Children's Ways

TS: (a) THE

d. These ways often result in the formation of definite ideas or "thoughts" which may last for years. We w

he child that it is only by dint of a good deal of questioning that he can piece them together at all. And even after he has had his quest

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the strongly marked mythological or supernatural element in children's theories. Here, it is evident, thought is supported by a somewhat capricious fancy. When, for example, a child accounts for the wind by saying that somebody is waving a very big fan somewhere, or, mo

mechanical process, viz., the waving of something to and fro, which does undoubtedly produce a movement of th

of the commoner ideas of chil

ng on the wall and flat objects in pictures. This tendency to make things out of all he sees shows itself in pretty forms, as when a little girl one year eleven months old, "gathered sunlight in her hands and put it on her face," and about a month earlier expressed a wish to wash some black

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ed not by sight, but by touch. He feels the wind

be taken by children as by uncivilised races to be the sign of life, and of something like human impulse. A child of eighteen months used to throw kisses to the fire. Some children in the infant department of a London Board School were asked what things in the room were alive, and they promptly replied: "The smoke and the fire

hing of its life to its sound. The common tendency of children to think of the sea as alive, of which M. Pierre Loti gives an excellent illustration in his Roman d'un enfant, is no doubt based on the perception of its noise and movement. A little boy ass

growing. This is illustrated in the remark of a little boy of three and a half years who when criticised by his mother fo

eems to have become reduced by losing a portion of itself is said to be "broken". Thus a little boy of three, on seeing the moon partly covered by a cloud, remarked: "The moon is broken". On the other hand, in the case of one little boy, everything not broken or in

oddly, "To make the wind blow". A pupil of mine distinctly recalls that when a child he accounted for the wind at night by the swaying of two large elms which stood in front of the house not far from the windows of his bedroom. This p

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ow, his ideas of the heavenly bodies are wont to be odd enough. His thoughts about thes

ose that the sky and the heavenly bodies touch the earth somewhere, and could be reached by taking a long, long journey. Other and similar ideas are formed by some. Thus one little girl used on looking at the sky to fancy she was

alise it just above the sky, which to their thought forms its floor. Some hard thinking is carried out by the young heads in the effort to reconcile the various things they learn about the celestial region. Thus the sky is apt to be thought of as thin, probably by way of explaining the light of the stars and moon, which is supposed to shine through the sky-roof. One

cribed by Mrs. Jardine thought that the stars were "cut out" first, and that then the little bits left over were all rolled i

dren to fly, to be blown, perhaps like a soap-bubble or air-ball, and, by a child with a more mechanical turn, to roll, presumably as a hoop rolls, and so forth. Theological ideas, too, are pressed

thought of as the noise made by God when groaning, when walking heavily on the floor of heaven, when he has coals "run in"-ideas which show how na?vely the child-mind humanises the Deity, making him a respectable citizen with a house and a coal-cellar. In like manner the lightning is a

en frightened by the crash of the thunder a child instinctively thinks that it is all done to vex his little soul. An earthquake may be thought of as a kind of wonder show, specially got up for the admiration of a sufficient body of spectators. Two children, D. and K., aged ten and five respectively, lived in a small American town. D., who was reading about an earthquake, addressed his mother thus: "Oh, isn't it dreadful, mamma? Do you suppose we will ev

ea

ularly the "spectra" which we see after looking at the sun or when the circulation of the retina is disturbed. One little fellow spun quite a rom

le realities. A boy in an elementary school in London, aged five years, said one day: "Teacher, I saw an old woman one night against my bed". Another child, a little girl in the same school, told her mother that she had seen a

ir dreams, are inclined to identify dreamland and fairyland. If they want to see their "fairies" by day they will shut their eyes; and so the idea may naturally enough occur to them that when closing their eyes for sleep they are going to see the beloved fairies again, and for a longer time. Other ideas about dreams also occur among children. A gentleman tells me that when a child he us

g satisfied by the reply elicited that it would be funny, he continued more explicitly: "Supposing every one in the whole world were dreaming, wouldn't that be funny? They might be, mightn't they?" Receiving a slightly encouraging, "Perhaps they might," he wound up his argument in this fashion: "Yes, but I don't think we are-I'm sure we are not. Perhaps we should wake up and find every one gone away." This is dark enough,

and

hings, more particularly human beings, and the familiar domestic animals. Th

n. Thus, plants are made to grow, that is, swell out, by the rain. The idea that the growth or expansion of animals comes from eating is easily reached by the childish intelligence, and, as we know, nurses and parents have a way of recommending the less attractive sorts of diet by te

e now". At first one is almost disposed to think that this child must have heard of Mr. Anstey's amusing story, Vice Versa. Yet I have collected a number of similar observations. For example, a little boy that I know, when about three and a half years old, used often to say to his mother with perfect seriousness of manner: "When I am big then

little children. An American lady writes to me that two of her boys found their way independently of each other to this idea. Thus one of them spe

n of thought. As the belief of the two brothers in people's coming back from heaven suggests, the idea of shrinkage is connected with those of birth and death. May it not be that the more thoughtful sort of child reasons in this way? Babies which are sent from heaven must have been something there; and people when they die must continue to be something in heaven. Why, then, the "dead" people that go to this place are the v

a theory for himself. His inconvenient questionings in this direction have to be firmly checked, and thus arise the well-known legends about the doctor, the angel and so f

gain, that mamma, nurse, or doctor goes up and fetches them in a balloon. They are said by other children to grow in cabbages, or to be placed by God in water, perhaps in the sewer, where they are found by the doctor, who takes them to sick folks that want them. Here we have deliciou

times oddly enough. Thus the Lancet recently contained an amusing letter from some children, the eldest of whom was seven, addressed to a doctor asking for a baby for their mother's

made to account for the beginnings of animal life. This is illustrated in the supposition of the little boy, already quoted,