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PSYCHOLOGY
AND PARENTHOOD
BY
H. ADDINGTON BRUCE
Author of “The Riddle of Personality,” “Scientific
Mental Healing,” etc.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1915
BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
TO
MY SISTER
ROBERTA BRUCE PEMBERTON
PREFACE
The chief aim of this informal “handbook for parents” is to review and
unify, in non-technical language, the findings of modern psychology
which bear especially on the laws of mental and moral growth. The
time has come when it is not only desirable but necessary to attempt
something of this sort; for in the course of their labours the
educational, medical, and social psychologists have accumulated a
mass of data revealing unsuspected defects, and hinting at marvellous
possibilities, in the upbringing of the young.
On the one hand, they have shown that not enough heed has been paid to
the hampering influences of an unfavourable environment and physical
maladjustment; and, on the other hand, they have made it clear that, by
instituting certain reforms, it is entirely feasible to develop mental
and moral vigour in the mass of mankind to an astonishing degree. My
own belief, indeed, for reasons set forth in subsequent pages, is that
the discoveries of the modern psychologists justify the assertion that,
through proper training in childhood, it is possible to create a race
of men and women far superior morally to the generalty of the world’s
inhabitants to-day, and manifesting intellectual powers of a far higher
order than the generalty now display.
Whether this belief will ever be vindicated—whether, for the matter
of that, the discoveries of recent psychological research will
prove of any real value—depends, of course, on the extent to which
practical application is made by those having charge of the young, and
particularly by parents. For the fact most surely established by the
scientific investigators is that it is in the first years of life, and
in the influences of the home, that the forces are set in motion which
count for most in the making or marring of the individual’s character
and career. Parental responsibility is consequently much greater than
most parents suppose; but so is parental opportunity. This book
accordingly is addressed primarily to parents in the hope that it may
be of some assistance to them in avoiding the pitfalls, and developing
the possibilities, of that most important of all human activities—the
training of the next generation.
Portions of the book have already appeared in various periodicals—_The
Century Magazine_, _The Outlook_, _McClure’s Magazine_, etc.—and to the
editors of these publications I owe a word of grateful acknowledgment.
I am also under obligations to numerous medical and psychological
friends for valuable information. But most of all, as always, I am
indebted to my wife, whose critical reading of the manuscript has
resulted in many helpful suggestions.
H. ADDINGTON BRUCE.
Cambridge, Massachusetts,
_February_, 1915.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE vii
I THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT 3
II SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION 39
III THE SECRET OF GENIUS 71
IV INTENSIVE CHILD CULTURE 113
V THE PROBLEM OF LAZINESS 161
VI A CHAPTER ON LAUGHTER 193
VII HYSTERIA IN CHILDHOOD 221
VIII THE MENACE OF FEAR 249
IX A FEW CLOSING WORDS 283
I
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT
Many years ago, according to a story which remains vividly in my memory
by reason of its grim suggestiveness, two small boys were one day
sauntering along a country road. The sight of an orchard, resplendent
in its autumn glory of red and green and gold, tempted them with
irresistible appeal, as it has tempted thousands of other boys before
and since. Over the rail-fence they scrambled, up a well-laden tree
they climbed, and soon were merrily at work filling their pockets.
But now from a near-by cottage came the man who owned the orchard,
and his coming was the signal for a hasty descent. One of the boys
made good his escape; the other, less quick-footed, was dragged, a
loudly-protesting captive, to the home of the local magistrate.
“More apple-stealing!” this stern functionary exclaimed. “Something
must be done to stop it. Let us make an example of this bad boy.” To
prison forthwith he consigned the luckless youth.
His companion, thankful for his happier fate, returned to his home, his
school, and his books. From school he went to college, and afterward
took up the study of law, beginning his professional career with a
reputation for great intellectual ability and strength of character. In
course of time he was made a judge.
As judge he was called on to preside at the trial of a man accused of
murder. The evidence of guilt was conclusive, conviction speedy. It
became his duty to don the black cap and pronounce sentence of death.
But before he did this, he was struck with something familiar in the
prisoner’s sodden, passion-marked features, made inquiry concerning his
early history, and, to his mingled horror and amazement, learned that
the wretched man was none other than the happy, buoyant lad who had
first felt the heavy hand of the law on account of the orchard-robbing
episode in which the judge, now about to doom him to the scaffold, had
gone scot-free.
