THE CHILD MIND.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 411, 21 January 1909, Page 3

THE CHILD MIND.

- i In the Christmas number of tho "Windsor Lady Henry Somerset has a ,' charming and suggestive articlo on the de'l velbpm'ejit, of the child, which she begins ■ with *ho statement that the greatest danger to'any nation lies in the wrong development , >of its "children, and tho greatest modern falthe belief that precocity is a sign of instead of a menace to civilised life. Tho peoplo who prcberve normal child- - ,hood for the longest period are those who . end will produco vital and healthy adult life. JDeahng with tho child's marvellous imagination,' she says:—-A child's world is distinct from ours, but none the less real. That is a truth we need to understand more clearly. It is not that he has not grasped our standjpomt, it is that ho has an alogether different one, that he lives not m a limited bit of our world, but in a world entirely his - own.. a child will tell us long and cir- „. cumstantial stones, and we say in our narrow misunderstanding: "Oh, hush, dear! I'm afraid that is not true." To the child there is no untruth, ho has seen it all, has met tho bear in tho wood, the bull in the field, was delivered from peril by knights in armour, or by his own'prowess. How far truer and wiser to say: "That happened in tho dreamland to which you "went," and realise that, waking and sleeping, the world of wonders is his greatest possession! To r tear a child from this rich and sheltered soil, and to transplant his mind, into the glare of our matter-of-fact life, is to arrest and stunt his growth. And herein lies the real danger of a child's contact with adult life. J The first thing that struck /me about American family life was the oonstant presence of children with their parents. This seemed an ideal state of'things', and I contoasted it with the .way in which many English children are kept in nursery and {schoolroom, with a set hour for visiting the \ drawing-room, and, a routine life which seldom varies. I congratulated myself that this American habit,was,gaining in our country, and that children were, on the whole, far more m tho company of their elders than of old; but my theories have, on maturer observation, T ?°e lv «J some rude awakenings. The society of adults is good for children, only in so far *s they realise that they dare not'disturb tho child's point of view, that/fheir focus of vision is a different and'that to adjust iifo for child eyes as it suits their own is to distort it hopelessly. Some time ago a lady V this country, who belongs to a race, famous ,for its largo busi-, ness capacities, was boasting to a friend of 'nine of the extreme intelligence of her little iO Lr ■ ' ' ' " He is remarkable,'" she said; "you would , hardly credit 'what, a mind ho has. The other day lie came s to me in real trouble • On, mummie, I have had such a dreadful tfream! he said. 'What is it, sonme?' I asfced. Oh, mummie',' ho replied, 'only fancy, I dreamt that Blackton's shares went down! ' _ She was blind to the fact that nothing could be more pathetic than to associate the , dreams of childhood with such sordid trifles. One notices tho same thing m these colonies, where parents and children have to be so constantly together. It .would be haid for the parents to remember alwavs that the \ child must retain its own point of view, but in many cases no amount of troublo would be too great. One recalls houses where the gro-nn-ups talk incessantly about dress, and where the children havo an abnormally developed gift for noticing what tho, adults about them are wearing, houses whero the parents criticise all their acquaintances ' frankly and unmercifully, and uhere tho children are growing up horrid little cynics lo quote a rather extreme case "of the adapts ability of the child's mind, a very pleasant Jady recently moved into a now homo that at the cost of much ingenuity and care had been charmingly furnished at very small cost, bhe had reason to be proud 'of tho result of , her labours, but she allowed her pride, tho zeal of her house, to eat her up. Everv friend who called had to be taken through all the rooms on a tour of admiratior-.-and as the lady passed through the rooms her bttle five-year-old son trotted 1 at her 7 side, une day a small girl came to play with him, ~ * J, nd \ on her return her mother asked what ' e T k ad ?¥ ei at "W« didn't play," s *?i the °™d ttith enthusiasm, " we \ went all over the house and looked at tho rooms, ._ and just fancy those Jovoly curtains in the spare room were only sixpence a yard."