THE UNFOLDING LIFE
A Study of Development with Reference to Religious Training
by
ANTOINETTE ABERNETHY LAMOREAUX
With Introduction by Marion Lawrance
1907
TO
My Precious Father and Mother,
in whose daily ministry
I have seen the beauty and learned the meaning
of Christian Nurture,
this book is affectionately dedicated.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT
II EARLY CHILDHOOD
III EARLY CHILDHOOD--Continued
IV EARLY CHILDHOOD--Concluded
V CHILDHOOD--SIX TO TWELVE
VI THE JUNIOR AGE--NINE TO TWELVE
VII ADOLESCENCE
VIII MIDDLE AND LATE ADOLESCENCE
INTRODUCTION
Having read with much care the proof sheets of this book, I am prepared
to say three things about it, and it gives me pleasure to say them here.
1. THE BOOK IS WELL NAMED. "THE UNFOLDING LIFE." Turn which way we will,
we see life unfolding all about us, and yet how faintly are its
mysteries understood! And is it not the one thing above all others,
which teachers, mothers, fathers and all of us, need to understand? It
is well that our attention has been called to this most vital of all
themes by a book, whose very name compels attention to its content, and
whose content is but its name in fuller treatment.
2. THE BOOK IS WELL WRITTEN. Such books as this should be read slowly
and pondered well; but this book by its fascination will tempt one to
read too rapidly. Its line of argument is logical; its diction is as
pure as the bubbling stream; its truths are evident and compelling. It
presents the purest psychology stripped of all mystifying
technicalities, and clothed in language which even a child can
understand. The reason for this is plain. It is the "Beaten Oil" drawn
from the rich and ripe experience of one of the best students of
childhood and teachers of children in our land.
3. THE BOOK IS WELL TIMED. Teachers are seeking now as never before to
understand the soil in which the living seed of God's Word is to be
cast. Nothing can be more important than this. The author deals largely
with the every day problems of the average home and Sunday School, thus
rendering the highest service to the great army of ordinary teachers and
mothers. While this book will be hailed with joy by all such, it will
nevertheless command a place by the side of the highest grade books on
the subject. There never was a time when any book on any subject was
more greatly needed than this book is needed now. It would be a boon
indeed to every home, and to every Sunday School as well, if all
teachers, mothers, yes, and fathers too, would read and re-read "THE
UNFOLDING LIFE."
MARION LAWRANCE.
Chicago, March, 1908.
FOREWORD
The greatest thing in the world is a human life. The greatest work in
the world is the helpful touch upon that life. Here and there an artist
in soul culture is found at the task, but the many are unskilled and the
product of the labor is far from a manhood "perfect in Christ."
In dealing with things, the vessel marred in the making can be set aside
or fashioned anew, but a life is for eternity. The faulty work can not
be undone. The mistake can never be wholly rectified, for life never
yields up what is given it. The look, the word, the invisible atmosphere
of the home and church, the sights and sounds of all the busy days enter
the super-sensitive and retentive soul of the child and are woven into
life tissue. Character has no other from which to fashion itself.
Therefore its final beauty and worth will be determined in large
measure by the quality of the material which entered in.
It is with earnest desire to help some parent or teacher in the divine
work of soul nurture, that this volume is offered. There is no attempt
to add to knowledge in Child Study or Psychology, but rather to
interpret certain of their fundamental facts and principles with
reference to Religious Training.
CHAPTER I
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT.
Row upon row they stretched, fifteen acres of regal chrysanthemums,
roses pink, yellow, white and red, fragile lilies of the valley,
carnations and vivid orchids, no two alike, yet all expressions of plant
life. Skilled gardeners from England and Germany were busy with these
exquisite flower children, watering, pruning and training upon slender
cords, that every bud might come to perfect unfolding. The laws of the
plant world and the law of each individual flower were well known to
them. They knew that all required sunshine and soil, warmth and
moisture, but in varying amount. The chrysanthemums grew in the
sunlight, while only a few days before cutting could the lilies of the
valley be released from their darkened beds. All needed cultivation but
not in the same way. Some were massed, while yonder were thousands of
carnations, and every one sole monarch of its own little garden plot.
Painstakingly and completely, day after day, the needs of each frail
life were met, until the flowers grown in this greatest of Canadian
greenhouses have become renowned far across the border for their
unsurpassed beauty, coloring and size.
