Children's Ways Part 6

The first way of regarding death seems to be as a temporary state like sleep, which it so closely resembles. A little boy of two and a half years, on hearing from his mother of the death of a lady friend, at once asked: "Will Mrs. P. still be dead when we go back to London?"

The knowledge of burial gives a new and alarming turn to the child's thought. He now begins to speculate much about the grave. The instinctive tendency to carry over the idea of life and feeling to the buried body is ill.u.s.trated in the request made by a little boy to his mother: "Don't put earth on my face when I am buried".

In the case of children who pick up something of the orthodox creed the idea of going to heaven has somehow to be grasped and put side by side with that of burial. Here comes one of the hardest puzzles for the logical child. One boy tried to reconcile the story of heaven with the fact of burial, at first by a.s.suming that the good people who went to heaven were not buried at all; and later by supposing that the journey to heaven was somehow to be effected after burial and by way of the grave. Other devices for getting a consistent view of things are also hit upon. Some children have supposed that the _head_ only pa.s.ses into heaven, partly from taking the "body" to be the trunk only, and partly from a feeling that the head is the seat of the thinking mind.

The idea of dead people going to heaven is, as we know, pushed by the little brain to its logical consequences. Animals when they die are, naturally enough, supposed to go to heaven also.

_The Great Maker._

Children seem disposed, apart from religious instruction, to form ideas of supernatural beings. Sometimes it is a dreadful person who exerts a malign influence on the child, sending him, for example, his pains in the stomach. In other cases it is a fairy-like being who is created into a mighty benefactor, and half-worshipped and prayed to in childish fashion.

Even when religious instruction supplies the form of the supernatural being the young thinker deals with this in his own original way. He has to understand the mysteries of G.o.d, Satan and the rest, and he can only understand them by shedding on them the light of homely terrestrial facts. Hence the undisguised materialism of the child's theology.

According to Dr. Stanley Hall's inquiries into the thoughts of American children, G.o.d is apt to be imaged as a big, very strong man or giant.

One child thought of him as a huge being with limbs spread all over the sky; another, as so tall that he could stand with one foot on the ground, and touch the clouds. He is commonly supposed, in conformity with what is told him, to dwell just above the sky, which last, as we have seen, is thought of as a dividing floor, through the c.h.i.n.ks of which we get glimmerings of the glory of the heaven above. But some children show more of their own thought in localising the Deity, placing him, for example, in one of the stars, or the moon, or lower down "upon the hill".

Differences in childish feeling, as well as in intelligence, reflect themselves in the first ideas about the divine dwelling-place. It seems commonly to be conceived of as a grand house or mansion. While, however, some children deck it out with all manner of lovely things, including a park, flowers, and birds, others give it a homelier character, thinking, for example, of doors and possible draughts, like a little girl who asked G.o.d "to mind and shut the door, because he (_i.e._, grandpapa who had just died) can't stand the draughts". Some children, too, of a less exuberant fancy are disposed to think of heaven as by no means so satisfyingly lovely, and rather to shrink from a long wearisome stay in it.

While thus relegated to the sublime regions of the sky G.o.d is supposed to be doing things, and of course doing them for us, sending down rain and so forth. What seems to impress children most, especially boys, in the traditional account of G.o.d is his power of making things. He is emphatically the artificer, the "demiurgos," who not only has made the world, the stars, etc., but is still kept actively employed by human needs. According to some of the American school-children he fabricates all sorts of things from babies to money, and the angels work for him.

The boy has a great admiration for the maker, and one small English boy once expressed this oddly by asking his mother whether a group of working men returning from their work were "G.o.ds".

This admiration for superior power and skill favours the idea of G.o.d's omnipotence. This is amply ill.u.s.trated in children's spontaneous prayers, which ask for things, from fine weather on a coming holiday to a baby with curly hair and other lovely attributes, with all a child's nave faith. Yet a critical att.i.tude will sometimes be taken up towards this mystery of unlimited power. The more logical and speculative sort of child will now and then put a sceptical question to his elders on this subject. A boy of eight turned over the problem whether G.o.d could beat him in a foot-race if he were starter and judge and refused to let G.o.d start till he had reached the goal; and he actually measured out the racecourse on a garden path and went through the part of running, afterwards sitting down and giving G.o.d time to run, and then pondering the possibility of his beating him.

