River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1883-08-23
Burdette'S Baby.

from the burlington haWkeye.
Time flies, and the boy is learning to
talk so that other people can understand
him.
eff You would let nae have him for
about one month";" said pleasant
voiced and pleasant-faced school-mis-
tress who came down here from up the
river last week. 81 could break him of
this careless habit of speaking"
Just because the boy had asked his
stern dark-browed father:
"Poppuls, phurs is mines fiffin pole
Won peakin' mama um day?"
Which by Interpretation is, as the
pleasant-voiced schoolmistress would
have taught him to say:
Father, where is my fishing rod, OF
Which YOU were speaking to my mother
with reference to purchasing 1t for me
at some time in the indefinable futurep'
And her little serene highness shook
her head and said no; he was losing his
baby talk and learning to speak English
too rapidly as it was. The pleasant face
Of the school tea cher wrinkled up into
an interrogation point.
"Schoolmistress," the jester said, ION
all matters of education your shapely
head is not billy; it is as level as new
mown lawn, but you don't want to teach
the baby grammar, and you don't want
him to speak good English. You want
him to be a baby and you want to en-
courage him to indulge in baby talk. In
the years to come, when the pudgy little
fists will dig great tears out of the blue
eyes, becarse the boy can't remember
in Just what points there should and
must be exact harmony between the
verb ard the subject, when he is conf
dent that he will die before he can re-
member bow many fellows besides "ad,
ante, con, in or inter-" are
followed by the accusative;
when he knows the world will stand still
for just two hours after school it he can't
recall that all examinations in something
or other take the what you may call 1t
after some kind of things; when he is so
trusting and has so much confidence i'll
Mr.. Davis that he is not only willing but
anxious to accept his statement that the
sum of the three angles of a triangle IS
equal to two right angles, without going
to the board to prove his truthfulness
by demonstration along in those DAYS
the memory OF his baby talk will come
to us like sweet music. He will have
trouble enough with the English language
and ali the appurtenances thereunto APP
pertaining, by ana by.
No" he responded in answer to
silent inquiry of the pleasant-faced
s3hOolmistress, "he does not know his
alphabet, thank heaven, and he
shall not be bothered with it. Yes,
he has alphabet blocks and knows all
the letters on them and many prepos
ferrous stories about the pictures. Oh,
yes, he can count; here him now, count
ing the pebbles he brought home from
the beach, one, free, seven, free seven,
ten, free, five, seven, free; certainly he
can count, by a system of his own, too,
which is more than most people have"
Don't make a prig of the baby,
school-mistress. From the day on which
they are six years old they must, under
the school system of the state begin to
study, and sit up straight, and behave
properly, and speak correctly, and from
that time until the grave hides them,
| they live and speak and act, verbally
| speaking, they be, and do, and suffer,
under social and educational survelll-
ance And ! claim that at least six years
| of the life of man or woman should be
| free: free as the air; free to talk as the
| brook runs, with un-trammeled musical
| prattle and babble. Why. here few
week ago, came melancholy looking
| child, about four years old, and IN pres
ence and hearing pointed to me, and
| said to his mother:
Mamma, of whom is that gentleman
speaking2"
Poor little prigl Ny heart bled for
| him. That afternoon 1 took the boy
down by the target, and taught him to
say, Mamma, what is dot man speakin
| to YOU about?' and reconstructed his
general grammer on the same easy basis
and-look me in the eye--if that boy
didn't tan up like young Indian in two
days, and he gained seven pounds
| in three weeks"
"You see" the jester concluded, in ar
apologize tone, for he bad done an ,un'
usual amount tf preaching that day
you see, we haven't very broad ex'
perience in training children; we have
only one chick to cluck over and scratch
/ for, but we're bound he shan't go tC
/ school until he's through being a baby
and we know, schoolmistress, that he's
the happiest boy that ever manglec
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