Than this strange chapter in human experience I can at the moment
recall nothing that more strikingly suggests and illustrates the
dominant theory in modern scientific thought regarding the offender
against society. The implication that the contrasting careers of the
two boys were largely determined by circumstances over which they had
no control, and that it was the brutalising jail experience of the one
and the more fortunate upbringing of the other that chiefly accounted
for their diverse fates, unquestionably represents the views held by
the great majority of present-day students of delinquency and crime. To
be sure, there are not a few who would raise the question, “Might not
the boy who was caught in the orchard have ‘gone wrong’ in any event,
because of inborn defects?” These are the enthusiasts conspicuous
to-day as leaders of the so-called eugenics movement looking to the
improvement of mankind on stock-breeding principles—by sterilisation
of the “unfit,” stricter marriage laws, etc. Nor can it be denied that
they have on their side a formidable array of facts which would seem to
demonstrate the unescapable fatality of a bad heredity. On the other
hand it is equally certain that there is a steadily growing body of
evidence giving ever greater support to the opposite view—to the view,
namely, that after all the influence of heredity is of quite secondary
importance to that of environment in the marring or making of a human
life.
Even the facts emphasised by the eugenists themselves sometimes
tend, on close examination, to bear out the belief that it is in the
surroundings and training of a child rather than in his heredity that
the sources of his ultimate goodness or badness are mainly to be found.
The history of the notorious Juke family, featured by almost every
modern advocate of the “fatal heredity” theory, is a case in point.
The first Jukes of whom anything is known were five sisters of obscure
parentage who lived in Ulster County, New York, in the second half
of the eighteenth century. At least four of the five took early to a
life of vice, and eventually all married and had children. Many years
afterward a visitor to an Ulster County jail noticed that among its
inmates, awaiting trial on various charges, were six members of one
family, including two boys accused of assault with intent to kill.
Inquiry showed that the six were directly descended from the oldest
Juke girl, and that more than half of their male blood-relatives in the
county were likewise in some degree criminal.
Impressed by these facts the jail visitor, Mr. R. L. Dugdale,
determined to make a genealogical research into the life histories
of as many of the descendants of the five Juke sisters as could be
traced. Altogether it was found possible to obtain pretty complete
data concerning seven hundred and nine of these, with the following
astonishing results:
Of the entire seven hundred and nine, not twenty had been skilled
workers, and ten of these had learned their trade in prison; only
twenty-two had been persons of property, and of this number eight
had lost the little they acquired; sixty-four had been in the county
alms-house; one hundred and forty-two had received outdoor relief; one
hundred and twenty-eight had been prostitutes, and eighteen keepers of
houses of ill-fame; finally, seventy-six were reported as criminals,
with one hundred and fifteen more or less serious crimes to their
discredit. All this in seven generations of a single family.
Surely one might well be tempted to find here “the most striking proof
of the heredity of crime,” as Cesare Lombroso did not hesitate to
pronounce this sad history of the Jukes. But there is something to be
added.
Following the publication of Mr. Dugdale’s book, “The Jukes,”
giving the family record, there came under the care of a charitable
organisation an eighth-generation descendant of the oldest Juke sister,
a foundling baby boy, cast upon the tender mercies of the world with
all the burden of “innate depravity” transmitted from his vicious
ancestors. Instead of taking it for granted that he would inevitably
come to an evil end, the charity-workers decided to give him the
benefit of a refined environment and good family care. Accordingly a
home was found for him with a kind-hearted widow, whose own sons had
grown to a worthy manhood, and from her for ten years he received the
loving and intelligent training which is the birthright of every child.
At the end of that time he had developed into a fine, manly boy, with,
however, a somewhat superabundant fund of animal spirits and a tendency
to unruliness. It was evident that, owing to her advanced age, his
foster-mother could not give him the stricter discipline he now seemed
to need, and arrangements were made for his adoption by a farmer and
his wife living in a Western State. By them he was again treated with
the utmost affection, coupled with more firmness than he had hitherto
known. Little by little his unruliness disappeared; he became eager to
excel both at school and in the work of the farm, and soon became known
as one of the best boys of the neighbourhood. The older he grew the
more evidence he gave of possessing a strong moral foundation on which
to build his future career. When last heard from by the charitable
organisation to which he owed so much, he had struck out for himself,
an alert, vigorous, forceful young man, of sterling character, and full
of the self-confidence which wins success.
Moreover, Mr. Dugdale himself, in the course of his exhaustive account
of the evil ways of the Jukes, calls attention to the case of a
fifth-generation descendant, the daughter of a brothel-keeper, and
having two sisters who eventually became prostitutes. Nor did it seem
at all likely that she would turn out any better than they; for, before
she was fifteen, she had been arrested and imprisoned for vagrancy.
But, as good fortune would have it, shortly after her release from jail
she met, fell in love with, and married a young German, a cement-burner
of steady, industrious habits. Taken by him out of her former debasing
environment, given a good home and the example of a strong character,
she grew to a reputable womanhood, respected and admired by all who
knew her.
Many similar instances of the saving power of good surroundings might
be cited. “One of the most useful men I know of to-day,” testifies Mr.
