FAULTS OF IMMATURITY.
A great portion of the errors and mistakes, and of what we call the
follies, of children arise from simple ignorance. Principles of philosophy,
whether pertaining to external nature or to mental action, are involved
which have never come home to their minds. They may have been presented,
but they have not been understood and appreciated. It requires some tact,
and sometimes delicate observation, on the part of the mother to determine
whether a mode of action which she sees ought to be corrected results from
childish ignorance and inexperience, or from willful wrong-doing. Whatever
may be the proper treatment in the latter case, it is evident that in the
former what is required is not censure, but instruction.
_Boasting_.
A mother came into the room one day and found Johnny disputing earnestly
with his Cousin Jane on the question which was the tallest--Johnny very
strenuously maintaining that he was the tallest, _because he was a boy_.
His older brother, James, who was present at the time, measured them, and
found that Johnny in reality was the tallest.
Now there was nothing wrong in his feeling a pride and pleasure in the
thought that he was physically superior to his cousin, and though it was
foolish for him to insist himself on this superiority in a boasting way,
it was the foolishness of ignorance only. He had not learned the
principle--which half mankind do not seem ever to learn during the whole
course of their lives--that it is far wiser and better to let our good
qualities appear naturally of themselves, than to claim credit for them
beforehand by boasting. It would have been much wiser for Johnny to have
admitted at the outset that Jane might possibly be taller than he, and then
to have awaited quietly the result of the measuring.
But we can not blame him much for not having learned this particular wisdom
at five years of age, when so many full-grown men and women never learn it
at all.
Nor was there any thing blameworthy in him in respect to the false logic
involved in his argument, that his being a boy made him necessarily taller
than his cousin, a girl of the same age. There was a _semblance_ of proof
in that fact--what the logicians term a presumption. But the reasoning
powers are very slowly developed in childhood. They are very seldom aided
by any instruction really adapted to the improvement of them; and we ought
not to expect that such children can at all clearly distinguish a semblance
from a reality in ideas so extremely abstruse as those relating to the
logical connection between the premises and the conclusion in a process of
ratiocination.
In this case as in the other we expect them to understand at once, without
instruction, what we find it extremely difficult to learn ourselves; for
a large portion of mankind prove themselves utterly unable ever to
discriminate between sound arguments and those which are utterly
inconsequent and absurd.
In a word, what Johnny requires in such a case as this is, not ridicule to
shame him out of his false reasoning, nor censure or punishment to cure him
of his boasting, but simply instruction.
And this instruction it is much better to give _not_ in direct connection
with the occurrence which indicated the want of it. If you attempt to
explain to your boy the folly of boasting in immediate connection with some
act of boasting of his own, he feels that you are really finding fault with
him; his mind instinctively puts itself into a position of defense, and the
truth which you wish to impart to it finds a much less easy admission.
If, for example, in this case Johnny's mother attempts on the spot to
explain to him the folly of boasting, and to show how much wiser it is for
us to let our good qualities, if we have any, speak for themselves, without
any direct agency of ours in claiming the merit of them, he listens
reluctantly and nervously as to a scolding in disguise. If he is a boy well
managed, he waits, perhaps, to hear what his mother has to say, but it
makes no impression. If he is badly trained, he will probably interrupt his
mother in the midst of what she is saying, or break away from her to go on
with his play.
_A right Mode of Treatment._
If now, instead of this, the mother waits until the dispute and the
transaction of measuring have passed by and been forgotten, and then takes
some favorable opportunity to give the required _instruction_, the result
will be far more favorable. At some time, when tired of his play, he comes
to stand by her to observe her at her work, or perhaps to ask her for a
story; or, after she has put him to bed and is about to leave him for the
night, she says to him as follows:
"I'll tell you a story about two boys, Jack and Henry, and you shall tell
me which of them came off best. They both went to the same school and were
in the same class, and there was nobody else in the class but those two.
Henry, who was the most diligent scholar, was at the head of the class, and
Jack was below him, and, of course, as there were only two, he was at the
foot.
"One day there was company at the house, and one of the ladies asked the
boys how they got along at school. Jack immediately said, 'Very well. I'm
next to the head of my class.' The lady then praised him, and said that
he must be a very good scholar to be so high in his class. Then she asked
Henry how high he was in his class. He said he was next to the foot.
