Children's Ways Part 8

In these fears, then, we seem to see much of the workmanship of Nature, who has so shaped the child's nervous system and delicately poised it that the trepidation of fear comes readily. According to some she has done more, burdening a child's spirit with germinal remains of the fears of far-off savage ancestors, to whom darkness and the sounds of wild beasts were fraught with danger. That, however, is far from being satisfactorily demonstrated. We can see why in the case of children, as in that of young animals, Nature tempers a bold curiosity of the new by mingling with it a certain amount of uneasiness, lest the ignorant helpless things should come to grief by wandering from parental shelter and supplies. This, it seems to me, is all that Nature has done. And in so doing has she not, with excellent economy, done just enough?

The extent of suffering brought into child-life by the a.s.saults of fear is hard to measure. Even the method of questioning young people about their fears, which is now in vogue, is not likely to bring us near a solution of this problem. And this for the good reason that children are never more reticent than when talking of their fears, and that by the time the fears are surmounted few can be trusted to give from memory an accurate report of them. One thing seems pretty clear, and the new questioning of children which is going on apace in America seems to bear it out, _viz._, that, since it is the unknown which is the primary occasion of these childish fears, and since the unknown in childhood is almost everything, the possibilities of suffering from this source are great enough.

Alike the Good, the Ill offend thy Sight, And rouse the stormy sense of shrill affright.

(_c_) _Recovery from the Onslaught._

Nevertheless it is quite possible here to go from one extreme of indifference to another of sentimental exaggeration. Even allowing what George Sand says, that fear is "the greatest moral suffering of children," the suffering may turn out to be less cruelly severe than it looks.

To begin with, then, if children are sadly open to the attacks of fear on certain sides they are completely defended on other sides by their ignorance. This is well ill.u.s.trated in the pretty story of the child Walter Scott, who was found out of doors lying on his back during a thunderstorm, clapping his hands and shouting, "Bonnie! bonnie!" at each new flash.

Again, if, as we have supposed, children's fears are mostly due to a feeling of insecurity in view of the unknown, they may be said to correct themselves to a large extent. By getting used to the disturbing sound, the ugly black doll, and so forth, a child, like a dog, tends to lose its first fear. One must say "tends," for the well-known fact that many persons carry with them into later life their early fear of the dark shows that when once the habit of fearing has got set no amount of familiarity will suffice to dissolve it.

Not only are the points of attack thus limited; the attack when it does take place may bring something better than a debasing fear. A child may, it is certain, suffer acutely when it is frightened. But if only there is the magic circle of the mother's arms within reach may it not be said that the fear is more than counterbalanced by the greatest emotional luxury of childhood, the loving embrace? It is the shy fears, breeding the new fear of exposure to unloving eyes and possibly to ridicule, which are the tragedy of childhood.

In addition to these extraneous aids children are provided by Nature with capacities of self-defence. I have pointed out that the impulses of curiosity and fear lie close together in a child's mind, so that one can hardly say beforehand which of the two is going to be awakened first by the coming of the new and strange thing. The eager desire to know about things is perhaps the most perfect inward defence against many childish fears. Even when fear is half awake the pa.s.sionate longing to see will force its way. A little girl that was frightened at a j.a.panese doll just given her and would not approach it, insisted on seeing it at some distance every day. The same backing of a timid child's spirit by hardy curiosity shows itself in his way of peeping at a dog which has just terrified him and gradually approaching the monster.