Ernest K. Coulter, formerly clerk of the New York Children’s Court,
“saw his father murder his mother in cold blood. There was a bad
record on her side of the house, too. But a good man saw something in
that boy while he was being detained as a witness against his father.
As a result of that man’s interest, that boy to-day is serving his
fellow-men and his country in a most important field.”
In Pennsylvania an eight-year-old orphan girl of poor parentage, drudge
in a city boarding-house, with no companionship except that of ignorant
servants, was heralded in the newspapers as a “prodigy of crime”
because she had been caught setting fire to a house. When asked in
court why she had done this, she made the frank reply, “To see the fire
burn and the engines run.” There being at that time no probation system
in Pennsylvania, she was promptly sentenced to the House of Refuge,
where, like the boy sent to jail for stealing apples, she would be sure
to come under the influence of vile associates.
But, more fortunate than the boy of the orchard, this child had an
unknown friend at court, Mrs. Hannah K. Schoff, who interceded with
the judge and gained his permission to place the little incendiarist
in a good home instead of the House of Refuge. Five years afterward,
reporting to the International Prison Commission the result of her
experiment, Mrs. Schoff was able to declare that this dangerous
juvenile criminal had developed into “as sweet, attractive, and good a
child as can be found anywhere.”
An Italian Camorrist had two sons. The younger, at the age of three,
was separated from his father, taken to a distant city, and given
a good education. Like the Juke child of the eighth generation he
grew to be an exemplary young man. His brother, who remained with the
father, became, like him, a man of vice and crime, hated, feared, and
despised.
But far more impressive than isolated instances like these are the data
now available regarding the outcome of similar experimentation on a
large scale. Four years ago the Children’s Aid Society of New York—the
organisation which took the Juke foundling under its wing—published a
report detailing the results of its “placing out” system for a period
of more than half a century. The officials of this society have always
been imbued with the idea that every child, no matter how bad his
heredity, is entitled to the benefit of a good home upbringing, and in
accordance with this idea they have, during the period covered by the
report, placed twenty-eight thousand children in carefully selected
homes, besides finding situations in the country for about three
times as many older boys and girls. Most of their wards have been
slum children, having back of them a family history of crime, vice,
insanity, or pauperism. Nevertheless, the society’s officials inform us:
“A careful investigation of the records gives the following results: 87
per cent. have done well, 8 per cent. were returned to New York, 2 per
cent. died, one quarter of 1 per cent. committed petty crimes and were
arrested, and 2-1/4 per cent. left their homes and disappeared. These
last were larger boys of restless disposition, unaccustomed to country
life or any sort of restraint. Some of them struck out for themselves,
obtaining work at higher wages, and were temporarily lost sight of, but
years afterward we hear of them as having grown up good and respected
citizens.... The younger children placed out by the society always show
a very large average of success. The great proportion have grown up
respectable men and women, creditable members of society. Many of them
have been legally adopted by their foster-parents. The majority have
become successful farmers or farmers’ wives, mechanics, and business
men. Many have acquired property, and no inconsiderable number of them
have attained positions of honour and trust.”
One of the children thus developed was a typical waif of the slums,
a ragged urchin loitering in the streets of New York, and sleeping
in store-entrances and hall-ways, until one day taken in charge by
a kindly policeman. Investigation disclosed that he was a homeless
orphan, and until some definite provision could be made for his
upbringing he was committed to the city institution on Randall’s
Island. Thence, after a few months, he was transferred to the care of
the Children’s Aid Society, which undertook to find a home for him.
In midsummer of 1859, accordingly, he was sent to Indiana with a
party of other homeless lads, and was placed with Mr. E. E. Hall, a
Noblesville farmer. Two years later, to the mingled grief and pride of
his foster-parents, and when not yet fifteen years old, he enlisted in
the service of his country, entering the army as a drummer-boy. After
the war he went back to the Indiana farm, and, employing his leisure
moments to good advantage, prepared for college. In the seventies,
equipped with a good education and a well-disciplined mind, he moved
farther West. He finally settled in North Dakota, where, after engaging
successfully in various enterprises, he became, in 1881, the cashier of
a bank.
His thoughts now turned to politics, into which he plunged with great
vigour, and with every prospect of success, as he had in the meantime
won for himself a commanding position as one of the most popular and
trusted men in his community. In 1884 he ran for the post of county
treasurer, won his election, and, adding to his reputation by the way
he conducted this office, held it continuously for six years. Then
higher honours were thrust upon him; for, in the Fall of 1890, “Andy”
Burke, the former ragged New York street boy, became Governor Andrew H.
Burke, of North Dakota.
Closely paralleling his career is that of another New York child
derelict, taken in charge about the same time as young Burke, and,
by a curious coincidence, a companion of his in the little party of
boys sent to Indiana in 1859 by the Children’s Aid Society. The name
of this other lad was John G. Brady. Before coming into the keeping
of the Society he had been deserted by his father, after the death of
his mother. He was just ten years old when Mr. John Green, of Tipton,
agreed to give him a home.
