THE IMAGINATION IN CHILDREN.
The reader may, perhaps, recollect that in the last chapter there was
an intimation that a portion of the force which was produced, or rather
liberated and brought into action, by the consumption of food in the vital
system, expended itself in the development of thoughts, emotions, and other
forms of mental action, through the organization of the brain and of the
nerves.
_Expenditure of Force through the Brain._
The whole subject of the expenditure of material force in maintaining those
forms of mental action which are carried on through the medium of bodily
organs, it must be admitted, is involved in great obscurity; for it is only
a glimmering of light which science has yet been able to throw into
this field. It is, however, becoming the settled opinion, among all
well-informed persons, that the soul, during the time of its connection
with a material system in this life, performs many of those functions
which we class as mental, through the medium, or instrumentality, in some
mysterious way, of material organs, just as we all know is the case with
the sensations--that is, the impressions made through the organs of sense;
and that the maintaining of these mental organs, so to speak, in action,
involves a certain expenditure of some form of physical force, the source
of this force being in the food that is consumed in the nourishment of the
body.
There is certainly no apparent reason why there should be any antecedent
presumption against the supposition that the soul performs the act of
remembering or of conceiving an imaginary scene through the instrumentality
of a bodily organ, more than that it should receive a sensation of light or
of sound through such a channel. The question of the independent existence
and the immateriality of the thinking and feeling principle, which takes
cognizance of these thoughts and sensations, is not at all affected by any
inquiries into the nature of the instrumentality by means of which, in a
particular stage of its existence, it performs these functions.
_Phenomena explained by this Principle_.
This truth, if it be indeed a truth, throws great light on what would
be otherwise quite inexplicable in the playful activity of the
mental faculties of children. The curious fantasies, imaginings, and
make-believes--the pleasure of listening to marvellous and impossible
tales, and of hearing odd and unpronounceable words or combination of words
--the love of acting, and of disguises--of the impersonation of inanimate
objects--of seeing things as they are not, and of creating and giving
reality to what has no existence except in their own minds--are all the
gambollings and frolics, so to speak, of the embryo faculties just becoming
conscious of their existence, and affording, like the muscles of motion, so
many different issues for the internal force derived from the food. Thus
the action of the mind of a child, in holding an imaginary conversation
with a doll, or in inventing or in relating an impossible fairy story, or
in converting a switch on which he pretends to be riding into a prancing
horse, is precisely analogous to that of the muscles of the lamb, or the
calf, or any other young animal in its gambols--that is, it is the result
of the force which the vital functions are continually developing within
the system, and which flows and must flow continually out through whatever
channels are open to it; and in thus flowing, sets all the various systems
of machinery into play, each in its own appropriate manner.
In any other view of the subject than this, many of the phenomena of
childhood would be still more wonderful and inexplicable than they are.
One would have supposed, for example, that the imagination--being, as
is commonly thought, one of the most exalted and refined of the mental
faculties of man--would be one of the latest, in the order of time, to
manifest itself in the development of the mind; instead of which it is,
in fact, one of the earliest. Children live, in a great measure, from the
earliest age in an ideal world--their pains and their pleasures, their joys
and their fears being, to a vast extent, the concomitants of phantasms and
illusions having often the slightest bond of connection with the realities
around them. The realities themselves, moreover, often have far greater
influence over them by what they suggest than by what they are.
Indeed, the younger the child is, within reasonable limits, the more
susceptible he seems to be to the power of the imagination, and the more
easily his mind and heart are reached and influenced through this avenue.
At a very early period the realities of actual existence and the phantasms
of the mind seem inseparably mingled, and it is only after much experience
and a considerable development of his powers, that the line of distinction
between them becomes defined. The power of investing an elongated bag of
bran with the attributes and qualities of a thinking being, so as to make
it an object of solicitude and affection, which would seem to imply a high
exercise of one of the most refined and exalted of the human faculties,
does not come, as we might have expected, at the end of a long period of
progress and development, but springs into existence, as it were, at once,
in the very earliest years. The progress and development are required to
enable the child to perceive that the rude and shapeless doll is _not_ a
living and lovable thing. This mingling of the real and imaginary worlds
shows itself to the close observer in a thousand curious ways.
