incidents, when the clocks belong to us, and the child doesn’t. It is
hard to be told that our pendulums are a necessary element, which we do
wrong to begrudge, in the training of a boy’s observation. All modern
writers upon children unite in denouncing the word “don’t,” as implying
upon every occasion a censure which is often unmerited. But this protest
reminds me of the little girl who, being told by her father she must not
say “I won’t,” innocently inquired: “But, papa, what am I to say when I
mean ‘I won’t’?” In the same spirit of uncertainty I would like to know
what I am to say when I mean “don’t.” Auretta Roys Aldrich, who has
written a book on “Children--Their Models and Critics,” in which she is
rather severe upon adults, tells us a harrowing tale of a mother and a
five-year-old boy who sat near her one day on a railway train. The child
thrust his head out of the window, whereupon the mother said tersely:
“Johnnie, stop putting your head out of the window!” That was all. No
word of explanation or entreaty softened this ruthless command. Whether
Johnnie obeyed or not is unrevealed, being a matter of no importance;
but, “as they left the car,” comments the author, “they left also an
aching in my heart. I longed to clasp the mother in my arms, for she,
too, had been the victim of misunderstanding; and show her, before it
was too late, how she was missing the pure gold of life for herself and
her little boy.” Happily, before long, another mother entered, and her
child also put his head as far as he could out of that troublesome
window, which nobody seemed to have the sense to shut. Observing this,
his wise parent sat down by his side, “made some pleasant remark about
the outlook,” and then gradually and persuasively revealed to him his
danger, discussing the matter with “much candor and interest,” until he
was finally won over to her point of view, and consented of his own free
will, and as a rational human being, to draw in his little head.
I think this double experience worth repeating, because it contrasts so
pleasantly with the venerable anecdote which found its way into all the
reading books when I was a small child, and illustrated the then popular
theory of education. It was the story of a mother who sees her boy
running rapidly down a steep hill, and knows that, almost at his feet,
lies an abandoned quarry, half hidden by underbrush and weeds. Sure of
his obedience, she calls sharply, “Stop, Willie!” and the child, with a
violent effort, stays his steps at the very mouth of the pit. Had it
been necessary to convince him first that her apprehensions were well
grounded, he would have broken his neck meanwhile, and our school-books
would have had one tale less to tell.
Still more astounding to the uninitiated is another little narrative,
told with enviable gravity by Mrs. Aldrich, and designed to show how
easily and deeply we wound a child’s inborn sense of justice. “A
beautiful boy of four whose parents were unusually wise in
dealing with him”--it is seldom that a parent wins this degree of
approbation--possessed a wheelbarrow of his own, in which he carried the
letters daily to and from the post-office. One morning he was tardy in
returning, “for there was the world to be explored” on the way; and his
mother, growing anxious, or perhaps desiring her mail, followed him to
know what was the matter. She met him at the post-office door, and
seeing in the barrow an envelope directed to herself, she rashly picked
it up and opened it. Edwin promptly “raised a vehement cry of protest.”
That letter, like all the rest, had been given to him to carry, and no
one else was privileged to touch it. Swiftly and repentantly his mother
returned the unfortunate missive, but in vain. “The wound was too deep,
and he continued to cry ‘Mamma, you ought not to have done it!’ over and
over again between his sobs.” In fact he “refused to be
comforted,”--comforted!--“and so was taken home as best he could be, and
laid tenderly and lovingly in bed. After sleeping away _the sharpness of
sorrow and disappointment_, and consequent exhaustion, the matter could
be talked over; but while he was so tired, and keenly smarting under the
sense of injustice done him, every word added fuel to the flame.... _His
possessions had been taken away from him by sheer force, before which he
was helpless._ That his indignation was not appeased by putting the
letter back into his keeping, showed that he was contending for a
principle, and not for possession or any selfish interest.”
