Part 242

Sometimes a subdued, shaded light will sooth a nervous child’s excited brain and so induce sleep. A child who wakes in terror in a pitchdark room may for years be nervous about going to bed in the dark. Any attempt to stamp out this tendency to nervousness by refusing a comforting glimmer of light in the room may bring on a habit of sleeplessness on first going to bed which may be difficult to eradicate. Sometimes a softly-ticking clock, by affording a sense of companionship, encourages the child to drop off to sleep.

MENTAL QUIETUDE AND GOOD VENTILATION

Another factor in encouraging sleep is a quiet mental state, which is best brought about by the strict avoidance of all exciting games or other mental activities for at least an hour before bedtime. School lessons prepared in the evening are a fertile source of insomnia in children. The brain, keyed up to working at full pitch, cannot quiet down at its owner’s wish, and its unwonted activity may banish sleep for an hour or more.

While free ventilation is essential in the child’s sleeping-room, it should never be forgotten that the young are more susceptible to cold than are grown people, and have not the same power of generating extra body heat to replace any undue loss of warmth from exposure to outside cold. The temperature of the child’s bedroom, therefore, should be kept between 55° and 60° F. If below this, a general feeling of chilliness, and in particular of cold feet, may be the cause of sleeplessness.

Apart from the discomfort and misery caused by the feelings of chilliness, cold feet lead to the adoption of postures in bed which are anything but conducive to health.

BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF THE BATH

In nervous children who sleep badly, a hot bath or a hot mustard foot bath often acts like a charm, the child falling into deep sleep almost as soon as it has been tucked in bed. The warmth, by dilating the blood-vessels, on the surface of the body in the case of the full bath, or of the feet in the case of the mustard foot-bath, draws blood away from the brain and so, reducing its activity, allows it to quiet down into sleep.

Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the Everywhere into here. Where did you get those eyes so blue? Out of the sky as I came through. What makes the light in them sparkle and spin? Some of the starry twinkle left in. Where did you get that little tear? I found it waiting when I got here. What makes your forehead so smooth and high? A soft hand stroked it as I went by. What makes your cheek like a warm white rose? I saw something better than anyone knows. Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss? Three angels gave me at once a kiss. Where did you get this pearly ear? God spoke, and it came out to hear. Where did you get those arms and hands? Love made itself into bonds and bands. Feet, whence did you come, you darling things? From the same box as the cherubs’ wings. How did they all just come to be you? God thought about me, and so I grew. But how did you come to us, you dear? God thought about you, and so I am here.

(The above poem was written by George MacDonald, Scottish novelist and poet; born 1824, died 1905. He wrote a long list of novels, stories and poems. His children’s poems and stories are deservedly popular, and contain numerous passages of singular beauty, lighted up with fine fancy and descriptive power.)

HOW TO TEACH A CHILD TO READ AT HOME

Aa Ee Ii Ll Pp Ss Ww

Bb Ff Mm Tt Xx Jj Qq Cc Gg Nn Uu Yy

Dd Hh Kk Oo Rr Vv Zz

_Above are the big and little letters of the Alphabet._

_Below is a story with all these letters in words._

I saw the big ox when I went to the Zoo last week. It was in a den by the cave and stood near the bars. I thought it looked quite fierce when it stared at me. It made me jump when it put its nose out of the bars. A man fed the ox with some hay that he got from a box. It then lay down on the hard floor and had a nap. I should not like to be in the den with the ox.

It is not a proper test of a child’s advance that he should be able to read very early. Neither do we now make the teaching of reading the chief object in first lessons. Rather does the child learn first to master the difficult art of connecting spoken sounds with written signs somehow, on the happy road from babyhood to schooldays, while his mother still holds him by the hand.

The training of your boy’s ear in detecting the sounds that go to make up the words he uses is of the very first importance. You encourage him in the use of language by getting him to talk freely about what you do together, describing in his own pretty way the flowers, birds, toys, pictures that he loves. All the time you are gently insisting on perfect pronunciation, clear, pleasant modulation of his speaking voice, quiet breathing through the nose. Presently, when you see he is quite ready for it, you lay stress on the sounds made at the beginning and end of such words as cat, dog, puss, pig. He will soon copy quite accurately the sounds of the various consonants, and find other words beginning or ending with similar sounds to those in the examples you give.

