Professor Estabrook, the well-known educator, once told
this story to teachers for the purpose of showing them the
discouraging results that attend the negative form of command.
A mother once sent her little boy to buy some eggs. “Take this
basket,” she said, placing it in his small hand, “and don’t
spill one or drop the basket. And don’t fall down.” As he was
passing through the gate, she called after him, “Don’t be gone
long and don’t break the eggs.” After the little fellow had his
order filled and started home all he could think about was not
breaking or spilling the eggs. A vivid picture of broken shells
filled his mind. With a fearful looking into the basket as if
afraid they would jump out of themselves, he did not notice the
large stone in his path and naturally fell over it, spilling and
breaking the contents of the basket.
Our human tasks are done most safely and effectively not while we are
concerned with the task, but while we keep in mind the exemplary Way
by whose guidance all tasks are made plain.
(2175)
* * * * *
The writer, some years ago, heard an educational worker at a
teachers’ institute tell the story of the mother who, on going
away from home for a while, called her children for a few final
precautionary prohibitions. Her conference with the children ran
as follows:
“Children, you are not to go up-stairs while I am away. But if
you do go up-stairs, you are not to go into the back room. But
if you do go into the back room, you are not to play with the
beans piled there. But if you should play with the beans, do not
put any into your noses.”
There is no need to finish the narrative for any persons
who know child-life. The physician eventually succeeded in
preventing the nasal cavities from becoming vegetable gardens.
The story seemed to have been made to order. But it is not at
all improbable. The writer knows of kittens having been put
“into the Baltimore heater,” and of little pigs having been
run through a windmill after thoughtful parents had enjoined
upon their children not to do these things. Thus does the law
operate, as any fireside will abundantly verify.--A. B. BUNN
VAN ORMER, “Studies in Religious Nurture.”
(2176)