Concerning Children Part 7

In itself it is no distinction, being but the common lot of man. Those who do not attain to it are by general consent of superior merit.

"Whom the G.o.ds love die young."

Age is not desired and striven for,--not won by honourable effort. It comes gradually upon us all, falling like rain upon the just and the unjust. Taken simply in itself, it proves no more than that the aged individual, if a man, has had sufficient strength and ingenuity to keep himself alive; and, if a woman, that she has been sufficiently pleasing and well-behaved to be kept alive by others.

In very early times, when the world was young and life more exciting and precarious than now, perhaps the above qualities were a sufficient distinction. The const.i.tution which survived the rigours of a crude and uncertain diet and of an undiluted climate was a thing to be proud of; and the visible proof that one had survived one's enemies did indicate some superiority.

But in a civilisation which takes special care of the infirm,--where green young cripples grow to a ripe old age, and a bed-ridden pauper may outlive many muscular labourers,--mere prolongation of existence is no self-evident proof of either power or wisdom. Of two men born in the same year, the more valuable man, doing more valuable work, is quite as likely to die as an innocuous, futile, low-grade person, paddling feebly with the tide. Of two women, one may smilingly repeat herself by the dozen, and drift sweetly on from amiable juvenility to as amiable senility; while another, working strenuously and effectively, dies in her earnest youth or middle age.

Survival is no longer a fair test of value. The wisdom of the ancients is not the standard of our time. We do not think that a previous century knows more than ours, but rather less; and, if Methuselah were with us yet,--and retained his faculties,--he would be too much confused between the things he used to believe and what he was learning now to be a valuable authority. When learning was but acc.u.mulated tradition, the old had an advantage over the young, and improved it. Now that learning is discovery, the young have an advantage over the old.

If wisdom consisted merely in the acc.u.mulation of facts, the long-time observer would a.s.suredly have more of them than the new-comer. But the wisdom that consists in a free and unbia.s.sed judgment--a new perception of the relation of things--comes better from a fresher brain. This is not to say that age may not coexist with superiority, but that age, _per se_, is not superiority.

There are many aged persons in the work-house who are quite visibly inferior to many young persons in the House of Commons. This suggests a painful ant.i.thesis which is better omitted. Granting the origin of this arrogance of the aged to have had some basis in primitive time, it is easy to see how it has descended to us by the same principle that maintains the f.a.g system.

Humanity has always its overlapping generations; and the child who is crushed by the incontrovertible statement, "I am older than you are!"

waits to recoup himself on children yet to be. In his subordinate position in youth he has no chance to escape from this injustice or to retaliate; and he strikes a balance with fate by a.s.suming the same superiority over the new-comer. It is probable that we should never outgrow the a.s.sumption until we have a generation of children taught to respect conduct for its merits, not for simple duration, holding a wise, strong, good person, however young, to be superior to an ignorant or vicious one, however old. When the sense of justice and the sense of logic of the child are not outraged in youth, we shall find more modesty as well as more wisdom in old age.

It is always interesting to see our psychic development following the laws of nature, like any other growth. Under the law of inertia the human mind, starting under a given concept, continues to enlarge in that direction, unless arrested or diverted in some other force. So this conception of age as essential superiority, naturally enough begun, has been followed to strange and injurious extremes. And under the law of conservation of energy--following the line of least resistance--the aged naturally encroached upon the young, who were able to make no resistance whatever.

The respect and care for aged persons, which is so distinguishing a mark of advanced civilisation, is due to two things: first, the prolonged serviceability of parents; and, second, the social relation which allows of usefulness to even the very old. In an early savage tribe the elderly parent is of no special value to the newly matured young, and the tribal service has more use for juvenile warriors than for the ancient ones: wherefore the old folk are of small account, and do not meet much encouragement to prolonged living. But with us, though the child is grown quite sufficiently to hunt and fight and reproduce his kind, he is not yet properly equipped for the social service. He needs more years yet of parental a.s.sistance while he acc.u.mulates knowledge in his profession or skill in his trade.

Therefore, parentage is a longer and more elaborate operation with us than with lower races, animal or human, and the parent consequently more appreciated. This position is fondly taken advantage of by the designing aged, oft-times with a pious belief in their righteous ground which is most convincing.

