Early Tendencies in the Child: How to Check Them or Develop. Part II.
by Mrs. Edward Sieveking.
Volume 14, 1903, pgs. 561-569
(Continued from pg. 505.)
Tendencies often begin in games. There is no such thing as a "close time" for tendencies, therefore our watch must be kept with no "intervals for refreshment." It is in the "playing fields" of our nurseries that they first make their appearance, and if we are not accustomed to being constantly with our children, naturally we are not au fait [familiar] with all their exits and entrances, and, consequently, very often it happens that the pariah tendencies have made a clear-cut, deep impression on the surface of the personality, when eventually they come before our notice.
I remember a curious game being started by my own children not long ago. It was called the "Lottery Game," and consisted of little slips of paper being handed round to each by the eldest child, with the name of a toy--of which the spelling was delightfully original, and it be found in no dictionary extant--written inside. Then a shuffle of the papers ensued, and amid great excitement each child drew and opened his or her slip. The content of one or two was unbounded, but the dismay of those not so fortunate was equally great, for they recognised that they had played--and lost, and had to give up to the one who had drawn it, a cherished and beloved toy. In most cases the unfortunate ones recognised that the fate was inexorable that had befallen them, and did not attempt to keep the toy back.
This game had gone on for some little time one afternoon until nearly all the Christmas presents which the children had been given had changed hands, and then, on recognising and thinking over the moral ethics of the game, we decided to insist on the rules being altered, viz., that at the end of each round all the toys should be restored to their proper original owners. But this turned out to be its death-blow; for little by little its vitality dwindled, till at last it was heard of no more. The curious fact of the case was, however, this: that to my knowledge the children had, to all intents and purposes, as far as they were concerned, invented this game with its gambling tendency, and had never met with it elsewhere. This, to me, seems to point to one thing which should be more widely recognised than I think is the case. Gambling, if one tracks it back to its beginning, was initially but the craving for excitement--the revulsion from tedium and monotony. A perfectly natural desire, if one comes to think of it. It was only the swing of the pendulum which made the Puritans look on pleasure and excitement as wrong. It is most unbecoming and unsuitable for some personalities to paper their souls' rooms dun-coloured--they themselves, in such case, never show to advantage at all. Excitement--in other words, stimulus--is necessary to some natures. Some people never do such good work as when they are moved by excitement. Excitement--or, if you like the word better, "stimulus"--is the glow of the fire within the mind, lighting up the God-given power within of enthusiasm, and sending out as a means of stirring up others to action, burning words--inspired actions.
You remember what F.W. Robertson (of Brighton) said on the subject of excitement: "Excitement--by which I mean that which stirs and gives us a vivid consciousness of actually being . . . Some people can be wound up and go for years without winding up again, but you cannot wind up a Geneva watch in that way. The truth is that it is a living life that she needs: successions of the habitual and the impulsive . . . the impulsive to make her feel voluntariness--the life of feeling, instead of the horrid deadness of machinery. The only remedy against this would be to discover, if possible, a new invigorating excitement before the old has worn out. She is happy, calm, bright, active, good, energetic, when moved . . . Her heart sets her intellect and her powers in motion--not her intellect--her heart . . . My nature resembles hers in many things--impulsive, sustained in good by stimulus--flagging without it . . . The key to all her character is its impulsiveness: the whole secret of her 'inward happiness' lies not in the blunting, but in the right direction of it."
I think we should recognise therefore its demand, and answer it by giving it full satisfaction away from the dangerous courses it would otherwise take. We ought to provide for children--as we are now doing for grown-up people of a less educated class--rational ways of escaping from monotony, from tedium; or, rather, let me use that most expressive word of a past generation--the vapours! With children, as with grown-up people, the vapours will rise like a poisonous exhalation if we are not careful to provide healthy rational excitements for those among us who are not sufficient unto ourselves, and who have minds of sluggish depths. Little recurrent excitements of looking forward to them, are like the lamps breaking the monotony of a long street on a winter evening.
