well-born and well-educated, the father being a man of considerable
distinction and originality. From a position of comparative wealth, they
were reduced by business reverses, to relative poverty, and retired to a
farmhouse in an unsettled district. The mother was in delicate health,
the father under the need of trying to repair his fortunes, and there
was no school-house within reach. In addition to that, the father had
very little belief in current school methods, or the efficacy of school
books. The result was that the three girls were allowed to go without
any education of the prescribed kind; but an old man who happened to be
living nearby, with nothing to do, was prevailed upon to come every day
and help along with their enlightenment in any way they desired, or he
saw fit. This old man had once had artistic tendencies, had tried his
hand at various things, and was well-read and well-travelled. He soon
took a great interest in the three bright and charming girls, and came
to regard himself in the light of a kindly, sympathetic companion--which
is the next best thing to a mother, or a father.
He helped the girls with their flower garden, went walking with them in
the fields and answered as many of their questions as he could about
flowers and planting and trees and shrubs and plants, birds, snakes and
bees--anything and everything they showed an interest in.
When it was raining, he played on the piano for them and showed them how
to play little tunes for themselves--which they thought was great fun.
He could paint and draw very well and he brought them a box of water
colors and showed them how to color pictures and draw flowers and birds
and simple things for themselves. He also got some clay and played with
them at modelling figures of various kinds.
In addition to that, he had one idea, which was a sort of hobby, and
about which he talked to them a lot. Every girl, as she grew up, as well
as every boy and man, would be called upon, sooner or later, to write
letters to people she cared about, and wanted those letters to be nice
and interesting. Most people didn't know how to express their thoughts.
So every day, they sat down together, indoors or out, and each wrote a
letter to an imaginary friend. Little by little, the letters became
easier and longer and more interesting.
Frequently he recited poetry that he knew by heart, and told them fairy
tales, and stories of every description from the many books he had read.
And so the thousands of hours were spent with simple natural interests,
in a most enjoyable way, without a thought of school-books, or anything
distasteful, compulsory or confining.
What, in this case, were some of the results? One was that the life of
their inner feelings was developed to an unusual degree. Everything was
done to encourage them, and nothing to suppress, or distort them. The
stories and poems made a constant appeal to their imagination, while the
daily letters which they wrote became a means of reflecting and applying
this appeal.
A love of beautiful things was naturally developed in them, and they
naturally conceived a fondness for music and painting and modelling and
poetry and story-telling. There was no pressure exerted upon them in any
of these directions--merely the encouragement of spontaneous interest
and the help of example.
These tastes and qualities, became the common possession of all three
girls. They could all write poetry and stories; they could all draw and
paint and model and play tunes on the piano--with more or less feeling
and facility--and they all grew up with remarkably sympathetic and
gracious personalities--which became, later on, very widely admired and
commented upon.
One of the girls, the eldest, conceived a deeper liking than the others
for music. As time went on, she wanted to spend more and more time at
the piano--playing and practising and learning to read the notes.
The second girl, in a similar way, was more attracted to drawing and
modelling and painting. The youngest one, while the other two were thus
engaged, liked to sit down with pencil and paper and amuse herself in
writing rhymes and stories.
The eldest daughter became a fine musician and composer of music, and a
brilliant career was in sight for her at the time of her death, which
occurred when she was just out of her teens.
The second daughter, won for herself a distinguished place as a painter,
in Paris and in this country.
The youngest one left to her own resources, a widow with a little son to
support, achieved much wealth and fame as a literary celebrity, one of
the most admired of her generation.
Let us now refer to some other cases, this time to boys, where the
bringing-up happened to be accomplished without any aid, or
interference, of school-books or school-teaching. In some instances this
procedure was due to illness and delicate health on the part of the boy,
which made fresh air and freedom from confinement seem more important
than the benefits of mental training. In other cases, the parents
deliberately believed and decided it was better for self-development and
the formation of character to dispense with what they considered the
disadvantages of school methods.
As long as a boy does not know how to read, and is not taught how, it is
the most natural thing in the world for him to want somebody to tell--or
read--to him fairy-tales and verses and stories of every kind that he
can understand. And this want is sure to be supplied, when there are
loving parents to watch out for it. It may be the mother, the nurse, the
father, or an aunt, or an uncle, who take turns at it.
Sooner or later, as a result of this, the child is very apt to feel a
curiosity and interest and ambition to learn how to read stories for
himself. In the absence of any forcing, the more he thinks about it, the
more his heart becomes set on it. He asks questions about letters and
words in books--surprises his mother by showing how he can print his
own name, then her name and father's. Little by little, without
anybody's teaching him, almost without any one's realizing it, he has
learned to read. This might not happen, of course, in an unsympathetic
atmosphere--if there were no story telling, and no story books lying
about, to bring the inspiration. But as far as my experience goes, it
has always happened, somewhere between the ages of eight and ten, if not
before.
