life, it is pre-eminently necessary that she should be grounded in
this larger ethics, and able to teach it by example as well as by
description. She needs a perception of the proportionate duties of
mankind,--an understanding of their true basis, and a trained skill in
imparting this knowledge to the child. If she cannot properly teach
ethics, she should provide a teacher more competent. At present the
only special ethical teaching for the child outside the family is in
the Sunday-school; and Sunday-school teachers are usually amiable
young ladies who are besought on any terms--with no preparation
whatever--to give this instruction. Once we boldly enter the field of
ethical study, and reduce its simple principles to a teachable
basis,--when we make clear to ourselves and our children the
legitimate reasons of right conduct,--the same intelligence and
ambition which carry us on so far in other sciences will lift the
standard of behaviour of our race, both in theory and practice.
Meanwhile, with such knowledge and practice as we have to-day, let us
see to it that we give to little children our best ethics by precept
and example, with hopes that they may go on to higher levels.
VI.
A PLACE FOR CHILDREN.
The one main cause of our unfairness to children is that we consider
them wholly in a personal light. Justice and equity, the rights of
humanity, require a broader basis than blood relationship. Children
are part of humanity, and the largest part. Few of us realise their
numbers, or think that they constitute the majority of human beings.
The average family, as given in the census returns, consist of five
persons,--two adults and three minors. Any population which increases
has a majority of children, our own being three-fifths. This large
proportion of human beings constitutes a permanent class,--another
fact we fail to consider because of our personal point of view. One's
own child and one's neighbour's child grow up and pass out of
childhood, and with them goes one's interest in children. Of course,
we intellectually know that there are others; but to the conscious
mind of most persons children are evanescent personal incidents.
The permanence of childhood as a human status is proven by the
survival among them of games and phrases of utmost antiquity, which
are handed down, not from father to son, but from child to child. If
an isolated family moves into a new country, and its children grow up
alone, they do not know these games. We should bear in mind in
studying children that we have before us a permanent class, larger
than the adult population. So that in question of numerical justice
they certainly have a right to at least equal attention. But, when we
remember also that this large and permanent class of human beings is
by far the most important, that on its right treatment rests the
progress of the world, then, indeed, it behooves us to consider the
attitude of the adult population toward the junior members of society.
As members of society, we find that they have received almost no
attention. They are treated as members of the family by the family,
but not even recognised as belonging to society. Only in modern
history do we find even enough perception of the child's place in the
State to provide some public education; and to-day, in some more
advanced cities, some provision for public protection and recreation.
Children's playgrounds are beginning to appear at last among people
who have long maintained public parks and gardens for adults. Also, in
the general parks a children's quarter is often now provided, with
facilities for their special care and entertainment. But except for
these rare cases of special playgrounds, except for the quite generous
array of school-houses and a few orphan asylums and kindred
institutions, there are no indications in city or country that there
are such people as children.
A visitor from another planet, examining our houses, streets,
furniture, and machinery, would not gather much evidence of childhood
as a large or an important factor in human life. The answer to this is
prompt and loud: "Children belong at home! Look there, and you will
see if they are considered or not."
Let us look there carefully. The average home is a house of, say, six
rooms. This is a liberal allowance, applicable only to America. Even
with us, in our cities, the average home is in a crowded
tenement,--only two or three rooms; and in wide stretches of country
it is a small and crowded farm-house. Six rooms is liberal
allowance,--kitchen, dining-room, and parlour, and three bedrooms.
Gazing upon the home from the outside, we see a building of dimensions
suited to adults. There is nothing to indicate children there.
Examining it from the inside, we find the same proportionate
dimensions, and nothing in the materials or arrangement of the
internal furnishings to indicate children there. The stairs are
measured to the adult tread, the windows to the adult eye, the chairs
and table to the adult seat. Hold! In a bedroom we discover a
cradle,--descended from who knows what inherited desire for swinging
boughs!--and, in some cases, a crib. In the dining-room is often a
high chair (made to accommodate the adult table), and sometimes in the
parlour a low chair for the child. If people are wealthy and careful,
there is, perhaps, a low table, too; but the utmost that can be
claimed for the average child is a cradle or crib, a high chair, and
a "little rocker." There can be no reasonable objection to this, so
long as the child is considered merely as a member of a family. The
adult family precedes and outlasts the child, and it would be absurd
to expect them to stoop and suffer in a house built and furnished for
children.
So we build for the adult only, and small legs toil painfully up our
stairs and fall more painfully down them.