Because the human parent is of far more service to the young than earlier parents, therefore our elders calmly a.s.sume that it is the duty of the young to provide for and serve them,--not only to render them natural a.s.sistance when real incapacity comes, but to alter the course of their young and useful lives to suit the wishes of the old.

Among poor and degraded cla.s.ses we see children early set to work for the parents instead of parents working for the children,--a position as unnatural as for a hen to eat eggs. Life is not a short circle, a patent self-feeder. The business of the hen is to hatch the egg, and of the egg to grow to another and different hen,--not to turn round and sacrificially nourish the previous fowl.

The duty of the parent is a deep-seated, natural law. Without the parent's care of the child, no race, no life. The duty of the child to the parent was largely invented by parents, from motives of natural self-interest, and has been so long sanctioned and practised that we look on without a shudder and see a healthy middle-aged mother calmly swallowing the life of her growing daughter. A girl is twenty-one. She has been properly reared by her mother, whom we will suppose to be a widow. Being twenty-one, the girl is old enough to begin to live her own life, and naturally wishes to. I do not speak of marrying,--that is generally allowed,--but of so studying and working as to develope a wide, useful life of her own in case she does not marry.

"Not so," says her mother. "Your duty is to stay with me. I need you."

Now the mother is not bed-ridden. She is, we will say, an able-bodied woman of forty-five or fifty. She could easily occupy herself in one of several trades; but, being in possession of a house and a tiny income, she "does not have to work." She prefers to live in that house, on that income, and have her daughter live with her. The daughter prefers to go to New York, and study music or art or dressmaking, whatever she is fit for. But here is her dear mother claiming her presence at home as a duty; and she gives it. She does her duty, living there with her mother in the capacity of--of what? In no capacity at all. Fancy a young man living at home in the capacity of a "son," with no better occupation than dusting the parlour and arranging flowers! In course of time the mother dies. The daughter has lost her position as "a daughter," and has no other place in life.

She has never been allowed to form part of the living organism of society, and remains a withered offshoot, weak and fruitless.

These cases are common enough. But consider from another point of view the serene presumption of the elder woman. Because she had done--so far--her duty by the child that was, she now claims a continuous hold on the grown woman and a return for her services.

In still earlier days this claim was made even more strenuously. The child awe-fully addressed the father as "author of my being," and was supposed to "owe" him everything. The child does not owe the parent.

Parental duty is not a loan. It is the never-ending gift of nature,--an unbroken, outpouring river of love and labour from the earliest beginnings of life. The child, while a child, has also some duty to the parent; but even there it is reflex, and based in last a.n.a.lysis on the child's advantage.

Meanwhile it is a poor parent who cannot win the affection and command the respect of the young creature growing up so near, so that a beautiful relation shall be established between them for the rest of life. This love and honest admiration, this affectionate friendliness, and all the ties of long a.s.sociation would naturally prompt the child to desire the society of the parent, and, of course, to provide for illness and old age; but that is a very different position from the one taken by an able-bodied, middle-aged parent demanding the surrender of a young life.

Parentage is not a profession with a sort of mutual insurance return to it. The claim that humanity is born saddled with this retroactive obligation requires more convincing proof than has yet been offered.

An obligation we all have, young and old,--and to this the child should be trained,--the vast and endless service of humanity, to which our lives are pledged without exception. Seeing the parent devout in this honourable discharge of duty,--realising that his own training is with a view to that greater service when he is grown,--the child would go onward in life with the parent, not backward to him.

But we have not yet forgotten the habits and traditions of the patriarchate. We demand from the young respect because we are older, not because we deserve it. Respect is a thing which is extorted w.i.l.l.y-nilly by those who deserve it, and which cannot be given at will. If a parent loses his temper and talks foolishly, how can a child respect this weakness? To demand respectful treatment shows one cannot command it; and, if it is not commanded, it cannot be had. Any false a.s.sumption is a block to progress. So long as the aged expect to be looked up to on account of the length of time in which they have not died, so long will they ignore those habits of life which should insure reverence and love at any age.

People ought to be living with wise forethought and circ.u.mspection, in order that they may be respected when old,--not carelessly lulled with the comforting belief that, no matter how foolish they are, age will bring dignity.

