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
A child who is good and happy during school time, with its regular
hours and alternated work and play, often becomes, in vacation,
fretful, sulky, discontented, and in arms against the entire world.
The discipline of work, if of a proper kind, of a kind in which
success is not too long delayed, is sure and efficacious. Success, if
the fruit of one's own efforts, is so sweet that one longs for more of
the work which produced it.
The reverse of the medal may be seen here also. The knotted thread
which breaks if pulled too impatiently; the dropped stitches that make
rough, uneven places in the pattern; the sail which was wrongly placed
and will not propel the boat; the pile of withered leaves which was
not removed, and which the wind scattered over the garden,--are
not all these concrete moral lessons in patience, accuracy, and
carefulness?
We may safely appeal to public opinion, sometimes, in dealing with
children. The chief object in doing this "is to create a constantly
advancing ideal toward which the child is attracted, and thereby
to gain a constantly increasing effort on his part to realize this
ideal." There comes a time in the child's development when he begins
to realize his own individuality, and longs to see it recognized by
others. The views of life, the sentiments of the people about him,
are clearly noted, and he desires to so shape his conduct as to be
in harmony with them. If he sees that tale-bearing and cowardice are
looked upon with disgust by his comrades, he will be a very Spartan in
his laconicism and courage; if his father and older brothers can bear
pain without wincing, then he will not cry when he hurts himself.
Oftentimes he is obdurate when reproved in private for a fault, but
when brought to the tribunal of the disapproval of other children, he
is chagrined, repents, and makes atonement. He is uneasy under the
adverse verdict of a large company, but the condemnation of one person
did not weigh with him. It is usually not wise, however, to appeal to
public opinion in this way, save on an abstract question, as the child
loses his self-respect, and becomes degraded in his own eyes, if his
fault is trumpeted abroad.
Stories of brave deeds, poems of heroism, self-sacrifice, and loyalty,
have their places in creating a sentiment of ideality in the child's
breast,--a sentiment which remains fixed sometimes, even though it be
not in harmony with the feeling of the majority.
Now and then some noble soul is born, some hero so thrilled with the
ideal that he rises far above the public sentiment of his day; but
usually we count him great who overtops his fellows by an inch or two,
and he who falls much below the level of ordinary feeling is esteemed
as almost beyond hope.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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