And it was a good home that Mr. Green gave him, a home in which he was
taught the value of hard, earnest work, and of love for God and his
fellow-man. Remaining on the farm until he was eighteen, he then became
a school-teacher, saved enough out of his scanty earnings to give him
a start at college, and three years later entered Yale. By this time
he had made up his mind to devote his life to the twofold cause of
religion and social service; and in 1874, having graduated with credit
from Yale, he became a student in the Union Theological Seminary. After
his ordination he went as a missionary to Alaska, where his labours,
both religious and secular, won him a firm place in the affections of
the people, and lasting recognition as one of the real makers of that
distant Territory. He was appointed governor of Alaska by President
McKinley in 1897, and reappointed by President Roosevelt, serving three
terms.
Further, the records show that one ward of the Children’s Aid Society
of New York rose to be a supreme court justice, another became chief
executive of a Western city, while a third was elected auditor-general
of a State. Two were elected to Congress, nine to State legislatures,
and about a score to public offices of less importance. Twenty-four
became clergymen; thirty-five, lawyers; nineteen, physicians; sixteen,
journalists; twenty-nine, bankers; eighty-six, teachers; seven,
high-school principals; two, school superintendents; and two, college
professors. Farming, the army and navy, and various mercantile pursuits
gave occupation to most of the rest.
Is it to be wondered, in view of such a showing, that most authorities
are inclining more and more to find in a faulty environment rather than
in a bad heredity the explanation of the boy who “goes wrong”? Not that
it is as yet possible, and perhaps it never will be possible, to rule
out entirely the idea of the “born criminal.” A small proportion of
delinquents undoubtedly do show, almost from infancy, an irresistible
and seemingly instinctive impulse to evil; but to just what extent
this is due to inherited and irremediable conditions remains to be
ascertained. Medical progress, indeed, is constantly making it clearer
that many supposed instances of “innate depravity” are in reality the
result of curable physical defects, and sometimes of defects that are
comparatively slight.
To give a typical example, Professor Lightner Witmer, Director of
the Psychological Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania, was once
consulted about an eleven-year-old boy, of good family, who had been
pronounced by several New York specialists “mentally defective” and
“certain to prove unmanageable.” His father reported that he was
unable to do correctly simple sums in addition and subtraction, and
could not read a simple sentence without making a number of mistakes;
also that he was cowardly, bad-tempered, and quarrelsome. In fine, the
statements made concerning him seemed to stamp him as a fit subject for
institutional care. But Professor Witmer’s preliminary testing caused
him to take a somewhat hopeful view of the poor youngster’s condition.
“He was,” Professor Witmer says, in an interesting report he has made
regarding the case (_The Psychological Clinic_, vol. ii, pp. 153-179),
“a stocky, well-built, healthy-looking child. He had red hair, and the
expression of his face suggested an unsteady temper. The brow was low,
but not of a character to awaken a suspicion of mental deficiency.
The shape of the aperture of the eyes indicated a possible arrest of
fœtal development, but this was the only suspicious symptom. The teeth
were in good condition, the mouth closed, the nose undeveloped, the
nostrils small. A hasty examination showed the necessity of consulting
an oculist, and the appearance of the nose and nostrils called for an
examination of the naso-pharynx. The chest was fairly well developed,
the voice was good, but he had a lisp, and his speech was a trifle
thick. Hearing was normal. His manners at table were good. His gait was
normal, the knee-jerks were present on both sides, the coordination of
the hands was good.
“In his conversation with me and with his family, he seemed to me to
be a normal boy of eleven, rather alert mentally, a self-contained,
independent sort of boy. If I had visited the family casually, I would
not have observed anything wrong with him. My first brief examination
was therefore negative, and excepting for the history which the
father and mother gave, I should have pronounced the boy normal, but
probably suffering from some optical defect and from naso-pharyngeal
obstruction.”
A more thorough examination confirmed this tentative diagnosis.
Although nothing of the sort had previously been suspected, it was
discovered that the little fellow was nearly blind in one eye. Also
he was suffering from a poor circulation. On the other hand, despite
his mental retardation a careful psychological examination showed
that naturally he was bright enough. It seemed evident to Professor
Witmer, consequently, that the chief cause for the boy’s mental and
moral defects lay in improper upbringing, plus the eye-strain which had
undoubtedly made school work difficult for him, and had in addition
been a source of neural irritation. In verification of this, after he
had been provided with eye-glasses and given a few months of special
training in the hospital school connected with the psychological
clinic, the supposedly “feebleminded child” not only made rapid headway
when placed in a regular school, but also showed a surprising moral
improvement.