The quiet walk between the glorious masses of bloom that October
afternoon brought a vision of a greater Child garden, with an infinite
variety of human plants to be tended, every one with its own
individuality, needs, possibilities and a divine purpose for it
cherished in the heart of the Heavenly Gardener. The work of nurture He
has given to parents and teachers, longing unspeakably that it shall be
so wise and tender that His plan for every life may be realized.
But as the earnest soul takes up the task, it seems so bewildering.
"Three little ones in the home, and every one different! Ten boys in the
Sunday School class and no two alike! Where does nurture begin? How is
it carried on?"
Though the differences in human lives are countless, there are certain
great likenesses. All have life, needs, possibilities; they all grow and
develop in the same general way. From these common likenesses have been
formulated a few principles which are as helpful to a child gardener as
a knowledge of the laws of plant life to one who nurtures roses and
carnations. Their understanding is not dependent upon physical
parenthood. God will interpret the meaning to any one whom He calls into
fellowship with Himself in the matchless work of soul culture.
I. The First Principle deals with the nature of life--What is it? Some
answer must be given in order to arrive at an aim, a method, and an
inspiration for work. If a child is only a beautiful figure upon which
to display dainty garments, the mother has a plain pathway marked out
for her. If a boy is a capacity to be filled, or a machine to grind out
facts or dollars, the teacher's course of action is clear.
God's conception of life is surely greater than these, yet He never
gave a definition. Jesus said it is more than meat, that it is worth
more than all the world, that it does not consist in abundance of
things, that it is eternal, but He nowhere tells us what it is, for He
can not. It is a part of God. He can only make us understand it in any
wise by giving its characteristics and values. Perhaps these may come to
us more clearly through considering first what life is not.
1. Life is not merely "plastic clay" to be moulded, or a "block of
marble" to be hewn according to the will of the sculptor.
This poetic conception emphasizes rightly the tremendous power of
environment and personality in shaping character, but it is really a
dangerous half truth. If the child were a block of marble, he would be
no different from the dead, inert lump that lies in the studio awaiting
the will of the sculptor. They would both be things. But a child has
life, and the difference between life and thing lies in an inner power
or activity which life possesses and uses when and as it will. This
activity has to be reckoned with. Sun and rain and earth can not make a
plant grow if it does not use its own mysterious inner force upon them.
No sort of influence can affect a life, if the life does not respond to
it. This response will be either receiving or rejecting the influences
that come, working with or against them. Assuredly this is a condition
very different from "plastic clay." Two great tasks, therefore, are
included in the work of nurture: the first, to see that all that comes
to plastic life from the outside is what it ought to be; the second, to
somehow arouse the power within to vigorous effort upon the best things.
2. Life is not a "pure white page," even in its beginning.
There is here also a half truth, and an error. Life is unstained by
guilt in its early years. It comes innocent from the hand of God, but
fingers long since vanished have traced lines that mar the perfect
whiteness. There are tendencies away from God as well as toward Him, and
these are not the result of environment. Environment will cultivate
tendencies but can not implant them. Favoring conditions will make an
apple tree produce magnificent apples, but they will never implant in it
any tendency to bear roses or produce thorns. Failure to recognize the
fact of two sets of tendencies in the life will lead to a fatal mistake
in nurture. Christ will be presented only as an Example and not as a
Savior also, thus setting before a life its pattern and leaving it
impotent to reach it.
3. A life in its beginning is not a "little man."
The element of truth in this conception is perhaps less than in either
of these preceding. It is indeed true that child life is that out of
which man life is to come, but the difference is more vital than that of
inches or strength. The bulb shelters a lily life, but the difference is
greater than size. The chrysalis will bring forth the butterfly, but the
two are not identical. Childhood will unfold into manhood, but each has
its own characteristics and needs, differing in largest degree.
The physiologist tells us that it would be hard to find many important
points beyond the most fundamental laws in which the infant and the
adult exactly resemble each other. (Oppenheim.) In bodily proportions,
in actual composition of bones, muscles, blood and nerves, in size and
development of the organs, the differences are wide.
The psychologist proves that there is equal variance in mental
conditions. The man has a sense of responsibility to his neighbor and to
God, unknown to child life. He thinks and reasons and judges as the
child mind can not. His whole outlook upon life is opposite from that of
the child.
