Children's Ways

to these. Many persons seem to think that children generally are disobedient, lawless creatures; oth

ith Law: First Tus

over these small people is constantly introducing unpleasant checkings of vigorous impulse. A child has large requirements in the matter of movements and experiments with things, which are apt to clash with what the mother considers orderliness; when he is out of doors he exhibits a duck-like fondness for dir

tly normal and right. In the interests of the race, at any rate, we ought perhaps to regard him as the better child

ched on. There is something pathetically comic in the spectacle of these mites resorting to the arbitrement of force, trying their

y rather than ours, is apt to show itself now and again in decided refusals. When, let us say, the nurse gives up pulling him from the

of true lawlessness. The whole attitude of the child when he thus "tries on" defiance of commands is certainly suggestive of the rebel's temper. Nobody is so completely reckless as the child-rebel. When the fit is on him he pays not the least attention to th

ng th

later ones which plainly show the spirit of antagonism. The conf

orry, but I's too busy," or in some such conciliatory words. This field of invention offers a fine opportunity for the imaginative child. A small boy of three years and nine months on receiving from his nurse the familiar order, "Come here!" at once replied, "I can't, nurse, I's looking for a flea," and pretended to be much engrossed in the momentous business of hunting for this q

will prettily plead for the reservation of whispering ever so softly. If he is forbidden to ask for things at the table he will resort to sly indirect reminders of what he wants, as when a boy of five and a h

er keeping up an excellent appearance of listening, proceeds in the most artless way to talk about something more agreeable, or, what is worse, to criticise th

y" action. The blame is put on anybody or anything-if there is no other scape-goat in view, then on the hands or other "bodily agents". This last device is sometimes hit upon very early, as when a mite of two who was told to stop crying gasped out: "Elsie cry-not Elsie cry-

then asked his mother, "Isn't he my own brother?" and on his mother admitting so incontestable a proposition, exclaimed triumphantly, "Well, you said I could do what I liked with my own things". At other times they have a dreadful lo

to betray the accuser is instantly pounced upon. If, for example, a child is scolded for pulling kitty's ears and making her cry it is enough for the little stickler for accuracy to be able to say: "I wasn't pulling kitty's ears, I was only pulling one of her ears". The ability t

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rotests against the severity of the real mother. "For instance (writes the latter) when mother refuses her paint-box as a plaything, or declines to supply unlimited note-paper for 'scwibbleation,' a reproachful little voice is heard, 'Mrs. Cock always gives her paint-box and all her paper to my little boys'. A pause. Then follows suggestively: 'I fink she loves them vewy much'."[10] On the other hand, if the child accepts the moth

after, while making a certain show of submission, he harbours in his breast something of the rebel's spirit. He does his best to evade the most galling parts of the daily discipline, and displays an admira

which he happens to live, but to all law as implying restraints on free activity. Thus, from the child'

o the child more than anything else to be able to do what one likes without interference from others. "Do you know," asked a little fellow of four years, "what I shall do when I'm a big man? I'll go

the Sid

ejection of all rule, plainly implies its acceptance. Some of the earliest and bitterest protests against interference are directed against what looks to the child irregular or opposed to law, as when, for example, he is allowed for some time to use a pair

young perhaps to feel the shame, he will feel, and acutely too, the estrangement, the loneliness, the sudden shrinkage of his beloved world. The greater the love and the dependence, the greater will be this f

tcast. A child of four or five may, I conceive, when suffering disgrace have a dim consciousness of having

stand the little sphinx, is at once the subject of ever-changing caprices-whence the delight in playful defiance of all rule and order-an

ckler for the

ing, and definite times for doing this and that. Nor can we regard this as merely a reflection of our respect for law, for as we shall presently see it reaches far beyond the limits of the rule

d one morning in his mother's bedroom against a hair-brush being placed on the washing-stand near the tooth-brushes, saying quaintly: "That toof-brush is a brush one". Older children are apt to be sticklers for order at the meal-table: thus, the cup and the spoon have to be put in precisely the righ

s with animals, also dolls and other pets. Not only are they required to do things in a proper orderly manner, but people have to treat them with due deference. One little f

der my own observation, as I was walking on Hampstead Heath. It was a spring day, and the fat buds of the chestnuts were bursting into magnificent green plumes. Two well-dressed "misses," aged, I should say, about nine and eleven,

in reply to a question why she used "Sie" (the polite form of "you") in her prayers: "Ich werde doch den lieben Gott nicht Du nennen: ich kenne ihn ja gar nicht" (But I mustn't call God "thou": I don't know him, you see). On the other hand, God must not be kept waiting. "Oh, mamma," said a little boy of three years and eight months (the same that was so insistent about the kissing and hand-shaking), "how long you

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n only, a child is found repeating the action on other occasions, this seems to show the germ of a law-making impulse. A little boy of two years and one month was once asked to give

eference to our rules. Nothing is more suggestive here than their talk among themselves, the emphasis they are wont

ll follow out the prohibitions of the mother when he falls into other hands, sternly protesting, for example, against the nurse giving him the forbidden knife at table. Very proper children rather like to instruct their aunts and other ignorant persons as to the right

thers to his own disciplinary system. With what amusing severity are they wont to lay down the law to their dolls, and to their animal playmates, subjecting them to precisely the same prohibitions and punishments as those to which they themselves are subject! Nor do they

lities. But sometimes the sisters lapse into naughtiness, and then the small boys have their chance. They too can on such occasions be priggish if not downright hypocritical. A little boy had been quarrelling with his sister named Muriel just before going to bed. On kneel

e is an example: A boy of two-the moral instruction of parents by the child begins betimes-would not go to sleep when bidden to do so by his father and mother. At length the father, losing patience, addressed him with a man'

of a disposition freely to adopt a law. A little girl, when only twenty months old, would, when left by her mother alone in a room, say to herself: "Tay dar" (Stay there). About the same time, after being naughty and squealing "like a railway-whistle," she would after each squeal say in a deep voice, "Be dood, Bab

oy aged two years and four months was deprived of a pencil from Thursday to Sunday for scribbling on the wall-paper. His punishment was, however, tempered by permission to draw when taken downstairs. On Saturday he had finished a picture downstairs which pleased hi

as to their views of the justice of their punishments. The results appear to show that they regard a large part of their corrections for naught

naughty, and was very sorry for her misbehaviour. Shortly after she came to her lesson limping, and remarked that she felt very uncomfortable. Being asked by her gove

th the childish love of liberty and rebelliousness. And this is a force of the greatest consequence to the disciplinarian. It is something which takes side in the child's bre