CHILDREN
A BOY’S MISERY
Quite the saddest thing I have come across for some time is the account
of the suicide from remorse of a widow, who drowned herself in utter
misery; her body being found near the spot where a fortnight before
that of her son, aged eleven, had been discovered. The boy, it seems
had committed suicide after being accused of stealing money belonging
to his mother.
Even from the bare outline of what happened there stands out stark,
like some haunting fiend of pain, the agony suffered by this boy and
mother before each sought the merciful quietness of death.
I find myself conscious of emotion stronger and more vexing than the
strangling sense of pity. I am angry at the waste of two lives, and
especially of the fine young life so grievously destroyed. Why, I ask
myself, do we torture children by forcing on their sensitive natures
punishment for failure in right conduct, while we make no attempt to
understand the hidden struggles and unexplained emotions that almost
always are the cause? How is it we fail to remember so completely our
own growth, the mistakes we made, the undiscovered sins that now we
have forgotten?
This boy stole from his mother. A thief you call him—a bad and
ungrateful son.
But wait—think! Why did he steal?
An easy question, perhaps, you will say to answer. He desired to buy
sweets, wished to visit the cinema; he had been betting with his
marbles and getting into bad habits; or he wanted to swagger as a
capitalist among his friends. Yes, that sounds probable enough; some
such were, I expect, the reasons given by the mother, probably believed
in by the boy himself. For so often we force the acceptance of our
adult stupidities upon our children. The poor boy counted himself a
thief, believed that he had sinned; he felt that he had wronged the
mother whom he loved so much. He did not know, for there was no one to
tell him, that he did not care at all for the money he stole for these
trivial reasons. No, he did not know. But underneath, hidden in the
darkness of his young soul, there was a stronger driving imperative,
unknown and unsuspected by any one, most of all by the boy himself,
which was the irresistible force that caused him to steal.
The reason of his action is really simple and would be recognised at
once by any psychologist. It must be sought in the relation of the boy
to his mother. He was not loved enough. At least, in some way, he was
unhappy in his home relationship—at conflict in his innermost nature.
He stole money, though, he did not know it, because he wanted love.
Of his life, through his eleven years, I lack the information that
would provide us with the necessary details of proof. It is exceedingly
improbable that the details will be forthcoming, for this boy was
unknown and his death even at the time, caused no stir. But it is a
very certain inference from the evidence of the excessive remorse that
drove him to take his own life that, sometime in his earlier years, he
had suffered some shock of jealousy or stress of misery in relation to
his mother, that initiated the trouble, which later had to force an
expression by means of his thefts.
I hope that I make my meaning clear. The idea of “transferring” a
feeling into a quite different action may be a little strange to you.
Yet everyone knows that, if you are angry with someone and dare not
show it, you may gain relief from some kind of violent action entirely
unconnected with the cause of the angry feelings. The boy who is afraid
of his father, or is otherwise unhappy in his home, is very likely
to be a “bully,” he takes what he has suffered out of someone weaker
than himself. And it is the same process when the suppressed painful
feelings of jealousy or other unhappiness take the form of spending
money. The impulse is so powerful that if the money cannot be got in
any other way, it will be stolen.
In many children there arises jealousy in connection with their home
relationships, often without reason, but none the less real to the
childish imagination, and this causes them to doubt the parental love
that is as necessary to them as the sun to the flower. In its mild
and practically harmless form this feeling of being neglected, which
few children quite escape, is only occasionally active and remains
unrecognised, though it is the frequent cause of irritability, of minor
sicknesses and faults in behaviour. The results in aggravated cases
are far more important, and cause, not infrequently, such a desperate
consciousness of inferiority, with an always pressing sense of wanting
something, that there arises an overpowering physical and spiritual
necessity for the liberation of the hidden trouble. This relief is
found usually in acts of violence, frequently in stealing.
In the case we are considering we see the boy, beyond all shadow
of doubt, over-sensitive, the symptoms of the unconscious trouble
expressing themselves, on the one side, in an exaggerated feeling
of inferiority, and, on the other, in a compelling need to find
opportunity for the assertion of power. I do not know just how it
happened. Maybe, his mother, who has paid with her life in passionate
remorse, was too hindered with the troublesome details of life to be
able to cultivate and pick the flowers of love. I cannot know, but _I
do know_ that in the tender psyche or soul of that poor boy was some
terrible need for his mother’s love—a want which he did not understand,
indeed, of which he was probably wholly unaware. He may even have been
in outward rebellion, have thought he was indifferent to his mother,
but such a state would but furnish further witness to the trouble
within. Had he known what it was he wanted, he would not have done what
he did. But the ever-disturbing need, causing confusion in his soul,
drove him to steal the most obvious thing that he was without and his
mother possessed—that was money.
I do not hesitate to state that in the great majority of cases of
boyish thieving the reasons for the act must be sought in some deeply
hidden cause, marking some inner disturbance, with a feeling of wanting
something which the boy does not understand. The taking of small
sums of money or other pilfering acts is a covering-mask, and has no
connection with crime. There is one thing further that it is necessary
to remember. Though the fault of boyish thieving is not in itself a
sign of any moral failure in the character, our treatment of such
small thefts—our adult stupidity in understanding the difficulties and
seeking out the concealed unhappiness of the young soul, often hounds
on the stealing boy into the thief.
We make criminals of the young because we are blind and hardened with
our own failures and minor struggles. We also cause, as in the case of
this boy who killed himself, the most heart-breaking tragedies. It is
appalling even to contemplate the suffering brought quite uselessly
upon boys and girls by grown-up foolish ignorance.
We show too little imagination in our treatment of the child who does
wrong. We rarely remember his almost terrible sensitiveness, nor do we
consider the unusual advantage (from the point of view of the child)
that we possess just in being grown-up. And nothing, as I have said
before, is to the boy plainer as a sign of this grown-up freedom than
the power we have (or rather that they think we have) to spend money
how we like and when we like. That is why the taking of money is one of
the most common symbolic acts for a boy’s wish for love or power.
That boyish theft is often pathological is proved by the fact that the
objects stolen are often useless to the boy, that they are hidden away,
and, as a rule, forgotten, and further that the boy forgets, or almost
forgets, what he has stolen or how he took them. Some boys have a
passion for stealing certain objects which they will take over and over
again. Those who have had anything to do with delinquent children well
know these symptoms.
In nearly all cases the thieving is repeated over long periods;
although each act may be followed by violent remorse. Parents and all
those who have to deal with these childish wrong doers, should know
that this sorrow, especially if it is emotionally excessive, serves
only to increase the tendency to a fresh repetition of the theft. For
remorse fixes the boy’s attention on his stealing, and, still more, on
the pleasurable feelings that unconsciously to himself are connected
with the act. He remembers these, though he does not know it, whenever
he thinks of his wickedness in stealing. And this fixity of attention
in itself is a kind of rehearsal of the act, that is very likely to
lead to an actual performance of it. Boyish remorse is, no doubt,
gratifying to parents, but, almost invariably, it is harmful to the boy.
Whenever the boy thinks how bad he is, how wrong and disastrous an act
would be, he is in danger of being compelled to perform that act. Most
of us have experienced this, but we forget its application to the moral
conduct of the young. Once think how terrible it would be to fall down
the precipice, and the idea of jumping down approaches.