But the moment we begin to address ourselves to the needs of children
as a class, the result is different. In the school-house all the seats
are for children, except "teacher's chair"; in the kindergarten the
tiny chairs and tables are perfectly appropriate; in the playground
all the appointments are child-size. "What do you expect!" protests
the perplexed parent. "You say yourself, I cannot build my house
child-size. Do you expect me to add a child-size house in the back
yard? I cannot afford it."
No, the individual parent cannot afford to build a child-house for his
own family, nor, for that matter, a school-house. We, collectively,
whether through general taxation, as in the public school, or
combination of personal funds, as in the private school, do manage to
provide our children with school-houses, because we recognise their
need of them. Similarly, we can provide for them suitable houses for a
far more early and continuous education,--when we see the need of
them. Here the untouched brain-spaces make no response. "What do you
mean!" cries the parent. "Do you wish us to club together, and build
a--a--public nursery for our children!" This seems sufficiently
horrific to stop all further discussion. But is it? May we not gently
pursue the theme?
We can and do cheerfully admit the advantages of a public school and a
public school-teacher for our children. Some of us admit the
advantages of a public kindergarten and a public kindergartner for our
children. The step between child-garden and baby-garden is slight. Why
not a public nursery and a public nurse? That, of course, for those
classes who gladly provide and patronise the public school and
kindergarten. The swarming neglected babies of the poor, now
"underfoot" in dirty kitchen or dirtier street, part neglected and
part abused, a tax on the toiling mother and a grievous injury to the
older children who must care for them,--these would be far better off
if every crowded block had its big, bright baby-garden on the roof,
and their young lives were kept peaceful, clean, and well cared for by
special nurses who knew their business. A public nursery is safer than
the public street. One hot reply to this proposition is that
"statistics prove that babies in institutions die faster than babies
even in the poorest families." Perhaps this is so.
But consider the difference in the cases. Children in institutions are
motherless, generally orphans. No one is proposing to remove the
mothers of the babies in the baby-garden. "But they would be separated
from their mothers!" Children who go to school are separated from
their mothers. Children who go to the kindergarten are separated from
their mothers. Children who play in the street are separated from
their mothers. If the mothers of these children had nothing else to
do, they could give all their time to them. But they have other things
to do; and, while they are busy, the baby would be better off in the
baby-garden than in the street. To those who prefer to maintain the
private school and the private kindergarten, a private baby-garden
would be equally available. "But we do not want it. We prefer to care
for our children at home," they reply. This means that they prefer to
have their little ones in their own nursery, under the care of the
mother, _via_ the nurse.
The question remains open as to which the children would prefer, and
which would be better for them. Perhaps certain clear and positive
assertions should be made here, to allay the anxiety and anger about
"separating the child from the mother."
The mother of a young baby should be near enough to nurse it, as a
matter of course. She should "take care of it"; that is, see that it
has everything necessary to its health, comfort, and development. But
that is no reason why she should administer to its every need with her
own hands. The ignorant, low-class poor mother does this, and does
not preserve the lives of her children thereby. The educated,
high-class rich mother does not do this, but promptly hires a servant
to do it for her. The nursery and the nurse are essential to the baby;
but what kind of nursery and nurse are most desirable? The kind of
servant hired by the ordinary well-to-do family is often not a
suitable person to have the care of little children. A young child
needs even more intelligent care than an older one.
A group of families, each paying for its children's schooling, can
afford to give them a far higher class of teacher than each could
afford to provide separately. So a group of families, each paying for
its children's "nursing," could afford to provide a far superior class
of "nurse" than each can provide separately.
Here again rises the protest that it is not good for small
children--babies--to be "herded together,"--see infant mortality in
institutions. Again, an unfair comparison is involved. The poorest
kind of children, motherless and fatherless, are crowded in undue
numbers in "charitable" or "public" institutions, and submitted to the
perfunctory care of low-grade, ill-paid attendants, among
accommodations by no means of the best. We are asked to compare this
to small groups of healthy, well-bred children, placed for certain
hours of the day only in carefully planned apartments, in all ways
suitable, under the care of high-grade, well-paid expert attendants
and instructors.
The care of little children is not servant's work. It is not "nurses'"
work. A healthy child should have his physical needs all properly
supplied, and, for the rest, be under the most gentle and exquisite
"training." It is education, and education more valuable than that
received in college, which our little ones need; and they do not get
it from nurse-maids.
