The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-08-10
cHILDREN AND THEIR STORIES.


By THE SEA, Aug. 9.-Some of the best
sermons ever preached, some of the most
salutary lessons ever gwen to the world,
have had for their basis a misconception of
ideas or expressions of others. This fact
alone ought TO be sufficient to reconcile the
thoughtful and would-be logical to tie
freque icy of so-called mista les. re-
markable instance of such miscon-
ception is furnished by the Augusta
Chronicle of July p, in the admir-
abls communication of "a Georgia
MatrOn.n This earnest woman has for her
text what she honestly conceived 10 be my
feeling and my b lief as EXPRESSED by
me IN an al ticle on childrens' lies
Now, it would have been impossible for
this conscientious and intelligent writer TO
have more thoroughly misapprehended my
views and my spuIU If she had deliberately
planned to do O. But out of this miscon-
ceptlon has sprung some valuable thought
which otherwise would not have material
lied, aud because this is so, because l am
anxious that the world should have all the
light that III possibly be thrown upon it,
am glad of the mistake, and not very much
disturbed by the personal criticism. To he
CAD OF a m stake Will perhaps be condemned
as uuorlhodox, but, as our most precious les
sons are learned by mistakes. is it not bett T
to be logical than orthodox!
| should DE glad if | could spare the time
and be allowed the space to take up the
paper of my friend point by point. But, as
this is impossible, can only do the next
best thing, and try to correct the false Im-
preston.
In the first place my article did not at
tempt to deal with lies or the effect of lies.
IL was an answer to various communica-
lions from anxious mothers, whose babies,
fro IN the talking age to that of ) or years.
seemed TO delight in telling big
stories. My conviction, based upon
"a. long e.. and ,s..a varied DE-, experience,
unnecessarily disturbed The imaginations
of children of this age are generally, as we
all know, very active. The world is
great place to them. In fact everything
seems SO tremendous, SO startling, SO won
dertul, that their accounts of things must
be made to fit he feeling. OF course there
are some children who are born negative
ana commonplace, and grow up to bs
neither one thing nor another. The grass
is green, the sky blue, the flowers of various
coiors, but hat of it2 Such children are
easier to deal with than the child who
reports hundred roses on a tree when
there are but six, and talks about the
fairies re has seen springing out of the
hollyh0ckI, and the Indians concealed be-
hind the barn door, But you may give me
the imaginative babies. and the otherS-the
shadows, the negatives-are quite at the
worlds disposal. ! was dealing with such
liars ana lies, and trying to show the
anxious mothers of imaginative little ones
that their children are not i'll mortal danger,
since such exaggeratiOn from its prevalence
must be a natural endo wment, and not tue
work of the devil. have seen punishment
inflicted upon these active-bralued little
ones by orthodox, christian mothers for the
telling of slcl stories that made me
culver IN every nerve with sympathy
for the darlings, aud Indignation at tie
Ignorance which prompted such cruelty. l
was present on one painful occasion when a
little girl, years old. came running into
the house with n touching story about
tiny hunchbacked fairy she had just see
and talked with i'll the playhouse under the
trees The ch Id gave the most description
OF the dress the fairy wore, and the patch
work quilt made of striped grass and dia-
mOndS that covered her hump. AS she
went on 1 found myself taking mental
notes, with view Of publishing the fiction
which this baby bad woven so skillfully.
L had just ope0ed my arms to take her on
my lao and question her about this wonder
full fairy, between my hugs, when to my
horror and surprise the mother arose, and
seizing the child by the hand literally
dragged her from the room l shall never
forge5 that baby's shrieks as the quick
blows descended upon the tender, naked
flesh. This child was whipped at intervals
all that day, and though, as | have stated,
only years old, would not yield one particle
to the punishment. She had seen and talked
TO hunchbacked fairy, and tlat was the
end of it. Just think, not only
of the awful cruelty of this treatment,
but of its solute LACK of logic and even
rudimentai common sense. This christian
mother had read various fairy stories to
her little one. These stories had all been
accepted as law and gospel She had a s
good right to imagine fairy as the adult
author of the tales she was familiar with,
aud how was she to discriminate between
fact and fction2 The orthodox mother was
guilty of causing her child t. tell the first
lie, by developing the obstinacy which
caused hef to stick to it, and this was an
irreparable injury. Far be it from
me to claim my superior wisdom in the
ma agement of such case, but my instinct
would have been to have given the
| child lesson on the spot
W nch would have started the dis
| criminatlg faculties. | should have to Id
her that the writers of fairy stories did not
really see the fairies. but becaus9 little
| girls liked to hear about fairies the sc kind
| people tried to please them, and that she
did not see a hunchbacked fairy because
there was no such thing as fairy. If she
| had persisted in her story, | know | could
have made her ashamed of it, and 50 settled
| the matter forever. | should also have
taken pains to have her understand that it
was a very nice thing to be able to imagine
such pretty stories, and that she must tell
them all to me and let me write them for
other little girls, but she must on no &C
count say that they were true.
| 1t was with such lies as these that l was
dealing, and not with the lies of older
children in my much criticised and wholly
misapprehended naper. | wanted to keep
mothers from making liars of their children.
| have seen this accomplished 80 often by
unwise and cruel measures that think the
utmost pains should be taken to pre-ent 1t.
A sense of injustice will cause child to lie,
and woe betide tae parent who plants and
waters the seed of oostnacy in the human
soul.
Several letters have reached me from
mothers since my paper was published ask
ing what to do with children who, to screen
themselves from punishment, accuse others
of the things they do themselves. One
mother frankly owns that she considers her
self responsible for this state of things b.
cause of her child's fear of the dark. This
was the punishment t. at changed harm
les exaggeration into a cowardly false
hood-cowardly as viewed from an adult
ard correct standpoint-but what of the
scared-todeath, quivering child9 Let us he
careful Of our points Of view.
FrrAEOp KIpR