Remorse is a form of temptation. And all forms of temptation should,
if possible, be avoided in dealing with the misconduct of children. If
your boy steals money do not leave money lying about. Also, even if he
has stolen money several times, express no faintest suspicion as to his
not using honourably any money entrusted to him, for some necessary
purpose, such as paying railway fares or buying a school book. Never be
suspicious over the change such a child brings you. As he steals from a
feeling of inferiority, and, in particular, because through jealousy,
whether imagined or real, he feels himself less blessed with the love
of those about him than other more confident children, any sign of your
not being able to trust him, must render him more liable to err.
If the thieving boy were treated with sympathy and understanding, and
loved and helped, instead of being blamed and often cruelly punished,
there would be fewer grown-up thieves.
CRIMINALS MADE IN OUR NURSERIES
Every child suffers sometimes from a feeling of inferiority. He is so
much smaller and weaker than the grown-ups who control his play and
his work that he feels uncomfortably helpless against their authority,
which to him seems often to be exercised in an arbitrary and unkind way.
There are times when this consciousness of being little and weak is
so overwhelming that the child is bound to do something to convince
himself of his own powerfulness.
It is then that he becomes naughty. For the very easiest way to
command the attention of his mother, and the other adults who are
with him, is by being naughty. Good, he is left alone. The grown-ups
go on with their own occupations. He feels neglected. At most he is
mildly praised. “Johnnie is a nice quiet boy to-day.” But this is very
different from the attention he commands when he is naughty. He defies
authority. For a short time he becomes a despot, ruling the grown-ups
who usually rule him. His sensation of power is intensely enjoyable.
And the more disturbance he makes in the nursery life the deeper is
his satisfaction. Of course, he is sorry afterwards. But his sorrow is
not really for the first period of successful rebellion, but for the
following time after his power fails.
Now, it is very important for the mother to understand this. The real
problem is to minimise as much as can be of the child’s enjoyment of
naughtiness.
Any unwisdom on the mother’s part such as her being too emotionally
concerned, indulging in nagging or violent anger, may have very serious
results. Inevitably the child feels as he sees his mother’s tears and
want of control, “I have caused this.” Instead of being weak he is
master of his mother. That is why usually he is good after he has been
naughty.
But this kind of nursery behaviour is disastrous to the child’s
character.
Let me tell you a rather striking story to illustrate this. A young
boy, very naughty, was sent to bed. His mother, greatly troubled, went
some hours later to his room. He was kneeling, praying. She thought he
was asking God to forgive him. But this was what she heard: “Please,
dear God, forgive my bad mummy for being so unkind to poor little
Freddy.” The boy grew up in the most unfortunate way. I cannot give
the details and there were, of course, several causes. Yet certainly
his character suffered the first wrong in the nursery from an unwise
emphasising by his mother of his own importance.
The naughty child is always the child over-occupied with thoughts
of himself. And his feelings are unhealthily important to him just
because he finds himself for some cause at a disadvantage. Parents,
unconsciously, but very foolishly, emphasise their children’s
inferiority; they speak of their weakness, tell them they are too
little to do this or that, never realising the danger of what they are
doing.
Children must not be subjected to conditions of emotional stress, which
increase unnecessarily their inevitable consciousness of inferiority
in an adult world. If the parents do not find out and remedy the cause
of these feelings (which they ought to know are invariably present
whenever a child is naughty) and provide an expression by which the
desired power is gained in a right way, let me warn them that they are
dangerously limiting their children’s chance of a successful and happy
life. By connecting pleasure with bad conduct, they are certainly,
though they do not know it, making the way easy for every kind of
future bad conduct.
The fate of all children is decided in the nursery; criminals are made
there as well as saints and heroes.
THE TYRANNY OF PARENTS
In the life of every girl and every boy there come times when they
must, and should, free themselves from the thraldom of the home.
This may sound hard to parents, who desire almost always to keep their
children in tutelage, and cannot often even think of them except as
belonging to the home and to themselves.
Yet the young must rebel, must escape from this too-closely-binding
yoke of love. They have to break away from the moorings of safety; to
adventure; to find a place for themselves; to get into the world and to
establish their own lives as women and men.
We should hear much less of trouble between parents and children if
fathers, and especially mothers, could be made to understand that the
conflict with their growing boys and girls is not a personal conflict;
that it has nothing, or at least very little, to do with the actual
situation, and is not directly dependent on anything that either the
parents or the children may do or may not do. And this is comforting to
parents—it does not mean that their children love them less.
No, the conflict is based on an inescapable psychological opposition.
It is the necessity of the young to escape from the tyranny of the old.
The parent’s hand is needed to steady the child, while it is unable
to stand firmly on its own feet or to guide its own steps; but as the
child grows older, it must learn to walk alone. If the mother persists
in holding out a hand, never lets the child fall down, she destroys a
proper independence and the hand held-out-too-long is used to satisfy
the mother’s selfish desire; to give her the pleasure she gains from
the child’s dependence on herself, and not because of any need of the
child for help.
You will see the application of this illustration.
Many mothers prolong the years of childish helplessness and absence
of initiative because they do not want their children to grow up.
Especially they check the boy’s or the girl’s independent feelings and
impulses by persistently guiding them.
There is an immense, but usually unrecognised, selfishness in the
apparently devoted parent. Such devotion ignores the right of the young
to discover for themselves.
The separation between parent and child needs to be more than a
mere separation in space. Sending a boy or a girl away to school
or elsewhere does not separate it from the home ties; often such a
separation but serves to bind them more fixedly. What is needed is a
psychological separation—an emotional freedom from the too-crippling
dependence of childhood. There is the need to take the home standards
and compare them with other standards of the world; the getting rid
of the old excessive reverence for the parents. They, too, must be
criticised and judged.
This process of liberation is difficult and very painful to the child;
that is why so often there is rebellion and unkindness. And the danger
is greater because, at this period, the boy or the girl is so easily
discouraged, turns back so readily with kindness to the old safety.
And if this is countenanced by the parents, who continue to offer a
too-protective affection, the character of the boy or the girl is
weakened so that in after years they will not be able to meet the
necessities of adult action.
The too fond mother or father perpetuates the childhood of their sons
and daughters. They are a far more real danger to their children than
neglectful or careless parents.
It is worthwhile considering some of the reasons why parents do too
much for their children; are too careful to keep them bound to the home
and within the protection of parental love.
The parents who have failed in satisfying their own desires see in
their children a new opportunity. They hope for vicarious satisfaction.
And for this reason, rather than for the reasons of unselfish love
which they believe rule their conduct, they will sacrifice themselves
so that their children may achieve what they have failed in gaining.
They are to hand down and maintain _their name_, to keep in the world
_their family_, and all that seems of value _in themselves_—all that
would be lost by their approaching extinction.
If we stop to think, we shall see how common and easy it is for parents
to use their children as instruments of satisfaction. Wherever one
or other parent is unhappy, suffering under some unsatisfied desire,
they seek to satisfy these desires through their children. Do we not
know that the wife, and sometimes also the husband, not happy in their
own marriage concentrate their hopes of a satisfying life on their
children. The mother wants her daughters to be literally, wholly
devoted to her; she loves again in her love for her sons; or the father
compensates himself with his devotion to his daughters, while he seeks
to satisfy his desire for power by completely directing the life of his
sons.