Just think how much pleasure a child gets out of a trip up the line in spring or summer, with mother or father (if one lives in the country or the suburbs), with a basket of sponge cakes and a bottle of milk for an impromptu tea, to some little village common unknown before; the joy of finding a new nest, or a new flower in some hitherto unvisited lane near by; the delightful excitement of the journey (which stations); the digging up roots of flowers or creepers for the children's own garden at home. Such expeditions are veritable shining lights of pleasures which light up a whole week of lessons. And these sorts of excitements could be readily thought of, mapped out and carried out by all of us--by those of the most economical turn of mind. The simpler they are, so much the better--the happiness the children get out of them is immeasurable. On looking back to my own childhood days, it seems to me that my chief pleasure of the week was the Saturday morning walk up the Downs, which my mother used regularly to take me, to a certain charming little fir wood--Saturday morning being the day when my nurse had to clean our the day nursery. Those kinds of simple, very easy pleasures to manage, make keen impressions on the child's mind, and, in after years, are among the very joys of memory.
It is in just such pleasures as these that we can foster and develop those tastes, those tendencies in our children, which are there if we will tend them and train them. Look at the time and opportunities for growing, that such an expedition as the one I have just been suggesting provides! There is no more valuable pursuit, or one more healthful for mind and body, than that of the study of natural history, none more engrossing--I had almost said none more exciting, for those who are "in the swim" know well what a thrill of excitement runs through you on tracking down a bird that is new to you, or in making your own some new experience of the reason or instinct of an animal. Natural history is a book filled from cover to cover with absorbing stories--stories of which the youngest among us need have no expurgations, as is an advisable practice sometimes in other publications. For every evil there is, somewhere, its antidote. That, I take it, is a deep, firmly-rooted conviction in most minds. For the evil tendency which perhaps fastens on a child indoors, let us try the recurrent treatment of out-of-door expeditions: to foster the taste for birds, beasts and reptiles, for fishing, for boating, for the search for and after definition of wild flowers. If he is selfish, there are opportunities in plenty for thought for others, for sharing treasures, for denying himself, if the store brought in the basket is inadequate to demand of prolonged healthy appetites, for economy in order with pocket-money saved to buy some natural history book in order to discover "what's what" among the findings brought home from the expedition.
Now as to those tastes which we should try to develop in our children. There are a few tendencies to-day which I think we are apt to disregard and not develop as we should. Reverence is one of them: the reason is not far to seek. As a nation we are not greatly distinguished by it, as everyone will allow. We are not a nation of idealists, nor are we a nation with much reverence for tradition! And it seems to me this is a pity--for some traditions are infinitely worthy of reverence. It seems to me that we greatly need to develop the latent tendencies of reverence, idealism of aim, and loyalty. It was one of the greatest poets the world have ever known who said "reverence is the angel of the world." If that is so, then, to all intents and purposes, our angel is seldom indeed in our midst. We are too materialistic; we are too unimaginative. But this fact remains nevertheless as a truth--that all really great men are idealists at heart, and all have a deep sense of loyalty, of reverence for some tradition that has come down to us as a sacred heritage from the long dead hands of men in far-off ages. In view of this, what can we do but condemn the attitude of most children towards their parents nowadays? The attitude of easy camaraderie has something that is dear to the parents certainly in one sense, because, as a school-mistress once said to me, "there is not greater compliment than for a child to put you on his level," for it means that he takes your interest and sympathy for granted; but what can one say about the lack of courtesy, of reverence to parents, which is so self-evident among children to-day? Is this the parents' fault again? Perhaps in some measure it is. Only the other day a woman said to me, "I don't want my children to reverence me; if I do, later on they'll find me out!" Think of the covert irony of the words!