Readers of George Eliot may be pleasantly reminded of that scene in the
“Mill on the Floss” where Tom Tulliver unthinkingly withdraws a rattle
with which he has been amusing baby Moss, “whereupon she, being a baby
that knew her own mind with remarkable clearness, instantaneously
expressed her sentiments in a piercing yell, and was not to be appeased
even by the restoration of the rattle, feeling apparently that the
original wrong of having it taken away from her remained in all its
force.” But to some of us the anecdote of Edwin and his wheelbarrow is
more disheartening than droll. The revelation of such admirable motives
underlying such inexcusable behavior puzzles and alarms us. If this
four-year-old prig “contending for a principle and not for possession”
be a real boy, what has become of all the dear, naughty, fighting,
obstinate, self-willed, precious children whom we used to know; the
children who contended joyously, not for principle, but for precedence,
and to whom we could say “don’t” a dozen times a day with ample
justification. Little boys ought to be the most delightful things in the
world, with the exception of little girls. It is as easy to love them
when they are bad as to tolerate them when they are good. But what can
we do with conscientious infants to whom misbehavior is a moral
obligation, and who scream in the public streets from an exalted sense
of justice?
Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin, that ardent champion of Froebel, has also
given to the world a book bearing the somewhat ominous title,
“Children’s Rights,” but which is for the most part as interesting as it
is sane. Setting aside the question of kindergartens, concerning which
there are at present many conflicting opinions, it is impossible not to
agree with Mrs. Wiggin in much that she states so deftly, and maintains
so vivaciously. There is little doubt that the rights of the parent do
infringe occasionally on the rights of the child, and that, in the
absence of any standard, the child becomes a creature of circumstance.
He can be fed unwholesomely, kept up late at night, dressed like Lord
Fauntleroy, dosed with pernicious drugs, and humored into selfish
petulance at the discretion of his mother. Worse still, he can be
suffered to waste away in fever pain and die, because his parents chance
to be fanatics who reject the aid of medicines to trust exclusively in
prayer. But granting all this, fathers and mothers have still their
places in the world, and until we can fill these places with something
better, it is worth while to call attention now and then to the useful
part they play. It is perhaps a significant fact that mothers, simply
because they are mothers, succeed better, as a rule, in bringing up
their children than other women, equally loving and sensible, who are
compelled to assume their duties. That old-fashioned plea “I know what
is best for my child” may be derided as a relic of darkness; but there
is an illuminating background to its gloom. I am not even sure that
parents stand in absolute need of all the good advice they receive. I am
quite sure that many trifles are not worth the serious counsels expended
upon them. Reading or telling a story, for instance, has become as grave
a matter as choosing a laureate, and many a mother must stand aghast at
the conflicting admonitions bestowed upon her: Read fairy tales. Don’t
read fairy tales. Read about elves. Don’t read about ogres. Read of
heroic deeds. Don’t read of bloody battles. Avoid too much instruction.
Be as subtly instructive as you can. Make your stories long. Make your
stories short. Work the moral in. Leave the moral out. Try and please
the older children. Try and charm the younger ones. Study the tastes of
boys. Follow the fancies of girls. By degrees the harassed parent who
endeavors to obey these instructions will cease telling stories at all,
confident that the task, which once seemed so simple and easy, must lie
far beyond her limited intelligence.
All that Mrs. Wiggin has to say about children’s books and playthings is
both opportune and true. I wish indeed she would not speak of restoring
toys “to their place in education,” which has a dismal sound, though she
does not mean it to be taken dismally. Toys are toys to her, not traps
to erudition, and the costly inanities of our modern nurseries fill her
with well-warranted aversion. We are doing our best to stunt the
imaginations of children by overloading them with illustrated
story-books and elaborate playthings. Little John Ruskin, whose sole
earthly possessions were a cart, a ball, and two boxes of wooden bricks,
was infinitely better off than the small boy of to-day whose real engine
drags a train of real cars over a miniature elevated railway, almost as
ghastly as reality, and whose well-dressed soldiers cannot fight until
they are wound up with a key. “The law was that I should find my own
amusement,” says Ruskin; and he found it readily enough in the
untrammeled use of his observation, his intelligence, and his fancy. I
have known children to whom a dozen spools had a dozen distinct
individualities; soldiers, priests, nuns, and prisoners of war; and to
whom every chair in the nursery was a well-tried steed, familiar alike
with the race-course and the Holy Land, having its own name, and
requiring to be carefully stabled at night after the heroic exertions of
the day. The romances and dramas of infancy need no more setting than a
Chinese play, and in that limitless dreamland the transformations are as
easy as they are brilliant. But no child can successfully “make
believe,” when he is encumbered on every side by mechanical toys so
odiously complete that they leave nothing for the imagination to
supply.