One boy I know, after learning to read for himself, in this way, in
rummaging through the bookshelves, came upon a queer little book of
Experimental Chemistry. It was very old and primitive and had curious
wood-cut illustrations in it. It had long ago belonged to the boy's
grand-father. It was easy to read and told about simple experiments that
any boy could try himself. The necessary ingredients for many of them
could be found at home, or be bought for a few cents at the drug-store.
It happened to arouse his interest.
The first experiment described how to take a little powdered sugar and
mix it with a little powder obtained by crushing up a tablet of chlorate
of potash--such as people put in their mouths for a sore throat. That
would make an explosive, as powerful as the powder used in guns. It
could be set off by dropping on it from an eye-dropper one drop of a
certain kind of acid, from the druggist's.
The boy procured the necessary things, then ran to his mother, and asked
her if he might try the experiment. She responded to his enthusiasm and
only asked permission to stand by and look on. He dropped the acid on
the powder--and sure enough, the powder went off with a big flash.
Wonderful excitement and joy! The experiment had to be repeated again
and again, for the amazement of the waitress and the cook--and
especially for father, as soon as he came home.
That was the beginning of a new interest. The boy kept the book by him
and pored over it, and set his heart upon acquiring first one thing
after another, as they became necessary. As he accumulated bottles and
glass tubes, and chemicals and apparatus, he made shelves and stands for
them with his carpenter tools.
In due time, he got other books on the same subject and became the
possessor of a very practical little chemical laboratory, which was all
of his very own making. At the age of twelve, he was thoroughly at home
in dozens of complicated processes and experiments.
This was only one of the many interests which he had plenty of time to
follow, with the same sort of enthusiasm. At the age of fourteen, his
laboratory was a thing of the past, but for all that, years after, at
college, among his various other achievements, he had no trouble in
winning a prize scholarship in chemistry.
Another boy, brought up in a similar way and having learned to read
without teaching, first took a lively interest in automobiles. When the
family car went wrong, he watched the repairs, asked questions, and was
ready to lend a helping hand. Many of the troubles on a modern car are
apt to be in connection with the electrical equipment--battery, lights,
magneto, timer, self-starter, etc. Sooner or later, a boy who takes an
interest, is apt to become more or less familiar with the principle of
all these things, especially if his nerves and brain are not deadened by
forced application. At any rate, this boy soon did. This led to an
interest in other electrical things--the ringing of bells and buzzers
about the house, and the installation of an electric motor which would
run the sewing machine, or a grindstone, or a little lathe. Then he got
hold of a booklet about wireless telegraphy. There is something
thrilling about the idea which appeals to the imagination--the receiving
of mysterious messages from afar, through the air, and sending back from
your little instrument the far-flying answers.
At the age of twelve, this boy with the aid of a Japanese servant, had
set up his own aerial and apparatus, had learned the code alphabet and
was thoroughly familiar with all the delicate intricacies of detector,
tuning coil, sparker and the rest of it. He had gotten in touch with
certain other wireless operators within a radius of ten miles and,
although he had never seen any of them, he could recognize instantly the
sound of their different instruments and it was a joy and delight to
hold conversations with them and call them up for a good-night, before
he went to bed. And before he was thirteen, he undertook to construct
with his own hands a tuning coil which would be better for his purposes
than the kind he could afford to buy at the store. After much determined
effort, he succeeded and installed it and had the satisfaction of
finding that it was, indeed, decidedly better.
Another boy, who had never had to bother his head with school-books, but
who had also learned to read, in due time got started on a new interest
by a printing-press, which was given to him for Christmas. He puzzled
with it and worked over it, until he learned to set up type and operate
it very nicely. Then he began printing visiting cards--first for
himself, then mother and father, then the servants and friends. It was
great fun to take orders from them and charge them ten cents a dozen,
in a business-like way. Next he got a larger press and different kinds
of type, and by dint of perseverance he found among the trades-people a
few kindly souls, who allowed him to print their business cards for them
at so much a hundred.
Out of this interest grew a more ambitious one. How fine it would be to
print and publish a little newspaper, with stories and verses and
advertisements and subscriptions and everything! This appealed to the
imagination and became an absorbing ambition. In this particular case,
the newspaper project soon outdistanced the printing press. The
newspaper must be bigger and finer than a press of that kind could
possibly manage. So the boy went to a regular printer and found out
about the cost and details of publishing such a paper as he had in mind.