All this is quite wrong. It breaks the power of the young; turns them
into dutiful automatons, instead of rebellious adventurers. Constantly
thwarted, too much protected, they become necessarily less capable of
effort, with a weakened power for action. The model boy or girl of
parents and schoolmasters is almost always a failure in life.
Such parents love their children too selfishly and too possessively.
Seeking emotional relief, they drain for themselves the storehouse of
energy which their children ought to preserve for their own lives.
The danger is deep and far reaching, a too great and unhealthy
attachment to either parent may, and often does, cause an inability to
transfer an adequate share of loyalty and affection from the parent to
the wife or husband. It may check the desire to marry. The man’s choice
of a life partner is guided by an infantile vision of his idealised
mother; and then, after marriage, he will seek from his wife the
feelings of a mother. That is, he will want to be helped and mothered
instead of wishing to guide and protect.
This is a very frequent cause of unhappiness in marriage.
Strange as this may seem, the true Don Juan owes his incapacity to find
satisfaction in love to the fact that he searches unconsciously for
what he can never find, the lost features of his childhood’s mother. He
is unfaithful to all women because he is faithful to one woman.
Again the girl may feel towards her husband as she did towards her
father; she may be too obedient, too uncritical to be a true helpmate;
or, and this is much more serious, a too excessive identification with
the mother may render difficult and even impossible the right response
to love.
It is not too much to say that, wherever there is this over-attachment
and persistence of the childhood attitude, or where the conflict to
break from the too heavy tyranny is very severe, the whole career and
the whole love-history of the adult life is settled and decided—damned
and fated to disaster from the start. Indeed the seed of failure, of
unhappiness, even of crime and vice, often is set in helpless children
by the selfishness and ignorance of over-affectionately helpful
parents, whose too much interference, too emotional solicitude, blocks
the narrow passes that lead on to open and independent life.
THE SUPERFLUOUS FATHER
In many homes, where there are children, the father seems a
stranger—almost an intruder.
The central figure in the family is the mother. All the details of
her life are familiar to the children; she is seen shopping, cooking,
looking after the home. The father is a little mysterious; he goes
adventuring in the unknown world. He is picturesque and wonderful; an
exciting figure that arouses nursery admiration—but he is unnecessary.
At first the mother occupies all the child’s attention. She supplies
food, comfort, shelter, teaching and brings happiness to the nursery.
She is the first love-object and of supreme importance; the starting
point of all those interests of the children which lie outside of
themselves.
But the other parent—the superfluous father, comes both as interrupter
and friend into this mother-child circle. He plays with the children,
opens up new delightful ways of interest, brings the movement that
children love. But also he is a disturber. He absorbs the mother, draws
her attention and care from the children. He upsets the order and
balance of the nursery. He almost dethrones the baby.
Thus at a very early age jealousy of the father begins to stir and
unsettle the nursery peace. Usually we either treat this childish
jealousy as a joke or refuse to admit its presence, but it is deadly
earnest to the child itself. If the mother is capricious, varying
in her attentions to her husband and to her children, or if she is
over-tender and too demonstratively affectionate, this jealousy may,
and indeed, must work great and permanent evil.
You see, it imposes a conflict in the exquisitely responsive child,
between the emotions of hate and anger and envy born of jealousy, and
the emotions of love and admiration and obedience dependent on a sense
of the benefits conferred by the father.
It is the duty of the mother so to balance her favours and her love
that the rights of the husband and the children are both maintained,
and neither side is tempted to be a monopolist.
For it is not only the children who are jealous of the father. Often
the father is jealous of the children. And often he has cause. Some
women, when once the child is born, regard their husbands solely as the
person for providing money necessary for the maintenance of the home.
In any other capacity she has ceased to desire him, frankly he is in
the way.
The mother type often ceases, after motherhood, to be the loving
mate—the wife. There is so little time for love making in a nursery
home. The man becomes a superfluity, his demands tend to be delegated
to holidays that are planned, but do not often occur.
Nature herself seems to condemn the man in his capacity as father. So
delicate is the bond which attaches him to the child as compared with
the unbreakable bindings which hold the child to the mother; so readily
can he be pushed outside the circle of the family, where, as a member
apart, he will inevitably seek his own interests and pleasures.
Now, whether this complete severance happens or not, some conflict
between the father and his children, especially between father and sons
is almost bound to occur. This is a war which is normal and, indeed,
inevitable—far more so than any class-war, any opposition and struggle
between the nations.
Have we not read of the solitary polygamous father of the past, the Old
Man of the Tribe, who drove his sons out of the horde as they grew up,
because in his greed he wanted all the women to be his wives? Much time
has passed since then, but these emotions are very old and very strong.
Pity and the gentler feelings of civilisation enable the father to
accept the son as a member of the family and as a companion instead of
a rival. But echoes remain of the old instincts of jealous rivalry.
No science is so difficult or so important as psychology. It is
because parents do not understand their own minds or the minds of
their children that they make such mistakes. They do not see that some
jealousy and opposition in family relationships are inevitable and,
in fact, useful. Else the child would never grow up, would always be
overwhelmed by its parents.
So do not let us be too alarmed if sons oppose fathers, or if fathers
are wanting in sympathy with their sons.
Yet it must be remembered finally, on the other side, that the
authority of the father has to be maintained. Superfluous in the
family, from one point of thought, his influence is nevertheless of
the most urgent importance. Without it a too great dependence on self
is fostered at too early an age, which sets up an intolerant and
unreasoning hatred of all authority and an inability to suffer any kind
of restraint.
The father thus needs to preserve his rights and duties within the
home. If women have had to fight for the Vote and the open door to the
profession, the father may have to fight for the love of his children
and the key to the nursery.
He must refuse to be regarded as superfluous.
THE PERFECT MOTHER
A few weeks ago a shower of sudden rain brought me for shelter into
the house of a kindly stranger, who beckoned me in from the position I
had taken under the thickly foliaged trees, bordering her garden. She
was a woman who exuded kindness. You know the type—opulent in figure,
wholesome and ripe, her face beaming in wide wrinkles of pink flesh.
The sudden generous smile of the big mouth showed her the possessor
of a real charm. Her eyes had a blue twinkle that attracted laughter.
Quite plainly she would be delightful as a mother. For about her was
something that conjured visions of nursery fires, of warm, sweet
bread-and-milk, of sugar plums after nasty powders, and of kisses
and forgiveness given for childish wrong doing, without any unfair
bargaining for repentence.
But this woman had no child. Nature does not always, in this matter,
act as intelligently as she might. We all know of many Betsy Trotwoods.
On the other hand, we find children lavished wastefully—yes,
children, swarming in the cold homes of mothers who do not want
them—women without understanding of children or any trace of parental
passionateness. Do you not recall many modern prototypes of Mrs.
Jellaby?
I felt my bowels ache for this woman with her rich and wasted
motherhood. Her opulent affections were lavished not, as they should
have been, on the tender warm bodies of little children, but on dogs.
Never have I seen so many dogs: they were placed all over the rather
small room. Both easy chairs were occupied by a canine seater. There
was a mother with new baby-pups in a lined basket before the great
fire. Another dog who was sick was in another basket, wrapped in a
shawl, on the other side of the fire. The room was stifling, and had
a sick, close, doggy smell. And though I am a lover of dogs, I felt
disgusted. I really hated those pampered toys, that snarled and snapped
and grumbled at me in the most horrible way. Believe me, I am not
exaggerating. You could not speak. The whole room was dogs. Enough! Let
us leave them and get on to something of greater value.