We recognize this difference in caring for the body, and the babe is fed
on milk and the boy on meat. But the difference must be recognized as
equally important in caring for the soul. Just as meat is meat, whether
minced or uncut, and therefore unsuited for a tiny life, so doctrine is
doctrine, whether stated in words of one syllable or four, and equally
unsuited to a beginning life. Paul refers to those who need milk and not
solid food, spiritually, because they are "without experience of the
word of righteousness," clearly indicating a difference in the kind of
instruction, not the amount. The subject matter must be adapted to the
life, not merely the number of syllables, the method of teaching, as
well as the length of the lesson. Without this careful adaptation of
food and method, the developing life will be under-nourished, and the
most vigorous maturity be impossible.
But these negative statements only safeguard against mistakes by telling
us what to avoid. A real working basis must be found in a positive
principle.
The study of an unfolding life at any time in its development always
reveals two supreme facts, possibilities peculiar to that period, and
self activity. The First Principle of development combines these two
facts and gives us our nearest approach to a definition.
"Life is a bundle of possibilities and self activity."
The block of marble has possibilities, so has molten metal and a tube of
paint; but life has possibilities plus inner power. The three
imperative "Oughts" for the parent or teacher are herein suggested.
First, he ought to be able to recognize each possibility as it appears.
Second, he ought to know how best to deal with it.
Third, he ought to know how to stimulate the activity to greatest
endeavor.
II. The Second Principle states the relation of nurture to the unfolding
of these possibilities.
"The direction and degree of development are largely determined by
nurture."
Every possibility in a life, unless it die out, must develop either
upward or downward, toward the best or worst. This development, whether
in a plant or a boy, depends on what is given the life to work with and
the use that is made of it, or, stated in more dignified terms--the
development is a result of influences that come to a life and the
response made to them by activity. The sort of influences and the sort
of response given will determine the sort of development. When some one
is consciously endeavoring to make both outer influences and the inner
working of the life the best possible, it is called nurture.
The responsibility that grows out of this thought of nurture is almost
crushing, yet its opportunity is sublime. To make a boy strong for his
life work, because the right word was spoken at the critical moment, the
encouragement given just when his purpose was faltering, to help a girl
reach glorious young womanhood because the inspiration came as she stood
at the parting of the ways--surely this, in a very real sense, is
working with God. The story of almost every life of marked power,
reveals a human touch at the cross roads. Is this one meaning in the
Master's words, "Inasmuch as ye did it," or "Inasmuch as ye did it not?"
"I would have been on the foreign mission field seven years ago," said a
splendid young man, "had not my Sunday School teacher laughed at me when
I told him my new born desire. I expect to go now, but what of those
seven years?"
If the home and the church should begin at once to obey God's command
to nurture the children "In the chastening and admonition of the Lord,"
with all that means, the next generation would see the kingdoms of this
world given to Christ and the advent of the King.
III. The Third Principle defines the work of nurture.
"Nurture must care for both nourishment and activity."
1. The Watch Care over Nourishment.
Nourishment is the general term for all that upon which the life feeds.
It is given both consciously and unconsciously and is absorbed in like
manner, but in its effect upon the life, the unconscious nourishment has
greater power.
(1) Unconscious Nourishment.
(a) The first factor in unconscious nourishment is personality.
Just as truly as the physical life is nourished by life, so is the
mental and the spiritual. Standards of living, ideas, a sense of values,
opinions, do not come from text-books but fathers and mothers. The
lesson from the printed page may fail to gain entrance, but the lesson
from the teacher's life, never. This explains the success of many a
humble mother and the failure of many an intellectual teacher. It is at
the very heart of all work for another.
Its first message is a personal one. It tells the worker that his life
is more compelling than his voice; that the Word must again become flesh
to give it authority. It tells him further that if he is to be the bread
of life to growing souls, his own pasturage must not be things, but in
reality, the living Christ.
The other message applies to his work. While every life that touches his
will always carry away something from the contact, the most helpful
human life can never suffice for another's nourishment. Each soul needs
the complete Christ for itself. The amazing thing among parents and
teachers is their unconcern over His absence from the lives of the
children. Years pass, and precept, lesson and admonition are given,
while Christ, the Life, is not definitely and personally offered.
"According to their pasture so were they filled." Is not this the
explanation of so many meagre lives?