The true explanation of the phenomenon seems to be that the various embryo
faculties are brought into action by the vital force at first in a very
irregular, intermingled, and capricious manner, just as the muscles are
in the endless and objectless play of the limbs and members. They develop
themselves and grow by this very action, and we ought not only to indulge,
but to cherish the action in all its beautiful manifestations by every
means in our power. These mental organs, so to speak--that is, the organs
of the brain, through which, while its connection with the body continues,
the mind performs its mental functions--grow and thrive, as the muscles do,
by being reasonably kept in exercise.
It is evident, from these facts, that the parent should be pleased with,
and should encourage the exercise of these embryo powers in his children;
and both father and mother may be greatly aided in their efforts to devise
means for reaching and influencing their hearts by means of them, and
especially through the action of the imagination, which will be found, when
properly employed, to be capable of exercising an almost magical power
of imparting great attractiveness and giving great effect to lessons of
instruction which, in their simple form, would be dull, tiresome, and
ineffective. Precisely what is meant by this will be shown more clearly by
some examples.
_Methods exemplified_.
One of the simplest and easiest modes by which a mother can avail herself
of the vivid imagination of the child in amusing and entertaining him,
is by holding conversations with representations of persons, or even of
animals, in the pictures which she shows him. Thus, in the case, for
example, of a picture which she is showing to her child sitting in her
lap--the picture containing, we will suppose, a representation of a little
girl with books under her arm--she may say,
"My little girl, where are you going?--I am going" (speaking now in a
somewhat altered voice, to represent the voice of the little girl) "to
school.--Ah! you are going to school. You don't look quite old enough to
go to school. Who sits next to you at school?--George Williams.--George
Williams? Is he a good boy?--Yes, he's a very good boy.--I am glad you have
a good boy, and one that is kind to you, to sit by you. That must be very
pleasant." And so on, as long as the child is interested in listening.
Or, "What is your name, my little girl?--My name is Lucy.--That's a pretty
name! And where do you live?--I live in that house under the trees.--Ah! I
see the house. And where is your room in that house?--My room is the
one where you see the window open.--I see it. What have you got in your
room?--I have a bed, and a table by the window; and I keep my doll there. I
have got a cradle for my doll, and a little trunk to keep her clothes in.
And I have got--" The mother may go on in this way, and describe a great
number and variety of objects in the room, such as are calculated to
interest and please the little listener.
It is the pleasurable exercise of some dawning faculty or faculties acting
through embryo organs of the brain, by which the mind can picture to
itself, more or less vividly, unreal scenes, which is the source of the
enjoyment in such cases as this.
A child may be still more interested, perhaps, by imaginary conversations
of this kind with pictures of animals, and by varying the form of them in
such a way as to call a new set of mental faculties into play; as, for
example,
"Here is a picture of a squirrel. I'll ask him where he lives. 'Bunny!
bunny! stop a minute; I want to speak to you. I want you to tell me where
you live.--I live in my hole.--Where is your hole?--It is under that big
log that you see back in the woods.' Yes" (speaking now to the child), "I
see the log. Do you see it? Touch it with your finger. Yes, that must be
it. But I don't see any hole. 'Bunny' (assuming now the tone of speaking
again to the squirrel), 'I don't see your hole.--No, I did not mean that
any body should see it. I made it in a hidden place in the ground, so as
to have it out of sight.--I wish I could see it, and I wish more that I
could look down into it and see what is there. What is there _in_ your
hole, bunny?--My nest is there, and my little bunnies.--How many little
bunnies have you got?'"--And so on, to any extent that you desire.
It is obvious that conversations of this kind may be made the means of
conveying, indirectly, a great deal of instruction to young children on a
great variety of subjects; and lessons of duty may be inculcated thus in a
very effective manner, and by a method which is at the same time easy and
agreeable for the mother, and extremely attractive to the child.