Even diseases of the teeth may play no small part in the making of the
wayward boy. There was brought one day to Professor Witmer’s clinic a
youngster who for months had been the despair of his parents. He had
got completely beyond the control of both home and school discipline;
spent his days idling in the streets; seemed incapable of telling the
truth; stole all sorts of small articles belonging to his parents,
including his father’s watch, which he sold for five cents; and had
even begun to steal from the neighbours, a weakness which soon brought
him into the clutches of the law. Placed on probation by the judge of
the juvenile court, he had behaved as badly as ever, until, as a last
resort, it was decided to see what the psychological clinic could do
for him.
Beyond indications of some slight eye-strain nothing specially abnormal
was found in his physical condition until his mouth was examined. Then
it was seen that a number of his first teeth had not been shed, and
that the second teeth were forcing their way out alongside the old
ones, causing the gums to be greatly swollen and inflamed. Taken at
once to the dental clinic he was examined more carefully by Dean Edward
C. Kirk, who, advising gradual removal of the lingering first teeth,
suggested the possibility that when the boy was relieved of all dental
stress his conduct would show marked improvement. The outcome fully
justified this suggestion. Says Doctor Arthur Holmes, who watched the
case closely in all its stages (_The Psychological Clinic_, vol. iv,
pp. 19-22):
“In spite of Harry’s rebellion and loudly expressed fear, he was
immediately relieved of one outgrown canine tooth. The effect was
almost instantaneous. His whole nervous system seemed to express itself
in one sigh of relief.... From that time his improvement has been
marked and continuous. His teeth were removed gradually as it was found
expedient. Closely associated with this dental condition, and possibly
aggravated by it, was an eye weakness discovered at the eye clinic.
In order to insure proper treatment, Harry was placed in charge of
the social worker of the psychological clinic, who saw that the drops
were regularly put in his eyes, accompanied him to the eye specialist,
and not only secured glasses for him but accomplished the hitherto
impossible feat of making him wear them.
“On account of the dental work and the refraction of his eyes, he was
not sent back to public school. Through the psychological clinic a
private school was found where the boy could receive the intelligent
and sympathetic training he needed. His whole demeanour under the
private instruction has been that of a normal boy. He has been put upon
his honour and trusted in numberless ways, and in every case he has
justified the expectations of his teacher. He is now a healthy boy,
with a boy’s natural curiosity, with good manners, good temper, with no
more than the average nervousness, and with every prospect of taking
his proper place in society and developing into an efficient and moral
citizen.”
A still more remarkable case that has recently come to my knowledge
concerns a Cleveland youth who, up to the age of sixteen, had been a
model of good conduct. Then, having gone through high school and begun
work with a business firm, he suddenly developed thieving tendencies,
finally breaking into a post-office, an exploit which earned for him a
term in a reformatory. This was so far from curing him that soon after
his release he adventured into highway robbery, was caught, and was
sent to jail.
So sudden and startling had been the change in his behaviour that the
Cleveland police authorities were convinced he was not responsible for
his actions, and advised his mother to have him committed to an asylum
for the insane. Before taking this extreme step she had him examined
by a neurologist, Doctor Henry S. Upson, whose careful testing of the
boy failed to disclose any signs of organic brain trouble. Dr. Upson
noticed, however, that his teeth were badly decayed, and this led him
to suggest an X-ray examination, as a result of which it was discovered
that the youthful criminal was suffering from several abscessed and
impacted teeth.
Following an operation for their removal, there was a steady
improvement in his moral as well as his physical health. When his
term of imprisonment was at an end he found work in a printing-shop,
and at last accounts, a year after the operation, had won for himself
the reputation of being “quiet and industrious, self-controlled, and
without any indication of either moral or mental aberration.” (_The
Psychological Clinic_, vol. iv, pp. 150-153.)
In a single institution—the New York Juvenile Asylum—it was found that
the degeneracy of 20 per cent. of a group of fifty “bad boys,” who
were mentally as well as morally backward, was due in great measure to
similar trivial physical defects, adenoids, enlarged glands, eye and
ear troubles, etc. Not so very long ago these boys, like the boys in
the individual instances mentioned, would have been deemed the hopeless
victims of a bad heredity. It is therefore fair to assume that in time
to come other remediable, but as yet unsuspected, physical causes of
imperfect mental and moral functioning will be discovered.
