REBEL AND SUBJECT.
Children are early confronted with our laws, and it is worth while
asking how they behave in relation to these. Many persons seem to think
that children generally are disobedient, lawless creatures; others, that
some are obedient, others disobedient. Perhaps neither of these views is
quite exact enough.
(_a_) _The Struggle with Law: First Tussle with Authority._
Let us begin our study by looking a little more closely at what we call
the disobedient attitude of children. That it exists nobody, surely, can
well doubt. The very liveliness of young limbs and young wits brings
their possessors into conflict with our sedate customs. The person who
tries to wield authority over these small people is constantly
introducing unpleasant checkings of vigorous impulse. A child has large
requirements in the matter of movements and experiments with things,
which are apt to clash with what the mother considers orderliness; when
he is out of doors he exhibits a duck-like fondness for dirty water,
whereas civilisation, represented by his tidy nurse, wills it that man
should, at least when not in the arctic regions, be clean; he shows a
perverse passion for fun and tricks when the mother thinks it the right
time for serious talk, and so forth. In these ways there comes the
tussle with human law.
Yet surely, if we consider the matter impartially, we shall see that
these collisions in the early years are perfectly normal and right. In
the interests of the race, at any rate, we ought perhaps to regard him
as the better child, as the child of finer promise, who will not subject
himself to human law without a considerable show of resistance.
The first and most impressive form of resistance to the laws of
grown-ups is the use of physical force, which has already been touched
on. There is something pathetically comic in the spectacle of these
mites resorting to the arbitrement of force, trying their small hand at
pushing, striking, and the like; and as we have seen the effort is wont
soon to exhaust itself in childish despair.
As soon as our authority begins to assert itself in the issuing of
commands the child's disposition to disobey, that is to have his way
rather than ours, is apt to show itself now and again in decided
refusals. When, let us say, the nurse gives up pulling him from the
dirty pool, and bids him come away, he may very likely assert himself in
an eloquent, "I won't," or less bluntly, "I can't come yet".
Here, of course, there may be no wilful rejection of recognised law, but
merely resistance to this particular disagreeable order coming from this
particular person. Nevertheless we must, I fear, admit that such
refusals to obey orders have in them something of true lawlessness. The
whole attitude of the child when he thus "tries on" defiance of commands
is certainly suggestive of the rebel's temper. Nobody is so completely
reckless as the child-rebel. When the fit is on him he pays not the
least attention to the most awful of warnings. One little offender of
four when he was reminded by his sister--two years older--that he would
be shut out from heaven retorted impiously, "I don't care"; adding, for
reasons best known to himself, "uncle won't go--I'll stay with him".
_Evading the Law._
In addition to this first impressive form of opposition there are later
ones which plainly show the spirit of antagonism. The conflict with law
now takes on the aspect of evasion or "trying it on".
One of the simplest of these childish tricks is the invention of an
excuse for not instantly obeying a command, as "Come here!" "Don't tease
pussy!" A child soon finds out that to say "I won't" when he is bidden
to do something is indiscreet as well as vulgar. He wants to have his
own way without resorting to a gross breach of good manners, so he
replies insinuatingly, "I's very sorry, but I's too busy," or in some
such conciliatory words. This field of invention offers a fine
opportunity for the imaginative child. A small boy of three years and
nine months on receiving from his nurse the familiar order, "Come here!"
at once replied, "I can't, nurse, I's looking for a flea," and pretended
to be much engrossed in the momentous business of hunting for this
quarry in the blanket of his cot. The little trickster is such a lover
of fun that he is pretty certain to betray his ruse in a case like this,
and our small flea-catcher, we are told, laughed mischievously as he
proffered his excuse. Such sly fabrications may be just as naughty as
the uninspired excuses of a stupidly sulky child, but it is hard to be
quite as much put out by them.