It was that thought which caught and gripped my attention. This woman’s
unfilled life. I could not forget it: it stayed with me long after I
had left the house—a memory not to be obliterated.
She was forlorn among her dogs. It was a tragedy of waste. I have had
so many dreams of the perfect mother that I was stung to anger and
impatience to find her, at last here, squandering her affections on a
canine brood.
The situation was so plain. This woman needed children, if not of
her flesh, then adopted and made her own by the rich fullness of her
motherhood.
NOBODY’S CHILDREN
CHILD ADOPTION: A MUCH NEEDED REFORM
It was a short time after I had found “the perfect mother” thus wasted,
that there came into my hands the “White Paper” which gives in full the
wise and interesting Report of the Committee on Child Adoption. I knew
that here was just the very thing that was wanted. Here was shewn the
means by which the motherly childless woman and the motherless child
could be brought together.
The desire for child adoption has never been stronger than it is at the
present time. But I do not hesitate to say that, in the present absence
of any law to regulate and safeguard adoption, the position is so set
about with difficulties and so pressed with continuous dangers that
the practice ought to be actively discouraged. It is dangerous for the
adopter and, what matters even more, it is dangerous for the child.
The emphatic and unanimous decision of the Committee was that there
is immediate necessity for a change in the law to make the adoption
of children legal in this country. Every one who gave evidence was
unanimously in favour of adoption in all cases where, for one reason
or another, any child could not have the care of its own parents. It
is much better for every child to be brought up in a home than in an
institution. Not only is it cheaper, but the child benefits far more.
But adoption needs to be regulated and legalised. The child is too
precious a possession to leave to anyone to do with as they desire.
The report recommends:—
1. That after obtaining the consent of the real parents and the
adopting parents, as well as the consent of the child, if he
(or she) is over fourteen, all adoption shall be sanctioned by
a judicial authority.
2. That confidential official inquiries shall be made from time to
time, as to the child’s progress and happiness in the adopted home.
3. That the child shall take the adopter’s name, and shall have, as
far as is possible, the position of a natural child.
This Report was presented in June, 1921. Yet nothing has been done. And
what I wish to emphasize with all the power that I have, is the crime
of this delay and the urgent need there is for immediate legislation.
Children are waiting to be adopted; childless people are waiting to
adopt. Surely it ought not to be difficult to frame a simple law that
would safeguard the interests of both.
There is little wonder that hitherto adoption has not been popular in
this country. One strong reason that has prevented the far-sighted
from attempting it is that in England there is no legal method by
which adoption can be carried out. And because of this there is, as I
have said, too much danger connected with it, as well as not enough
certainty of its continuance. For the law grants the foster-parent no
recognised control over the child.
There is the ever present fear, increasing as the years pass and the
child grows up, lest the natural parent shall come one day and claim
the right to take the child away—an injustice specially likely to
happen as the child becomes older and is able to earn money.
Then there is, on the other side, the possibility (often realised) of
the adoption being a commercial transaction between the parent (most
frequently an unmarried mother) and a foster-parent, by which the
latter receives a sum of money and takes over an unwanted child, who
most frequently dies. It is horrible to contemplate.
But indeed, always, there is the dangerous position of the
adopted child, who has no settled position, no legal claim on the
foster-parents, who may adopt a child in the most solemn manner and
keep it all through the attractive years of childhood, then, when
the less attractive years of adolescence begin, or when any change
in circumstances makes the adopted child no longer wanted, they can
calmly withdraw their protection and turn the child out of their home.
Again, I say, it is horrible to contemplate. The destiny of the adopted
child is controlled throughout the unprotected years of childhood and
of youth by the whim and caprice, both of the natural parent and the
adopted-parent.
And do not comfort yourself by believing that these are merely
imaginary troubles. They occur every day as every one knows who has
any knowledge of the practice and results of child adoption in this
country. I personally know of many cases of injustice that have brought
disaster and unhappiness to the child. Let me tell you one. A boy
was adopted by a man, unmarried, a minister of God, who was a social
worker and greatly attached to children. But later in his life the man
married. Under pressure from his mother, accounted as a religious and
good woman, the adoption was cancelled, the boy, wanted no longer, was
sent to a home for homeless children. No one troubled about him. Or
take another case where an illegitimately born child—a baby girl, was
abandoned and afterwards reclaimed _three times during the first five
years of her life_! Each time the mother took her away from a happy
home with foster-parents who loved and cared well for her. Then after a
few months of neglect the mother again abandoned her. They had no legal
remedy against the caprice of the mother.
These unguarded children belong to nobody. Here is an amazing gap
in our law. It is worse than that—it is an amazing gap in our
consciousness and sense of social responsibility. “Nobody’s children!”
the phrase has a pitiable and stinging significance. Yet it is just
this state of things we are countenancing with our lazy and callous
indifference. There are tens of thousands of little ones for whom
to-day it is bitter truth that they belong to no one. Orphaned, or
unwanted by their natural-parents, many of them are being adopted in
the worst and most casual manner—handed out “on probation” like a cat
or a dog.
And if you doubt the truth of this statement, listen to the judgment of
the Committee on Child Adoption as to the disgraceful carelessness with
which adoption is being carried on in this country;
“We believe that the absence of proper control over the ‘adoption’ of
children over seven years of age and under that age unless payment
is made, results _in an undesirable traffic in child life with
which no one can interfere_, unless proceedings are taken against
the adopting parent for cruelty or neglect; children may be handed
from one person to another, with or without payment, advertised
for disposal, and even sent out of the country without any record
being kept. _Intermediaries may accept children for ‘adoption’ and
dispose of them as and when they choose._ Homes and institutions for
the reception of the children exist which are not subject to any
inspection.” (Paragraph 61, page 10 of the Report.)
The italics in this passage are mine; will you try to think what these
conditions, _which you are permitting_, mean? Think of them with
your hearts, not with your heads! And if you have a child of your
own, passionately dear to your life, try to realise the abominable
position—the cruelty that can hardly be escaped, as if it were _your
child_, who was thus being handed callously from one person to another,
without protection, without any form of legal guardianship.
We talk much of the nation’s care for children. Would it not then seem
a necessary step to have some just provision of our law to protect the
helpless unwanted child, who at present belongs to nobody? Humanity,
and even good sense answers, “Yes.” The Common Law of England has
hitherto always said most emphatically, “No.” _Except for a reference
to adoptions which has managed to slip into a marginal note of a
Finance Act, there is no recognition of adoption in our laws._
The right thing to do is the simple thing. We have on the one hand,
these homeless children, whose numbers have become much larger in these
last years and with the change and slackening in responsible conduct,
while on the other hand, we have, an increased number of women who
are childless and will never be able to marry. The problem, at its
simplest, is this: What can be done to bring together the childless
woman with a mother’s nature and the motherless child?
I am not forgetting the Institutions that are already in existence.
There are two agencies for arranging adoption, as well as other
religious and social societies, and many homes, from which children can
be adopted. These agencies are doing admirable work, but they cannot
do a tenth part of what ought to be done. And the very worst cases, in
which the child most urgently needs protection, often cannot be reached
at all. This problem is too big to be muddled through privately. It is
the concern of the whole nation.