But still there is always one sense in which children should be loyal to a never-failing reverence of motherhood, for fatherhood--and it is the same sort of idea as the assertion, "The king can do no wrong." This it is good and wholesome for the child to feel, whatever the parents may be; for they are, whatever their faults, the unworthy representatives of a Divine system. It is a miserable fact that they should be obliged, because of the actualities before their eyes, to be able to respect only in the abstract, but there is no help for it. And, owing to the prevalence among us as a nation of abnormally low ceilings to the living rooms of our thoughts, we have not grasped the fact that if we are not a nation with many ideals, and consequently do not teach them to our children, they will see us as we are--and the sight will not be particularly inspiring. So that perhaps we have only ourselves to thank for the ordinarily disrespectful attitude of English children to-day towards their parents.
This is not the case in Russia, neither is it in Germany. It used not to be the case formerly in England, as our own grandparents have testified. I remember being told a little story in connection with this, about my grandfather, which made a keen impression on me. My grandfather--when the incident occurred--was a young man, "walking the hospitals." He had come home one evening to dine with his father--his mother having promised to spend some hours with a friend--and while he and his father sat over their wine after dinner, an argument had arisen between them. He left home about ten o'clock, and his mother was surprised, on her return journey in the coach--the Hackney coach of other days--to see him come up to the window and open the door, saying he was coming back with her. On her asking why he was going back again, he answered that on thinking over the discussion which he and his father had had at dinner, he had come to the conclusion that he had not spoken to him quite as a son should, and had come back to beg his pardon for his discourtesy. His mother said afterwards that, curiously enough, on her mentioning the matter (when he had gone) to his father, he had told her that he did not remember his son having spoken in any way disrespectfully to him.
The contrast between this--what one might call old-world courtesy and delicacy of conscience--and the manner and conscience of to-day, is surely enormous. Cases of conscience of that sort, if we met with them to-day, would seem to us abnormal indeed. Looking back on my own life's experience, I cannot call to mind a single instance of any like incident--and it would require a greater effort of mind than my imagination could manage in a year to conceive of any of the specially modern type of boy being moved to such introspection, as would prompt him to take the trouble to return at any time, after parting with his parents, to apologize because he thought he had not spoken quite respectfully to them. And yet to me there is something very fine about the temper of mind which would so fear it had been guilty of a slight breach in reverence, that its owner could not rest until he had tried to do away with the possible impression made by it, and to disavow any intention of being discourteous. Then there is the tendency to method. Some of us are born tidy; others never get tidy, however much we try to root up tendencies to mislay things. There is the tendency to mislay things which seems to come into the world with some people; in the same sort of way as the tendency to mislay themselves (practically a lack of sense of direction), which leads them to lose their way inevitably when trying to find a house in a new neighbourhood. It seems indeed almost incurable--this last failing, though one can, by making a dead set at the first named propensity, inculcate the habit of mind in the child of believing (and acting on the belief) in "a place for everything, and everything in its place."
To develop habits of tidiness, and a sense of the fitness of abode of certain things in certain places, is no easy task. It demands unparalleled patience and great need of the repetition of injunctions before the habit gains ground, and your object is attained, of some particular article owning a name and an address, and, what is more, being found at its own proper address when called for!
As regards the tendencies to borrow other people's possessions, I think the rule should be even more strict. They should be lent only on condition that immediately they are done with, they should be put back in their place. I speak from experience specially, when I say that this should be insisted on de rigueur. The numbers and numbers of pairs of scissors and pencils and penholders that have gone into Limbo since my boys have been of an age to use them is inconceivable! If one is busied about many things throughout the day, it takes some effort to be able to remember exactly the time when the "return of the native," in the shape of the borrowed possession, should be taking place, and some trouble to exert the voice of authority to recall it. But this effort--this trouble--should be gone through with. I think Miss Mason gives a month of close watchings and tellings and insistings before the average boy learns the habit of shutting the door behind him. She has not at all over-stated the time required. To sow the habit of returning borrowed scissors, pencils, penholders, and the like much-coveted possessions among children, it needs a bag of seeds so big that one can hardly carry anything else at the time, so incessantly and constantly is the occupation of sowing required.