This may seem a very simple thing, and it is really very simple; but any
mother who has never resorted to this method of amusing and instructing her
child will be surprised to find what an easy and inexhaustible resource for
her it may become. Children are always coming to ask for stories, and the
mother often has no story at hand, and her mind is too much preoccupied to
invent one. Here is a ready resort in every such emergency.
"Very well," replies the mother to such a request, "I'll tell you a story;
but I must have a picture to my story. Find me a picture in some book."
The child brings a picture, no matter what. There is no possible picture
that will not suggest to a person possessed of ordinary ingenuity an
endless number of talks to interest and amuse the child. To take an extreme
case, suppose the picture is a rude pencil drawing of a post, and nothing
besides. You can imagine a boy hidden behind the post, and you can call to
him, and finally obtain an answer from him, and have a long talk with him
about his play and who he is hiding from, and what other way he has of
playing with his friend. Or you can talk with the post directly. Ask him
where he came from, who put him in the ground, and what he was put in the
ground for, and what kind of a tree he was when he was a part of a tree
growing in the woods; and, following the subject out, the conversation may
be the means of not only amusing the child for the moment, but also
of gratifying his curiosity, and imparting a great amount of useful
information to him which will materially aid in the development of his
powers.
Or you may ask the post whether he has any relatives, and he may reply that
he has a great many cousins. He has some cousins that live in the city, and
they are called lamp-posts, and their business is to hold lamps to light
people along the streets; and he has some other cousins who stand in a long
row and hold up the telegraph-wire to carry messages from one part of the
world to another; and so on without end. If all this may done by means of a
rude representation of a simple post, it may easily be seen that no picture
which the child can possibly bring can fail to serve as a subject for such
conversations.
Some mothers may, perhaps, think it must require a great deal of ingenuity
and skill to carry out these ideas effectively in practice, and that is
true; or rather, it is true that there is in it scope for the exercise of
a great deal of ingenuity and skill, and even of genius, for those who
possess these qualities; but the degree of ingenuity required for a
commencement in this method is very small, and that necessary for complete
success in it is very easily acquired.
_Personification of Inanimate Objects_.
It will at once occur to the mother that any inanimate object may be
personified in this way and addressed as a living and intelligent being.
Your child is sick, I will suppose, and is somewhat feverish and fretful.
In adjusting his dress you prick him a little with a pin, and the pain
and annoyance acting on his morbid sensibilities bring out expressions of
irritation and ill-humor. Now you may, if you please, tell him that he must
not be so impatient, that you did not mean to hurt him, that he must not
mind a little prick, and the like, and you will meet with the ordinary
success that attends such admonitions. Or, in the spirit of the foregoing
suggestions, you may say,
"Did the pin prick you? I'll catch the little rogue, and hear what he has
to say for himself. Ah, here he is--I've caught him! I'll hold him fast.
Lie still in my lap, and we will hear what he has to say.
"'Look up here, my little prickler, and tell me what your name is.--My name
is pin.--Ah, your name is pin, is it? How bright you are! How came you to
be so bright?--Oh, they brightened me when they made me.--Indeed! And how
did they make you?--They made me in a machine.--In a machine? That's very
curious! How did they make you in the machine? Tell us all about it!--They
made me out of wire. First the machine cut off a piece of the wire long
enough to make me, and then I was carried around to different parts of the
machine to have different things done to me. I went first to one part to
get straightened. Don't you see how straight I am?--Yes, you are very
straight indeed.--Then I went to another part of the machine and had my
head put on; and then I went to another part and had my point sharpened;
and then I was polished, and covered all over with a beautiful silvering,
to make me bright and white.'"
And so on indefinitely. The mother may continue the talk as long as the
child is interested, by letting the pin give an account of the various
adventures that happened to it in the course of its life, and finally call
it to account for pricking a poor little sick child.
Any mother can judge whether such a mode of treating the case, or the more
usual one of gravely exhorting the child to patience and good-humor, when
sick, is likely to be most effectual in soothing the nervous irritation of
the little patient, and restoring its mind to a condition of calmness and
repose.