"The lady was somewhat surprised, for she, as well as the others present,
supposed that Henry was the best scholar; they were all a little puzzled
too, for Henry looked a little roguish and sly when he said it. But just
then the teacher came in, and she explained the case; for she said that the
boys were in the same class, and they were all that were in it; so that
Henry, who was really at the head, was next but one to the foot, while
Jack, who was at the foot, was next but one to the head. On having this
explanation made to the company, Jack felt very much confused and ashamed,
while Henry, though he said nothing, could not help feeling pleased.
"And now," asks the mother, in conclusion, "which of these boys do you
think came off the best?"
Johnny answers that Henry came out best.
"Yes," adds his mother, "and it is always better that people's merits, if
they have any, should come out in other ways than by their own boasting of
them."
It is true that this case of Henry and Jack does not correspond
exactly--not even nearly, in fact--with that of Johnny and his cousin. Nor
is it necessary that the instruction given in these ways should logically
conform to the incident which calls them forth. It is sufficient that there
should be such a degree of analogy between them, that the interest and turn
of thought produced by the incident may prepare the mind for appreciating
and receiving the lesson. But the mother may bring the lesson nearer if she
pleases.
"I will tell you another story," she says. "There were two men at a fair.
Their names were Thomas and Philip.
"Thomas was boasting of his strength. He said he was a great deal stronger
than Philip. 'Perhaps you are,' said Philip. Then Thomas pointed to a big
stone which was lying upon the ground, and dared Philip to try which could
throw it the farthest. 'Very well,' said Philip, 'I will try, but I think
it very likely you will beat me, for I know you are very strong.' So they
tried, and it proved that Philip could throw it a great deal farther than
Thomas could. Then Thomas went away looking very much incensed and very
much ashamed, while Philip's triumph was altogether greater for his not
having boasted."
"Yes," says Johnny, "I think so."
The mother may, if she pleases, come still nearer than this, if she wishes
to suit Johnny's individual case, without exciting any resistance in his
heart to the reception of her lesson. She may bring his exact case into
consideration, provided she changes the names of the actors, so that
Johnny's mind may be relieved from the uneasy sensitiveness which it is so
natural for a child to feel when his own conduct is directly the object
of unfavorable comment. It is surprising how slight a change in the mere
outward incidents of an affair will suffice to divert the thoughts of the
child from himself in such a case, and enable him to look at the lesson to
be imparted without personal feeling, and so to receive it more readily.
Johnny's mother may say, "There might be a story in a book about two boys
that were disputing a little about which was the tallest. What do you think
would be good names for the boys, if you were making up such a story?"
When Johnny has proposed the names, his mother could go on and give an
almost exact narrative of what took place between Johnny and his cousin,
offering just such instructions and such advice as she would like to offer;
and she will find, if she manages the conversation with ordinary tact and
discretion, that the lessons which she desires to impart will find a ready
admission to the mind of her child, simply from the fact that, by divesting
them of all direct personal application, she has eliminated from them the
element of covert censure which they would otherwise have contained. Very
slight disguises will, in all such cases, be found to be sufficient to veil
the personal applicability of the instruction, so far as to divest it of
all that is painful or disagreeable to the child. He may have a vague
feeling that you mean him, but the feeling will not produce any effect of
irritation or repellency.
Now, the object of these illustrations is to show that those errors and
faults which, when we look at their real and intrinsic character, we see to
be results of ignorance and inexperience, and not instances of willful
and intentional wrong-doing, are not to be dealt with harshly, and made
occasions of censure and punishment. The child does not deserve censure
or punishment in such cases; what he requires is instruction. It is the
bringing in of light to illuminate the path that is before him which he has
yet to tread, and not the infliction of pain, to impress upon him the evil
of the missteps he made, in consequence of the obscurity, in the path
behind him.
Indeed, in such cases as this, it is the influence of pleasure rather than
pain that the parent will find the most efficient means of aiding him; that
is, in these cases, the more pleasant and agreeable the modes by which he
can impart the needed knowledge to the child--in other words, the more
attractive he can make the paths by which he can lead his little charge
onward in its progress towards maturity--the more successful he will be.
