The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1885-12-17
AMERICAN LITERATURE

"The real virtues of one age" suys
Motley, .'become the spurious ones of
the next" and it is hardlJ strange that
the abnormal development of this treat
ment of childhood should be most appar-
ent in the United States, where individual
ism has had freest play. The discovery
appears to have been made here that the
child is not merely person. but a very
free and Independent person indeed. The
sixteenth amendment to the constitution
reads, The rights and caprices of child
rem in the United States shall not be de
MED or abridged on account of age, sex,
or formal condition of tutelage, and
this amendment has been recognized in
literature, as in life, while waiting its
legal adoption. 1t has been recognized
by the silence of great literature, or by
the kind of mention which it has there
received. | am speaking rather OF the
literature which is now current than OF
that which we agree to regard as stand
ard American literature; yet even in that
l think our study shows the sign of what
was to be. The only picture of childhood
in the poets drawn from real life is that
of the country boy, while all the other
references are To an ideal conception.
Hawthorne in his isolation, wrote of a
world which was reconstructed out of
elemental material. and his insight as
well as his marvellous sympathy with
childhood precluded him from using dis
eased forms. But since the day of these
men the literature which is most repre-
sentative of national life has been singu-
larly devoid of reference to childhood.
One notable exception emphasizes this
silence. Our keenest social satirist has
not spared his children. They are found
in company with the young American
girl. and we feel the sting of the lash
| which falls upon them.
Again the silence of art is noticeable.
There is so little art contemporaneous
with our greater literature. and the best
of that was so closely confined to land
scape, that it is all the more observable
how meagre is the show in our picture
| galleries Of any history of childhood.
| Now and then q portrait appears, the
! child usually of the artist patron, but
| there is little sign that artists seek in the
| life of children for subjects upon which
| to expend thought and power. They are
| not drawn to them, apparently, except
=
as beggars, where the picturesqueness of
attire offers the chief motive.
But if there is silence or scorn in great
literature, there is plenty of expression in
| that minor literature which has sprung
up, apparently, in the interest of child
hood. 1t is here, in the books for young
people, that one may discover the most
fragrant illustration of that spurious in
| dividuality III childhood which | have
maintained to be conspicuous in our
country. Any one who has been COM
! PEELED to make the acquaintance of this
literature must have observed how very
! little parents and guardians figure in it,
and how completely children are sepa-
rated from their elders. The most popu-
lar books for the young are those which
represent boys and girls as seeking their
fortune, working out their schemes,
| driving railway trains and steamboats, it
may be, managing farms, or engaged in
| adventures which elicit all their uncom-
| mon heroism. The same tendency is ex-
| hibited in less exaggerated form: child
ren III the schOOlroOm, or at play, FORM
| ING clubs amongst themselves, having
| their views upon all conceivable subjects,
| torturing the English language without
| rebuke, opening correspondence with
| newspapers and magazines. starting
| newspapers and magazines of their own,
setting up miniature society,-this is the
general spectacle to be observed in books
for young people, and the parent or two,
now and then visible, is as much III the
| background as the child was in earlier
| literature.
All this is more or less reflection OF
actual life, and as such has an uncon-
scious value. / would not press its sig
nificance too far, but think it points to
a serious defect in society life. This
very ephemeral literature is symptomatic
| of condition of things, rather than caus-
| ative. 1t has not nearly so much intiu-
ence on young life as it is itself the natu-
raj concomitant of a maladjustment OF
society, and the corrective will be found
only as healthier social condition Is
reached. The disintegration of the fani-
| ly, through feeble sense of the sacred
ness of marriage, is an evil which is not
to be remedied by any specific of law OF
of literature, but SO long as it goes on it
inevitably affects literature.
| venture to make two modest sugges-
tons toward the solution of these larger
problems into the discussion of which
our subject has led me. One is for those
who are busy with the production OF
books for young people. Consider if ii
be not possible to report the activity and
comradery of the young in closer and
more generous association with the life OF
their elders. The spectacle of healthy
family life. in which children move freely
and ioyously. is not so rare rs to make
models hard to be found, and one would
90 great service to young America who
should bring back the wise mother and
father into juvenile literature HO5ace
Il. Scudder, IN December atlantic,