It is a further refinement when the staunch little lover of liberty sets
about "easing" the pressure of commands. If, for example, he is told to
keep perfectly quiet because mother or father wants to sleep, he will
prettily plead for the reservation of whispering ever so softly. If he
is forbidden to ask for things at the table he will resort to sly
indirect reminders of what he wants, as when a boy of five and a half
years whispered audibly: "I hope somebody will offer me some more soup,"
or when a girl of three and a half years, with more subtle insinuation,
observed on seeing the elder folk eating cake: "I not asking".
A like astuteness will show itself in meeting the dismal accusations and
scoldings. Sometimes the fault-finding is daringly ignored, and the
small culprit, after keeping up an excellent appearance of listening,
proceeds in the most artless way to talk about something more agreeable,
or, what is worse, to criticise the manner of his correction; as when a
small boy interrupted his mother's well-prepared homily by remarking:
"Mamma, when you talk you don't move your upper jaw".
In cases in which no attempt is made to ignore the accusation, the small
wits are wont to be busy discovering exculpations. Here we have the
ruses, often crude enough, by which the little culprit tries to shake
off moral responsibility, to deny the authorship of the "naughty"
action. The blame is put on anybody or anything--if there is no other
scape-goat in view, then on the hands or other "bodily agents". This
last device is sometimes hit upon very early, as when a mite of two who
was told to stop crying gasped out: "Elsie cry--_not_ Elsie cry--tears
cry--naughty tears!" We find too at an early age a suggestion of
fatalism, as when a boy of three who was blamed for not eating his
crusts, and his procedure contrasted with that of his virtuous sire,
remarked: "Yes, but, papa, you see God had made you and me different".
Next to these denials of the "naughty" action come attempts at
justification. Sometimes these look like pitiful examples of quibbling.
A boy had been rough with his baby brother. His mother chid him, telling
him he might hurt baby. He then asked his mother, "Isn't he my own
brother?" and on his mother admitting so incontestable a proposition,
exclaimed triumphantly, "Well, you said I could do what I liked with _my
own_ things". At other times they have a dreadful look of being fibs
invented for the purpose of covering a fault. Under a severe mode of
discipline a child is apt, as already hinted, to slip over the boundary
line of truth in his self-protective efforts to escape blame and
punishment.
One other illustration of this keen childish dialectic when face to face
with the accuser deserves to be touched on. The sharpened faculties have
something of a lawyer's quickness in detecting a flaw in the indictment.
Any exaggeration into which a feeling of indignation happens to betray
the accuser is instantly pounced upon. If, for example, a child is
scolded for pulling kitty's ears and making her cry it is enough for the
little stickler for accuracy to be able to say: "I wasn't pulling
kitty's _ears_, I was only pulling _one_ of her ears". The ability to
deny the charge in its initial form gives him a great advantage, and
robs the accusation in its amended form of much of its sting. Whence, by
the way, one may infer that wisdom in managing children shows itself in
nothing more than in a scrupulous exactness in the use of words.
_The Plea for Liberty._
While there are these isolated attacks on various points of the daily
discipline, we see now and again a bolder line of action in the shape of
a general protest against its severity. Sometimes the parental authority
is contrasted unfavourably with that of some other mother. The small boy
who invented a family, _viz._, a mother called Mrs. Cock and her little
boys, frequently referred to this lady for the purpose of giving point
to protests against the severity of the real mother. "For instance
(writes the latter) when mother refuses her paint-box as a plaything,
or declines to supply unlimited note-paper for 'scwibbleation,'
a reproachful little voice is heard, 'Mrs. Cock always gives her
paint-box and all her paper to my little boys'. A pause. Then follows
suggestively: 'I fink she loves them vewy much'."[10] On the other
hand, if the child accepts the mother's plea, that she has to impose
restraints because she is a good mother, he is apt to wish that she were
a shade less good. A boy of four had one morning to remain in bed till
ten o'clock as a punishment for misbehaviour. He proceeded to address
his mother in this wise: "If I had any little children I'd be a worse
mother than you--I'd be quite a bad mother; I'd let the children get up
directly I had done my breakfast at any rate".
[10] From a published article by Mrs. Robert Jardine (compare
above, pp. 16, 17).