The mother who reads these suggestions in a cursory manner, and contents
herself with saying that they are very good, but makes no resolute and
persevering effort to acquire for herself the ability to avail herself of
them, will have no idea of the immense practical value of them as a means
of aiding her in her work, and in promoting the happiness of her children.
But if she will make the attempt, she will most certainly find enough
encouragement in her first effort to induce her to persevere.
[Illustration: THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY.]
She must, moreover, not only originate, herself, modes of amusing the
imagination of her children, but must fall in with and aid those which
_they_ originate. If your little daughter is playing with her doll, look up
from your work and say a few words to the doll or the child in a grave and
serious manner, assuming that the doll is a living and sentient being. If
your boy is playing horses in the garden while you are there attending to
your flowers, ask him with all gravity what he values his horse at, and
whether he wishes to sell him. Ask him whether he ever bites, or breaks out
of his pasture; and give him some advice about not driving him too fast up
hill, and not giving him oats when he is warm. He will at once enter into
such a conversation in the most serious manner, and the pleasure of his
play will be greatly increased by your joining with him in maintaining the
illusion.
There is a still more important advantage than the temporary increase to
your children's happiness by acting on this principle. By thus joining with
them, even for a few moments, in their play, you establish a closer bond
of sympathy between your own heart and theirs, and attach them to you more
strongly than you can do by any other means. Indeed, in many cases the most
important moral lessons can be conveyed in connection with these illusions
of children, and in a way not only more agreeable but far more effective
than by any other method.
_Influence without Claim to Authority_.
Acting through the imagination of children--if the art of doing so is once
understood--will prove at once an invaluable and an inexhaustible resource
for all those classes of persons who are placed in situations requiring
them to exercise an influence over children without having any proper
authority over them; such, for example, as uncles and aunts, older brothers
and sisters, and even visitors residing more or less permanently in a
family, and desirous, from a wish to do good, of promoting the welfare and
the improvement of the younger members of it. It often happens that such
a visitor, without any actual right of authority, acquires a greater
influence over the minds of the children than the parents themselves; and
many a mother, who, with all her threatenings and scoldings, and even
punishments, can not make herself obeyed, is surprised at the absolute
ascendency which some inmate residing in the family acquires over them by
means so silent, gentle, and unpretending, that they seem mysterious and
almost magical. "What is the secret of it?" asks the mother sometimes in
such a case. "You never punish the children, and you never scold them, and
yet they obey you a great deal more readily and certainly than they do me."
There are a great many different means which may be employed in combination
with each other for acquiring this kind of ascendency, and among them the
use which may be made of the power of the imagination in the young is one
of the most important.
_The Intermediation of the Dolls again_.
A young teacher, for example, in returning from school some day, finds the
children of the family in which she resides, who have been playing with
their dolls in the yard, engaged in some angry dispute. The first impulse
with many persons in such a case might be to sit down with the children
upon the seat where they were playing, and remonstrate with them, though
in a very kind and gentle manner, on the wrongfulness and folly of such
disputings, to show them that the thing in question is not worth disputing
about, that angry feelings are uncomfortable and unhappy feelings, and that
it is, consequently, not only a sin, but a folly to indulge in them.
Now such a remonstrance, if given in a kind and gentle manner, will
undoubtedly do good. The children will be somewhat less likely to become
involved in such a dispute immediately after it than before, and in process
of time, and through many repetitions of such counsels, the fault may
be gradually cured. Still, at the time, it will make the children
uncomfortable, by producing in their minds a certain degree of irritation.
They will be very apt to listen in silence, and with a morose and sullen
air; and if they do not call the admonition a scolding, on account of the
kind and gentle tones in which it is delivered, they will be very apt to
consider it much in that light.
Suppose, however, that, instead of dealing with the case in this
matter-of-fact and naked way, the teacher calls the imagination of the
children to her aid, and administers her admonition and reproof indirectly,
through the dolls. She takes the dolls in her hand, asks their names, and
inquires which of the two girls is the mother of each. The dolls' names are
Bella and Araminta, and the mothers' are Lucy and Mary.
