Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1886-05-06
THE CHILDREN.
This Is Their Age, and Every Thing Is
Subservient to Their Wishes.

There is story told of Prof. Wilson,
that one day, listening to lecture on
education by DR.. Whately, he grew
manifestly impatient at the rules laid
down, and finally slipped out OF the
room, exclaiming irately to a friend
who followed him: 81 always thought
God Almighty made man, but he says
it was the schoolmaster.
In like manner most of us have won'
dered from time to time whether chill
dren are made of such ductile material,
and can be as readily nodded to our
wishes, as educators would have us be-
lieve. If it be true that nature counts
for nothing and training for every
thing, then what a gap between the
boys and girls of two hundred years
ago and the boys and girls we know to-
day! The rigid bands that once bound
the young to decorum have dwindled
to a silver thread that snaps under
every restive movement. To have
"perfectly natural children seems to
be the outspoken ambition OF parents
who have succeeded in retrograding
their offspring from artificial civiliza-
ton to that pure and wholesome saw
agery which is evidently their ideal.
ut is assumed nowadays" declares an
angry critic, ''that children have come
into the world to make a noise and it
is the part of every good parent to put
up with it, and to make all household
arrangements with view to their sole
pleasure and convenience.
That the children brought up under
this relaxed discipline acquire certain
merits and charms of their own is an
easily-acknowledged fact. We are not
now alluding to those spoiled and over
indulged little people who are the rec
ognized scourges of humanity, but
merely to the boys and girls who have
been allowed from infancy that large
degree of freedom which is deemed ex-
pedlent for enlightened nurseries, and
who regulate their own conduct on the
vast majority of occasions. They are
as rule light-hearted, truthful, affec-
tionate and occasionally amusing; but
it can not be denied that they lack that
nicely of breeding which was at one
time the distinguishing mark of chill
dren of the upper classes, and which
was in a great measure born of the
restraints that surrounded them. The
faculty of sitting still without
fidgeting, of walking without rush
ing and of speaking without scream
ing can be acquired only under
tuition; but it is worth some
little trouble to attain. When Sydney
Smith remarked that the children of
rank were generally so much better
bred than the children of the middle
classes, he recognized the greater need
lives. They may have been less nat
ural, perhaps, but they were infinitely
more pleasing to his fastidious eyes;
and the unconscious grace which he ad-
mired was merely the reflection of the
universal courtesy that surrounded
them. Nor is this all 1.-The necessity
of self-repression," says recent writer
in BldcbWOod, "makes room for
thought, which those children miss who
have no formalities to observe, no GUS
toms to respect, who blurt out every
irrelevance, who interpose at will with
question and opinion as it enters the
brain. Children don't learn to talk by
chattering to one another. and saying
what comes uppermost Mere listen
ing with intelligence involves an exer-
else of mental speech, and observant
silence opens the pores of the mind as
impatient demands for explanation
never do.
This is true, inasmuch as it is not the
child who is encouraged to talk con
tinually who in the end learns how tC
arrange and express his ideas. MOI
does the fretful desire to be told al
once what every thing means imply
the active mind which parents so fond
ly suppose, unable TO decipher the
simplest causes for itself. Yet where
shall we turn to look for the "observ
ant silence" so highly recommended
The young people who observed and
were silent have passed away-littlt
John Ruskin being assuredly the las
of the species and their places ar,
filled by those to whom observation
and silence are alike unknown. Thi
is the children's age, and all thing
are subservient to their wishes
Masses of juvenile literature are pub
lished annually for their amusement
, conversation is reduced steadily t,
: their level while they are present
, meals are arrange to suit their hours
} and the dishes thereof to suit thei
: palates; studies are made simpler ant
: TOYS more elaborate with each succeed
ing year. The hardships they one
! suffered are now happily ended, tn
decorum once exacted is fading rapid
ly away. We accept the situation wit
philosophy, and only now and then
under the pressure of some new devel
opment, are startled into asking oul
5 selves where it is likely to end.-Agne