_The first necessary step is to legalise adoption. Until that is done,
nothing can be done._
At present as I have told you, the position is one of very great
danger. The law grants the foster-parents no recognised legal control
over the child. The mother, or her relatives, unless obviously immoral
and unfit persons, may at any time claim back the child.
Even in the most favourable circumstances there is danger, and a
never-ending uncertainty that cuts at the very root of the adopted
relationships. I repeat: neither the foster-parent or the child has
any security. And at any time, and for any reason, the child may be
taken from his home. Directly he (or she) grows up and is able to earn
money, the needy relatives, with an eye on those small earnings or on
the much larger sums squeezable from the foster-parents, may prove an
ever-threatening nuisance. If the foster-parent acts boldly and resists
such claim, the relative may apply for a writ of Habeas Corpus in
the High Court, when (under the Custody of the Children’s Act, 1891)
the case is decided at the discretion of the Court. As a rule, the
interests of the child are considered, and, in this respect, matters
have much improved of late years. But even if the decision is given in
favour of the foster-parents so that the child remains in the home in
which it has been reared and is loved, there is a period of ceaseless
anxiety; and, that the decision will be favourable is certain only when
the character of the claiming relative can be proved to be bad.
_So curious is the law that it is safer to adopt the child of bad or
doubtful parentage (where this can be proved) than the child of good
and respectable people._
The other side of the position has also to be considered. As is
evident, the foster-parents may be bad. This we have seen. And what I
want to emphasise further is that here too the danger threatens the
unprotected child. Just as the law gives no recognised protection to
the good foster-parents, so it affords no protection to the child
against a bad foster-parent.
All the time I am trying to drive into your consciousness the terrible
position of the child that has no legal claims; no kind of safeguard.
He (or, of course, she, and the girl babies are adopted much oftener
than boys) may be adopted simply as playthings, or to satisfy deeply
unconscious instincts of cruelty, or as an investment for the time when
they can earn money. Also they can be cast off at the caprice of their
adopters.
A further and permanent injustice, operative even under happy
conditions and in a good home, arises from the fact that the adopted
child is without rights of inheritance. If his foster parents, however
rich, die intestate, he has no share in the family property. At any
time in his life he may be left penniless and friendless, without
recognition that he belongs to anyone.
Such uncertainty is awful. Try to realise the suffering which it must
bring to the child, ever dogging his footsteps like a menacing shadow.
Our sluggard imaginations must surely be stirred now our attention has
been directed to this gap in our law. I wish that my pen had greater
power to bring home to everyone concerned—and _everyone who cares
or professes to care for the welfare of children is concerned_—the
iniquity of allowing the continuance of conditions that must bring
nothing less than tragedy into the lives of these unfortunate and
unprotected little ones.
This is almost the only country which does not recognise and legalise
adoption: all that needs to be done is to bring our law up to the
standard which prevails in other lands. We alone are neglectful. It
is one of the many social matters concerning children on which Great
Britain has seriously fallen behind the example of its own daughter
States. The United States, Australia and New Zealand have all gone
far ahead of the Mother Country in their legislation in regard to
child adoption. All the forty-eight States of the Union have now Acts
regulating adoption. But perhaps the Model Act is that of Western
Australia, passed in 1891. It provides for the complete and careful
guardianship of all adopted children. The Act has worked admirably,
and with a very few alterations could be adopted to the needs of this
country.
And it must not be thought that all this recognition and protection
of adoption is a new thing, and, as such, possible to dismiss as
unnecessary, belonging to an over-protective and grandmotherly
system of law. Such a belief would be far from the truth. Students
of history know how almost universal was the practice of adoption in
older civilisations. Roman law recognised the custom and adoption
was extremely common. I could give many other examples. Especially
interesting is the custom in India, where among the Hindoos, when a
child is adopted into a new family, it goes through the religious
ceremonies belonging to death before quitting the home in which it was
born, and afterwards goes through the religious ceremonies belonging to
birth on reaching the new home. The old bond is completely severed and
a new social, religious and legal bond created.
I would ask your attention to this wise provision made by one of the
oldest civilisations, which often understood so much more practically
and simply the needs of a social situation.
If the full necessary security is to be given to the practice of
adoption there must clearly be a complete passing over of the duties
and rights of the natural-parents to the adopting parents. Adoption
ought to be undertaken only solemnly and with due understanding of all
the difficulties, and the necessary precautions. The closest enquiries,
in every case, need to be made as to the bona fide intentions and
complete suitability of the adopting parents: guarantees must be given
of their intentions and ability to bring up and care for the child.
It would also be equally necessary, except in exceptional cases of
proved cruelty and unfit parentage, to ascertain the reasons why the
parents—or parent in the case of an illegitimately born child—desired
to give up their rights of guardianship. But when once this has been
done, and any order of adoption made, the parental relationship ought
to be transferred completely from the natural to the adopting parents.
And in the interests of the child, I would have this transference
carried out with the severest restrictions. I would not allow a parent,
or parents, who once gave up the guardianship of the child any rights
of visitation. Such visits, even under the happiest circumstances cause
disturbance, remind the child unceasingly of its difficult position
as an adopted child. They tend to create confusion, with feelings of
dissatisfaction and jealousy; comparison between the old home and the
new home; conflicts between the affection for the adopted-parents
and the very possible drawing back of natural affection for the
real parents.
All ways adoption must be difficult.
Science has shewn us how terribly the future of the child depends on
its early relationships in the home; its relation to its mother, on
whom it depends for the first childish satisfactions, its relations
to its father, to its brothers and sisters. The adopted relationships
can never be quite the same as the natural relationships. We now know
how easily jealousy and unhappiness can arise in the heart of even the
youngest child, and what havoc to the after life these feelings may
bring. If we remember this, we shall realise better the disturbing
emotions likely to be aroused when one parent is lost and replaced by
another. That is why everything possible needs to be done to give to
adopted parenthood the strongest stability. The adoption of a child
ought never to be undertaken lightly. It is, perhaps, the most binding
and the most solemn, and the most fatefully responsible of any human
relationship.
A righteous law of adoption needs to guard the adopted child so that
the voluntary relationship is as binding in every way and as permanent
as the natural relationship. For this reason the adopted child should,
in my opinion, have the same rights of inheritance as all other
children. Nothing short of this can do justice to the adopted child.
We talk a great deal to-day about children and their rights, but
very few of us realise at all practically and fully the change
of attitude, in particular in connection with property and the
rights of inheritances, that are likely to be necessary, if, in all
circumstances, our theories are to be expressed in our daily conduct.
The whole question is complicated and very difficult, there is, indeed,
no easy way out.
LET US PENSION THE MOTHERS.
I was attending a conference to consider the best steps to be taken
to aid mothers and to stop the sacrifice of the lives and health of
little children. All kinds of suggestions were made. We talked much, we
proposed and discussed, but none of us seemed able to agree what ought
to be done.
Then a strong man, an observant lawyer, rose. He spoke with the biting
American twang. His words were few: “Why don’t you pay poor mothers?”
The brilliant simplicity of this question stirred at once our powers of
understanding.
It was Judge Neil who spoke. In brief phrases he told us what had been
done in America. Mother’s pensions, which are in reality children’s
pensions, have been established in most of the forty-eight States of
the Union. They are granted until the children are fourteen, or, in the
case of delicate children, until sixteen. State-appointed supervisors
watch over the welfare of the children to ensure that the money given
is well spent by the mother.