Then rises the mother. "I can teach my baby better than any teacher,
however highly trained." If the mother can, by all means let her. But
can she? We do not hear mothers protesting that they can teach their
grown-up sons and daughters better than the college professors, nor
their middle-aged children better than the school-teachers. Why,
then, are they so certain that they can teach the babies better than
trained baby-teachers? They are willing to consult a doctor if the
baby is ill, and gladly submit to his dictation. "The doctor says baby
must eat this and go there and do so." There is no wound to maternal
pride in this case. If they have "defective" children, they are only
too glad to place them under "expert care," not minding even
"separation" for the good of the child.
Any one who knows of the marvellous results obtained by using
specially trained intelligence in the care of defective children must
wonder gravely if we might not grow up better with some specially
trained intelligence used on our normal children. But this we cannot
have till we make a place for children. No woman or man, with the
intelligence and education suitable for this great task, would be
willing to be a private servant in one family. We do not expect it of
college-teacher or school-teacher. We could not expect it of
baby-teacher. The very wealthy might of course command all three; but
that has no application to mankind in general, and is also open to
grave question as to its relative value.
A private staff of college professors would not be able to give the
boy the advantages of going to college. We cannot have separately what
we can have collectively. Moreover, even if the teacher be secured, we
have not at home the material advantages open to us in the specially
prepared place for children.
A house or range of apartments for little children could be made
perfectly safe,--which is more than the home is. From the pins on the
carpet, which baby puts in his mouth, the stairs he falls down, the
windows he falls out of and the fire he falls into, to the doors to
jam the little fingers and the corners and furniture he bumps himself
upon, "the home" is full of danger to the child. Why should a baby be
surrounded with these superfluous evils? A room really designed for
babies to play in need have no "furniture" save a padded seat along
the wall for the "grown-ups" to sit on, a seat with little ropes along
the edge for the toddlers to pull up and walk by. The floor should be
smooth and even, antiseptically clean, and not hard enough to bump
severely. A baby must fall, but we need not provide cobblestones for
his first attempts. Large soft ropes, running across here and there,
within reach of the eager, strong little hands, would strengthen arms
and chest, and help in walking. A shallow pool of water, heated to
suitable temperature, with the careful trainer always at hand, would
delight, occupy, and educate for daily hours. A place of clean, warm
sand, another of clay, with a few simple tools,--these four
things--water, sand, clay, and ropes to climb on--would fill the days
of happy little children without further "toys." These are simple,
safe, primitive pleasures, all helpful to growth and a means of
gradual education. The home cannot furnish these things, nor could the
mother give her time and attention to their safe management, even if
she knew how to teach swimming, modelling, and other rudimentary arts.
The home, beside its difficulties and dangers, is full of unnecessary
limitations. It is arranged on a scale of elegance such as the adult
income can compass; and the natural activities of childhood
continually injure the household decorations and conveniences.
Perfectly natural and innocent conduct on the part of the child is
deleterious to the grown-up home, so patently so that owners of fine
houses are not willing to let them to families with children.
A nice comment this on the home as a place for children! Must a home
be shabby and bare? Or must the child be confined to his bed? Why not
develope the home to its own perfection,--a place of beauty and
comfort and peace,--and let the children have a home of their own for
part of the day, wherein the order and beauty and comfort are
child-size? The child could sleep under his mother's eye or ear, and
gradually aspire to the adult table when he had learned how to be
comfortable there, and not injure the comfort of others. He could soon
have his own room if the family could afford it, and express his
personality in its arrangement; but the general waking time of little
children could be much better passed in a special house for children
than in the parental kitchen, parlour, bedroom, or back yard. "But why
not the private nursery,--the sunny room for the child and his toys?
Is not that enough?" The private nursery means the private nurse, who
is, as a class, unfit to have the care of little children. She is a
servant; and the forming ideas of justice, courtesy, and human rights
in general, are much injured by the spectacle of an adult attendant
who is a social inferior. A servant is not a proper person to have
charge of these impressionable years.
Moreover, however perfect the private nursery and private nurse might
be, there remains its isolation to injure the child. We grow up
unnecessarily selfish, aborted in the social faculties proper to our
stage of advance, because each child is so in the focus of family
attention all the time. A number of little ones together for part of
every day, having their advantages in common, learning from infancy to
say "we" instead of "I," would grow up far better able to fill their
places as helpful and happy members of society.
Even in those rare cases where the mother does actually devote her
entire time to her children, it would still be better for them to pass
part of that time in an equally wise and more dispassionate
atmosphere. Our babies and small children ought to have the society of
the very best people instead of the society of such low-grade women as
we can hire to be nurses in our homes. And, while they need
pre-eminently the mother's tender love and watchful care, they also
need the wider justice and larger experience of the genuine
child-trainer.