Better still, in the hardier race of children Nature has planted an impulse which not only disarms fear but turns it into a frolicsome companion. Many children, I feel sure, maintain a double att.i.tude towards their terrors, the bogies, the giants and the rest. Moments of cruel suffering alternate with moments of brave exultation. Fear in children, even more than in adults, is an instinctive process into which but little thought enters. If the nerves are slack, and if the circ.u.mstances are eerie and fear-provoking, the sudden strange sound, the appearance of a black something, will send the swift shudder through the small body; if, on the other hand, the child is cooler and has the cheering daylight to back him, he may be bold enough to play with his fears, and to talk of them to others with the chuckle of superiority.[8]

The more real and oppressive the fit of fear the more enjoyable is the subsequent self-deliverance by a perspicacious laugh likely to be. The beginnings of childish bravery often take the form of laughing away their fears. Even when the ugly phantoms are not wholly driven back they are half seen through, and the child who is strong enough can amuse himself with them, suffering the momentary compression for the sake of the joyous expansion which so swiftly follows. A child of two, the same that asked his mother, "Would you like to take hold of my hand?" was once taken out by her on a little sledge. Being turned too suddenly he was pitched into the snow, almost on his head; but on being picked up by his mother he remarked quite calmly: "I nearly tumbled off". Another child of six on entering an empty room alone, stamped his foot and shouted: "Go away everything that's here!" In such ways do the nerves of a strong child recover themselves after shock and tremor, taking on something of the steady pose of human bravery.

[8] Mrs. Meynell gives an example of this in her volume _The Children_ ("The Man with Two Heads").

CHAPTER IX.

GOOD AND BAD IN THE MAKING.

Children have had pa.s.sed on their moral characteristics the extremes of human judgment. By some, including a number of theologians, they have been viewed as steeped in depravity; by others, _e.g._, Rousseau, they have been regarded as the perfection of the Creator's workmanship.

If we are to throw any light on the point in dispute we must avoid the unfairness of applying grown-up standards to childish actions, and must expect neither the vices nor the virtues of manhood. We must further take some pains to get, so far as this is possible, at children's natural inclinations so as to see whether, and if so how far, they set in the direction of good or of bad.

_Traces of the Brute._

Even a distant acquaintance with the first years of human life tells us that young children have much in common with the lower animals. The characteristic feelings and impulses are centred in self and the satisfaction of its wants. What is better marked, for example, than the boundless greed of the child, his keen desire to appropriate and enjoy whatever presents itself, and to resent others' partic.i.p.ation in such enjoyment?

We note, further, that when later on he makes fuller acquaintance with his social surroundings, his first att.i.tude has in it much of the hostility of the Ishmaelite. The removal of the feeding bottle before full satisfaction has been attained is, as we know, the occasion for one of the most impressive utterances of the baby's "will to live," and of its resentment of all human checks to its native impulses. Here we have the first rude germ of that opposition of will which makes the Ishmaelite look on others as his foes.

The same att.i.tude of isolating hostility is apt to show itself towards other children. In the matter of toys, for example, the natural way of a child is very frequently not only to make free with other children's property when he has the chance, but to show the strongest objection to any imitation of this freedom by others, sometimes indeed to display a dog-in-the-manger spirit by refusing to lend what he himself does not want.

The same vigorous egoism inspires the whole scale of childish envies and jealousies, from those having to do with things of the appet.i.te to those which trouble themselves about the marks of others' good-will, such as caresses and praises.

In this wide category of childish egoisms we seem to be near the level of animal ways. Out of all this fierce pushing of desire whereby the child comes into rude collision with others' wishes, there issue the storms of young pa.s.sion. The energy of these displays of wrath as the imperious little will feels itself suddenly pulled up has in spite of its comicality something impressive. We all know the shocking scene as the boy Ishmaelite gives clearest and most emphatic utterance to his will by hitting out with his arms, stamping and kicking, throwing things down on the floor and breaking them, and accompanying this war-dance with savage howlings and yellings. The outburst tends to concentrate itself in a real attack on somebody. Sometimes this is the offender, as when Darwin's boy at the age of two years and three months would throw books, sticks, etc., at any one who offended him. But almost anybody or anything will do as an object of attack. A child of four on having his lordly purpose crossed would bang his chair, and then proceed to vent his displeasure on his unoffending toy lion, banging him, jumping on him, and, as anti-climax, threatening him with the loss of his dinner.

Hitting is in many cases improved upon by biting.