So, too, if parents did not so fatuously demand respect merely because they are parents, but would see to it that they deserve and win respect by such visible power and wisdom as the child must bow to, we might look for a much quicker advance in these desirable qualities.

The power of learning things does not cease at maturity. Many a great mind has gone on to extreme old age, open, eager, steadily adding to its store of light and power. Such keep the freshness and the modesty of youth. Far more numerous are the little minds which imagine that years are equivalent to wisdom, and, because they are grown up, decline to learn further. Yet these, far more than the wise men, sit back complacent on their age, and talk with finality of "my experience"!

Experience is not merely keeping alive. Experience involves things happening and things done. Many a young man of to-day has done more and felt more than a peaceful, stationary nonagenarian of yesterday's rural life. That very brashness and self-a.s.sumption of hot youth, which brings so complacent and superior a smile to the cheek of age, would not be so prominent but for previous suppression and contemptuous treatment. A lofty and supercilious age makes a rash and incautious youth; but youth, trained to early freedom and its rich and instructive punishments, would grow to an agreeable age, modest with much wisdom, tender and considerate with long power.

IX.

THE RESPECT DUE TO YOUTH.

Since we have so carefully and thoroughly beaten back the new brain-growth which should distinguish each successive generation, and fostered in every way the primitive mental habits of our forefathers, the natural consequence is a prolonged survival of very early tendencies. Outside, in the necessary contact and freedom of the world's life, crude ideas must change, and either become suited to the times or lost entirely. But in the privacy of the home, under the conditions of family life and the dominant influence of feminine conservatism, we find a group of carefully cherished rudiments which never could have survived without such isolation.

Among primitive races the stranger is an object of legitimate derision. The differences in his speech and manner are held as visible inferiorities, and his attempts to a.s.similate are greeted with unchecked merriment. This att.i.tude of mind is still common in children, who are pa.s.sing through the same stage of culture individually. Among intelligent and well-bred grown people such an att.i.tude of mind is rightly despised. To them the stranger is ent.i.tled to respectful consideration because he is a stranger; and nothing could be ruder, in the estimation of such persons, than to laugh at the stranger's efforts to learn our language and manners.

How great is the difference between this common good breeding in the world at large and the barbaric crudity of our behaviour at home to that most sacred stranger, the child! He comes to us absolutely ignorant of our methods of living, be they wise or unwise; and he must needs learn every step of his way in the paths we have prepared for him. Unfortunately, we have prepared very little. A few physical conveniences, perhaps, in the way of high chairs and cradles, or nursing-bottles to supplement maternal deficiency; but in psychic conveniences--in any better recognition of the childish att.i.tude of mind and its natural difficulties--we make small progress.

Calm, wondering, unafraid, the stranger enters the family circle. He has no perspective, no gradations of feeling in regard to the performances he finds going on about him. He has neither shame for the truths of real life nor respect for the falsehoods of artificial life.

In soberness and eager interest he begins the mysterious game of living.

Now what is the att.i.tude of the family toward this new-comer? How does the intelligent adult treat the stranger within his gates? He treats him with frequent ridicule and general gross disrespect. Not "unkindly," perhaps,--that is, not with anger and blows or undue deprivations,--but as if being a child was a sort of joke. A healthy child is merry with the free good spirits of a spring-tide lamb; but that pure mirth has nothing in common with ridicule. Who of us has not seen a clear-eyed child struck dumb and crimson by the rude laughter of his elders over some act which had no element of humour except that it was new to him? We put grandpa's hat on the downy head of the baby, and roar with laughter at his appearance. Do we put baby's cap on grandma, and then make fun of the old lady's looks? Why should we jeer at a baby more than at an old person? Why are we so lacking in the respect due to youth?

Every child has to learn the language he is born to. It is certain that he will make mistakes in the process, especially as he is not taught it by any wise system, but blunders into what usage he can grasp from day to day.

Now, if an adult foreigner were learning our language, and we greeted his efforts with yells of laughter, we should think ourselves grossly rude. And what should we think of ourselves if we further misled him by setting absurd words and phrases before him, encouraging him to further blunders, that we might laugh the more; and then, if we had visitors, inciting him to make these blunders over again to entertain the company? Yet this is common household sport, so long as there is a little child to act as zany for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his elders. The errors of a child are not legitimate grounds of humour, even to those coa.r.s.e enough to laugh at them, any more than a toddling baby's falls have the same elements of the incongruous as the overthrow of a stout old gentleman who sits down astonished in the snow.

