Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-08-27

YGS /SW were upon the subject
! XEf&TN" of children.
NJ III ~ Children be cried
"they are the greatest nuisances under
heaven. They wake you up in the morning
and ruin your sleep. and if you laugh or talk al
night you wake them up and they yell and their
parents get mad. Talk about the trouble
women cause in the world, why, it isn't half as
much as the trouble caused by children. I'm a
bachelor. tell you, and I'll never be anything
else, for | know good thing when l see it, but
I l would rather have twenty wives and be a
Brigham Young or Buebeard with all my
wives alive than adopt one child"
| But said the writer, "you were doubtless
once a child Yourself
We'll, he said. az suppose I was, but il
wasn't my fault. and am ashamed of it and
have endeavored all my life to live it down."
Did you ever try to please n childT'
Never but once" he answered. Children
don't please NE and dom try to please them,
but good many years ago thought 1 was in
love with a widow. and by way of pleasing her
| tried 10 make friends with her little boy"
"How did you go about it, he asked.
HOW he TRIED TO PLEASE THE BOY.
"Wel!, patted him on the cheek and asked
him If he didn't want to take a walk with me
some day. lie didn't want to at all, but his
mother told him to say he did. He and took
one walk-no more. l didn't know what to say
to him or what to do with him. led him by
the hand. as l might have led IN elephant by
his trunk. but think would have been less
afraid Of an elephant Several times. by way of
making myself pleasant, | was on the point OF
asking him 20 come in and have something but
| remembered that children are not allowed to
/ drink anything / would have offered him
oysters OF crab. but 1 didn't know whether
children cat those things. Finally he began to
/ cry for his mother. l wanted to hand him over
/ to policeman and have him taken away-any-
where, but l called hack instead and told the
driver to take him home. He beloved like q
calf and went off alone In the hack, creating O
| disturbance
But how did his mother take it? Did she
/ ever speak to you ngain?'
II never gave her a chance, my dear fellow
was cured of any weakness may have had
| for her. | came to the conclusion that her in
cunbrance in the shape of that squealing brat.
was something altogether too colossal for an
ordinary mortal to endure. and never went
near her again, nor have since then ever tried
! to please child
CHILDREN's KEEN PERCEPTIONS.
! OF course men of this kind ought never to
have anything to do with children. No man
can please them unless he likes them. They are
hypocrites often themselves, but they detect
hypocrisy in others at once. and they can never
be piacated by people who are doing it for some
selfish purpose. The truth is. children are the
most arbitrary class of community. They set
NJ standards of their own. and if you don't
follow them woe unto you. A man who is too
much dressed or too conceited in his bearing
may go safely among men, but just let him pass
by a lot OF boys and he viii get most unmerci-
full amount of guying. They are perfectly fear
less In their condemnation, too, and would Just
as soon make fun of a Senator or a millionaire
as Of a coal HEAVIER. Many men who don't stop
to think are careless of their popularity with
boys, but wise men give attention to the sub
, ject. President Garfield. it will be remem-
| bered, acknowledged that he was afraid of boys
| He knew men. but he never could tell what q
| boy might not turn out to be. II know not
what possibilities are buttoned up under his
| jacket the way he put it, and he was
always very polite TO boys. Az he was a good
deal OF boy himself he was popular with them.
LITERATURE FOR CHILDREN.
literary man who questioned on this
subject of how to please children confessed that
he could no more write a book or a story that
| would please children than he could fy He
| said he had read manv books that are popular
with children and wondered where their charm
| lay hid. The children never tire of certain
| books. and certain other books that grown-up
! people would suppose TO be more interesting to
! them they won't have anything to do with
/ Above all do they despise books that pretend
! TO be written simply to afford amusement, but
have hidden on every page some species Of
teaching. This is ike giving disagreeable pill
a coating of sugar and asking child to eat it,
! He will be attracted by tine sugar, but he will
detect the medicine soon You can't fool a
child. If you are giving him ''lesson book
he will find it out, and he will not read it, ex-
cept under compulsion. TO please children in
print, just as in everyday intercourse, requires
that you should have thorough sympathy
with them-in short. should be somewhat of a
child yourself. And while this subject is up it
II well to call attention To "a oil
stance. The literature for children hardly ever
changes. You who read this article were
brought up on the same poetry and prose that
pleased your grandfather. He went to sleep in
his early childhood with Mother Goose III his
ears. he then grew excited over Puss-in-boots
and Jack, the valiant giant killer. He gradu-
a.ed from that and took TO Grimm's fairy
stories and Hans Christian Andersen, and then
he had n glorious time with the Arabian Nights
and Robinson CrusOe. Grown people have
schools OF affected writer's with affected follow
ers and these schools keep changing, but there
are no schools in children's literature. good
childs book pleases generation upon generation
OF children. and the man who writes one ought
to be willing TO lie down and die content with
his life work. for his name will live. Who
ever heard that Hans Christian Andersen wrote
philosophical ESSAYS? He did however and
the few people who have ever seen them say
they are very good, bat the whole world knows
and loves the author of the Ugly Duckling and
oughy pleases one generation Of children is not
! satisfying n passing fancy, but has written
something of solid worth.
WOMEN CAN PLEASE CHILDREN BEST,
As matters so ordinarily women can please
children better than men can. Children when
they are hurt run to the mother rather than to
the father. They tell her their troubles and
they are not afraid of being laughed at when
| they tell their likes and dislikes. The father
forgets, too, when he ridcules the children that
| they are pretty good at ridiculing themselves
| They make fun of every body who doesn't hap
pen to have the benefit of their especial friend
ship. OF course it is easy to understand WHY
! children like women better than men. 1t is
| simply because the women aud the children see
one another more. While the father OF the
house is al work the mother is in the nursery,
| and after the children have left the nursery she
is the one they find at home when they return
| from school. But some fathers don't take the
| trouble 70 know their own children when they
are at home. The story is told Of father who
looked curiously at a boy he met on the street
one day as though he had dim recollection Of
having seen him before somewhere, when the
boy came up and called him father. He had
really hardly ever noticed what his own son
! looked like. Some sons rs much embar-
rassed when they are left alone with their father
as il he was a school teacher. The father has