The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-10
CHILDREN AND METAPHYSICS.
From the Pau Mall Gazette.


should be forced upon children. Except to
certain order of minds, the results of intro
speotive psychological inquiry are barren
enough, and the process itself is as little edi-
flying for the time as it is lastingly beneficial.
The lesson we are all forced to learn by
different circumstances of life is not how to
deal with ideas but with facts. Action must
as a rule be the test of character The laws
of thought and the study of mind, pregnant
and important though they are, of necessity
only appeal to the tastes and intellectual capa-
cities of the few Civilization has become so
complex that individual force and individual
concentration are exacted to the utmost,
leaving little time for what appears unprohta-
BILE or at least inappropriate speculation. The
lighter kind of literature, moreover, especi-
ally fiction, gives ordinary readers as much
introspective writing as they care to have.
Novels of the highest class deal much more
with the workings of character than the narra-
tive of events, and the taste for sensational
ism is dying away.
But is the change from an objective to a
subjective style of fiction equally wholesome
for our children? Any one intimately ac-
quainted with the juvenile libraries of the
day must be struck with the difference that
has taken place in this department of litera-
ture during the last twenty years. The little
boys and girls of story-books no longer act,
think, and talk after childish fashion. Every
day facts no longer interest them. The
homely, healthy naturaism of childhood
seems altogether banished from the atmos-
phere in which the children of fiction live and
move and have their being. Naturally, the
children of real life initiate their heroes and
heroines. They imagine that it is their busi-
ness to think about thinking, to puzzle them
selves about ideas, to trace the origin of
action to its hidden source, to study meta
physics, in fact, on a small SCALE The skep-
tical in these matters have only to take up
any of the new magazines OF books catered
SO largely for the young by well-known
writer's They will find various states of
feeling described in way to make grown-up
people thoughtful. They will find a redun-
dancy of sentiment and an elaboration of
style wholly out of keeping with
healthy child's intellectual capacities. What
is worse STILL they will find the stupendous
problems of life, death, and spiritual belief
expatiated upon without the slightest COM
promise or sense of incongruity. To deal
| with the metaphysical element first. A child's
mind, just like child's body, may be trained
to perform all kinds of feats, and at last per-
| form them so easily that the Juvenile reasoner
| excites no more compassion than the juvenile
| gymnast. But there can be no doubt as to
the equal hardship of both processes. The
child who speculates is really as much to be
pitied as the child who dances on the tight
rope. His dexterity in reasoning has been
| attained by system of pressure as unjustif-
able in the one case as in the other. Preco-
city of any kind is sure to turn out ill.
| Children whose minds are strained are no
| more likely to grow into healthy young men
and women than those unfortunate little
beings whose muscles are put to abnormal
| uses. Yet, with the best intentions in the
| world, writer's of ability provide books for the
| young which no ordinary child can under
stand without an unhealthy straining of the
mental powers, and parents, equally well in
tentioned, buy them and wonder at them, and
read them, when the 6lase little readers in the
nursery have turned to something new.
The religious aspect of the question is even
more serious. short time since very horri
flying descriptions of ''childrens revivals'
were given in the newspapers To many il
was hard to believe that such sufferings could
be inflicted on innocent little children by
professors of religion in these days of en-
lightenment; yet to readers of Juvenile lite
rature the statement came by no means as Q
revelation. Allowing religious instruction
young, to be eminently instructive and de-
lghtful, we are obliged to admit that very
little with which we are acquainted falls un-
der this category. Questions, perplexing to
the capable adult mind, and never dwelt upon
too continuously without mischievous results
are propounded for the consideration OF
boys and girls in the nursery. For ex
ample, we lately took up by chance a little
book forming the staple religious manual o.
four little scholars whose ages ranged
from three and q half to seven
The first sentences on which our eye
glanced ran as follows:-"Q. What will be
come of your body when you die? A. NJ
body will be put in box and buried in
hole in the ground." And this little book
according to its title page, has been circulated
to the number of eighty thousand. w
should like to destroy every one, and stol
this iniquitous system of terrorism for onc
and for all. Children are by nature yer.
logical. Except to the dullest, words conve!
, just so much meaning as they are meant t.
convey, and no more. 1t is not to be sup
posed that when they are made to learn pag
after page of this sort of catechism, they foI
| get it any more than they forget their hymn
/ and story-books. The consequences are cas-
/ to conceive. The imaginative suffer the ter
rors of fear; the devout, the terrors of doubt
the thoughtful are made unhappy by tn
mysteries they cannot understand, and th
cloud whose silver lining they do not see.
We keep children as much as possible fron
the saddest realities of life, such as pain, il
| sanity and dissolution, but with curiou
= inconsistency familarize them with riddle
twice as hard to read and twice as painful
l the reading. Is it likely that robust physiqu
. and strong characters are to be deyelope
t under such q system Childhood should b
| happy and unrehective-above all things,
3 should be fearless. To press upon wea
5 young minds the problems before which th
A | hravest man and women nuail is tn say tl