So long as we so underrate the importance of childhood,--and that in
proportion to the youth of the child,--those persons who should
benefit our babies by their presence will not do so. Very great and
learned men are proud to teach youths of eighteen and twenty in
colleges; but they would feel themselves painfully ill-placed if set
to teach the same boys at ten, five, or two years old. Why? Why should
we not be eager for an introduction to "Professor Coltonstall! He's
the first man in America in infant ethics! Marvellous success! You
can always tell the children who have been under him!" You cannot
have this professor in your nursery. But your children and those of
fifty other eager parents could be benefited by his wisdom,
experience, and exquisitely developed skill in a place in common.
The argument does not appeal to us. We see no need for "wisdom,"
"experience," "trained skill" with a baby. We have not realised that
we despised our babies; but we do. Any one is good enough to take care
of them. We even confide them to the care of distinctly lower races,
as in the South with its negro nurses. "Social equality" with the
negro is beyond imagination to the Southerner. That gross inferior
race can never be admitted to their companionship, but to the
companionship of the baby--certainly. Could anything prove more
clearly our lack of just appreciation of the importance of childhood?
The colored nurse is, of course, thought of merely as the servant of
the child; and we do not yet consider whether it is good for a child
to have a servant or whether a servant is a good educator.
The truth is we never think of education in connection with babyhood,
the term being in our minds inextricably confused with school-houses
and books. When we do honestly admit the plain fact that a child is
being educated in every waking hour by the conditions in which he is
placed and the persons who are with him, we shall be readier to see
the need of a higher class of educators than servant-girls, and a more
carefully planned environment than the accommodations of the average
home.
The home is not materially built for the convenience of a child, nor
are its necessary workings planned that way; and, what is more
directly evil, the mother is not trained for the position of educator.
We persist in confounding mother and teacher. The mother's place is
her own, and always will be. Nothing can take it from her. She loves
the child the best; and, if not too seriously alienated, the child
will love her the best. The terror of the mother lest her child should
love some other person better than herself shows that she is afraid of
comparison,--that she visibly fears the greater gentleness and wisdom
of some teacher will appeal to the young heart more than her arbitrary
methods. If the mother expected to meet daily comparison with a born
lover of children, trained in the wisest methods of child-culture, it
would have an improving influence on the home methods. One of the
great advantages of this arrangement will be in its reactive effect on
the mother. In her free access to the home of the children, she will
see practically illustrated the better methods of treating them, and
be in frequent communication with their educators. The mother's
knowledge of and previous association with the child will make her a
necessary coadjutor with the teacher, and by intercourse with the
larger knowledge and wider experience of the teacher the mother will
acquire new points of view and wiser habits.
As the school and kindergarten react beneficially upon the home, so
this baby-school will react as beneficially, and perhaps more so, as
touching the all-important first years. The isolated mother has no
advantage of association or comparison, and falls into careless or
evil ways with the child, which contact with more thoughtful outside
influences would easily prevent. She could easily retain her
pre-eminent place in the child's affections, while not grudging to the
special teacher her helpful influence. Also, the child, with the free
atmosphere of equality around him for part of each day, with
association with his equals in their place, would return to his own
place in the home with a special affection, and submit with good will
to its necessary restrictions.
In all but isolated farm life, or on the even more primitive cattle
range, it would be possible to build a home for little children, and
engage suitable persons to take charge of them daily. It would take no
more time from the housework--if that is the mother's trade--to take
the child to its day play-school than it takes to watch and tend it at
home and to prevent or mend its "mischief."
"Children are so mischievous," we complain, regarding their ingenious
destruction of the domestic decorations. A calf in a flower-garden
would do considerable mischief, or kittens in a dairy. Why seek to
rear young creatures in a place where they must do mischief if they
behave differently from grown people? Why not provide for them a place
where their natural activities would not be injurious, but
educational?
In cities it is a still simpler question. Every block could have its
one or more child homes, according to their number of children
thereabouts. The children of the rich would be saved from the evil
effects of too much care and servants' society, and the children of
the poor from the neglect and low associations of their street-bred
lives.
The "practical" question will now arise, "Who is to pay for all this?"
There are two answers. One is, The same people who pay for the
education of our older children. The baby has as good a right to his
share of our educational funds, private and public, as the older
child; and his education is more important. The other answer is that
an able-bodied mother, relieved of her position as nursery governess,
would be able to contribute something toward better provision for her
children.
VII.
UNCONSCIOUS SCHOOLING.