He didn't have enough money of his own for that, but he figured out that
by going again to the tradespeople and getting them to pay for
advertising in his paper and by making people pay for subscriptions to
the paper, the problem could be solved. He decided to limit the scope of
his enterprise to the publication of six numbers, one every month. He
went to different tradespeople with whom the family dealt, stated his
intentions, and asked for advertisements at the rate of fifty cents a
number. He was only twelve years old at the time and they naturally had
doubts about his ability to carry out the project; but some were found
with enough kindly sympathy to agree to pay him, when he brought them
the paper containing the advertisement. In the same way, among relatives
and friends and neighbors, he sought subscriptions at the rate of five
cents a copy and succeeded in obtaining a sufficient number for his
purpose.
He chose a name for his paper by himself but, when it came to the
question of the reading matter, he did not presume to attempt much of
that, at first, but felt he could do better by appealing to his mother
and aunt and others for the kind of contributions he had in mind.
He carried out his project, to the letter,--six numbers, one a
month--and at the end of it, he not only had the satisfaction of a fine
effort well done, but he had also earned a clear profit of over fifteen
dollars. Likewise, he had helped the growth of character, the taste for
literary achievement, the acquisition of much useful experience and
information, and considerable mental training of an admirable sort.
I might continue in this way, almost indefinitely, telling about the
interests and results which may come quite naturally to boys and girls
freed from the routine of school training.
Enough has been said, however, to suggest food for thought. With a
feeling of interest, or enthusiasm, behind it, almost any kind of mental
exercise, or physical exercise, takes on the color of gladness. Without
interest, or enthusiasm, almost any kind of compulsory effort becomes
drab and drear and irksome. The intellect can be a splendid friend to
the feelings--it can bring all sorts of suggestions to them, and point
out their usefulness and their charm--but if, for some reason which may
be entirely intuitive and fundamental and all-wise, the feelings refuse
to respond, or to coöperate, any further compulsion is apt to prove
futile and unproductive of the right growth of character.
These are a few of the considerations which led to the remark, in
connection with our boy, Bob, that the question of schools and school
education is one of the most perplexing and troubling.
No loving mother is responsible for the existing school system, nor
could she alter it, if she wanted to. Even if she has a little pinch of
the heart at the thought of subjecting her sensitive boy to such an
ordeal, how can she dare to do otherwise? Among people of all classes,
it is considered proper and necessary, for children to be sent to
school.
But provided a mother has a clear understanding that her child's
feelings and vitality are the most important things, it is always
possible for her to seek some sort of a compromise in his favor. She can
delay the time of sending him away, until nine, or ten, or eleven. If he
goes to a private school, she can very often arrange matters so that he
need only attend the morning session, and never be "kept in," after
hours, for punishment. She can help him with the studies which he brings
home, and take great pains never to scold him, or show displeasure, or
disappointment, if he gets bad marks. She can explain to him that while
it is only natural for a school-teacher to attach an exaggerated
importance to the training of the brain, mothers and fathers care a
great deal more about deeper and finer interests and the right kind of
conduct.
That is about all most mothers can do,--no matter how great their
love--as long as the present system remains in force. When, or how, it
will ever be changed radically, is something about which it would be
futile to express an opinion.
Another question which naturally arises in this connection has to do
with college and the very difficult entrance examinations which a modern
boy is required to pass. How is he to do that, unless he is sent to
school in time to be prepared? Many mothers and fathers want their boys
to have a college education.
To this objection, there is an easy and reassuring answer.
Even if your boy has never seen the inside of a school-book, before the
age of thirteen or fourteen, that need not prevent him from being
prepared for college, just as well and at about the same time, as the
average boy who has been attending school from the age of five, or six.
All of the boys I have referred to, passed their examinations far better
than the average. All those thousands of hours which were devoted to
other interests, entirely apart from school-books, did not have the
effect of retarding the boys' mental development and training. It was
only a different kind of training, more in accordance with the methods
of nature. When these boys arrived at the age of thirteen, they had more
character, more self-control, more determination and more mental
equipment, than the vast majority of boys acquire at school. I think it
is a fair presumption, that under favorable conditions, such a result
may be expected.
It was the college question that eventually brought these boys to
preparatory schools, at the ages of thirteen, or fourteen. And in order
to enter a preparatory school and get used to the ways of school-books,
it may be necessary for the boy to do some preliminary studying, for a
few months, with some one to help him. But by that time, he has an
object in view, his interest is involved, and he will seldom require the
slightest urging. Without exception, the boys I have referred to
attained high rank, both in school and in college.
There remains one more thing to think about in connection with the
bringing up of children. What about religion? Here is also a
consideration which can hardly be avoided.
