The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-05-19
pO Non HUMBUG CHILDREN.

From the Philadelphia Record.
When a child reaches the advanced age
of years he usually begins 10 develop
natural passion for knowledge. This is
much more Important stage in his career
than most people seem to think. once
stide this early spirit of inquiry and you
may do the child an irrepara BILE injury.
The parent has now the opportunity Of
laying the foundation of a wise man OF
fool, for although the elementary know
ledge acquired by one so young may ap-
pear trivial and premature. il is really the
basis on which all his later education is
built up. More than this Il is the habit
Of seeking information that il is so neces-
sary to encourage and stimulate.
Forced studies at too early an age are
greatly to be deprecated, but we are al
ways safe in letting the child learn what
it has strong desire to know. And this
desire or curiosity is the best guarantee
we could have that our instruction win
receive close attention and be impressed
on the memory. Shakespeare's rule is
gOkien one. in youth or manhood: mo
profit grows where is no pleasure taken;
in hrief. sir. study what you most affect"
The questions which these youngsters
are perpeually sprlnging on Is are often
very extraordinary. one little fellow,
short time ago, said to his father: las
God can do everything. can he make
stone so heavy that he can't lift it?"
Many parents would have been puzzled to
give a satisfactory answer. The worst
thing we can do in difficult cases is to say,
impatsently: Don't bother me. childw If
you aHe ignorant on the point submitted
to you. it is much better to say. frankly:
That is one Of the things your father
doesn't know. Ask me something else, my
chid."
Bur. the great difficulty with most peo-
pie ~ to find way of answering these
questions that shall be Ineligible to the
yOuna mind with its scanty knowledge
and very limited vocabulary. But with
patience and perseverance il can generally
be ma naged. Take case In illustration.
Little Freddy had been looking out Of the
window and suddenly asks his father.
What IS snow daddy The father re
plies, Don't bother me now, I'm read
Ing" The big brother, home from school
comes to the rescue. Snow is moisture
in tho air that has been frozen into crys-
tails in "a temperature of % degrees or low
err"
The n other then breaks in: What is
the use Of telling the child that stun?
Come here. Freddy, dear. Mother Carey
is pluckAng her goose and snow is the
feathers Later on. when the youngster
finds that snow is certainly not feathers
teller ike the rest of us!' and moral in
fuence Is lost. If the system continues
the child fnds that he is being humbugged
and stops asking questions-a 'conven-
lent" but ueplorable state of affairs.
Now. what that father should have
done is this: He should have laid down
is wet up in the air that gets frozen
and falls down" He would then be
ply, when anything gets hard and white
with cold" If the question is then put,
Why does 1t fan down., a suitable re-
ply would be, Because when IL is frozen
it gets too heavy to stay up"
Such answers as these would be intel
ligible TO every young mird, and although
they are far from scientific, they really
leave nothing to be unlearned. And this
is the great point to be always kept In
view; do not teach a child anything that
1t will have TO unlearn in after years
II is just as easy to tell him that stars
are suns ever and ever so far off, as 20
say that they are holes in the sky for
angels to peep through.
But on no account should a child's inn
agination be crushed; on the contrary,
ii should be stimulated in every reason
able way. This may at first seem in
contradiction to what has already been
written, but it is not so. All that the
writer contends is, that in matters OF
physical science and everyday fact, we.
should not wilfully msiead our children.
Let them by all means remain loyal to
their fairies, for these are on quite a
different plane. They form the poetry in
their young lives and it is a common
fallacy that poetry and scientific know
ledge are opposed. The vault of heaven
has more poetry for the astronomer than
for the ignorant stargaZer.
The popular fable of Santa Claus does no
harm whatever. Directly the little scep-
tic lies awake and finds out the fraud that
has been practised upon him, he simply re-
Allies, with more pleasure than disap-
pointment that the good saint was merely
a poetic figure for his loving parents.
There was just this much to learn and prac
tically nothing TO unlearn. AS for the fair
les, why, we all still believe in them-in
the world of poetry; every wood and dell is
peopled with them-in our playful imagin-
ations.
Finally, what lot we can learn from
these clear-headed youngsters "Out OF the
mouths of babes and stockings" we get
problems that may well puzzle men of
learning. If a chance question sends us to
a textbook that we have not opened for
ten or twenty years, let us not be impa-
tient, but thankful for the opportunity of
recovering what had slipped our memory
If ii leads us to seek and acquire addi-
tional knowledge, 1t will be a gain TO US,
as well as to the child.
The late Prof Tyndall always encour-
aged schoolboys to ask him questions. One
of them wanted to know why the part of
a towel that had been dipped in water was
darker than the dry portion, and the man
of science remarked that no man had ever
asked this question, and very few would
have been able to give the correct ans
wer There is nothing to gain and a good
deal to lose by humbugging our children