In the matter of books, Mrs. Wiggin displays the same admirable
conservatism, her modern instincts being checked and held in sway by the
recollection of those few dear old volumes which little girls used to
read over and over again, until they knew them by heart. Yet I hardly
think that “naughty” is a kind word to apply to Miss Edgeworth’s
Rosamond, who is not very wise, I admit, and under no circumstances a
prig, but always docile and charming and good. And why should the “red
morocco housewife,” which Rosamond, in one of her rare moments of
discretion, chooses instead of a stone plum, be stigmatized as “hideous
but useful.” It may have been an exceedingly neat and pretty possession.
We are told nothing to the contrary, and I had a brown one stamped with
gold when I was a little girl, which, to my infant eyes represented
supreme artistic excellence. It also hurts my feelings very much to hear
Casabianca dubbed an “inspired idiot,” who lacked the sense to escape.
Unless the Roman sentries found dead at their posts in Pompeii were also
inspired idiots, there should be some kinder word for the blind heroism
which subordinates reason to obedience. And I am by no means sure that
this form of relentless nineteenth-century criticism does not do more to
vulgarize a child’s mind by destroying his simple ideals, than do the
frank old games which Mrs. Wiggin considers so boorish, and which fill
her with “unspeakable shrinking and moral disgust.” The coarseness of
“Here come two ducks a-roving,” which was once the blithest of
pastorals, and of that curious relic of antiquity, “Green Gravel,” is
not of a hurtful kind, and some of these plays have a keen attraction
for highly imaginative children. For my part, I do not believe that all
the kindergarten games in Christendom, all the gentle joy of pretending
you were a swallow and had your little baby swallows cuddled under your
wing, can compare for an instant with the lost delight of playing
“London Bridge” in the dusk of a summer evening, or in the dimly-lit
schoolroom at bedtime. There was a mysterious fascination in the words
whose meaning no one understood, and no one sought to understand:--
“Here comes a candle to light you to bed
And here comes a hatchet to cut off your head.”
And then the sudden grasp of four strong little arms, and a pleasing
thrill of terror at a danger which was no danger,--only a shadow and a
remembrance of some dim horror in the past, living for generations in
the unbroken traditions of play.
I have wandered unduly from the wrongs of parents to the rights of
children, an easy and agreeable step to take. But the children have many
powerful advocates, and need no help from me. The parents stand
undefended, and suffer grievous things in the way of counsel and
reproach. It must surprise some of them occasionally to be warned so
often against undue severity. It must amaze them to hear that their lazy
little boys and girls are suffering from overwork, and in danger of
mental exhaustion. It must amuse them--if they have any sense of
humor--to be told in the columns of a weekly paper “How to Reprove a
Child,” just as they are told “How to Make an Apple Pudding,” and “How
to Remove Grease Spots from Clothing.” As for the discipline of the
nursery, that has become a matter of supreme importance to all whom it
does not concern, and the suggestions offered, the methods urged, are so
varied and conflicting that the modern mother can be sure of one thing
only,--all that she does is wrong. The most popular theory appears to be
that whenever a child is naughty it is his parent’s fault, and she owes
him prompt atonement for his misbehavior. “We should be astonished, if
not appalled,” says Mrs. Aldrich, “if we could see in figures the number
of times the average child is unnecessarily censured during the first
seven years of life.” Punishment is altogether out of favor.
Its-apparent necessity arises from the ill-judged course of the father
or mother in refusing to a child control over his own actions. This
doctrine was expounded to us some years ago by Helen Hunt, who reasoned
wisely that “needless denials” were responsible for most youthful
naughtiness, and who was probably right. It would not perhaps be too
much to say that if we could have what we wanted and do what we wanted
all through life, we should, even as adults, be saved from a great deal
of fretfulness and bad behavior.