_Ignorance of Material Properties and Laws._
In the example already given, the mental immaturity consisted in imperfect
acquaintance with the qualities and the action of the mind, and the
principles of sound reasoning; but a far larger portion of the mistakes
and failures into which children fall, and for which they incur undeserved
censure, are due to their ignorance of the laws of external nature, and of
the properties and qualities of material objects.
A boy, for example, seven or eight years old, receives from his father a
present of a knife, with a special injunction to be careful of it. He
is, accordingly, very careful of it in respect to such dangers as he
understands, but in attempting to bore a hole with it in a piece of wood,
out of which he is trying to make a windmill, he breaks the small blade.
The accident, in such a case, is not to be attributed to any censurable
carelessness, but to want of instruction in respect to the strength of such
a material as steel, and the nature and effects of the degree of tempering
given to knife-blades. The boy had seen his father bore holes with a
gimlet, and the knife-blade was larger--in one direction at least, that is,
in breadth--than the gimlet, and it was very natural for him to suppose
that it was stronger. What a boy needs in such a case, therefore, is not a
scolding, or punishment, but simply information.
A girl of about the same age--a farmer's daughter, we will suppose--under
the influence of a dutiful desire to aid her mother in preparing the table
for breakfast, attempts to carry across the room a pitcher of milk which is
too full, and she spills a portion of it upon the floor.
_The Intention good_.
[Illustration: THE INTENTION GOOD.]
The mother, forgetting the good intention which prompted the act, and
thinking only of the inconvenience which it occasions her, administers at
once a sharp rebuke. The cause of the trouble was, simply, that the child
was not old enough to understand the laws of momentum and of oscillation
that affect the condition of a fluid when subjected to movements more or
less irregular. She has had no theoretical instruction on the subject,
and is too young to have acquired the necessary knowledge practically, by
experience or observation.
It is so with a very large portion of the accidents which befall children.
They arise not from any evil design, nor even any thing that can properly
be called carelessness, on their part, but simply from the immaturity of
their knowledge in respect to the properties and qualities of the material
objects with which they have to deal.
It is true that children may be, and often, doubtless, are, in fault for
these accidents. The boy may have been warned by his father not to attempt
to bore with his knife-blade, or the girl forbidden to attempt to carry the
milk-pitcher. The fault, however, would be, even in these cases, in the
disobedience, and not in the damage that accidentally resulted from it. And
it would be far more reasonable and proper to reprove and punish the fault
when no evil followed than when a damage was the result; for in the
latter case the damage itself acts, ordinarily, as a more than sufficient
punishment.
_Misfortunes befalling Men_.
These cases are exactly analogous to a large class of accidents and
calamities that happen among men. A ship-master sails from port at a time
when there are causes existing in the condition of the atmosphere, and in
the agencies in readiness to act upon it, that must certainly, in a few
hours, result in a violent storm. He is consequently caught in the gale,
and his topmasts and upper rigging are carried away. The owners do not
censure him for the loss which they incur, if they are only assured that
the meteorological knowledge at the captain's command at the time of
leaving port was not such as to give him warning of the danger; and
provided, also, that his knowledge was as advanced as could reasonably be
expected from the opportunities which he had enjoyed. But we are very much
inclined to hold children responsible for as much knowledge of the sources
of danger around them as we ourselves, with all our experience, have been
able to acquire, and are accustomed to condemn and sometimes even to punish
them, for want of this knowledge.
Indeed, in many cases, both with children and with men, the means of
knowledge in respect to the danger may be fully within reach, and yet
the situation may be so novel, and the combination of circumstances so
peculiar, that the connection between the causes and the possible evil
effects does not occur to the minds of the persons engaged. An accident
which has just occurred at the time of this present writing will illustrate
this. A company of workmen constructing a tunnel for a railway, when they
had reached the distance of some miles from the entrance, prepared a number
of charges for blasting the rock, and accidentally laid the wires connected
with the powder in too close proximity to the temporary railway-track
already laid in the tunnel. The charges were intended to be fired from an
electric battery provided for the purpose; but a thunder-cloud came up, and
the electric force from it was conveyed by the rails into the tunnel and
exploded the charges, and several men were killed. No one was inclined to
censure the unfortunate men for carelessness in not guarding against a
contingency so utterly unforeseen by them, though it is plain that, as
is often said to children in precisely analogous cases, they _might have
known_.