Later will come the vowel sounds, and patient work will be needed to make him see the difference in the various sounds of a, o, and so on. At this stage it will amuse him to have a looking-glass before him to see how the shape of his mouth alters when speaking. Let him practice working the muscles round his lip and moving his tongue freely. It will also help if he sings the vowels, thus--take deep breath, sing _a_ (as in father) as long as the breath lasts; take breath, sing _a_ (as in fate), in same way; and so on with all the vowel sounds.

You will, of course, make a table of all the sounds you teach him for your own use, with lists of suitable words, and something has really been accomplished in the numberless five-minute sound-lessons when the child can break up the words he uses into the sounds that go to make them--b-u-n, bun; f-i-g, fig.

So much for the first training in recognizing and reproducing the sounds.

And now we come face to face with the much-discussed question--when and how is a child to learn the letters (the printed signs of sounds) and the names given to these letters? Some children settle this question for themselves by “picking up” these letters and their names from picture-books and blocks with little outside help, but they will find it useful later on to know the _names_ of the letters and the _order_ of the alphabet. See to it that your boy learns to call the letters by their sounds, not their names, and help him to realize that the letters are the _signs of the sounds_, used to tell us what sounds we are to utter.

You have a sand-tray? Let the fat little finger practice making a round _o_ in it, while the rosy lips form the long _o_, as in n_o_ and l_o_rd, the short sound, as in n_o_t; or tracing crooked _s_ while he hisses like the geese on the common, or says “puss,” “sat,” and so on.

If you have a box of good, plain letters, let him pick out the _m_ in _m_ouse, the _t_ in table and in ra_t_. Your small blackboard will come in handy, for he will be most happy to print on it in chalks the letters as he learns them. Let him model their shapes in clay, draw and paint them in colors, make them out of slips and curves of colored cardboard, varying the practice as much as possible; and see to it that he is never bored. He will soon greatly enjoy identifying and cutting out large and small letters as he learns them from advertisements in big type, and pasting them in a “letter” scrapbook, made by fastening together a few sheets of brown paper. Guide him to class together _v_ and _f_, _r_ and _l_, _s_ and _z_, _b_ and _p_, _m_ and _n_, _t_ and _d_, and the vowels in their order, with a whole page to themselves--this with a view to the time when he begins to study seriously.

But that is looking far ahead. We have now brought him to the point of being ready for his first reading lesson. But do not hurry; give his eyes plenty of distance work, plenty of training in reading Nature’s wide-open book, before you put printed books into his hands. He is to be a keen lover of books, so make him want to read, and see to it that he is interested and happy every moment of the time given to his reading lesson.

Here is the method:

Buy three copies of some well-printed simple stories; put one copy aside, and cut up the other two, pasting the sheets on drawing-paper, alternate pages face down, so that you get one complete copy out of the two books.

Now cut up, line by line, and then word by word, the first little story, and put the words in a small tray or box. Perhaps it is, “Thank you, pretty cow.” So now print on your blackboard two or three of the words--_cow_, _milk_, _pretty_, the child earnestly watching and listening while you say the words very distinctly, giving the component sounds as clearly as you possibly can.

Then hand him the tray, and let him pick out the words and name them as you have done. Proceed in the same way with a few more words of the story, printing them as you go in a column on the board, and when he knows them up and down, in and out, the great moment has arrived. Your heart will beat as you put the little book--the copy that was not cut up--into his hands. He can read, so much at any rate, quite readily.

Note that there must be no spelling; it is “look and say.” Next day you take word-building with the box of letters, and a fine game you have, based on the words learned the day before. Add letters and syllables in every way you can think of, always giving sounds, not names; let the boy read, copy, take from dictation these new words for a happy twenty minutes. He is now learning to spell, that he may be able to write with the sound signs. Go on like this, reading one day, word-building the next, till several sets of little books have been used up.

Let him dramatize the little stories and poems whenever you can; take parts with him, thus laying the foundation of real, live reading aloud, without any disfiguring mannerisms or self-consciousness. His stock of words grows apace--ten a day will give over three thousand in a year--and little by little, as opportunity offers, the more complex sounds in our language and its puzzling irregularities are unfolded and made familiar. Thus reading, elocution, spelling, writing, all advance together.

THE STORY OF THE SPIDER AND THE BUTTERFLY

On the garden wall a brown [Illustration: Spider] was spinning her [Illustration: Web]. Backwards and forwards she went, making hundreds of little threads at once, twisting them into white ropes, arranging them with her feet and the little hooks on her jaws, and gluing them together where they crossed.

The [Illustration: Butterfly] stood on a [Illustration: Leaf] and watched.