As Judge Neil placed the facts before us, this plan of paying mothers
instead of forcing them to go out as workers, possibly at “sweated”
wages, and then paying other people in an institution to do their work,
seemed so simple that I was filled with wonder that we had not long ago
thought of so easy and obvious a reform. It is strange that it is so
often the most simple things that we never think of doing. I believe it
is because we think of reforms intellectually; we are not human enough
to feel.
Now, it is just Judge Neil’s humanity that set his feet upon the right
way. Listen to the story of how first he came to think of mother’s
pensions:—
In 1911, a poor widow, broken by the burden of supporting her family,
was condemned to have all her five children taken from her.
“Better to shoot her than take away her children.” said Judge Neil. He
then asked how much it would cost to maintain the children in a State
institution.
“The country pays the institution 10 dollars a month for each child,”
was the answer.
“Why not give the 10 dollars to the mother and let her keep her
children?”
Such was Judge Neil’s humane and practical solution of the problem.
Thus the scheme for pensioning mothers was born.
The responsibility of the State for children ill-cared-for is admitted
in most countries. It is, therefore, a question of ways and means, not
a question of high principle, how best to carry out this intention and
prevent child poverty.
Surely grants to good mothers are better than grants to institutions.
Even the best Poor Law schools must have the faults that are inherent
in institutions.
I can hardly express too strongly my own want of faith in “expert
child-trainers.” I have found always that they regard the child mainly,
if not entirely, as something to be improved and instructed on a
definite plan. The “expert” is never human, and a child has need of all
the human treatment it can get.
Every child has absolute need of its mother. All experience shows us
that the home, with its sympathetic relationships of mother and child,
sisters and brothers, cannot be replaced. We must insist on reforms
that will make home life possible.
The child has to accept the arrangements we make; that is why this
question is of such immense importance. If the matter could be fixed by
the will of the children I should have no fear. The child has not lost
the true values of life.
There is another fact to consider—one that will appeal to ratepayers.
Grants to mothers are cheaper than grants to institutions. In the
United States the payment made to a mother works out at about one-third
the cost of maintaining a child in an institution. So we can do the
best thing for the child and its mother and at the same time save our
pockets.
BOY AND GIRL OFFENDERS, AND ADULT MISUNDERSTANDING
Much disturbing evidence on such a grave question as the bad behaviour
and consequent punishment of boys and girls, in institutions, and in
prisons, is made public, from time to time, to rouse the consciousness
of all those who have concern for the welfare of the young. Sometimes
the events recorded are of a more serious character. The attempted
suicides and continued escapes of young prisoners certainly afford a
rather tragic witness of some failure in our reformative efforts. Even
under the Borstal system of prison life—a system that is primarily
intended to be humane and educative, and not brutal and primitive, the
results obtained are far from being satisfactory. We cannot feel that
we are achieving anything like what ought to be done in the difficult,
but necessary, duty of reclaiming these young lives that, for one cause
or another, have fallen to disaster.
If we believe, as believe we must, that the old are responsible for the
young—that the one generation must stand as guardian to the next—this
problem of delinquency is one that we may not thrust aside. It is
bigger than its immediate application in connection with reclaiming the
individual boy or the individual girl: it touches the very deepest of
our duties—our duty to the future. It is for us to ask many questions
of ourselves, and of all those who are in any way connected with the
young; questions to which it is not easy always to find satisfactory
answers.
It is obvious that something is wrong.
I do not wish to harrow you with painful statistics, or by reminding
you of unfortunate incidents in connection with young prisoners that
_you ought not to have forgotten. You would not have forgotten if you
had cared as you ought to care._
I do not deny that “much is being done; that conditions are better
far than they were in the past.” But this does not cover our failures
or lessen our responsibilities. I plead for greater attention to, and
more understanding of, the delinquent child. It is not, and never can
be, a question that can be fixed or finally decided: the child is an
individual; and, in each case, the problem of dealing with him must be
a separate problem. This is certain—only by understanding the child
who fails, _his own difficulties and his own failure_—can we advance.
By this way only can we give aid to these young offenders, who, with
a burden of ancient instincts and uncontrolled impulses, come into
a world filled with undesirable examples, where they have to face
manifold temptations.
Let us try, then, to consider the delinquent boy and girl, bearing
these truths in our thoughts. And first we must acknowledge the
complexity and terrible difficulty of the problem. Delinquency in
the young cannot be explained by obvious superficial causes. The
motivating impulse to naughtiness and bad conduct always lies outside
of consciousness. I mean that the boy or girl who continuously does
wrong, fails altogether in good conduct, whether in a reformatory, in
a prison, or a Borstal institution is acting in this way from a reason
which is deeply hidden, and which they do not themselves understand;
while further, the present misbehaviour is connected with some
experience of the past that now they have forgotten. _They are driven
by this inward urge into rebellion and insubordinate conduct._ And the
help they ought to have is one of re-education, by clearing up what was
wrong in the past, and this help must be given to them by those who are
specially trained to understand.
They cannot, unaided, help themselves. The things they do wrong—the
breaking of rules, the failures in work, the violent conduct, the
attempted escapes—in the vast majority of cases, are a defence against
unhappiness that stalks as a deadly shadow, following their young lives.
_Their treatment is a medical as well as a social and ethical problem.
The young do wrong because their souls are sick._ Such a statement
is not fantastic, it is seriously true. To understand the meaning of
the present bad conduct of anyone, but especially of the delinquent
boy or girl, it is absolutely necessary to find out the motive which
makes them want to behave badly. Always we have to search to find “a
reason why.” To discover, as far as we are able, what it is causing the
rebellion or the bad conduct, we must have wisdom to give up the old
ignorant ideas as to its being possible to cure bad conduct, in any
way that matters, by scoldings, by punishments or, indeed, any kind of
direct attack.
The fault that distresses those in authority in the present must be
regarded as the sign of a hidden conflict that has distressed the child
in the past. It is this conflict, then, that must be discovered and
dealt with. Never in any case can the lazy adult view be accepted that
the delinquent child does wrong because of original sin.
The young do wrong when they suffer, usually through the blunders of
those who are supposed to train them; their faults in behaviour are a
relief for pain they find too intolerable to bear. If the boy or girl
is happy in harmony with his or her world, then that boy or girl is
good.
To find the real cure for this unhappiness of soul is, of course, a
most difficult task. It can be accomplished completely only by those
specially trained in understanding and analysing the child mind. But
much good, and a return to healthy happiness can often be gained, by a
little helpful understanding of the special problems of the individual
boy or girl. It is the educator’s duty to try to pour daylight on the
hidden plague spots of the soul.
This can never be done by cruelty or any form of coercive treatment
which arouses fear—the most deadly enemy to right conduct. The way to
educate the abnormal, the difficult boy or girl, is not to be shocked
or to punish them, but to show them sympathy, directed by knowledge.