Such fits of temper, as we call them, vary in their manner from child to child. Thus, whereas one little boy would savagely bite or roll on the floor, his sister was accustomed to dance about and stamp. They vary greatly too in their frequency and their force. Some children show in their anger little if anything of savage furiousness. It is to be added, that with those who do show it, it is wont in most cases to appear only for a limited period.

The resemblance of this fierce anger to the fury of the savage and of the brute can hardly fail to be noticed. Here indeed, as is ill.u.s.trated in the good hymn of our nursery days, which bids us leave biting to the dogs, we see most plainly how firmly planted an animal root lies at the bottom of our proud humanity. Ages of civilisation have not succeeded in eradicating some of the most characteristic and unpleasant impulses of the brute.

At the same time a child's pa.s.sionateness is more than a brute instinct.

He suffers consciously; he realises himself in lonely antagonism to a world. This is seen in the bodily att.i.tude of dejection which often follows the more vigorous stage of the fit, when the little Ishmaelite, growing aware of the impotence of his anger, is wont to throw himself on the floor and to hide his head in solitary wretchedness. This consciousness of absolute isolation and hostility reaches a higher phase when the opposing force is distinctly apprehended as human will. A dim recognition of the stronger will facing him brings the sense of injury, of tyrannous power.

Now this feeling of being injured and oppressed is human, and is fraught with moral possibilities. It is not as yet morally good; for the sense of injury is capable of developing, and may actually turn by-and-by into, hatred. Yet, as we shall see, it holds within itself a promise of something higher.

This predominance of self, this kinship with the unsocial brute, which shows itself in these germinal animosities, seems to be discoverable also in the unfeelingness of children. A common charge against them from those who are not on intimate terms with them, and sometimes, alas, from those who are, is that they are heartless and cruel.

That children often appear to the adult as unfeeling as a stone, is, I suppose, incontestable. The troubles which hara.s.s and oppress the mother may leave her small companion quite unconcerned. He either goes on playing with undisturbed cheerfulness, or he betrays a momentary curiosity about some trivial circ.u.mstance of her affliction which is worse than the absorption in play through its tantalising want of any genuine feeling. If, for example, she is ill, the event is interesting to him merely as supplying him with new treats. A little boy of four, after spending half an hour in his mother's sick-room, coolly informed his nurse: "I have had a very nice time, mamma's ill!" The order of the two statements is significant of the common att.i.tude of mind of children towards others' sufferings.

When it comes to the bigger human troubles this want of fellow-feeling is still more noticeable. Nothing is more shocking to the adult observer of children than their coldness and stolidity in presence of death.

While a whole house is stricken with grief at the loss of a beloved inmate the child is wont to preserve his serenity, being often taken with a shocking curiosity to peep into the dead room, and to get perhaps the gruesome pleasure of touching the dead body so as to know what "as cold as death" means, and at best showing only a feeling of awe before a great mystery.

No one, I think, will doubt that judged by our standards children are often profoundly and shockingly callous. But the question arises here, too, whether we are right in applying our grown-up standards. It is one thing to be indifferent with full knowledge of suffering, another to be indifferent in the sense in which a cat might be said to be so at the spectacle of your falling or burning your finger. We are apt to forget that a large part of the manifestation of human suffering is quite unintelligible to a little child.

Again, when an appeal to serious attention is given, a child is apt to spy something besides the sadness. The little girl who wanted to touch, and to know the meaning of "cold as death," on going to see a dead schoolmate was not unnaturally taken up with the beauty of the scene, with the white hangings and the white flowers.

I am far from saying that the first acquaintance with death commonly leaves a child indifferent to the signs of woe. I believe, on the contrary, that children are frequently affected in a vague way by the surrounding gloom. In some cases, too, as published reminiscences of childhood show, the first acquaintance with the cruel monarch has sometimes shaken a child's whole being with an infinite, nameless sense of woe.

With this unfeelingness children are frequently charged with active unkindness, amounting to cruelty. La Fontaine spoke of the age of childhood as pitiless (_sans pitie_).