"But I might have asked Araminta herself," she adds; and, so saying, she
holds the doll before her, and enters into a long imaginary conversation
with her, more or less spirited and original, according to the talent and
ingenuity of the young lady, but, in any conceivable case, enough so to
completely absorb the attention of the children and fully to occupy their
minds. She asks each of them her name, and inquires of each which of the
girls is her mother, and makes first one of them, and then the other, point
to her mother in giving her answer. By this time the illusion is completely
established in the children's minds of regarding their dolls as living
beings, responsible to mothers for their conduct and behavior; and the
young lady can go on and give her admonitions and instructions in respect
to the sin and folly of quarrelling to them--the children listening. And it
will be found that by this management the impression upon the minds of the
children will be far greater and more effective than if the counsels were
addressed directly to them; while, at the same time, though they may even
take the form of very severe reproof, they will produce no sullenness or
vexation in the minds of those for whom they are really intended. Indeed,
the very reason why the admonition thus given will be so much more
effective is the fact that it does _not_ tend in any degree to awaken
resentment and vexation, but associates the lesson which the teacher wishes
to convey with amusement and pleasure.
"You are very pretty"--she says, we will suppose, addressing the
dolls--"and you look very amiable. I suppose you _are_ very amiable."
Then, turning to the children, she asks, in a confidential undertone, "Do
they ever get into disputes and quarrels?"
"_Sometimes,_" says one of the children, entering at once into the idea of
the teacher.
"Ah!" the teacher exclaims, turning again to the dolls. "I hear that you
dispute and quarrel sometimes, and I am very sorry for it. That is very
foolish. It is only silly little children that we expect will dispute and
quarrel. I should not have supposed it possible in the case of such young
ladies as you. It is a great deal better to be yielding and kind. If one of
you says something that the other thinks is not true, let it pass without
contradiction; it is foolish to dispute about it. And so if one has any
thing that the other wants, it is generally much better to wait for it than
to quarrel. It is hateful to quarrel. Besides, it spoils your beauty. When
children are quarrelling they look like little furies."
The teacher may go on in this way, and give a long moral lecture to the
dolls in a tone of mock gravity, and the children will listen to it with
the most profound attention; and it will have a far greater influence upon
them than the same admonitions addressed directly to _them_.
So effectually, in fact, will this element of play in the transaction open
their hearts to the reception of good counsel, that even direct admonitions
to _them_ will be admitted with it, if the same guise is maintained; for
the teacher may add, in conclusion, addressing now the children themselves
with the same mock solemnity:
"That is a very bad fault of your children--very bad, indeed. And it is one
that you will find very hard to correct. You must give them a great deal
of good counsel on the subject, and, above all, you must be careful to set
them a good example yourselves. Children always imitate what they see in
their mothers, whether it is good or bad. If you are always amiable and
kind to one another, they will be so too."
The thoughtful mother, in following out the suggestions here given, will
see at once how the interest which the children take in their dolls, and
the sense of reality which they feel in respect to all their dealings with
them, opens before her a boundless field in respect to modes of reaching
and influencing their minds and hearts.
_The Ball itself made to teach Carefulness_.
There is literally no end to the modes by which persons having the charge
of young children can avail themselves of their vivid imaginative powers
in inculcating moral lessons or influencing their conduct. A boy, we will
suppose, has a new ball. Just as he is going out to play with it his father
takes it from him to examine it, and, after turning it round and looking at
it attentively on every side, holds it up to his ear. The boy asks what his
father is doing. "I am listening to hear what he says." "And what does he
say, father?" "He says that you won't have him to play with long." "Why
not?" "I will ask him, why not?" (holding the ball again to his ear). "What
does he say, father?" "He says he is going to run away from you and hide.