The idea of G.o.d's omniscience, too, may come readily enough to a child accustomed to look up admiringly to the boundless knowledge of some human authority, say a clergyman. Yet I know of cases where the dogma of G.o.d's infinite knowledge provoked in the child's mind a sceptical att.i.tude. One little fellow remarked on this subject rather profanely: "I know a 'ickle more than Kitty, and you know a 'ickle more than me; and G.o.d knows a 'ickle more than you, I s'pose; then he can't know so very much after all".

Another of the divine attributes does undoubtedly shock the child's intelligence. While he is told that G.o.d has a special abode in heaven, he is told also that he is here, there and everywhere, and can see everything. More particularly the idea of being always watched is, I think, repugnant to sensitive and high-spirited children. An American lady, Miss Shinn, speaks of a little girl, who, on learning that she was under this constant surveillance, declared that she "would _not_ be so tagged". An English boy of three, on being informed by his older sister that G.o.d can see and watch us while we cannot see him, thought awhile, and then in an apologetic tone said: "I'm very sorry, dear, I can't (b)elieve you".

When the idea is accepted odd devices are excogitated by the active little brain for making it intelligible. Thus one child thought of G.o.d as a very small person who could easily pa.s.s through the keyhole. The opposite idea of G.o.d's huge framework, ill.u.s.trated above, is probably but another attempt to figure the conception of omnipresence. Curious conclusions too are sometimes drawn from the supposition. Thus a little girl of three years and nine months one day said to her mother in the abrupt childish manner: "Mr. C. (a gentleman she had known who had just died) is in this room". Her mother, naturally a good deal startled, answered: "Oh, no!" Whereupon the child resumed: "Yes, he is. You told me he is with G.o.d, and you told me G.o.d was everywhere; so as Mr. C. is with G.o.d, he must be in this room."

It might easily be supposed that the child's readiness to pray to G.o.d is inconsistent with what has just been said. Yet I think there is no real inconsistency. Children's idea of prayer appears commonly to be that of sending a message to some one at a distance. The epistolary manner noticeable in many prayers, especially at the beginning and the ending, seems to ill.u.s.trate this. The mysterious whispering in which a prayer is often conveyed is, I suspect, supposed in some inscrutable fashion known only to the child to transmit itself to the divine ear.

Of the child's belief in G.o.d's goodness it is needless to say much. For these little worshippers he is emphatically the friend in need who is just as ready as he is able to help them out of every manner of difficulty, and who, if they only ask prettily, will send them all the nice things they long for. Yet, happy little optimists as they are inclined to be, they will now and again be saddened by doubt, and wonder why the nice things asked for don't come, and why the dear kind G.o.d allows them to suffer so much.

While a child is thus apt to think of G.o.d as nicer than the nicest gentleman visitor who is wont to bring toys and do wondrous things for his delectation, he commonly imports into his conception a touch of human caprice. Fear may readily suggest to a child who has had some orthodox instruction that the wind howling at night is the noise of G.o.d's anger, or that the thunder is due to a sudden determination of the Creator to shoot him dead. The sceptical child, again, who is by no means so rare, may early begin to wonder how G.o.d can be so good and yet allow men to kill animals, and allow Satan to do such a lot of wicked things.

One of the hardest puzzles set to a child by the common religious instruction is the doctrine of G.o.d's eternity. The idea of a vast, endless "for ever," whether past or future, seems to be positively overwhelming to many young minds. The continual frustration of the attempt to reach a resting-place in a beginning or an end may bring on something of mental giddiness. Hence the wearisome perplexities of the first thoughts about G.o.d's past. The question, "Who made G.o.d?" seems to be one to which all inquiring young minds are led at a certain stage of child-thought. When told that G.o.d has always been, unchanging, and knowing no youth, he wants to get behind this "always was," just as at an earlier stage of his development he wanted to get behind the barrier of the blue hills.

Other mysteries of the orthodox faith may undergo a characteristic solution in the hard-working mind of a child. A friend tells me that when a child he was much puzzled by the doctrine of the Trinity. He happened to be an only child, and so he was led to put a meaning into it by likening it to his own family group, in which the Holy Ghost had, rather oddly, to take the place of the mother.

Thoughtful children by odd processes of early logic are apt when interpreting the words and actions of their teachers to endow G.o.d with surprising attributes. For example, a boy of four asked his aunt one Sunday to tell him why G.o.d was so fond of three-penny bits. Asked why he thought G.o.d had this particular liking, he explained by saying that he noticed that on Sunday morning people ask for a three-penny bit "instead of" three pennies, and that as they take it to church he supposed that they gave it to G.o.d.