_Children's Studies_.--_Spelling_.
There is, perhaps, no department of the management of children in which
they incur more undeserved censure, and even punishment, and are treated
with so little consideration for faults arising solely from the immaturity
of their minds, than in the direction of what may be called school studies.
Few people have any proper appreciation of the enormous difficulties which
a child has to encounter in learning to read and spell. How many parents
become discouraged, and manifest their discouragement and dissatisfaction
to the child in reproving and complaints, at what they consider his slow
progress in learning to spell--forgetting that in the English language
there are in common, every-day use eight or ten thousand words, almost all
of which are to be learned separately, by a bare and cheerless toil of
committing to memory, with comparatively little definite help from the
sound. We have ourselves become so accustomed to seeing the word _bear_,
for example, when denoting the animal, spelt _b e a r_, that we are very
prone to imagine that there is something naturally appropriate in those
letters and in that collocation of them, to represent that sound when used
to denote that idea. But what is there in the nature and power of
the letters to aid the child in perceiving--or, when told, in
remembering--whether, when referring to the animal, he is to write _bear_,
or _bare_, or _bair_, or _bayr_, or _bere_, as in _where_. So with the word
_you._ It seems to us the most natural thing in the world to spell it _y
o u_. And when the little pupil, judging by the sound, writes it _y u_, we
mortify him by our ridicule, as if he had done something in itself absurd.
But how is he to know, except by the hardest, most meaningless, and
distasteful toil of the memory, whether he is to write _you_, or _yu_, or
_yoo,_ or _ewe_, or _yew_, or _yue_, as in _flue_, or even _yo_ as in
_do_, and to determine when and in what cases respectively he is to use
those different forms?
The truth is, that each elementary sound that enters into the composition
of words is represented in our language by so many different combinations
of letters, in different cases, that the child has very little clue from
the sound of a syllable to guide him in the spelling of it. We ourselves,
from long habit, have become so accustomed to what we call the right
spelling--which, of course, means nothing more than the customary one--that
we are apt to imagine, as has already been said, that there is some natural
fitness in it; and a mode of representing the same sound, which in one case
seems natural and proper, in another appears ludicrous and absurd. We smile
to see _laugh_ spelled _larf,_ just as we should to see _scarf_ spelled
_scaugh_, or _scalf_, as in _half_; and we forget that this perception of
apparent incongruity is entirely the result of long habit in us, and has no
natural foundation, and that children can not be sensible of it, or have
any idea of it whatever. They learn, in learning to talk, what sound serves
as the name by which the drops of water that they find upon the grass in
the morning is denoted, but they can have no clue whatever to guide them
in determining which of the various modes by which precisely that sound is
represented in different words, as _dew, do, due, du, doo_, and _dou_,
is to be employed in this case, and they become involved in hopeless
perplexity if they attempt to imagine "_how it ought to be spelled_;" and
we think them stupid because they can not extricate themselves from the
difficulty on our calling upon them to "think!" No doubt there is a
reason for the particular mode of spelling each particular word in the
language--but that reason is hidden in the past history of the word and in
facts connected with its origin and derivation from some barbarous or dead
language, and is as utterly beyond the reach of each generation of spellers
as if there were no such reasons in existence. There can not be the
slightest help in any way from the exercise of the thinking or the
reasoning powers.
It is true that the variety of the modes by which a given sound may be
represented is not so great in all words as it is in these examples, though
with respect to a vast number of the words in common use the above are
fair specimens. They were not specially selected, but were taken almost at
random. And there are very few words in the language the sound of which
might not be represented by several different modes.
Take, for example, the three last words of the last sentence, which, as the
words were written without any thought of using them for this purpose,
may be considered, perhaps, as a fair specimen of words taken actually
at random. The sound of the word _several_ might be expressed in perfect
accordance with the usage of English spelling, as _ceveral, severul,
sevaral, cevural_, and in many other different modes. The combinations
_dipherant, diferunt, dyfferent, diffurunt_, and many others, would as
well represent the sound of the second word as the usual mode. And so with
_modes_, which, according to the analogy of the language, might as well
be expressed by _moads, mowdes, moades, mohdes_, or even _mhodes_, as in
_Rhodes_.