(b) The second factor of unconscious nourishment is environment with
its subtle atmosphere.
The importance of environment is found in this great law, that life
tends to become like that which is around it. So strong is the tendency
that the only escape from conformity lies in real struggle. This a
little child rarely puts forth, and an adult not always, for it is far
easier to follow the line of least resistance and "be like other
people."
Growing out of this power of environment comes the problem of all
philanthropic and religious work--how to overcome the influence of
harmful surroundings. The need is obvious when the surroundings are
vicious, yet the home does not need to be in the slums to injure a
growing life. It only needs to be Christless. This may seem a very
radical statement, but it is nevertheless true. Arresting the highest
development is as truly an injury as giving to life wrong direction. Has
not a plant been positively injured when its most beautiful
possibilities are unrealized because of unfavoring conditions? Is not a
body, undersized and stunted because of lack of fresh air and food, as
truly deformed as though the back were bent? Has not that soul received
the most cruel of all injuries, when its divinest possibilities can
never be attained either because of spiritual starvation or
misdirection? The Church and the Sunday School attempt to furnish a
counteracting environment, but it is infrequent and brief. The only
power which can render this temporary, religious environment mote
effective in influencing character than a harmful, permanent one, is the
Divine. A church building or a Sunday School session of itself, can
accomplish little, placed over against a home. Methods of grading and
forms of worship are impotent in themselves. It is only a living Christ,
actually vitalizing the lesson and the sermon and the plan of work Who
makes them efficacious.
If this be so, then the teacher who goes to the home itself to press the
claims of a personal Savior on the father and mother, has after all
reached the heart of the problem of environment.
(c) The third factor of unconscious nourishment is the Superhuman
Power.
This thought has been suggested in connection with personality and
environment, but it demands separate emphasis. It is not an easy thing
in the stress of the visible to remember the greater power of the
Invisible. The most earnest Christian worker is sometimes overwhelmed by
discouragement or, again, unduly confident because of the perfection of
system and method, forgetting that God knows no obstacle, and that He
alone can put life into a plan of work.
But though God uses men and methods, He does not always so approach a
life He deals directly with a soul through the influence of the Holy
Spirit, and life receives its most holy nurture in those sacred hours.
Therefore, the highest service permitted a Sunday School teacher is to
pray effectually for the brooding Spirit to rest upon the pupils in his
class. The mother can do nothing which shall mean so much for the
precious life in her arms as learning, herself, the secret of prevailing
prayer, for, "If we ask anything according to His Will, He heareth us;
and if we know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we
have the petitions which we have asked of Him." Therefore, O Lord,
"Teach us to pray."
(2) Conscious Nourishment.
This is definite instruction so given to a life that it is appropriated.
A large part of attempted instruction is never taken in. "I have told
you over and over again," says the despairing mother, but telling does
not always involve receiving. Placing nourishing food before the boy
does not necessarily mean stronger muscle and purer blood. He must eat
and digest it. Teaching, to be nourishment, requires first, careful
adaptation of the subject matter, then presentation in such a way that
the mind will voluntarily reach out, lay hold upon and assimilate it.
God again gives the key to real teaching in the word "engraft." Its
process in the physical and mental world is identical. First, the
delicate adjustment, then a vital union, and lastly, new life resulting.
2. The Watch Care over Activity.
We have considered nurture in its work of supplying the best
nourishment to growing souls, and now its care for activity must be
noted. Since the subject will be discussed more fully in a succeeding
chapter, only the necessity for the nurture will be considered here.
This necessity appears in the four-fold result of activity.
(1) New Experiences.
This is the first result to the child from ceaseless movement of hands
and feet and eager eyes. In early life he is not conscious of seeking
the new experience, he only wants to be in motion. In later life, energy
is definitely put forth for some desired end. But whatever the motive,
experiences helpful or harmful, according to the sort of activity,
result, and they enter character at par value.
(2) Growth or Increase in Size.
Activity is necessary before anything given to the body or the soul can
become a part of life. Food must be acted upon by the digestive,
circulatory and assimilative organs to make it bone and muscle and
nerve. The mind must think upon the fact in order to add it to the store
of knowledge. The heavenly vision must be obeyed before Christian
experience is enlarged by it.