I have tried to show that the more thoughtful children seek to put meaning into the communications about the unseen world which they are wont to receive from their elders. Perhaps these elders if they knew what is apt to go on in a child's mind would reconsider some of the answers which they give to the little questioner, and select with more care the truths which, as they flatter themselves, they are making so plain to their little ones.

CHAPTER VII.

THE BATTLE WITH FEARS: (_a_) THE ONSLAUGHT.

It is often asked whether children have as lively, as intense feelings as their elders. Those emotions of childhood which are wont to break out into violent expression, such as angry disappointment and gladness, may not, it is said, be in themselves so intense as they look. In order to get more data for settling the question we must try to reach their less demonstrative feelings, those which they are apt to hide from view out of shame, or some other impulse. Of these none is more interesting than fear, and it so happens that a good deal of inquiry has of late been directed to this feeling.

That we must not expect too much knowledge here seems certain. Fear is one of the shyest of the young feelings. A little fellow of two coming out of his grandpapa's house one evening into the darkness with his mother, asked her: "Would you like to take hold of my hand, mammy?" His father took this to mean the beginning of boyish determination not to show fear. Still, with the help of observations of parents, and later confessions and descriptions of childish fear, we may be able to get some insight into the dark subject.

That fear is one of the characteristic feelings of children needs, one supposes, no proving. In spite of the wonderful stories of Horatio Nelson, and of their reflections in literature, _e.g._, Mr. Barrie's "Sentimental Tommy," I entertain the gravest doubts as to the existence of a perfectly fearless child. Children differ enormously, and the same child differs enormously at different times in the intensity of his fear, but they all have the characteristic _disposition_ to fear. It seems to belong to these wee, weakly things, brought face to face with a new strange world, to tremble. They are naturally timid, as all that is weak and ignorant in nature is apt to be timid.

I have said that fear is well marked in the child. Yet, though it is true that a state of "being afraid" when fully developed shows itself by unmistakable signs, there are many cases where it is by no means easy to say whether the child experiences the feeling. People are apt to think that every time a child starts it is feeling afraid of something, but as we shall presently see, being startled and really frightened are two experiences, which, though closely related, must be carefully distinguished. A child may, further, show a sort of aesthetic repugnance to certain sounds, such as those of a piano; to ugly forms, _e.g._, a hunch-back figure; to particular touches, such as that of fur or velvet, without having the full experience of fear. Observers of children are by no means careful to distinguish true fear from other feelings which resemble it.

Fear proper shows itself in such signs as these, in the stare, the grave look, the movement of turning away and hiding the face against the nurse's or mother's shoulder, or of covering it with the hands. In the severer forms, known as terror, it leads to trembling and to wild shrieking. Changes of colour also occur, the child's face turning white, or possibly in some cases red. When frightened by anything an older child will commonly run from the object of his fear, though the violence of the feeling may sometimes paralyse the limbs and chain the would-be fugitive to the spot. This often happens, I fancy, with a sudden oncoming of dread at discovering oneself alone in the dark.

_The Battery of Sounds._

As is well known, sudden and loud sounds, such as that of a door banging, will give a shock to an infant in the first weeks of life, which though not amounting to fear is its progenitor. A clearer manifestation occurs when a new and unfamiliar sound calls forth the grave look, the trembling lip, and possibly the fit of crying. Darwin noticed these in one of his own boys at the age of four and a half months, when he produced the new sound of a loud snoring.

It is not every new sound which is thus disconcerting to the little stranger. Sudden sharp sounds of any kind seem to be especially disliked, as those of a dog's bark. A little girl burst out crying on first hearing the sound of a baby rattle; and she did the same two months later on accidentally ringing a hand bell. Children often show curious caprices in their objections to sounds. Thus a little girl when taken into the country at the age of nine months took a liking to most of the animals she saw, but on hearing the bleating of the sheep showed a distinct germ of fear by sheltering herself against her nurse's shoulder.

So disturbing are new sounds apt to be to the young child that even musical ones are often disliked at first. The first hearing of the tones of a piano has upset the comfort of many a child. A child of five and a half months conceived a kind of horror for a banjo, and screamed if it were played or only touched.

Animals may show a similar dread of musical sounds. I took a young cat of about eight weeks into my lap and struck some chords not loudly on the piano. It got up, moved uneasily from side to side, then bolted to a corner of the room and seemed to try to get up the walls. Many dogs, too, certainly appear to be put out, if not to be made afraid, on hearing the music of a bra.s.s band.

