The hydraulic press. (North San Juan, Nev. Co., Cal.) 1858-18??, 1858-10-30
THE HYDRAULIC PRESS !


N w IA II thC 4 O1ASs
A distinctive and peculiar feature of the
literature of the present century, is its fire.
quent championship of the little people whom
we call children. This remark is especially
true of English literature. Every reader
will remember the beautiful child biographies
of Charles D:ckens,-poor Oliver Twist, the
parish founding; little Smke, the victim of
Dotheboy's Hall tyranny; sweet little Nell
lie, the angel of the Old Curiosity Shop.
whom the great novelist was besought by nu-
merous correspondents "not to kill" young
Dombey, emf Dying himself with "Mr. Blim
ber's young gentlemen or listening to the
eloquent moan of the sea; and, not least of
all, David Copperfeld, with his reasonable
dread of those frigid Murdstones, and his
struggling career to successful manhood not
to speak of all that minor crowd of youthful
heroes who live, and move, and have their
being in the works of England's great pa
thetic humorist.
No other country can show such range of
characters as these, and they are the highest
of their class at home. Books were written
about children and for children before Dick
ems day, but not with any view to prove that
they had rights or that they suffered wrongs.
1t was quite sufficient to put dry catechisms
and moral tales into their hands, to teach
them proper subordination to their elders,
and betters--heaven save the mark and to
practice upon them religiously the birchen
precepto Of Solomon.
The acuteness of infantile minds, and the
susceptibility of infantile hearts, have al
ways been moderated. It has been custom
airy to treat children rs either mere play
things or as slaves, and the proper develop
ment of their intelec and moral natures
has been deferred until early impressions,
which are proverbially the strongest, have
become so confirmed as to oppose themselves
successfully to the more correct ones of ma
turity. In regard to child education, Chris
represents, has been much to blame. Posses
sing through many past centuries the entire
civilized world for its theater of action, and
welding wherever established giant infu-
ence, it has made that theater scene of war,
and used that influence most assiduously to
establish temporal power, when it should
have been true to its humble and beautiful
theory, and taken unto its embrace the little
children of the earth.
To see parents of the old school bullying,
and petting, and beating by turns their sus-
ceptible offspring to see them alternately
driving, coaxing or deceiving them into COM
pliance, and teaching them nothing so forci-
bly, as to be dishonest; is surely quite en-
ough to grieve heart of even common ten
derness. When we reflect upon the course
commonly pursued with children, we cease to
wonder that there is so much moral and in
tellectual meanness amongst men, and only
wonder that there is not mora. The youth
full mind is naturally very inquisitive, obser-
want and poetical. Thrown into the world
without the provident instincts of the infe-
rior animals, little child has everything to
learn and only its own reason for a teacher.
Its idea Of the form and consistency of OBJ
jects, and of their relative distances from
the eye, have all to be acquired de noUo by
its own little brain, which must often be
sadly puzzled. Present babe with water
for the first time and it will attempt to clutch
it, exhibiting great surprise to see the subtitle
element eluie its tiny grasp; and this simple
circumstance illustrates the whole course of
a child's self-instruction. It is surrounded
by wonders. All things that it sees are
mysterious and beautiful, and the feeling Of
admiration for the beautiful is one of the
few sentiments of childhood which remains
through all the succeeding years of maturity
unless quenched by the brutal efforts of
adult stupidity
Sorrowful is the fate of one of these little
genii born into bigoted, undemonstrative
family. Kingsley's story of the tailor-poet
illustrates this fact, and affords another of
those eloquent expositions of the wrongs of
CuAuuOVu 81 udHy contemporary VIII
tiers have glori6ed themselves and bettered
humanity by contributing to literature
Poor Alton Locke, with q mother whose
heart never ceased to yearn with love to-
wards her children, and whose brain was
acute and strong, experienced nevertheless
all the miseries of childhood unappreci ated,
filial lows apparently unreturned The Wild
ow Locke was one of that dreadful Calvinis-
tic sect whose belief is SANDER on the very
idea of God, and calculated for any other
purpose better than for the improvement of
mankind.
'sMy mother moved by rule and method ;
by Gods law, as she considered, and that
only She seldom smiled. Her word was
absolute. She never commanded twice, with
out furnishing. And yet there were abysses
OF unspoken tenderness in her, as we'll as