This is not to say that in such cases medication or the surgeon’s knife
will prove all-sufficient to prevent the transition from “naughtiness”
into outright vice and crime. To this end good moral training will
still be the indispensable safeguard, and particularly the moral
training to be had through the subtle influence of a good home and good
associates. Surely as, for example, the results of the activities of
the New York Children’s Aid Society strongly suggest, the home and the
companions of youth are the great determinants of character. As has
been so well said by Doctor Paul Dubois, the eminent Swiss physician
and philosopher (“Reason and Sentiment,” pp. 69-71):
“If you have the happiness to be a well-living man, take care not
to attribute the credit of it to yourself. Remember the favourable
conditions in which you have lived, surrounded by relatives who loved
you and set you a good example; do not forget the close friends who
have taken you by the hand and led you away from the quagmires of evil;
keep a grateful remembrance for all the teachers who have influenced
you, the kind and intelligent schoolmaster, the devoted pastor;
realise all these multiple influences which have made of you what you
are. Then you will remember that such and such a culprit has not in his
sad life met with these favourable conditions, that he had a drunken
father or a foolish mother, and that he has lived without affection,
exposed to all kinds of temptation. You will then take pity upon this
disinherited man, whose mind has been nourished upon malformed mental
images, begetting evil sentiments such as immoderate desire or social
hatred.”
And it is not only the homeless, deserted, or neglected child, allowed
to run wild in the streets, drifting or forced into occupations which
bring him more or less closely into touch with the ways and haunts of
wrong-doing—it is not only this child who is likely in time to become a
wrong-doer himself. No less than the neglected child is the “spoiled”
one, however good his heredity, apt to degenerate into delinquency,
perhaps into criminality of the worst description. In short, to borrow
Pascal’s pregnant phrase, every child at the outset of his life is
a little impulsive being, pushed indifferently toward good or evil
according to the influences which surround him.
The blame, then, for the boy who “goes wrong” does not rest with the
boy himself, or yet with his remote ancestors. It rests squarely with
the parents who, through ignorance or neglect, have failed to mould him
aright in the plastic days of childhood. What is needed, especially
in this complex civilisation of ours, with its myriad incitements and
temptations, is a livelier appreciation of the responsibilities as well
as the privileges of parenthood. Most of all, perhaps, from the point
of view of coping with the problem of wrong-doing, do parents need to
appreciate that it is in the very first years of their children’s lives
that the work of character-building should be begun.
In this connection a curious story is told of a father and mother, who,
full of that sublime eagerness for the welfare of their young which
every parent ought to have, took their only child, a handsome boy of
three, to an old Greek philosopher.
“We want you,” said they, “to take full charge of our child’s
education, and do the best you can for him.”
“How old is he?” the philosopher asked.
“Just three.”
The sage shook his head.
“I am sorry,” he said, “but you have brought him to me too late.”
Modern students of the nature of man are beginning to realise that
there is a world of truth in this reply. They are beginning to
realise, that, even in the period of dawning intelligence, interests
may be created, habits formed, which all the education of later years
may not wholly eradicate. Most people, looking back at their years
of childhood, are chiefly impressed by the fact that they remember
very little of what then happened. Actually, deep in the recesses of
their minds, they possess a subconscious remembrance that may be both
remarkably extensive and almost incredibly potent in affecting their
later development.
The truth of this will become increasingly evident as we proceed.
Here let us pause for only one illustrative instance, taken from the
experience of one of the most talked about of American women, Miss
Helen Keller, who, as is well known, was left by illness deaf, dumb,
and blind when less than two years old, but has nevertheless, by
careful training, been developed into a woman of brilliant attainments.
Among her many accomplishments not the least astonishing is her power
for appreciating music, which she “hears” by placing her hand lightly
on the piano and receiving its vibrations. It occurred to Doctor Louis
Waldstein, a pioneer in the study of subconscious mental processes,
that quite possibly her appreciation of music was connected with latent
memories of music she had heard before her illness. To test this theory
he obtained from her mother copies of two songs which had often been
sung to Miss Keller as an infant in Alabama, but which she had not
heard since. These he played in her presence, with a remarkable effect.
She became much excited, clapped her hands, laughed, and communicated:
“Father carrying baby up and down, swinging her on his knee! Black
Crow! Black Crow!”
It was evident to all present that she had been drawn back in memory to
the surroundings of her infancy. But no one knew what she meant by the
words “Black Crow,” until her mother, in answer to a letter of inquiry,
explained that this was the title of a third song which her father used
to sing to her.
“What you wrote,” commented Mrs. Keller, “interested us very much. The
‘Black Crow’ is her father’s standard song, which he sings to all his
children as soon as they can sit on his knee. These are the words,
‘Gwine ‘long down the old turn row, something hollered, Hello, Joe,’
etc. It was a sovereign remedy for putting them (the children) in a
good humour, and was sung to Helen hundreds of times. It is possible
that she remembers it from its being sung to the younger children as
well as herself. The other two I am convinced she has no association
with, unless she can remember them as she heard them before her
illness. Certainly before her illness her father used to trot her on
his knee, and sing the ‘Ten Virgins,’ and she would get down and shout
as the negroes do in church. It was very amusing. But after she lost
her sight and hearing, it was a very painful association, and was not
sung to these two little ones” (the younger children).