Fear of nature's great sounds, more especially the wind and thunder, which is common among older children, owes its intensity not merely to their volume, which seems to surround and crush, but also to the mystery of their origin. We should remember too that sounds are, for the child still more than for the adult, expressive of feeling and intention.

Hence religious ideas readily graft themselves on to the noisy utterances of wind and thunder. Wind is conceived of, for example, as the blowing of G.o.d when angry, and thunder, as we have seen, as his snoring, and so forth.

I am far from saying that all children manifest this fear of sounds.

Many babies welcome the new and beautiful sounds of music with a joyous greeting. Even the awful thunder-storm may gladly excite and not frighten. Children will sometimes get through the first months without this fear, and then develop it as late as the second year.

I think, then, that in these disturbing effects of sound we have to do with something more than a mere nervous shock or a start. They involve a rudiment of the feeling of uneasiness at what is unexpected and disturbing, and so may be said to be the beginning of true childish fears. This element of anxiety becomes more clearly marked where the sound is not only disturbing but mysterious, as when a toy emits a sound, or water produces a rushing noise in some hidden pipe.

There is another kind of disturbance which shows itself also in the first year, and has a certain a.n.a.logy to the discomposing effect of sound. This is the feeling of bodily insecurity which appears very early when the child is awkwardly carried, or when in dandling it, it is let down back-foremost. One child in her fifth month was observed when carried to hold on to the nurse's dress as if for safety. And it has been noticed by more than one observer that on dandling a baby up and down in one's arms, it will on descending, that is when the support of the arms is being withdrawn, show signs of discontent in struggling movements. This is sometimes regarded as an inherited fear; yet it seems possible that, like the jarring effect of noise on the young nerves, it is the result of a rude disturbance. A child accustomed to the support of its cradle, the floor, or somebody's lap, might be expected to be put out when the customary support is withdrawn wholly or partially. The sense of equilibrium is disturbed in this case.

Other senses, more particularly that of touch, may bring their disturbing elements, too. Many children have a strong repugnance to cold clammy things, such as a cold moist hand, and what seems stranger, to the touch of something that seems altogether so likable as fur. Whether the common dislike of children to water has anything to do with its soft yieldingness to touch I cannot say. This whole cla.s.s of early repugnances to certain sensations seems to stand on the confines between mere dislikes and fears, properly so called. A child may very much dislike touching fur without being in the strict sense afraid of it, though the dislike may readily develop into a true fear.

_The Alarmed Sentinel._

We may now pa.s.s to the disconcerting and alarming effects to which a child is exposed through his sense of sight. This, as we know, is the intellectual sense, the sentinel that guards the body, keeping a look-out for what is afar as for what is anear. The uneasiness which a child experiences at seeing things is not, like the uneasiness at sounds, a mere effect of violent sensation; it arises much more from a perception of something menacing.

Among the earliest alarmers of sight may be mentioned the appearance of something new and strange, especially when it involves a sudden abolition of customary arrangements. Although we are wont to think of children as loving and delighting in what is new, we must not forget that it may also trouble and alarm. This feeling of uneasiness and apparently of insecurity in presence of changed surroundings shows itself as soon as a child has begun to grow used or accustomed to a particular state of things.

Among the more disconcerting effects of a rude departure from the customary, is that of change of place. When once an infant has grown accustomed to a certain room it is apt to find a new one strange, and will eye its features with a perceptibly anxious look. This sense of strangeness in places sometimes appears very early. A little girl on being taken at the age of four months into a new nursery, "looked all round and then burst out crying". Some children retain this feeling of uneasiness up to the age of three years and later. Here, again, clearly marked differences among children disclose themselves. On entering an unfamiliar room a child may have his curiosity excited, or may be amused by the odd look of things, so that the fear-impulse is kept under by other and pleasanter ones.

What applies to places applies also to persons. A child may be said to combine the attachment of the dog to persons with that of the cat to localities. Any sudden change of the customary human surroundings, for example, the arrival of a stranger on the scene, is apt to trouble him.

During the first three months, there is no distinct manifestation of a fear of strangers. It is only later, when recurring forms have grown familiar, that the approach of a stranger, especially if accompanied by a proposal to take the child, calls forth clear signs of displeasure and the shrinking away of fear. Professor Preyer gives between six and seven months as the date at which his boy began to cry at the sight of a strange face.

Here, too, curious differences soon begin to disclose themselves, some children showing themselves more hospitable than others. It would be curious to compare the ages at which children begin to take kindly to new faces. Professor Preyer gives nineteen months as the date at which his boy surmounted his timidity.