Children's Rights: A Book of Nursery LogicWiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
General
Children's Rights: A Book of Nursery Logic
Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith
Child rearing; Children; Children's rights
I do not say that the consistent practice of these principles will
bring the millennium in the twinkling of an eye, but I do affirm
that they are the thought-germs of that better education which shall
prepare humanity for the new earth over which shall arch the new
heaven.
Ruskin says, "Crime can only be truly hindered by letting no man
grow up a criminal, by taking away the will to commit sin!" But, you
object, that is sheer impossibility. It does seem so, I confess,
and yet, unless you are willing to think that the whole plan of an
Omnipotent Being is to be utterly overthrown, set aside, thwarted,
then you must believe this ideal possible, somehow, sometime.
I know of no better way to grow towards it than by living up to the
kindergarten idea, that just as we gain intellectual power by doing
intellectual work, and the finest aesthetic feeling by creating
beauty, so shall we win for ourselves the power of feeling nobly and
willing nobly by doing "noble things."
HOW SHALL WE GOVERN OUR CHILDREN?
"Not the cry," says a Chinese author, "but the rising of a wild duck,
impels the flock to follow him in upward flight."
Long ago, in a far-off country, a child was born; and when his parents
looked on him they loved him, and they resolved in their simple hearts
to make of him a strong, brave, warlike man. But the God of that
country was a hungry and an insatiable God, and he cried out for human
sacrifice; so, when his arms had been thrice heated till they glowed
red with the flame of the fire, the mother cradled her child in them,
and his life exhaled as a vapor.
A child was born in another country, and the tender eyes of his mother
saw that his limbs were misshapen and his life-blood a sickly current.
Yet her heart yearned over him, and she would have tended and trained
him and loved him better than all the rest of her strong, well-favored
brood; but when the elders of her people knew that the child was a
weakling, they decreed that he should die, and she bent her head to
the law, which was stronger than her love.
In a third land a child was to be born, and the proud father made
ready gifts, and purchased silken robes, and prepared a feast for his
friends; but, alas! when the longed-for soul entered the world it was
housed in a woman-child's body, and straightway the joy was changed
into mourning. Bitter reproaches were heaped upon the mother, for were
there not enough women already on the earth? and the fiat went forth
that the babe should straightway be delivered from the trials of
existence. So, while its hold on life was yet uncertain, the husband's
mother placed wet cloths upon its lips, and soon the faint breath
stopped, and the white soul went fluttering heavenward again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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