“Is that to put your eggs in?” she asked at last. “Or do you put them on a cabbage?”

“On a cabbage! No, indeed!” said the [Illustration: Spider], staring with all her eight eyes at once. “I make a soft nest of silken threads to put them in.”

“That would not do for _my_ babies.” And the [Illustration: Butterfly] nodded her head and looked very wise. “They would get their wings fast in the threads.”

“Their what?” gasped the [Illustration: Spider], standing suddenly still in the middle of her [Illustration: Web].

“Their wings,” repeated the innocent [Illustration: Butterfly]. “I don’t think I dare let my children come to play with yours if you always hang [Illustration: Nets] about.”

“But your children won’t have wings!” gasped the [Illustration: Spider] again. “They won’t be baby [Illustration: Butterflies]!”

The [Illustration: Butterfly] laughed gaily.

“What a funny idea!” she said. “Your eggs hatch into baby [Illustration: Spiders], don’t they? and they don’t have wings. And the hen’s [Illustration: Eggs] hatch into little baby [Illustration: Chickens], and they do have wings, like the hen. I saw them this morning running after her, with all their wings stretched out. I suppose they are not old enough to fly yet. When my babies can fly, I shall go back to the flower garden.”

She flew away, leaving the astonished [Illustration: Spider] still sitting in the middle of her [Illustration: Web] trying to understand it all.

“Well!” she exclaimed to herself at last. “That’s what comes of having no mother! I always did say that the family arrangements of the [Illustration: Butterflies] are the most foolish I ever heard of.”

The [Illustration: Butterfly] was very busy, gumming her eggs safely underneath a cabbage leaf. Each little jar hung by its narrow end, as close to the next as could be.

“What a funny old [Illustration: Spider]!” she thought at last, when she had finished. “I wonder if she has finished that [Illustration: Web].”

“Have you found a cabbage to please you?” called the [Illustration: Spider].

“Well, I suppose it’s all right,” answered the [Illustration: Butterfly] a little doubtfully. “I don’t seem to be able to think of a better place to put my eggs, and I suppose the flowers will grow on the cabbage very soon. My baby [Illustration: Butterflies] will not be able to fly far at first to find honey.”

“You mean your creepy, crawly [Illustration: Caterpillars]!”

“Don’t you mean [Illustration: Spiders]?” asked the [Illustration: Butterfly], trying to be sarcastic.

“Nothing so sensible! If you want to see----”

“Hush! hush! Don’t quarrel!” said the Breeze, shaking the [Illustration: Spider]’s [Illustration: Web] and puffing at the [Illustration: Butterfly]’s wings.

“She says that my babies will be creepy, crawly----”

“Come away! come away! Come and find some honey!” said the Breeze.

He shook the [Illustration: Leaf] and the [Illustration: Butterfly] fell off. Then the Breeze so hurried her across the garden that when they reached the flowers she was out of breath with laughing.

“I suppose that old [Illustration: Spider] is jealous because her children will not be so pretty as my baby [Illustration: Butterflies]” she said.

LADY GRAY AND THE NUTS

One summer Robert and his father and mother lived in a little [Illustration: House] in the woods.

They saw a [Illustration: Squirrel] running about in the [Illustration: Trees].

Robert put some [Illustration: Nuts] on the ground, and hid behind a [Illustration: Tree]. Soon the [Illustration: Squirrel] came and carried them away.

The next day he put the [Illustration: Nuts] nearer the [Illustration: House]. The [Illustration: Squirrel] came again and carried them away.

So it went on for some time. Each day Robert put the [Illustration: Nuts] nearer the [Illustration: House].

They named the [Illustration: Squirrel] Lady Gray.

One day Robert’s mother sat down on a [Illustration: Chair] in the porch. She put some [Illustration: Nuts] on the floor and kept very still.

After a while Lady Gray came up on the porch. She looked at Robert’s mother, then she took a [Illustration: Nut] and ran off as fast as she could.

By-and-by Lady Gray became so gentle that she would hunt for [Illustration: Nuts] in their pockets.

One morning father put a [Illustration: Nut] on his shoulder. Lady Gray jumped on father’s shoulder and ate the [Illustration: Nut]. How they all laughed!

CUNNING NANCY AND HER KITTENS

Three little [Illustration: Kittens] were born in a [Illustration: House] where there were two lively [Illustration: Children] The [Illustration: Kittens] were at once named Tom, Dick, and Harry.