Almost by itself this impressive bit of evidence justifies Doctor
Waldstein’s unhesitating declaration, as set forth in his interesting
book, “The Subconscious Self”:
“In those early impressions of which no one seems to be conscious,
least of all the child, and which gather up power as the rolling
avalanche, the elements are collected for future emotions, moods, acts,
that make up a greater part of the history of the individual and of
States, more effective and significant than those that are written
down in _mémoires_, however _intimes_, or that can be discovered
in archives, however ‘secret.’ The strange vagaries of affection
and passion, which affect the whole existence of men and women—the
racial and religious prejudices that shake States and communities to
their very foundations, that make and unmake reputations, and set the
wheel of progress back into the dark ages—can be traced to such small
beginnings and into those nooks of man’s subconscious memory.”
Decidedly, bearing in mind this principle of the importance of early
impressions, the education of the child should be begun while he
still is in the cradle—and should in especial include a careful
arranging of his environment, both animate and inanimate, so as to put
most effectively into play that greatest of all educational forces,
“suggestion.”
II
SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION
The term “suggestion” has of late fallen into undeserved disrepute.
To most people, as a result of its frequent linking with the term
“hypnotism,” it implies something exceptional and weird. Yet in reality
suggestion is one of the most universal of facts, and there is nothing
“uncanny” about it. Properly defined it means nothing more than the
intrusion of an idea into the mind in such fashion that it is accepted
automatically, overcomes all contrary ideas, and leads to a specific
course of action. The slightest reflection will show that this is of
frequent occurrence.
Every time I yawn after having seen another person do so, I am acting
on the suggestion given to me by his action. Every time, after reading
a skilfully worded advertisement, I buy something which I do not
really need, I am again acting under the influence of suggestion. So,
too, when, in a moment of abstraction, I imitate any act perceived
subconsciously, as in the amusing instance related by Professor
Ochorowitz in his book, “Mental Suggestion”:
“My friend, P——, a man no less absent-minded than he is keen of
intellect, was playing chess in a neighbouring room. Others of us were
talking near the door. I had made the remark that it was my friend’s
habit when he paid the closest attention to the game to whistle an air
from ‘Madame Angot.’ I was about to accompany him by beating time on
the table. But this time he whistled something else—a march from ‘Le
Prophète.’
“‘Listen,’ said I to my associates, ‘we are going to play a trick upon
P——. We will order him to pass from “Le Prophète” to “La Fille de
Madame Angot.”’
“First I began to drum the march; then, profiting by some notes
common to both, I passed to the quicker and more staccato notes of my
friend’s favourite air. P—— on his part suddenly changed the air,
and began to whistle ‘Madame Angot.’ Every one burst out laughing. My
friend was too absorbed in a check to the queen to notice anything.
“‘Let us begin again,’ said I, ‘and go back to “Le Prophète.”’ And
straightway we had Meyerbeer once more, with a special fugue. My friend
knew that he had whistled something, but that was all he knew.”
Here, obviously, we have on the part of the man accepting and acting
on the idea suggested to him, a temporary suspension of the critical
faculty. Had he been on the alert, had he been aware of Professor
Ochorowitz’s intention, he would never have followed the lead thus
given, refraining from doing so if only from fear of appearing
ridiculous. This element of uncritical, automatic acceptance is
fundamental in suggestion, and it is this that makes suggestion such a
tremendously important factor in the life of the young.
The child, it has often been said, is the most imitative of beings.
This is only another way of saying that childhood is the most
suggestible period of life. Precisely because the critical faculty is
then undeveloped the child readily accepts and translates into some
form of action the suggestions impinging on his mind from the external
world. Necessarily some impressions are experienced by him more
frequently than others, and by the very fact of repetition these tend
to induce in him a more or less fixed mode of reaction. Thus, without
the slightest awareness, he acquires good or bad “habits” of thinking
and acting, and displays moods and tendencies which, often regarded by
parents as quite inexplicable, are the logical and inevitable product
of suggestions with which he has been bombarded since his life began.
In this way are to be explained many personal characteristics often
mistakenly attributed to the influence of heredity. If a man is a
“grouch,” and his young son also displays unmistakable signs of
grouchiness, it would indeed be rash to jump to the conclusion that the
son had been born grouchy. It may well be—the chances are, it is—that
he has acquired a grouchy turn of mind simply through imitation of his
father’s habitual attitude. “A little girl only fifteen months old,” to
quote one observation by that careful student of child life, B. Perez,
“had already begun to imitate her father’s frowns and irritable ways
and angry voice, and very soon after she learned to use his expressions
of anger and impatience. When three years old this child gravely said
to a visitor, with whom she argued quite in her father’s style, ‘Do be
quiet, will you? You never let me finish my sentences.’”
