Robert. And what do you think he said?"

The guesses flew wide.

"No; you're all wrong. What he said was, 'How are the little men?'"

Then up rose Deacon, as the old colored man had dubbed him, the youngest, blandest, tricksiest of the trio; and he laughed in derisive resentment.

"I think old Robert is funny. He calls us little men. I don't think people will like old Robert if he calls 'em names."

Names! Will children never cease to shock us by their points of view? Old Robert, like a well-baked pie, had put all the richness of his highly flavored feeling for the lads into that one phrase. He made it serve him as a message of loyalty, respect, affection, comradeship.

Old Robert had probably never heard of James Mill; and if he had, he would not have cited him as an authority; for old Robert did not act according to the logic of his phrase. James Mill, however, did just that; he proceeded on the theory that it is wholesome to treat children as if they were miniature men and women. He began with his first-born by fitting to him an intellectual frock coat and tall hat. Why he waited till the youngster was three years old no one, so far as I know, has ever explained. Without much further delay he also gave him a religious outfit. This, though decidedly less conventional than his intellectual wardrobe, had the same adult cut. It was not the Benthamite fashion of his religious garb, but its mature lines, that gave John Stuart Mill his air of fascinating priggishness and suave conceit.

Our taste, unlike James Mill's, may be for orthodoxy. We need not on that account despair of imbuing our children with religious precocity and self-assurance. Before he was ten years old, John Stuart Mill had learned that Christianity was immoral, and that there was no personal God. There is no reason why any child at the same age may not know all the mysteries of predestinarianism, and be old in the experiences of sanctification. All we need is the diligence, the courage, the determination of James Mill.

In these qualities some of our forbears had the advantage of us. They knew very definitely what they wished their children to do and to believe. Among them was an American contemporary of James Mill, the Rev. Carlton Hurd. There are people still living who gratefully recall the ministration of this kindly, stalwart New England divine. He so ran as not uncertainly; so fought he, not as one that beateth the air. And his certitude did not forsake him in the training of his little daughter. It may seem almost grotesque to couple the English author and employee of the East India Company with the Orthodox American parson. The one held beliefs antipodal to those of the other. James Mill, moreover, not being able to believe in a God so stern as to create this evil world, made up what was lacking in the cosmos by cultivating in himself an iron sternness toward his son; on the other hand, Parson Hurd, as he is still affectionately called, being fully persuaded of the existence of a God capable of infinite wrath, seemed to cherish in himself, as sort of compensation, a most touching solicitude for his daughter. In only one respect did Parson Hurd resemble James Mill,--in having and holding to a body of convictions which were, to his mind, not only indisputable, but also, in substance at least, essential to the proper adornment of the mind of a child. The letter in which he tells the story of Marion Lyle Hurd is the narrative of a complete and orderly religious experience.

Marion died at the age of four years. When she was eight months old, her parents read to her from leaflets for Sabbath Schools. They explained to her, when she was a year and a half old, in answer to questions from her, the origin and use of the Bible. They noted that when she had reached the age of two "her mind was seriously exercised with religious things." At that time she would sometimes kneel down and would say:--

"Mother, I am going to pray. What shall I say to God?"

"Ask God to make you good and give you a new heart."

"What is a new heart, Mother?"

"This was familiarly explained," writes her father, "and at the same time she was particularly informed of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, and the steps God had taken to save sinners. We endeavored to impress upon her mind that she was a sinner and needed forgiveness; and God would forgive her sins, and give her a new heart through Jesus Christ." That from this time "she chiefly devoted her few remaining days to the acquisition of religious knowledge" her father finds to be "a consoling reflection." He adds, with conscientious caution, "If she was truly converted, we cannot tell when the change took place." Her parents hoped, however, after she had died two years later, that she had "entered 'the city of our God.'" Though they had no means of perceiving the approach of the disease of the brain which occasioned her death, they realized that the sensitiveness and activity of her mind warned them "to lead Marion with the gentlest hand; to make her way as quiet and even as possible." In this third year the books which were read to her included Parley's "Geography" and "Astronomy," Gallaudet's "Child's Book on the Soul," and "Daily Food for Christians." In her fourth year her books, which she read to herself, were, besides the Bible, "Child's Book on Repentance," "Life of Moses," "Family Hymns," "Union Hymns," "Daily Food," "Lessons for Sabbath Schools," "Henry Milnor," Watts's "Divine Songs," "Memoir of John Mooney Mead," "Nathan W. Dickerman," Todd's "Lectures to Children," and "Pilgrim's Progress." As these titles indicate, she was "particularly fond of reading the biography of good little children." Of all her books, however, Bunyan's masterpiece seems to have been the most instructive. Her knowledge of the allegory was tested by questions. She knew why Christian went through the river while Ignorance was ferried over. She knew what was meant by the Slough of Despond and the losing of the Burden. "When we come to Christ," said she, "we" (not Christians, or people, or you, but we) "lose our sins." And she sought from her father a certificate to enter the City. "We cannot doubt," comments her father, "Marion understood much of what was intended to be taught in that book, which Phillip says, in his life of John Bunyan, contains the essence of all theology. Certainly, she was familiar with every step of the pathway of holiness trod by Christian, from the city of Destruction through the river of death to the 'Celestial City.'" And later he adds that she evinced "a familiar acquaintance with all parts of that allegory and its doctrine." Though he makes clear in his letter that "it is not the piety of the full grown and mature christian, that we are to look for in a child," he makes equally clear that in all essential particulars her piety was complete. It included even a regard for the significance of eternal reward and penalty. From Doddridge's "Expositor," both by examining the pictures and reading "the sacred text" under the direction of her father, she derived many ideas of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the general resurrection at the end of the world. "Marion," continues the narrative, "after closely inspecting the countenances given in those pictures, both to the just and unjust, in the resurrection, would say,

"'Oh! how the wicked look, when they rise from the dead!' adding in a serious and solemn manner,

"'"There is a dreadful hell, And everlasting pains, Where sinners must with devils dwell, In darkness, fire, and chains."'"

Indeed, from the earlier months, life after death, "the happiness of the good, and the misery of the wicked," were topics of "frequent and delightful conversation with her parents."

In her last hours she expressed her assurance that she would be saved, and her last audible words were, "I am not afraid to die." Thus ended this brief life of four years and twenty-six days.

An example of such training would be hard to find among parents of the present day. This is not because there are no parents who have Parson Hurd's convictions; neither is it because there are none who have his confidence in the capacity of children. It is because there are lacking parents who have both the convictions and the confidence. The reason why many parents fail where James Mill and Parson Hurd succeeded is that they try to make compromise between two contradictory theories. Although they wish to give their children a full complement of doctrines, they either do not possess the full complement themselves, or do not believe that their children are mature enough to receive it. The spectacle of adults attempting to instruct a primary class in the Logos Doctrine by the kindergarten method is thoroughly modern.