Teach these girls and boys that they have failed in good conduct, not
because they are bad or different really from other more fortunate
young people, but because they have been unhappy—ill with feelings of
insecurity, of deficiency, of loneliness, of failure; help them to
understand the causes that have brought about this condition, why they
have felt inferior, been unhappy; and then build up their characters
by giving them new opportunities of finding happiness in their work
and in their play, providing new interests and creating opportunities
for new responsibilities. These young people want kindness and to be
taught to be sociable. Moral conduct is never easy. We all want what we
do want. We surrender our wishes only because we find we satisfy other
desires by so doing. We are praised and rewarded for good conduct and
for preferring to give up to others what we want to do ourselves. And a
very practical lesson in our training of delinquents depends upon this.
The educators must take the greatest possible care that bad conduct
does not give greater pleasure than good conduct. Doing wrong so often
opens for the young the widest and easiest door to gain excitement. If
boys and girls in Borstal institutions and in reformatories are left
unnoticed and never praised when good they quickly feel neglected.
And though they do not recognise these disappointed feelings they act
very strongly in setting them to seek for some kind of relief. And if
allowed to enjoy power when they become rebellious, through the notice
that is bestowed upon them and the upsetting of the usual regime of the
school or the prison workshop, they will continue to indulge in bad
conduct whenever they are bored or, for any reason, crave some form of
emotional relief.
Bad conduct is primitive, infantile conduct, and one of its strongest
characteristics is the tendency to proceed more directly, more
unthinkingly, and more selfishly to the goal of the wishes than is
usually done by the reasonable adult.
The little child wants something, grabs at it, and when it does not at
once get it, screams and breaks into a passion.
Now this is just what is done by the delinquent boy or girl, whose
conduct must be regarded as infantile, frankly selfish, and regulated
only by doing what one wants and getting what one wants. Such conduct
points to a condition of retarded growth; and usually can be traced
back to some mistake in the early training, which has prevented an
adaptation of the character to grown-up conditions, so that the boy or
girl of seventeen or eighteen acts still like the young child of four
or five years of age.
Every child, who is to grow into a successful and happy adult, has to
grow out of this primitive behaviour and to learn social standards
of conduct—to think what other people want and to measure their own
conduct in its relation to others.
Thus the real problem of the education of the delinquent boy or girl
is to help them to grow up. And the very first step is to teach them
to stop thinking about themselves. They have to learn to turn outwards
towards others and away from their own wishes and hidden desires, that
are the real cause of their unhappiness and bad conduct.
And for this reason, even if for no other, there could be no possible
form of treatment as harmful, and also I may add so silly, as that
adopted (as still so often it is) in reformatory institutions of
placing insubordinate prisoners in solitary confinement, even sometimes
with the use of irons. No other form of punishment could be more
disastrous to a boy or girl. To permit this cruelty is assuredly to
increase the faults of character that are the cause of the bad conduct.
By such insane punishment the young offenders are separated from their
companions, perhaps bound, and left without occupation to sit alone,
brooding over their unhappiness; their thoughts necessarily fixed upon
themselves. They cannot fail by means of this unhealthy process to be
sent more backwards into childish and bad behaviour—driven further away
from adult and social conduct.
Few of us, I think, understand sufficiently how continuous and almost
unspeakably hard, are the efforts that the delinquent has to make in
order to achieve re-education. He is overwhelmingly conscious (however
much he may seem to be indifferent) of his own inferiority. All such
boys or girls, who frequently become aggressive and insubordinate,
need to be treated in such a way as will increase their confidence
in themselves. This may seem contradictory, but it is true. If the
young offenders are punished and discouraged the trouble from which
they suffer is sure to increase by making stronger the sense of
self-depreciation. Too often the devastating feelings are driven back
into the obscure places of the mind—the unseen office of the directing
forces that in secret issue the supreme commands that control conduct.
It is in order the better to overcome the truths that would stab him
about himself if he recognised them, that such a wrong-doer becomes
aggressively self-assertive, indulges in foolish acts and marked
insubordination. Such boys and girls are without courage, and all their
pride boils up behind a maimed and timid character.
The important thing to remember is that, though bad conduct comes from
what seems insubordination, “the characteristics of bad conduct” arise
from the state of the boy’s or girl’s mind, and that state depends very
much on the treatment he (or she) receives.
If you cure the particular fault for which the punishment was
inflicted, and the boy or girl loses his (or her) soul, you have done
more harm than good. But the real position is worse than that, for
if you hurt the young soul, you give up for ever the opportunity of
re-educating the boy or girl for good conduct.
NEW WAYS OF TEACHING CHILDREN
UNBOUNDED FREEDOM AND SOME DRAWBACKS
I remember once seeing in “Punch” a picture that has always retained
in my memory the vividness of the first impression. It is a long time
ago, yet I can see it now exactly as I saw it then. A father, at a
children’s Christmas party, was personating a bear. Filled with the
adult’s joy of being allowed to be a child, he was roaring loudly, as
he crawled upon the floor covered with a woolly hearth-rug. So much for
the father. Certainly he was enjoying it. But what about the children.
What was their view of this performance?
They were all looking bored. Even the tiny ones shewed no enthusiasm.
In the corner of the room as far withdraw as space permitted was a
group of young school boys, very stiffly correct in Etons and immense
white collars. They were disgusted. One, who had ostentatiously turned
his back on the performing father, was plainly angry. Even his back
was eloquent of disapproval and gloom surrounded him. His companion,
standing next to him, attempted to cheer him in this way: “Never mind,
Brown major, you know its not _your_ fault if your pater is a blooming
fool!”
It is, indeed, a different aspect of the situation. The son ashamed of
the father! The young generation condemning the old! It is fitting that
we should take notice and remember the lesson that is taught.
For this picture of appraising youth carries a very real moral that
should be considered by those modern educational enthusiasts, who are
always talking about amusing the child—as if that were the one thing
which mattered. There is no subject, I believe, on which greater
nonsense is talked than on this one of interesting children. Personally
I am sceptical whether children are ever greatly interested in the
entertainments that the adult provides for their amusement. What they
find interesting are the things they provide for themselves. That is
one reason why there must be so great an element of falsity in modern
educational theories, which aim at making lessons so interesting that
they become like play.
It cannot be done.
Much of this kind of talk sounds admirable from the point of view of
the adult, but what I always want to know is the view taken by the
child—by the boy or the girl. I do not think they are quite _so fond
of being amused_ as we are apt to believe. Nor do I think they can
be, or indeed, ought to be, _interested_ (which is the same really as
being amused) _to adult orders_. I _mean_ that to be truly effective
and liberating to the child, this interest must be dependent on what he
has to do for himself. The work cannot be done for him. That is why I
am afraid of the incursion into the schoolroom of the too anxious and
amusement-providing spirit of the home. It causes too much indirect
interference. It supplies too many appliances. It is over-occupied with
arrangements and the smoothing away of difficulties. In a word it does
not leave the child sufficiently to himself to learn his own lessons,
to satisfy his own needs in his own way.
_It proposes, of course, to do this, but it is just here that enormous
mistakes occur._
I can fancy a group of boys and girls who, if they said what they
really felt about their own education and our ceaseless experiments and
efforts to make their lessons interesting and more acceptable to them,
would pity us as fools.
The point of view of the child (also of the boy and the girl, but
especially, I think, of the boy) is always so utterly different from
the point of view of the adult. You see they are judging the situation
personally, while we are judging it vicariously and ethically.
The ever-pressing idea of the educationalist to-day is to give the
child freedom. But what is freedom? That is a question to which we
have not yet found an answer. Do we consider sufficiently, if what
means freedom to us, really gives freedom to the young? And a second
question—Are we not, perhaps, in our nervous over-anxiety, imposing
upon them something they do not want?