Enough has been said to illustrate the ways in which the natural child
kicks against the imposition of restraints on his free activity. He
begins by showing himself an open foe to authority. For a long time
after, while making a certain show of submission, he harbours in his
breast something of the rebel's spirit. He does his best to evade the
most galling parts of the daily discipline, and displays an admirable
ingenuity in devising excuses for apparent acts of insubordination. And,
lastly, where candour is permitted, he is apt to prove himself an
exceedingly acute critic of the system which is imposed on him.
All this, moreover, seems to show that a child objects not only to the
particular administration under which he happens to live, but to all law
as implying restraints on free activity. Thus, from the child's point of
view, so far as we have yet examined it, punishment as such is a thing
which ought not to be.
So strong and deep-reaching is this antagonism to law and its restraints
apt to be that the common longing to be "big" is, I believe, largely
grounded on the expectation of liberty. To be big seems to the child
more than anything else to be able to do what one likes without
interference from others. "Do you know," asked a little fellow of four
years, "what I shall do when I'm a big man? I'll go to a shop and buy a
bun and pick out all the currants." One must have left in him much of
the child in order to understand the fascination of that forbidden
pleasure of daintily selecting the currants.
(_b_) _On the Side of Law._
If, however, we look closer we shall find that this hostility is not the
whole, perhaps not the most fundamental part, of a child's attitude
towards law. It is evident that the early criticism of parental
government referred to above, so far from implying rejection of all
rule, plainly implies its acceptance. Some of the earliest and bitterest
protests against interference are directed against what looks to the
child irregular or opposed to law, as when, for example, he is allowed
for some time to use a pair of scissors as a plaything, and is then
suddenly deprived of it. And does not all the exercise of childish
ingenuity in excuses imply in an indirect way that _if he had done_ what
is described in the indictment it would be naughty and deserving of
punishment?
Other facts in early life bear out the conjecture that a child has
law-abiding as well as law-resisting impulses. I think we may often
discern evidence of this in his suffering when in disgrace. When he is
too young perhaps to feel the shame, he will feel, and acutely too, the
estrangement, the loneliness, the sudden shrinkage of his beloved world.
The greater the love and the dependence, the greater will be this
feeling of devastation. The same little boy who said to his mother: "I'd
be a worse mother," remarked to her a few months later that if he could
say what he liked to God it would be: "Love me when I'm naughty".
There is, perhaps, in this childish suffering often something more than
the sense of being homeless and outcast. A child of four or five may, I
conceive, when suffering disgrace have a dim consciousness of having
broken with his normal orderly self, of having set at defiance that
which he customarily honours and obeys.
Now this setting up of an orderly law-abiding self seems to me to imply
that there are impulses which make for order. A child, as I understand
the little sphinx, is at once the subject of ever-changing
caprices--whence the delight in playful defiance of all rule and
order--and the reverer of custom, precedent, rule. And, as I conceive,
this reverence for precedent and rule is the deeper and the stronger
impulse.
_The Young Stickler for the Proprieties._
I believe that those who know young children will agree with me that
they show an instinctive respect for what is customary and according to
rule, such as a particular way of taking food, dressing, and definite
times for doing this and that. Nor can we regard this as merely a
reflection of our respect for law, for as we shall presently see it
reaches far beyond the limits of the rules laid down by adults. It seems
to be a true instinct which comes before education and makes education
possible. It is related to habit, the great principle which runs through
the whole of life.
The first crude manifestation of this disposition to make rule is seen
in the insistence on the customary, as to the places of things, the
order of procedure at meals and such like. The little boy of two, often
quoted here, showed a punctilious feeling for order in the placing of
things. He protested one morning in his mother's bedroom against a
hair-brush being placed on the washing-stand near the tooth-brushes,
saying quaintly: "That toof-brush is a brush one". Older children are
apt to be sticklers for order at the meal-table: thus, the cup and the
spoon have to be put in precisely the right place. Similarly, the
sequences of the day, _e.g._, the lesson before the walk, the walk
before bed, have to be rigorously observed. This feeling for order may
develop itself even where the system of parental government is by no
means characterised by rigorous insistence on such minutiae of procedure.