This appearance of cruelty will now and again show itself in dealings with other children. One of the trying situations of early life is to find oneself supplanted by the arrival of a new baby. Children, I have reason to think, are, in such circ.u.mstances, capable of coming shockingly near to a feeling of hatred. One little girl was taken with so violent an antipathy to a baby which she considered outrageously ugly as to make a beginning, fortunately only a feeble beginning, at smashing its head, much as she would no doubt have tried to destroy an ugly-looking doll.

Such malicious treatment of smaller infants is, I think, rare. More common is the exhibition of the signs of cruelty in the child's dealings with animals. It is of this, indeed, that we mostly think when we speak of his cruelty.

At first nothing seems clearer than the evidence of malevolent intention in a child's treatment of animals. A little girl when only a year old would lift two kittens by the neck and try to stamp on them. Older children often have a way of treating even their pets with a similar roughness.

Yet I think we cannot safely say that such rough usage is intended to be painful. It seems rather to be the outcome of the mere energy of the childish impulse to hold, possess, and completely dominate his pet.

The case of destructive cruelty, as when a small boy crushes a fly, is somewhat different. Let me give a well-observed instance. A little boy of two years and two months, "after nearly killing a fly on the window-pane, seemed surprised and disturbed, looking round for an explanation, then gave it himself: 'Mr. Fly dom (gone) to by-by'. But he would not touch it or another fly again--a doubt evidently remained, and he continued uneasy about it." Here the arrest of life clearly brought a kind of shock, and we may safely say was not thought out beforehand.

Children may pounce upon and maul small moving things for a number of reasons. The wish to gratify their sense of power--which is probably keener in children who so rarely gratify it than in grown-ups--will often explain these actions. To stop all that commotion, all that buzzing on the window-pane, by a single tap of the finger, that may bring a delicious thrill of power to a child. Curiosity, too, is a powerful incentive to this kind of maltreatment of animals. Children have something of the anatomist's impulse to take living things apart, to see where the blood is, as one child put it, and so forth.

I think, then, that we may give the small offenders the benefit of the doubt, and not attribute their rough handling of animals to a wish to inflict pain, or even to an indifference to pain of which they are clearly aware. Wanton activity, the curiosity of the experimenter, and delight in showing one's power and producing an effect, seem sufficient to explain a large part of the unlearned brutality of the first years.

We have now looked at one of the darkest sides of the child and have found that though it is decidedly unpleasant it is not quite so ugly as it has been painted. Children are no doubt apt to be greedy, and otherwise unsociable, to be ferocious in their anger, and to be sadly wanting in consideration for others; yet it is some consolation to reflect that their savageness is not quite that of brutes, and that their selfishness and cruelty are a long way removed from a deliberate and calculating egoism.

_The Promise of Humanity._

Pure Ishmaelite as he seems, however, a child has what we call the social instincts, and inconsistently enough no doubt he shows at times that after all he wants to join himself to those whom at other times he treats as foes. If he has his outbursts of temper he has also his fits of tenderness. If he is now dead to others' sufferings he is at another time taken with a most amiable childish concern for their happiness.

The germ of this instinct of attachment to society may be said to disclose itself in a rude form in the first weeks of life, when he begins to get used to and to depend on the human presence, and is miserable when this is taken from him.

In this instinct of companionship there is involved a vague inarticulate kind of sympathy. Just as the attached dog may be said to have in a dim fashion a feeling of oneness with its master, so the child. The intenser realisation of this oneness comes after separation. A girl of thirteen months was separated from her mother during six weeks. On the return of the latter she was speechless, and for some time could not bear to leave her restored companion for a minute. A like outbreak of tender sympathy is apt to follow a fit of naughtiness when a child feels itself taken back to the mother's heart.

Sympathy, it is commonly said, is a kind of imitation, and this is strikingly ill.u.s.trated in its early forms. A child has been observed under the age of seven months to look unhappy, drawing down well the corners of the mouth in the characteristic baby-fashion when his nurse pretended to cry.