[Parents and their Teachers.]
My heart has been much torn of late, reading of the wrongs of Children.It has lately been discovered that Children are being hampered and harassed in their career by certain brutal and ignorant persons called, for want of a better name, parents.The parent is a selfish wretch who, out of pure devilment, and without consulting the Child itself upon the subject, lures innocent Children into the world, apparently for the purpose merely of annoying them.The parent does not understand the Child when he has got it; he does not understand anything, not much.The only person who understands the Child is the young gentleman fresh from College and the elderly maiden lady, who, between them, produce most of the literature that explains to us the Child.
The parent does not even know how to dress the Child.The parent will persist in dressing the Child in a long and trailing garment that prevents the Child from kicking.The young gentleman fresh from College grows almost poetical in his contempt.It appears that the one thing essential for the health of a young child is that it should have perfect freedom to kick.Later on the parent dresses the Child in short clothes, and leaves bits of its leg bare.The elderly maiden Understander of Children, quoting medical opinion, denounces us as criminals for leaving any portion of that precious leg uncovered.It appears that the partially uncovered leg of childhood is responsible for most of the disease that flesh is heir to.
Then we put it into boots.We "crush its delicately fashioned feet into hideous leather instruments of torture." That is the sort of phrase that is hurled at us! The picture conjured up is that of some fiend in human shape, calling itself a father, seizing some helpless cherub by the hair, and, while drowning its pathetic wails for mercy beneath roars of demon laughter, proceeding to bind about its tender bones some ancient curiosity dug from the dungeons of the Inquisition.
If the young gentleman fresh from College or the maiden lady Understander could be, if only for a month or two, a father! If only he or she could guess how gladly the father of limited income would reply, "My dear, you are wrong in saying that the children must have boots.
That is an exploded theory.The children must not have boots.Irefuse to be a party to crushing their delicately fashioned feet into hideous leather instruments of torture.The young gentleman fresh from College and the elderly maiden Understander have decided that the children must not have boots.Do not let me hear again that out-of-date word--boots."
If there were only one young gentleman fresh from College, one maiden lady Understander teaching us our duty, life would be simpler.But there are so many young gentlemen from College, so many maiden lady Understanders, on the job--if I may be permitted a vulgarism; and as yet they are not all agreed.It is distracting for the parent anxious to do right.We put the little dears into sandals, and then at once other young gentlemen from College, other maiden lady Understanders, point to us as would-be murderers.Long clothes are fatal, short clothes are deadly, boots are instruments of torture, to allow children to go about with bare feet shows that we regard them as Incumbrances, and, with low cunning, are seeking to be rid of them.
[Their first attempt.]
I knew a pair of parents.I am convinced, in spite of all that can be said to the contrary, they were fond of their Child; it was their first.They were anxious to do the right thing.They read with avidity all books and articles written on the subject of Children.
They read that a Child should always sleep lying on its back, and took it in turns to sit awake o' nights to make sure that the Child was always right side up.
But another magazine told them that Children allowed to sleep lying on their backs grew up to be idiots.They were sad they had not read of this before, and started the Child on its right side.The Child, on the contrary, appeared to have a predilection for the left, the result being that neither the parents nor the baby itself for the next three weeks got any sleep worth speaking of.
Later on, by good fortune, they came across a treatise that said a Child should always be allowed to choose its own position while sleeping, and their friends persuaded them to stop at that--told them they would never strike a better article if they searched the whole British Museum Library.It troubled them to find that Child sometimes sleeping curled up with its toe in its mouth, and sometimes flat on its stomach with its head underneath the pillow.But its health and temper were decidedly improved.
[The Parent can do no right.]
There is nothing the parent can do right.You would think that now and then he might, if only by mere accident, blunder into sense.
But, no, there seems to be a law against it.He brings home woolly rabbits and indiarubber elephants, and expects the Child to be contented "forsooth" with suchlike aids to its education.As a matter of fact, the Child is content: it bangs its own head with the woolly rabbit and does itself no harm; it tries to swallow the indiarubber elephant; it does not succeed, but continues to hope.
With that woolly rabbit and that indiarubber elephant it would be as happy as the day is long if only the young gentleman from Cambridge would leave it alone, and not put new ideas into its head.But the gentleman from Cambridge and the maiden lady Understander are convinced that the future of the race depends upon leaving the Child untrammelled to select its own amusements.A friend of mine, during his wife's absence once on a visit to her mother, tried the experiment.