This impulse to extend rule appears more plainly in many of the little
ceremonial observances of the child. Very charmingly is this respect for
rule exhibited in all dealings with animals, also dolls and other pets.
Not only are they required to do things in a proper orderly manner, but
people have to treat them with due deference. One little fellow when
saying good-night to his mother insisted on her going through with his
doll precisely the same round of kissing and hand-shaking that he
required in his own case.
This jealous regard for ceremony and the proprieties of behaviour is
seen in the enforcement of rules of politeness by children who will
extend them far beyond the scope intended by the parent. A delightful
instance of this fell under my own observation, as I was walking on
Hampstead Heath. It was a spring day, and the fat buds of the chestnuts
were bursting into magnificent green plumes. Two well-dressed "misses,"
aged, I should say, about nine and eleven, were taking their correct
morning walk. The elder called the attention of the younger to one of
the trees, pointing to it. The younger exclaimed in a highly shocked
tone: "Oh, Maud (or was it 'Mabel'?), you know you _shouldn't_ point!"
The domain of prayer well illustrates the same tendency. The child is
wont, as we have seen, to think of God as a very, very grand person, and
naturally, therefore, extends to him all the courtesies he knows of.
Thus he must be addressed politely with the due forms, "Please," "If you
please," and the like. The German child shrinks from using the familiar
form "Du" in his prayers. As one maiden of seven well put it in reply to
a question why she used "Sie" (the polite form of "you") in her prayers:
"Ich werde doch den lieben Gott nicht Du nennen: ich kenne ihn ja gar
nicht" (But I mustn't call God "thou": I don't know him, you see). On
the other hand, God must not be kept waiting. "Oh, mamma," said a little
boy of three years and eight months (the same that was so insistent
about the kissing and hand-shaking), "how long you have kept me awake
for you; God has been wondering so whenever I was going to say my
prayers." All the words must be nicely said to him. A little boy, aged
four and three-quarter years, once stopped in the middle of a prayer and
asked his mother: "Oh! how do you spell that word?" The question is
curious as suggesting that the child may have regarded his silent
communication to the far-off King as a kind of letter.
_The Enforcer of Rules._
Not only do children thus of themselves extend the scope of our
commands, they show a disposition to make rules for themselves. If,
after being told to do a thing on a single occasion only, a child is
found repeating the action on other occasions, this seems to show the
germ of a law-making impulse. A little boy of two years and one month
was once asked to give a lot of old toys to the children of the
gardener. Some time after, on receiving some new toys, he put away, of
his own accord, his old ones as before for the less fortunate children.
That the instinct for order assists moral discipline may be seen in the
fact that children are apt to pay enormous deference to our rules.
Nothing is more suggestive here than their talk among themselves, the
emphasis they are wont to lay on the "must" and "must not". The truth is
that children have a tremendous belief in the sacredness of rules.
This recognition of the absolute imperativeness of a rule properly laid
down by the recognised authority is seen in the frequent insistence on
its observance in new circumstances. It has been pointed out by
Professor Preyer that a child of two years and eight months will follow
out the prohibitions of the mother when he falls into other hands,
sternly protesting, for example, against the nurse giving him the
forbidden knife at table. Very proper children rather like to instruct
their aunts and other ignorant persons as to the right way of dealing
with them, and will rejoice in the opportunity of setting them straight
even when it means a deprivation for themselves. The self-denying
ordinance, "Mamma doesn't let me have many sweets," is by no means
beyond the powers of a very correct little person.
A still clearer evidence of this respect for law as such, apart from its
particular enforcement by the parent, is supplied by children's way of
extending the rules imposed on themselves to others. No trait is better
marked in the normal child than the impulse to subject others to his own
disciplinary system. With what amusing severity are they wont to lay
down the law to their dolls, and to their animal playmates, subjecting
them to precisely the same prohibitions and punishments as those to
which they themselves are subject! Nor do they stop here. They enforce
the duties just as courageously on their human elders. A mite of
eighteen months went up to her elder sister, who was crying, and with
perfect mimicry of the nurse's corrective manner, said: "Hush! hush!
papa!" pointing at the same time to the door.