Miss Nora Smith, who is Mrs. Wiggin’s clever collaborateur, allows,
however, what she terms “natural punishment,” or “natural retribution,”
which appears to be something like the far-famed justice of the Mikado,
and is represented as being absolutely satisfactory to the child. This
is a gain over the old methods which the child, as a rule, disliked; and
it is also a gain over the long-drawn tests so urgently commended by
Helen Hunt, whose model mother shut herself up for two whole days with
her four-year-old boy, until she succeeded, by moral suasion, in
inducing him to say G. During these two days the model mother’s equally
model husband was content to eat his meals alone, and to spend his
evenings in solitude, unless he went to his club, and all her social and
domestic duties were cheerfully abandoned. Her principle was, not to
enforce obedience, but to persuade the child to overcome his own
reluctance, to conquer his own will. With this view, she pretended for
forty-eight hours that he could not pronounce the letter, and that she
was there to help him to do it. The boy, baby though he was, knew
better. He knew he was simply obstinate, and, with the delicious
clear-sightedness of children, which ought to put all sentimental
theorists to shame, he actually proposed to his parent that she should
shut him in a closet and see if that would not “make him good!” Of
course the unhallowed suggestion was not adopted; but what a tale it
tells of childish acumen, and of that humorous grasp of a situation
which is the endowment of infancy. The dear little sensible, open-eyed
creatures! See them dealing out swift justice to their erring dolls, and
you will learn their views upon the subject of retribution. I once knew
a father who defended himself for frequently thrashing an only and
idolized son--who amply merited each chastisement--by saying that Jack
would think him an idiot if he didn’t. That father was lamentably
ignorant of much that it behooves a father now to acquire. He had
probably never read a single book designed for the instruction and
humiliation of parents. He was in a state of barbaric darkness
concerning the latest theories of education. But he knew one thing
perfectly, and that one thing, says Sir Francis Doyle, is slipping fast
from the minds of men; namely, “The intention of the Almighty that there
should exist for a certain time between childhood and manhood, the
natural production known as a boy.”
AUT CÆSAR AUT NIHIL.
There is a sentence in one of Miss Mitford’s earliest and most charming
papers, “The Cowslip Ball,” which has always delighted me by its quiet
satire and admirable good-temper. She is describing her repeated efforts
and her repeated failures to tie the fragrant clusters together.
“We went on very prosperously, _considering_, as people say of a young
lady’s drawing, or a Frenchman’s English, or a woman’s tragedy, or of
the poor little dwarf who works without fingers, or the ingenious sailor
who writes with his toes, or generally of any performance which is
accomplished by means seemingly inadequate to its production.”
Here is precisely the sentiment which Dr. Johnson embodied, more
trenchantly, in his famous criticism of female preaching. “Sir, a
woman’s preaching is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It is not done
well, but you are surprised to find it done at all.” It is a sentiment
which, in one form or another, prevailed throughout the last century,
and lapped over into the middle of our own. Miss Mitford is merely
echoing, with cheerful humor, the opinions of the very clever and
distinguished men whom it was her good fortune to know, and who were all
the more generous to her and to her sister toilers, because it did not
occur to them for a moment that women claimed, or were ever going to
claim, a serious place by their sides. There is nothing clearer, in
reading the courteous and often flattering estimate of woman’s work
which the critics of fifty years ago delighted in giving to the world,
than the under-current of amusement that such things should be going on.