He says you will go to play near some building, and he means, when you
throw him or knock him, to fly against the windows and break the glass, and
then people will take your ball away from you." "But I won't play near any
windows." "He says, at any rate you will play near some building, and when
you knock him he means to fly up to the roof and get behind a chimney, or
roll down into the gutter where you can't get him." "But, father, I am not
going to play near any building at all." "Then you will play in some place
where there are holes in the ground, or thickets of bushes near, where he
can hide." "No, father, I mean to look well over the ground, and not play
in any place where there is any danger at all." "Well, we shall see; but
the little rogue is determined to hide somewhere." The boy takes his ball
and goes out to play with it, far more effectually cautioned than he could
have been by any direct admonition.
_The Teacher and the Tough Logs_
A teacher who was engaged in a district school in the country, where the
arrangement was for the older boys to saw and split the wood for the fire,
on coming one day, at the recess, to see how the work was going on, found
that the boys had laid one rather hard-looking log aside. They could not
split that log, they said.
"Yes," said the teacher, looking at the log, "I don't wonder. I know that
log. I saw him before. His name is Old Gnarly. He says he has no idea
of coming open for a parcel of boys, even if they _have_ got beetle and
wedges. It takes a man, he says, to split _him_."
The boys stood looking at the log with a very grave expression of
countenance as they heard these words.
"Is that what he says?" asked one of them. "Let's try him again, Joe."
"It will do no good," said the teacher, "for he won't come open, if he can
possibly help it. And _there's_ another fellow (pointing). His name is
Slivertwist. If you get a crack in him, you will find him full of twisted
splinters that he holds himself together with. The only way is to cut them
through with a sharp axe. But he holds on so tight with them that I don't
believe you can get him open. He says he never gives up to boys."
So saying, the teacher went away. It is scarcely necessary to say to any
one who knows boys that the teacher was called out not long afterwards to
see that Old Gnarly and Old Slivertwist were both split up fine--the
boys standing around the heaps of well-prepared fire-wood which they had
afforded, and regarding them with an air of exultation and triumph.
_Muscles reinvigorated through the Action of the Mind_.
An older sister has been taking a walk, with little Johnny, four years old,
as her companion. On their return, when within half a mile of home, Johnny,
tired of gathering flowers and chasing butterflies, comes to his sister,
with a fatigued and languid air, and says he can not walk any farther, and
wants to be carried.
"I can't carry you very well," she says, "but I will tell you what we will
do; we will stop at the first tavern we come to and rest. Do you see that
large flat stone out there at the turn of the road? That is the tavern, and
you shall be my courier. A courier is a man that goes forward as fast as he
can on his horse, and tells the tavern-keeper that the traveller is coming,
and orders supper. So you may gallop on as fast as you can go, and,
when you get to the tavern, tell the tavern-keeper that the princess is
coming--I am the princess--and that he must get ready an excellent supper."
The boy will gallop on and wait at the stone. When his sister arrives
she may sit and rest with him a moment, entertaining him by imagining
conversations with the inn-keeper, and then resume their walk.
"Now," she may say, "I must send my courier to the post-office with a
letter. Do you see that fence away forward? That fence is the post-office.
We will play that one of the cracks between the boards is the letter-box.
Take this letter (handing him any little scrap of paper which she has
taken from her pocket and folded to represent a letter) and put it in the
letter-box, and speak to the postmaster through the crack, and tell him to
send the letter as soon as he can."
Under such management as this, unless the child's exhaustion is very great,
his sense of it will disappear, and he will accomplish the walk not only
without any more complaining, but with a great feeling of pleasure. The
nature of the action in such a case seems to be that the vital force, when,
in its direct and ordinary passage to the muscles through the nerves, it
has exhausted the resources of that mode of transmission, receives in some
mysterious way a reinforcement to its strength in passing round, by a new
channel, through the organs of intelligence and imagination.
These trivial instances are only given as examples to show how infinitely
varied are the applications which may be made of this principle of
appealing to the imagination of children, and what a variety of effects may
be produced through its instrumentality by a parent or teacher who once
takes pains to make himself possessed of it. But each one must make himself
possessed of it by his own practice and experience. No general instructions
can do any thing more than to offer the suggestion, and to show how a
beginning is to be made.