But there is another aspect of this same thought. Just as truly as
activity must precede assimilation, so truly does assimilation follow
activity. It may be stated more simply in this way. Nothing can become a
part of the life until it has been acted upon; when it has been acted
upon it can not be taken out of the life. When digestion is finished and
the food is bone and muscle, it can not be withdrawn. When the idea has
been thought in or acted upon, it has by that process become a part of
the life, and though it may fade from memory its influence is abiding.
(3) Development or Increase of Power and Skill.
Every muscle exercised gains greater freedom. Every knotty problem
mastered means increased mental ability. Every victory means greater
power in resisting temptation. Whatever the action, whether good or bad,
helpful or harmful, greater skill and power in that direction follows
it.
This other very important fact needs to be clear, that no amount of
energy put forth for another will mean development for him. He must
exercise his own arm for strength and solve his own problem. Development
only comes through the effort of each individual for himself; hence the
best teacher is the one who can rouse the pupil to the greatest
endeavor.
(4) Habit Formation.
It is impossible to act, physically, mentally or spiritually, without
making it easier to repeat the action, and soon ease passes to tendency,
then tendency to compulsion, and life is in the grip of a habit. This is
the inevitable outcome of activity, until "nine-tenths of life is lived
in the mould of habit."
If it be true that habit is "ten times second nature," the importance of
directing activity toward the formation of right habits needs no
discussion.
IV. The Fourth Principle of unfolding life deals with its crises. "The
crucial points in development are those times when new possibilities
begin to unfold."
The life comes from God complete in its possibilities, but at the
beginning all is in germ. As life progresses, development of these
possibilities proceeds, but it is not uniform. The body acquires ability
to control the larger muscles before it can adjust the finer and more
complex ones, as instanced in the child's ability to walk before he can
thread a needle. The mind is able to imagine before it can reason
clearly. The feelings center on self before they reach out to the world
around. As every new possibility begins to develop, two serious facts
must be remembered:
(1) Direction must be given in the beginning before tendencies are
fixed.
A beginning is always a time of easy adjustment and flexibility.
Business corporations can readily alter a course of action before a
policy has been established. The nurseryman can easily secure the
straight trunk of the mature tree in the yielding sapling. The law is
just as true when it touches human life. The trend of any possibility is
determined largely in the beginning of its unfolding. After that time
has gone by, conditions are practically fixed, and he that is unjust
will be unjust still, and he that is holy will be holy still.
(2) Future strength and vigor are largely determined in the beginning of
development.
It is well nigh impossible to overcome the effect of early neglect. If
the culture of the growing stalk is passed over, the corn in the ear can
not be full. If the bodily needs of the boy are unmet, he can not reach
his full development as a man. If his budding intellectual life, his
awakening feeling life, or the delicate unfolding of his spiritual life
is neglected, a complete, rounded out maturity is impossible. A starved
childhood is always the prophecy of a stunted manhood, while life
nourished in its beginning foretells vigorous maturity.
V. The very important question now arises, "How may these crucial times
be recognized?" The answer is given in the Fifth Principle. "A new
interest always accompanies an awakening possibility."
The increasing love of a story discloses a growing imagination. The
passionate hero worship of a boy's heart reveals the fact of a budding
ideal. The interest in clubs and desire for companionship tell of
awakening social feelings. Life is always the exponent of its own need
to one who cares to know, and it further reveals what should be given
it, and how.
VI. The Sixth Principle has already been touched upon in the preceding
discussion, but it needs the emphasis of special statement, because of
its importance. "Development is from within, out, through what is
absorbed, not from without, in, through external application without
absorption."
If development were a matter of external application, the post would
grow and the stone and the stick, because they have earth and air and
moisture around them. If it came from without, in, the most admonished
child would be the best, the most talked to pupil the wisest, but the
reverse is usually true. That which adheres simply to the surface of
rock and child is veneer, which the testing circumstance will rub off.
Only that which is assimilated is of any value to the life.
These are the great principles revealed in the development of life from
infancy to maturity. The factor of human contact appears in every one.
The question, "What is my touch upon this unfolding life?" can not be
evaded. The stonecutter takes the marble and hews out the rough block;
the sculptor finds its hidden soul. The artisan takes the canvas and the
common sign appears; the artist makes it immortal. But God gives life to
parents and teachers to fashion. Will hands clumsy and unskilled, miss
the perfect beauty, or the touch of master workmanship bring forth a
likeness to the Christ?