Sunday was such a Sunday as I had never spent before. My wife got
permission at last to visit little Annie. It seems that the observance
of order in the Children’s Homes necessitates the regulation that
parents should only see their children in their due turn. How my wife
had pictured to herself the meeting with her child! All sorts of cakes,
and sweetmeats, and playthings had been got together to take to her.
But to mother’s great distress she found she had to leave all these
things behind her at the entrance. It was forbidden, she learned, for
any of the children to have any playthings which were not common to
all, because this would not accord with their education, which taught
absolute social equality. The same thing applied to sweetmeats. Such
things were only too apt to give rise to quarrels and vexations, and to
disturb the regular course of matters in the Home.
My wife was in perfect ignorance of these new regulations, as for some
time past she has been engaged in the kitchen of her Home, and not in
attending to the children.
Then again, my wife had expected that Annie would show more lively and
tender delight at meeting with her mother. But in her new surroundings
the child was disposed to be less confiding than she had always been.
True, the separation had not been a long one, but there is a good deal
of truth in the case of young children, in the words, “Out of sight
out of mind.” Then again, the idea of seeing her mother had constantly
been associated in Annie’s mind with the expectation of sweets and
playthings. But now she beheld her mother come with empty hands.
Childlike, she soon wanted a change again, and she quickly got away
from the embraces of her mother in order to rejoin the other children
at play.
My wife found Annie looking somewhat pale and changed. This is
probably due to the different way of living, and the different kind
of nourishment. Naturally, the strictest order is maintained in the
Home. But (and the same intention pervades all our institutions) there
is no superfluity of victuals, and the large scale of the undertaking
does not admit of any pampering of individual children. Children’s
looks vary so rapidly, and were Annie now at home with us, her looks
would hardly disquieten the experienced mother. But, of course, it is a
different thing altogether when separated, and mother now pictures to
herself the approach of some disease which she sees herself powerless
to contend against.
A conversation my wife had with one of the Kindergarten teachers of the
Home threw her into considerable agitation. My wife was lamenting the
separation of young children from their parents, when this person cut
short her complaint by the abrupt remark:
“Oh, we hear these doleful complaints here daily. Even animals, devoid
of reason, soon get over it when their young are taken away. With how
much more ease ought women to become reconciled to it, women who are
reckoned amongst thinking beings.”
My wife wanted to complain to the governor of this woman’s
unfeelingness, but I advised her not to do so, because the woman would
be sure to have her revenge out of Annie. She does not know what it is
to be a mother. And she can’t even get a husband, although, as I am
credibly informed, it is not for lack of having, on several occasions,
made use of the equality now enjoyed by women of themselves proposing.
Before my wife had returned from the long journey to the Children’s
Home, grandfather came in. It was with difficulty that the old
gentleman had found his way up the steep and dark staircase to our new
home. I was really thankful that my wife was not present, because her
father’s complaints would only have made her heart still heavier.
To say the truth, they were trifling and external matters he had to
complain about. But then, old people have this weakness of clinging
to old habits and little ways, and in the maintenance houses all such
little things are, with some harshness, broken through and swept
away. Grandfather fancies, too, his health is not quite so good as
it used to be. Now he has a pain here, anon he feels a pinching or
a pricking sensation there, and is often out of sorts. Externally
I saw no difference in him, but the fact is, grandfather has now a
good deal more time to think about himself than he had in our family
circle, where there was always something to interest him and distract
his attention. He used to be a good deal in the workshop with me, and
here he would try to make himself useful. What he did was of no great
account but then it occupied him. The doing nothing is not at all a
good thing for old people, whereas any little work, no matter how
light, keeps up their interest in life, holds them bound up with the
present, and preserves them from sudden bodily and mental decay.
The poor old man felt quite strange in our tiny little new place, and
he was much touched, too, by the absence of most of the old furniture.
I could not let him go back alone, so I went with him.
It happened, unfortunately, whilst I was away, and before my wife had
returned, that Ernst came to pay us a visit. Of course, he found the
door locked, but he told a neighbour’s boy, an old playfellow of his,
that an invincible longing for home had made him employ an hour’s
freedom in rushing off to see his parents. He can’t somehow at all get
used to his institution. The everlasting reading, writing, and learning
by heart--in short, the whole business of study is not at all in his
way. His wish is to be put to some trade, and only to learn whatever
has reference to that. And I have no doubt whatever of his making a
good craftsman. But our Minister of Instruction is of the same opinion
that Bebel was of, that all persons are born with about the same amount
of intelligence, and that, therefore, they must all alike, up to their
eighteenth year (when technical education begins), have the same
identical training, as a necessary preparation for the social equality
of their after lives.