Similarly, peculiarities that seem to be wholly physical may thus be
handed on from father to child—characteristic gestures with the hands,
pursing of the mouth when reading, shrugging the shoulders, etc. Even
left-handedness, often conspicuous as a family trait, is probably, in
a certain proportion of cases at all events, the result of imitation
rather than heredity. In one interesting case cited by Doctor Waldstein
(“The Subconscious Self,” pp. 56-59), an English lady, Miss X——, had
lost her mother when less than three years of age. A year afterward,
during her first attempts at sewing, it was noticed that she was
threading her needle with her left hand. This had been the habit of her
mother, and Mrs. X—— herself continued throughout her life to use her
left hand in threading needles, although she was otherwise right-handed.
“Surely,” said she to Doctor Waldstein, “this is an example of
inheritance, for I could not have been taught to sew by my mother.”
When, however, he inquired closely into this lady’s mental make-up,
he soon discovered that she was most impressionable, easily and
unduly affected by her surroundings, full of prejudices, and given
to sudden likes and dislikes. Manifestly, if in adult life she was
so suggestible, she must have been even more suggestible in early
childhood, and Doctor Waldstein promptly asked himself the question:
“Is it not more natural to assume that the mother’s habit of threading
a needle with her left hand, witnessed daily during the first three
years of childhood, left its effect upon the ductile memory of the
child, so that she adopted the same habit in the absence of other
teaching, than to assume a needle-threading centre on the right side of
the brain of this particular individual?”
In view, then, of the extreme suggestibility of childhood, and in view
of the fact that under ordinary circumstances the impressions most
forcibly impinging on a child’s mind are those emanating from his
parents, a good parental example is the first essential in utilising
the power of suggestion as an aid in education. This may sound trite,
but how many parents appreciate all that it involves?
It means the regulation of the whole family life with the special
purpose of creating for the child a ceaseless flow of suggestions
which, being subconsciously absorbed by him, will give a desirable
“set” to his mind. Not merely in their dealings with the child but
in their intercourse with one another, with all other members of the
family, even with casual visitors, the father and mother will have to
be constantly on the alert to manifest only those traits which they
desire to see dominant in their little one. If they wish him to be
courteous, they themselves must be courteous; if they wish him to grow
up industrious, they must be models of enthusiastic industry; if they
wish to develop in him sentiments of unselfishness, they must banish
selfishness from their hearts.
In a word, they must think and behave as they desire him to think and
behave, and, so far as is humanly possible, they must thus behave all
the time. This of course necessitates considerable self-restraint and
self-training on the parents’ part; but it is absolutely indispensable.
The child’s eyes and ears are always wide open; his suggestibility
is such that he is prone to absorb and react to any inconsistency of
parental speech or behaviour, no matter how occasional or seemingly
insignificant it may be. If the father, in a moment of irritation,
eases his feelings by a vigorous expletive, the mother may be horrified
next day when her little boy utters a strange-sounding word. If
the mother, to avoid a tiresome caller, tells a “white lie” through
the maid-servant who answers the caller’s ring, neither father nor
mother need be astonished if their little girl unexpectedly displays
a tendency to untruthfulness; it is not a manifestation of “innate
depravity,” it is only another illustration of the power of suggestion
to affect the growing child.
Even such a “small matter” as the discussion of the news of the day
may become a potent factor for evil in the development of the child.
There are not a few parents who, entirely unmindful of their children’s
presence, retail to each other the petty chit-chat, the scandals,
the deeds of violence and crime, which so many of our newspapers
injudiciously “feature.” At the time the child may seem to be paying
no heed to the parental discussion; but, if only because it is a
discussion between his parents, it is certain to make a profound
impression upon him, perhaps to the extent of prompting him to imitate
the deeds in question. Hence, in his games, he plays pirate, bandit,
train-robber; and sometimes runs away from home and “starts West,” to
play bandit and train-robber in earnest. In this way, to the sorrowing
parents’ amazement, seeds often are unwittingly sown to grow into
poisonous plants.
No less mischievous is the discussion, in the child’s hearing, of
such frequent subjects of conversation as the latest musical comedy
or “problem play,” the “novel of the hour,” the fluctuations of the
stock market, the new fashions in gowns, the fortunes of the local
professional baseball team. Parents whose interests are thus lamentably
limited, or who choose to talk about little else, need not be surprised
if their child manifests a colossal indifference to things really worth
while. For his sake, if not for their own, they should cultivate an
intelligent interest in good books, good music, good art. Discussing
these, they will just as surely enlarge his mental and moral horizon,
as by discussing inferior themes they will limit it.
And—another point of prime importance—whatever they talk about, they
should make it a practice to use only clear, correct language, and
should insist on their child doing the same. Above all, they should
not converse with him in “baby talk,” or permit any linguistic errors
he may make to go uncorrected. They should not do this for several
reasons, chief among which is the fact that an incorrect diction is
itself a great obstacle to correct thinking.