Children's Ways

quantity of serious inquiry into the things of the real world. This is true, I believe, even of highly imaginative children, who now and again come down from their fancy-created world a

seriousness, a deep and admirable seriousness, to his attitude; so that one may forgive the touch of exaggeration when Mr. Bret Harte writes: "All those who have made a loving

ghtful O

o the searching gaze of an infant's eyes when we first made it overtures of frien

with the colour of an object as almost to ignore its form. A little girl of eighteen months, who knew lambs and called them "lammies," on seeing two black ones in a field among some white ones called out, "Eh! doggie,

subordinate place. Individual things, too, have to be more carefully distinguished, if only for the purpose of drawing the line between what is "mine" and "not mine," for example, spoons and picture-books. The recognition of the mother

boys when the "railway interest" seizes them are apt to be finely observant of the differences between this and that engine and so forth. A boy aged two years and eleven months, after travelling over two railways, asked

eir recognition of small drawings and photographs, as when one child of two ins

skin, could look for hours together at flowing water, noting all its subtle changes. Another little boy, when three and a half years old, received a picture-book, The Railway Train, and insp

old when taken out for a walk was shown some lambs at the gate of a field. On being taken the same road three weeks later she surprised her mother by calling out just before arriving at the gate, "Baa, baa!" Later on children will remember through much longer intervals. A little boy of two years on seeing a girl co

te the relations and connections of things, how he is almost as tall as the table, for example, and a good deal taller than pussy, how he has a spoon while hi

little boy, having been told to blow on his hand which had been hurt, proceeded afterwards when he had struck his head against somethi

be really connected which accidentally occur together, it may be in a single instance only. An American boy of ten who had happened to have a teacher who was short and cross, and a second who was tall and very kind, said to his new teacher, who struck him as short, "I'm

nacious Q

estioning "mania," as we are apt to regard it. The first question was put in the case of a boy in the twenty-eighth month, in the case of a girl in the twenty-t

this view. It may be enough here to say that a good deal of this first questioning is something very different. A child asks you what this thing is you wear on your watch-chain, why you part your hair in the mi

ch will connect itself with and complete a bit of knowledge already gained. "How old is Rover?" "Where was Rover born?" "Who was his father?" "What is that dog's name?" "What sort of hair had you when you were a little girl?" This kind of questioning may spring out of pure c

"What is it called?" A child is apt to think that everything has its own name. One little boy explained to his mother that he thought all the frogs, the mice, the birds and the butterflies had

ason and the cause of things. It takes the well-known forms, "Why?" "Who made?" and so forth. Who that has trie

h interpreting, hardly anything more difficult to

puzzling in nature, and in human life alike. Just because he is born a thinker he must try at least to bring the strange thing into some

on what is new and strange. For example, you may sometimes still a child's questioning as to why pussy has fur by telling him that it is pussy's hair. A child may find an app

say of the cause which originates a thing, and of the purpose which it serves. It is easy to see, indeed, that this questioning curiosity of the little ones is la

enough, for of the things whose production the child sees are not the larger number fashioned by human hands? He himself makes a considerable number of things, including these rents in his clothes, messes on the tablecloth, and the like, which he gets firmly imprinted on his memory by the auth

for example, a child asks, "Why is there such a lot of dust?" he seems to be seeking the purpose which the maker of dust had in mind, or in other words the use of dust. Similarly when things are endowed

e was delighted at the strong boisterous wind, but then got tired and said: "Wind make mamma's hair untidy, Babba (her own name) make mamma's hair tidy, so wind not blow adain (again)". About three weeks later the same child being out in the rain with

ame and went in our little girl's nature-theory just to vex and not to vex "mamma" and "Babba". A little boy of two years two months sitting on the floor one day in a bad temper looked up and saw the sun shining and said captiously, "Sun not look at Hennie," and then mor

this fact out by questioning a considerable number of children. Thus, when asked what a hat is, one child answered, "Pour mettre sur l

t the processes of nature, and tries by questioning his elders to get a glimpse into their manner of working.

for example, finds that when he dips his hand into sand, clay, or what not, he makes a hole. But when he puts it into water no hole is left behi

y to the usual run of things. The same thing is illustrated in the question of

s little understand this as the beginning of things, and so he will ask: "Where does the sea swim to

ppresses and confuses the young understanding. "Mother," asked a small boy of four, "why is there such a lot of things in the world if no one knows all these things?" A little girl about three and a half years old asked her moth

know if pussy has eggs to help her make ickle (little) kitties." Finding that this was not so, he observed: "Oh, then, I s'pose she has to have God to help her if she doesn't have kitties in eggs given her to sit on". Another little boy, five years old, found his way to the puzzle of the reciprocal genetic relation of the hen and the egg, an

ngs, as when he asks, "Who made God?" or, "What was there before God?" The idea that God

ee once put the poser: "If I'd gone upstairs, could God make it that I hadn't?" Or as another boy of eight put it to a distinguished biologist,

culation. Thus the problem of the necessity of evil is clearly recognisable in the question once put by an American boy under eight years

, this again being dropped for an equally eager inquiry into the making of clocks, railway engines, and so on. Yet, through these alternating bouts of questioning we can recognise laws of progress. Thus children will ask first about the

knowledge, any semblance of answer being accepted without an attempt to put a meaning into it. A good deal of the more reckless kind of children's asking, when one question is followed by another with an irritating pertinacity, appears to be of this formal and lifeless character. Some

knowledge to us, and good manners should compel us to treat their questions with some attention. And if now and then they torment us with a string of random reckless