Christopher North, who has only censure and contempt for the really
great poets of his day, is pleased to lavish kind words on Mrs. Hemans
and Joanna Baillie, praising them as adults occasionally praise clever
and good children. That, neither he nor his boon companions of the
“Noctes” are disposed to take the matter seriously, is sufficiently
proved by North’s gallant but controvertible statement that all female
poets are handsome. “No truly ugly woman ever yet wrote a truly
beautiful poem the length of her little finger.” The same satiric
enjoyment of the situation is apparent in Thackeray’s description of
Barnes Newcome’s lecture on “Mrs. Hemans, and the Poetry of the
Affections,” as delivered before the appreciative audience of the
Newcome Athenæum. The distinction which the lecturer draws between man’s
poetry and woman’s poetry, the high-flown civility with which he treats
the latter, the platitudes about the Christian singer appealing to the
affections, and decorating the homely threshold, and wreathing flowers
around the domestic hearth;--all these graceful and generous nothings
are the tributes laid without stint at the feet of that fragile creature
known to our great-grandfathers as the female muse.
It may as well be admitted at once that this tone of combined diversion
and patronage has changed. Men, having come in the course of years to
understand that women desire to work, and need to work, honestly and
well, have made room for them with simple sincerity, and stand ready to
compete with them for the coveted prizes of life. This is all that can
in fairness be demanded; and, if we are not equipped for the struggle,
we must expect to be beaten, until we are taught, as Napoleon taught the
Allies, how to fight. We gain nothing by doing for ourselves what man
has ceased to do for us,--setting up little standards of our own, and
rapturously applauding one another when the easy goal is reached. We
gain nothing by withdrawing ourselves from the keenest competition,
because we know we shall be outdone. We gain nothing by posing as “women
workers,” instead of simply “workers;” or by separating our productions,
good or bad, from the productions, good or bad, of men. As for exacting
any special consideration on the score of sex, that is not merely an
admission of failure in the present, but of hopelessness for the future.
If we are ever to accomplish anything admirable, it must be by a frank
admission of severe tests. There is no royal road for woman’s feet to
follow.
As we stand now, our greatest temptation to mediocrity lies in our
misleading content; and this content is fostered by our incorrigible
habit of considering ourselves a little aside from the grand march of
human events. Why should a new magazine be entitled “Woman’s Progress,”
as if the progress of woman were one thing, and the progress of man
another? If we are two friendly sexes working hand in hand, how is it
possible for either to progress alone? Why should I be asked to take
part in a very animated discussion on “What constitutes the success of
woman?” Woman succeeds just as man succeeds, through force of character.
She has no minor tests, or, if she has, they are worthless. Above all,
why should we have repeated the pitiful mistake of putting woman’s work
apart at the World’s Fair, as though its interest lay in its makers
rather than in itself. Philadelphia did this seventeen years ago, but in
seventeen years women should have better learned their own worth. Miss
Mitford’s sentence, with its italicized “considering,” might have been
written around the main gallery of the Woman’s Building, instead of that
curious jumble of female names with its extraordinary suggestion of
perspective,--Mme. de Staël and Mrs. Potter Palmer, Pocahontas and Mrs.
Julia Ward Howe. The erection of such a building was a tacit
acknowledgment of inferior standards, and therein lies our danger. All
that was good and valuable beneath its roof should have been placed
elsewhere, standing side by side with the similar work of men. All that
was unworthy of such competition should have been excluded, as beneath
our dignity, as well as beneath the dignity of the Exposition. Patchwork
quilts in fifteen thousand pieces, paper flowers, nicely stitched
aprons, and badly painted little memorandum-books do not properly
represent the attitude of the ability of women. We are not begging for
consideration and applause; we are striving to do our share of the
world’s work, and to do it as well as men.
Shall we ever succeed? It is not worth while to ask ourselves a question
which none can answer. Reasoning by analogy, we never shall. Hoping in
the splendid possibilities of an unknown future, we may. But idle
contention over what has been done already is not precisely the best
method of advance. To wrangle for months over the simple and obvious
statement that there have been no great women poets, is a lamentable
waste of energy, and leads to no lasting good. To examine with fervent
self-consciousness the exact result of every little step we take, the
precise attitude of the world toward us, while we take it, is a
retarding and unwholesome process. Why should an indefatigable
philanthropist, like Miss Frances Power Cobbe, have paused in her noble
labor to write such a fretful sentence as this?
“It is a difficult thing to keep in mind the true dignity of womanhood,
in face of the deep, underlying contempt wherewith all but the most
generous of men regard us.”