This judicial bent of the child is a curious one and often develops a
priggish fondness for setting others morally straight. Small boys have
to endure much in this way from the hands of slightly older sisters
proficient in matters of law and delighting to enforce the moralities.
But sometimes the sisters lapse into naughtiness, and then the small
boys have their chance. They too can on such occasions be priggish if
not downright hypocritical. A little boy had been quarrelling with his
sister named Muriel just before going to bed. On kneeling down to say
his prayers and noticing that Muriel was sitting near and listening, he
prayed aloud in this wise, "Please, God, make Muriel a good girl," then
looked up and said in an angry voice, "Do you hear that, Muriel?" and
after this digression resumed his petition.
This mania for correction shows itself too in relation to the
authorities themselves. A collection of rebukes and expositions of moral
precept supplied by children to their erring parents would be amusing
and suggestive. Here is an example: A boy of two--the moral instruction
of parents by the child begins betimes--would not go to sleep when
bidden to do so by his father and mother. At length the father, losing
patience, addressed him with a man's fierce emphasis. This mode of
admonition so far from cowering the child simply offended his sense of
propriety, for he rejoined: "You s'ouldn't, s'ouldn't, Assum (_i.e._,
'Arthur,' the father's name), you s'ould speak nicely".
We may now turn to what some will regard as still clearer evidence of a
law-fearing instinct in children, _viz._, their spontaneous
self-submission to its commands. We are apt to think of these little
ones as doing right only when under compulsion: but this is far from the
truth. A very young child will show the germ of a disposition freely to
adopt a law. A little girl, when only twenty months old, would, when
left by her mother alone in a room, say to herself: "Tay dar" (Stay
there). About the same time, after being naughty and squealing "like a
railway-whistle," she would after each squeal say in a deep voice, "Be
dood, Babba" (her name). In like manner the little boy often quoted at
the age of twenty months said to himself when walking down the garden,
"Sonny darling, mind nettles". Here, no doubt, we see quaint mimicries
of the mother's fashion of control, but they seem, too, to indicate a
movement in the direction of self-control.
Very instructive here is the way in which children will voluntarily come
and submit themselves to our discipline. The girl just quoted, when
less than two years old, would go to her mother and confess some piece
of naughtiness and suggest the punishment. A little boy aged two years
and four months was deprived of a pencil from Thursday to Sunday for
scribbling on the wall-paper. His punishment was, however, tempered by
permission to draw when taken downstairs. On Saturday he had finished a
picture downstairs which pleased him. When his nurse fetched him she
wanted to look at the drawing, but the boy strongly objected, saying:
"No, Nanna (name for nurse), look at it till Sunday". And sure enough
when Sunday came, and the pencil was restored to him, he promptly showed
nurse his picture.
That there is this tendency to fall in with punishment for breach of
rule is borne out by some recent questionings of school children in
America as to their views of the justice of their punishments. The
results appear to show that they regard a large part of their
corrections for naughtiness as a matter of course, the younger ones
being apparently harsher in their views of what constitutes a proper
punishment than the older ones.
These evidences of an impulse to look on correction as a quite proper
thing are corroborated by stories of self-punishment. Here is an
example: A girl of nine had been naughty, and was very sorry for her
misbehaviour. Shortly after she came to her lesson limping, and remarked
that she felt very uncomfortable. Being asked by her governess what was
the matter with her she said: "It was very naughty of me to disobey you,
so I put my right shoe on to my left foot and my left shoe on to my
right foot".
The facts here briefly illustrated seem to me to show that there is in
the child from the first a rudiment of true law-abidingness, which
exists side by side and struggles with the childish love of liberty and
rebelliousness. And this is a force of the greatest consequence to the
disciplinarian. It is something which takes side in the child's breast
with the reasonable governor and the laws which he or she administers.
It secures in many cases, at least, a ready compliance with a large part
of the discipline enforced.