A baby has to fall. It is natural, and not funny. So does the young child have to make mistakes as he learns any or all of the crowding tasks before him; but these are not fair grounds for ridicule.

I was walking in a friend's garden, and met for the first time the daughter of the house, a tall, beautiful girl of nineteen or twenty.

Her aunt, who was with me, cried out to her in an affected tone, "Come and meet the lady, Janey!"

The young girl, who was evidently unpleasantly impressed, looked annoyed, and turned aside in some confusion, speaking softly to her teacher who was with her. Then the aunt, who was a very muscular woman, seized the young lady by her shoulders, lifted her off the ground, and thrust her blushing, struggling, and protesting into my arms--by way of introduction! Naturally enough, the girl was overcome with mortification, and conceived a violent dislike for me. (This story is exactly true, except that the daughter of the house was aged two and a half.)

Now why,--in the name of reason, courtesy, education, justice, any lofty and n.o.ble consideration,--why should Two-and-a-half be thus insulted? What is the point of view of the insulter? How does she justify her brutal behaviour? Is it on the obvious ground of physical superiority in age and strength? It cannot be that, for we do not gratuitously outrage the feelings of all persons younger and smaller than ourselves. A stalwart six-foot septuagenarian does not thus comport himself toward a small gentleman of thirty or forty. It cannot be relationship; for such conduct does not obtain among adults, be they never so closely allied. It has no basis except that the victim is a child, and the child has no personal rights which we feel bound to respect.

A baby, when "good," is considered as a first-rate plaything,--a toy to play with or to play on or to set going like a machine-top, that we may laugh at it. There is a legitimate frolicking with small children, as the cat plays with her kittens; but that is not in the least inconsistent with respect. Grown people can play together and laugh together without jeering at each other. So we might laugh with our children, even more than we do, and yet never laugh at them. The pathetic side of it is that children are even more sensitive to ridicule than grown people. They have no philosophy to fall back upon; and,--here is the hideously unjust side,--if they lose their tempers, being yet unlearned in self-restraint,--if they try to turn the tables on their tormentors, then the wise "grown-up" promptly punishes them for "disrespect." They must respect their elders even in this pitiful att.i.tude; but who is to demand the respect due to youth?

There is a deal of complaint among parents over the "impertinence" of children. "How dare you speak to me like that!" cries outraged authority. Yet "that" was only the expression used just before by the parent to the child.

"Hold your tongue!" says the mother. "Hold yours!" answers the child, and is promptly whipped for impertinence. "I'll teach you to answer me like that!" says angry mamma. And she does.

In the baby's first attempt to speak we amused ourselves mightily over his innocent handling of rude phrases,--overheard by chance or even taught him, that we might make merry over the guileless little mouth, uttering at our behest the words it did not understand. Then, a year or so older, when he says the same things, he is laboriously and painfully taught that what is proper for a parent to say to a child is not proper for a child to say to a parent. "Why?" puzzles the child.

We can give no answer, except our large a.s.sumption that there is no respect due to youth.

Ask any conscientious mother or father why the new human being, fresh from G.o.d as they profess to believe, not yet tainted by sin or weakened by folly and mistake, serene in its mighty innocence and serious beyond measure, as its deep eyes look solemnly into life,--why this wonderful kind of humanity is to be treated like a court fool.

What can the parent say?

From the deeper biological standpoint, seeing the foremost wave of advancing humanity in each new generation, there is still less excuse for such contemptuous treatment. In the child is lodged the piled up progress of the centuries, and, as he shall live, is that progress hastened or r.e.t.a.r.ded. Quite outside of the natural affection of the parent for the offspring stands this deep, human reverence for the latest and best specimen of its kind. Every child should represent a higher step in racial growth than its parents, and every parent should reverently recognise this. For a time the parent has the advantage. He has knowledge, skill, and power; and we feel that in the order of nature he is set to minister to the younger generation till it shall supplant him. To develope such a n.o.ble feeling has taken a long time, and many steps upward through those cruder sentiments which led toward it. Yet it is the rational, conscious feeling into which the human being translates the whole marvellous law of parental love.