There is a great deal said about self-development and the necessity of
the teacher respecting the child’s individuality. We are continually
hearing of interesting experiments made in free schools and are told of
children who, even when quite young, if left to choose their own tasks,
will be so interested in writing, in reading, and also in arithmetic,
that they will not want to give up their work even when school-hours
are over!
Still I am unconvinced. I would rather have the boy or the girl waiting
in eagerness for the bell to ring to free them from the school.
We are apt to over-estimate our grown-up power. We do this because we
like to do it. It flatters adult egotism. We find a delicious sense of
power in realising ourselves in so many new ways as potters to mould
the clay of the child’s mind. I often feel that we worry about this
question of education much more to please ourselves than to help the
young.
But this continuous occupation with the child is bad for the child,
however gratifying it is to ourselves. By the provision of too many
appliances and “helps to learn,” and by continual experiments that are
too often changed, we tend to check creative originality, and thereby
we destroy the interest we are labouring to stimulate. It is better
for the child if we are less occupied with his needs. If we do not
provide him with interests he will find them for himself. In this case
they will mean more to him—do more for him. I dislike exceedingly all
contrivances that make things easy. I believe the child dislikes them
too. That is one reason why he tires so soon of all the appliances
you provide. They do not stimulate interest and effort, except quite
temporarily, indeed, they destroy both.
This applies to children’s play quite as much as to their schoolwork.
Most children to-day are given too many and too elaborate toys. Perhaps
nothing is more mentally destructive. The child will invent his own
amusements. He wants to fight giant lamp-posts and to go to sea in an
inverted table. To fasten his imagination to your adult suggestions is
to destroy his vigour.
Know then this truth. You can teach the child lessons and you can
discipline him by your grown up authority, _but you cannot by your
ready-made devices successfully interest him or give him freedom_.
That he must find for himself. He cannot develop fully and be reliant,
unless by himself, and very often _against your will_, he travels on
his own road.
There is the very greatest delusion about this idea of freedom in the
school room. And it is open to question whether the children in the
free school, left mainly to choose their own tasks and take their own
time in performing them, are really freer, in any true sense, than the
disciplined and directed children in the master-ruled schools who have,
in my experience, much better opportunities in the out-of-school hours
of developing personality. The discipline of the school does help them
by giving them more rest. I think they are less influenced by their
teacher. For always there is, and must be, whatever the educational
plan and however free from apparent compulsions, behind the pupil the
will of the teacher indirectly, if not directly, guiding. And I am not
sure if this indirect coercion of suggestion is not worse, from the
point of view of the child, than the old-fashioned methods of direct
command. I will even go further and state my belief that its claims are
heavier, and bind the boy or girl more permanently in the prison of
obedience.
For one thing, such indirect coercion does close for the pupils the
splendid liberating door of being rebellious.
I can still remember the excitement and real health-giving joy I
obtained when, as a child, I once out-witted my instructor and escaped
from my lessons, which I heartily detested, to go to a fair we had all
been forbidden to visit. There was a glorious fat woman, and a man who
swallowed swords! Wonderful! And there was a delicious sweet in a long
roll of twisted pink and white, with inside a picture of Roger, the
Claimant. It was the time of the Tichbourne trial. If you could find
one tiny piece of the sweet without the picture, a whole immense bar,
much bigger than those which were ordinarily sold, was to be forfeited
and given to you free! Think of it! The possibility! The excitement!
Every penny I had was spent—and it was worth it! Yes, a thousand times
worth it! Of course, what I did brought punishment. For I had to
confess my misdeeds. Those sweets made me very sick. What did that
matter? I did gain the joy and liberty I was seeking. This was one of
the really educating experiences of my childhood.
Seriously, I am deeply afraid that to-day in our very eagerness to help
children, we may often be acting in an exactly opposite direction as a
hinderance to their self-development, and future happiness. I believe
we are trying to achieve something that is impossible.
One thing I am certain we ought to accept. It is the inescapable
barrier between the generations—between the parents and the children,
the teachers and the pupils. The young ought to be separated from the
old. I think this biological fact is forgotten by many advocates of
freedom and new ideals in education.
I believe also that the young want—and by “want” I mean both desire and
need—the direction of the old. They want the authority that marks the
division between the two generations, for this opens up opportunities
to rebel. Instinctively they know they can find more liberty under
authority, than when left with the pressing burden, often too heavy for
their young inexperience, of deciding at school, as well as at home,
almost everything for themselves.
Nor do I very much believe in the over-worrying conscientiousness of
the modern teachers. Again I must insist upon this. The increasing
pre-occupation with the child; the constant trying of different
educational experiments, is almost certain to exercise an adverse
influence. There may be a tyranny of solicitude and kindness that is
harder to bear than scoldings and punishments. To me there is something
mournful in this chorus of uncertainty, in which it is not difficult
to detect the poverty of our faith. It tells a tale of infirmity both
of life and purpose. So small a thing staggers us. We are without
confidence in ourselves or in life. Why is this?
Do we, I often ask myself, know at all, what the child wants to find
the freedom that gives liberty to the young soul—the only freedom that
matters? How can we give the gifts of life unless we have ourselves
firmer confidence? If anything can destroy the soul of a child, it is
want of security. Our irresolution is our great danger. That is why so
often our efforts are barren. It is a sign of a nervous disorder of the
soul. We seek to gain from outside things what we should find within
ourselves. And the child must suffer. For the child is so helplessly
dependent, so inarticulate, so unable to express his own feelings and
deeper needs.
There is still the most amazing blindness in regard to the effect of
adult conduct on the child. I know of one small boy who was taught in
a free school, where the idea of authority was held in abhorrence.
Yet this boy of eight was found one night sobbing bitterly. His
mother questioned him. It appeared he had been idle at school, rude,
and generally naughty. He had not been scolded, and, of course, not
punished. He had been reasoned with and told the foolishness of
behaving in this way. Apparently all ought to have been well. Yet it
was just in this reasonable gentleness of his headmaster that his
trouble rested. He knew he had been naughty. He _wanted_ the punishment
that would have wiped out his own consciousness of wrong doing. He
sobbed out his complaint to his mother, “if only he (his teacher) had
punished me or been cross and nasty I could have forgotten. It would
have been all over. But now I keep on thinking about it, and I feel
_all twisted up inside_.”
Now this young boy understood his own needs much better than did his
master, who was making the very common mistake of judging the child by
himself. The needs of the child are entirely different from the needs
of the adult. The child wants security, he wants firmness, he desires
authority, he even wants punishment.
Let me tell you another story to help to bring home these forgotten
truths. This time it was a little girl of the tender age of six years,
who had done wrong, was rude and very unkind to her governess. The
occasion was a birthday party. Over-excitement was the outside cause
of her bad behaviour. No one minded the rude remarks except the child
herself. We all, including the insulted governess, understood the
reason. Our mistake was, we understood too well, or rather, we judged
from the outside and from our grown-up point of view, forgetting that
it was not that of the child. We all tried to comfort the little one’s
distress, assuring her we understood and knew she did not mean what she
had said. In vain. The child would not be comforted. I can never forget
the fatalism of her remark, “It does not matter that Miss —— and all of
you forgive me, what matters is that I _did_ it.”