An exceptionally precise speaker might doubtless make some slight
difference in the sounds indicated by the different modes of representing
the same syllable as given above; but to the ordinary appreciation of
childhood the distinction in sound between such combinations, for
example, as _a n t_ in _constant_ and _e n t_ in _different_ would not be
perceptible.
Now, when we consider the obvious fact that the child has to learn
mechanically, without any principles whatever to guide him in discovering
which, out of the many different forms, equally probable, judging simply
from analogy, by which the sound of the word is to be expressed, is the
right one; and considering how small a portion of his time each day is or
can be devoted to this work, and that the number of words in common use,
all of which he is expected to know how to spell correctly by the time that
he is twelve or fifteen years of age, is probably ten or twelve thousand
(there are in Webster's dictionary considerably over a hundred thousand);
when we take these considerations into account, it would seem that a
parent, on finding that a letter written by his daughter, twelve or
fourteen years of age, has all but three or four words spelled right,
ought to be pleased and satisfied, and to express his satisfaction for the
encouragement of the learner, instead of appearing to think only of the
few words that are wrong, and disheartening and discouraging the child by
attempts to make her ashamed of her spelling.
The case is substantially the same with the enormous difficulties to be
encountered in learning to read and to write. The names of the letters, as
the child pronounces them individually, give very little clue to the sound
that is to be given to the word formed by them. Thus, the letters _h i
t_, as the child pronounces them individually--_aitch, eye, tee_--would
naturally spell to him some such word as _achite_, not _hit_ at all. And as
for the labor and difficulty of writing, a mother who is impatient at the
slow progress of her children in the attainment of the art would be
aided very much in obtaining a just idea of the difficulties which they
experience by sitting upon a chair and at a table both much too high for
her, and trying to copy Chinese characters by means of a hair-pencil, and
with her left hand--the work to be closely inspected every day by a stern
Chinaman of whom she stands in awe, and all the minutest deviations from
the copy pointed out to her attention with an air of dissatisfaction and
reproval!
_Effect of Ridicule_.
There is, perhaps, no one cause which exerts a greater influence in
chilling the interest that children naturally feel in the acquisition of
knowledge, than the depression and discouragement which result from having
their mistakes and errors--for a large portion of which they are in no
sense to blame--made subjects of censure or ridicule. The effect is still
more decided in the case of girls than in that of boys, the gentler sex
being naturally so much more sensitive. I have found in many cases,
especially in respect to girls who are far enough advanced to have had a
tolerably full experience of the usual influences of schools, that the fear
of making mistakes, and of being "thought stupid," has had more effect in
hindering and retarding progress, by repressing the natural ardor of the
pupil, and destroying all alacrity and courage in the efforts to advance,
than all other causes combined.
_Stupidity_.
How ungenerous, and even cruel, it is to reproach or ridicule a child for
stupidity, is evident when we reflect that any supposed inferiority in
his mental organization can not, by any possibility, be _his_ fault. The
question what degree of natural intelligence he shall be endowed with, in
comparison with other children, is determined, not by himself, but by his
Creator, and depends, probably, upon conditions of organization in his
cerebral system as much beyond his control as any thing abnormal in the
features of his face, or blindness, or deafness, or any other physical
disadvantage. The child who shows any indications of inferiority to others
in any of these respects should be the object of his parent's or his
teacher's special tenderness and care. If he is near-sighted, give him, at
school, a seat as convenient as possible to the blackboard or the map.
If he is hard of hearing, place him near the teacher; and for reasons
precisely analogous, if you suspect him to be of inferior capacity, help
him gently and tenderly in every possible way. Do every thing in your power
to encourage him, and to conceal his deficiencies both from others and from
himself, so far as these objects can be attained consistently with the
general good of the family or of the school.
And, at all events, let those who have in any way the charge of children
keep the distinction well defined in their minds between the faults which
result from evil intentions, or deliberate and willful neglect of known
duty, and those which, whatever the inconvenience they may occasion, are in
part or in whole the results of mental or physical immaturity. In all our
dealings, whether with plants, or animals, or with the human soul, we
ought, in our training, to act very gently in respect to all that pertains
to the embryo condition.