Then there are other tendencies which should be carefully encouraged, and these are the initial attempts which force themselves up from time to time in quite early childhood for music, for painting, for gardening, for acting, or for some perhaps not so popular hobbies. These are safe vents of childhood, because when a child is interested he is good: it is only when he is bored or idle that he is in mischief. "Find out men's wants, and meet them there," was a saying of one of the most learned humankind savants of a past day, and it is very true now; for if you watch carefully you will find out what the wants of the child's nature are, and it is for you to meet them--and if you can, to satisfy them--or rather to help him to satisfy them.
There is nothing in the world like the guardianship of a good pursuit that one loves. I had almost said that to have a hobby is to be saved; but what I do mean is that if one cares enough about some one pursuit, such as music, painting, handicraft of some sort, or mental craft, it becomes verily and indeed the shining sword which turns every side to keep the way of Life. A friend may fail one, a life-long companion may die, but a hobby--the possession of some real absorbing pursuit--is a joy for ever: it lives in the fortress of one's mind, in the citadel of one's heart, it is impregnable and an ever-living safeguard from the dangers that beset those who live, if one may so call it, unabsorbed lives.
I am quite aware, in conclusion, that there are many tendencies in our children to which we cannot at once give a name; these have to be laid aside in a corner of our minds to be labelled later on, after we have carefully noted from time to time their reappearances and apparent trend. As it is, most of us register impressions received from the children far too little, and so consequently we are in the dark as regards full tides and ebb tides of tendencies in them. But this is a mistake which can easily be rectified by examining and weighing in our personal mental balance the things which the waves wash up at our feet in every-day life. Very often, I think, the reason that dilatory habits begin in children is due to our not having discovered and encouraged enough the redeeming tendencies which they had in them, but which had not been brought out enough into the air and sunshine of every-day life, and had not had in consequence room enough and opportunity enough to develop. The dilatory habit itself is often due to some physical mal-nutrition: our part again, it seems to me, is to find out what the "want" of that nature is, and to "meet" it with a new direction of interests. What we all need more in our households is a sense of direction: to check and divert certain tendencies, and to encourage and pilot others. Still there is, as Anthony Hope says, "such a lamentable gulf between feeling that something must be done, and discovering what it is"; and really to find out the truth in children's tendencies is a difficult matter indeed, and practically needs as much thinking out and exercise of right judgment as we are able to give.
One thing we have to remember in connection with this subject: we have to be convinced absolutely of the supreme importance of the work of directing tendencies in our girls and boys. And the reason for this is the fact that it is the individual that determines the tendencies of the age he lives in. Look what a tremendous tendency to his age--to all ages--Francis, the little poor man of Assisi, gave! Look at the inspiration which such a leader of thought as William Penn awoke in his day! Look at the tendency of Mr. Waugh, the children's friend to-day, has started! Look nearer home still at the fresh impetus such women as Miss Buss, Mrs. Massingberd, Miss Beale, Miss Mason have given, and one sees how one strong personality sways his or her generation: introduces fresh ideas, fresh vital tendencies by which the age is regenerated. For it is, after all, the individual who counts--the individual into whose hands the future is given. And it is the pilotage of the individual when he is a child, and at his most impressionable age, which is laid in the fathers' and mothers' hands. If they watch for with judgment, and direct wisely his early tendencies, they are in effect directing the tendencies of the future--they are from afar moving the rudder of the world that is going to be in the time that is coming, when they themselves must stand aside.
It is, without doubt, a tremendous responsibility to recognize and check the pariah tendency whenever it arises; as it is also to recognise and encourage wisely the good tendency that sometimes comes before our eyes in such a "questionable form" that it puzzles us and interferes with our personal comfort. Still, when one realizes to the full the far-reaching consequences of what we are doing, we cannot fail to make the endeavour consistently, patiently, sympathetically; and even if, with all our efforts, we do not see the results, still to be absolutely sure they are to come.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here, no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
[from Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth, by Arthur Clough]
Proofread by LNL, Nov. 2008