If the parents are church-goers and still believe in the truth and
teachings of the Bible,--that is one thing. In that case, all a mother
has to do is to encourage her children in the same belief, take them to
church and Sunday School, and teach them to say their prayers from
earliest childhood.
But there are also many parents, who no longer go to church and whose
faith in the traditional teachings has become very much shaken. Their
numbers have been increasing very rapidly, for reasons which we have
referred to, and are extremely likely to keep on increasing. Suppose a
loving mother belongs to this class--what is best and wisest for her to
do with her son?
"Mother, where did I come from? And who made all these other people?
What for?"
Those are simple and natural questions, which are apt to come fairly
soon in the growth of intelligence. They call for some sort of answer.
It is the first beginning of a soul feeling, a groping for a faith of
some sort in human destiny.
What is to be mother's answer?
If she says she doesn't know--nobody does--that is very unsatisfactory
and very troubling. The groping will still continue, with more and more
persistency. If mother has a reason for refusing to tell, the
information must be sought elsewhere. And it will very soon be
forthcoming from some one--the nurse, or the cook, or the waitress. God
made the world--He lives in heaven--He rewards people if they are good,
by making them angels; and if they are bad, He sends them to hell, to be
roasted by the devil. The churches, which the child has seen, are where
people go to pray to God and worship Him.
This answers the question and is perfectly satisfactory, for the time
being. But the attitude of mother is apt to give rise to suspicion that
she was only pretending, when she said she didn't know. If the nurse
knows--and all the people who go to church, know--then mother must know,
too. Perhaps mother, for reasons of her own, doesn't wish him to know
yet, and would blame the nurse for telling him? Then the nurse would
blame him. If mother chooses to conceal things from him, he can avoid
trouble by concealing things from mother. This implies a breach of
confidence between mother and son--which is not at all good for a
forming character.
It is far better for mother to show a sympathetic understanding of the
soul need and respond to it accordingly. A child has no end of
imagination, and feelings to correspond. It is the spirit and meaning of
ideas which signify, and not their material accuracy. Rhymes and jingles
and mother goose and fairy tales and Santa Claus are all founded on an
understanding of this. They supply in fanciful form a very real and
necessary food for the inner nature. In the same way, with this
religious groping, food that will satisfy must be given in some form.
But as a religious belief is something which it is hoped will last
through life, it would seem best to clothe it, as far as possible, in
ideas that will not have to be discarded by the intellect, when that
becomes enlightened.
Nearly every mother believes that the world and all it contains were
created, somehow, by an all-wise Being--and that this Being has an
everlasting existence somewhere. The usual name for that Being, in the
English language, is God, and the unknown place where He dwells, is
usually called heaven. That is something which may be told to any child;
the idea is easy to grasp, it responds to a fundamental need, and it can
never be disproved by any amount of science, or enlightenment.
As compared to God, mother and father and all people on the earth are
like little children, and each and every one is allowed to share in the
benefits of His love and wisdom. He wishes all his children to do what
they feel is right and fine, and fight against what is mean and wrong.
If some people have less money than others, and fewer material
pleasures, and in other ways seem less fortunate, that does not mean
that they are less worthy of love and consideration. Nor does it mean
that they are less fine, or necessarily less fortunate. The highest kind
of satisfaction in life comes almost entirely from being true to your
own generous feelings and doing the best you can under any and all
circumstances. A poor little cripple may have this satisfaction, just as
well as a rich man's son. It is very possible that the little cripple's
spirit and his life on earth, will count for more in the eternal scheme,
than the rich man's son. Material pleasures are perfectly natural and
right and desirable; but they are only one part of life. A mother who
has a beautiful boy and loves him with her whole heart and soul, has a
more precious treasure than all the money in the world can buy.
Those are also religious beliefs which may be told to any boy, or girl,
and allowed to take root and grow, for all time. They are the expression
of fundamental feelings which no amount of science can disprove, or
deny.
As regards the question of spoken prayers, we come upon considerations
of a slightly different order. The idea of spoken prayer and the spirit
which underlies it are beautiful and inspiring. The soul of an
individual to be in direct, personal communication with the all-wise
Creator--how thrilling and sublime! It would seem almost the deepest and
dearest wish that mortal man could have. It is also an idea which a
child can readily grasp and believe and put into practise.
But certain mothers and fathers, whom I have heard talk on this subject,
find themselves confronted by scruples and objections which are entirely
sincere and conscientious. While admitting the beauty of the idea, they
point to the fact that they themselves no longer believe in it, or
practise it. To their minds, it has become no more than the survival of
a superstition, which is no longer tenable. Under such circumstances,
they can see no justification for imposing it upon the credulity of
their children.