As soon as they were big enough to handle, the [Illustration: Children] began to carry them round, indoors and out. Nancy, the mamma [Illustration: Cat], did not like her [Illustration: Kittens] to be handled so much, for she knew it was not good for them. She mewed, but the children did not notice her distress.

Dick, a lovely grey, seemed to be her pet. She took the best care of him, and seemed most worried when the children picked him up.

One day little Dick could not be found. The [Illustration: Children] hunted for him, but in vain. They noticed that Nancy did not seem anxious, nor did she go looking for her lost [Illustration: Kitten].

They did not notice, however, that she would often go up the [Illustration: Stairs], and stay away awhile from Tom and Harry.

When washing day came, they found out all about it. In a low, dark [Illustration: Cupboard] upstairs, where the soiled clothes were kept, Nancy and Dick were found. Dick was snugly wrapped in the clothes, and purred contentedly. Mamma Nancy lay beside him. She had taken her favorite [Illustration: Kitten] and hidden him, so that the children should not play with him.

THE GOOD LITTLE STARS

Once upon a time a great many little [Illustration: Stars] lived up in the sky.

Their father was the [Illustration: Sun], and their mother was the [Illustration: Moon].

Usually these [Illustration: Stars] were good little [Illustration: Children]. They liked to help brighten the sky and so make the [Illustration: Earth] brighter.

But one night when their mother called to them to come and light up the sky, they came very slowly. They looked very cross. They did not shine when she told them to do so.

Mother [Illustration: Moon] felt sad. She called up from the [Illustration: Earth] some good little [Illustration: Stars]. They were only [Illustration: Flowers] on [Illustration: Earth], but Mother [Illustration: Moon] changed them into [Illustration: Stars] in the sky.

The naughty [Illustration: Stars] felt themselves falling. Faster and faster they fell, until they sank down into the [Illustration: Earth].

They cried and cried until they fell asleep for they were very sorry for what they had done.

In the morning Father [Illustration: Sun] shone out so brightly that everything, even the baby [Illustration: Stars] under the grass, wakened. They began to cry again.

Their father felt sorry for them. He told them they might shine on the [Illustration: Earth].

So now the stars shine in the sky at night, and in the morning, when Father [Illustration: Sun] shines for them, the [Illustration: Flowers] open their eyes and shine in the grass all day.

THE PANIC IN THE FOREST

A timid hare was resting one day in a grove of palm-trees, and a strange thought came into his head.

“What should I do if an earthquake occurred?”

At that moment a gust of wind shook the palm-trees, and some ripe fruit pattered down.

“An earthquake is beginning!” cried the timorous hare. And, starting up, he fled without daring to look behind him. A deer met him as he was racing along.

“What is the matter?” said the deer, catching up with him and running by his side.

“An earthquake is destroying the forest!” the hare gasped out.

The terrible news quickly spread among the hares, deer and rabbits, and they scampered away in wild terror. As they went on, they were joined by elks, buffaloes, elephants, tigers, and rhinoceroses.

“What is the matter?” said each animal in turn, as he joined the fugitives.

“An earthquake is destroying the forest!” they panted, rushing on, and never stopping to see if it were so. At last the line of frightened animals extended across the country for a full mile. All the smaller beasts standing in the path of the army of fugitives were unable to ask any question; they had to race ahead to avoid being trampled down. But as the maddened host was sweeping blindly down to the bank of a great river, which looked like being choked up with dead bodies, a lion came up, and stopped the frightened beasts with a terrible roar.

“What is the matter?” he said to the tigers.

“The buffaloes told us that an earthquake is coming,” said the tigers.

“Who saw it coming?” said the lion.

“We don’t know,” said the tigers. “The elephants know.”

“The rhinoceroses told us,” said the elephants.

“And we heard it from the buffaloes,” said the rhinoceroses, panting for breath.

The buffaloes heard it from the elks; the elks heard it from the deer; and at last it got down to the timid hare.

“Do you mean to tell me,” roared the lion, “that you have all been frightened to death by a timid little hare? Let us go to the grove of palm-trees, and witness this terrible earthquake.”

When they arrived there, the fruit was still pattering to the ground.

“Now, you see,” said the lion, “what comes of following the lead of the most timorous creature on earth. He has made you all more cowardly than he is himself. You ran away without even hearing the noise that frightened him. Henceforward avoid the gossip of the crowd, and trust to your own judgment.”

THE JOURNEY FROM THE CLOUDS TO THE SEA