The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-03-28

Uut really dlteT all, tue ulsGdnco Uo-
tween their knowledge and that of the
savage in regard to the mysteries of
creation is not SO great as is gener-
ally supposed. Let us quote Sully,
page S5:-"There's such a lot of
things" remarked the little zoologist
I have recently been quoting, "Iwant
to know who made God, and / want
to know if pussy has eggs to help
her make iekle Qittle) kitties." Find
ing that this was not SO, he observed:
''Ob, then ! spose she has to have
God to help her, if she doesn't have
kitties in eggs given her to sit on"
Another little boy five years old
found his way to the puzzle of the
reciprocal genetric relation of the hen
and the eggs, and asked his mother:
"When there is no egg where does
the hen come 'FRONT.' When there
was no egg, mean, where did the
hen come from?" In a similar way,
as we shall see in C's journal, child
will puzzle his brains by asking how
the first child was sucked, or as a
little girl of four and a half years
put it, "When everybody was baby
then who could be their nurse-if
they were all babies?" A still more
metaphysical one asked: eff I'd
gone upstairs could God make it
that I hadn't" This, as Sully says,
is much like the old question, "Can
he make thing done, not to have
been done?" question that, accord
ing toErasmus, was much debated by
theologians.
The development of theological
ideas in child's mind of which some
of the above questions give glimpse
is still further illustrated on the
chapter devoted to that subject. The
child who wished her mother to put
a great stone on her head to keep her
from growing tall, because "people
who grow tall get old and then die, .
had caught the first intimation of
death,-a revelation whenever and
wherever it occurs to a child, as De
Quincy has SO wonderfully de-
scribed. A little boy on hearing of
the death of friend asked, "Will
Mrs. P. still be dead when we go
back to London!" The blending OF
two domains, the visible, and the in
visible, the mortal and the immortal
has puzzled many a philosopher and
sage and it is with somewhat OF
forced cheerfulness that we smile at
the odd faneies of children on this
subject and the crude child theology
of which the anecdotes in this part of
Professor Sully's book abounds.
Here is the prayer of a little girl of
seven whose grandfather had just
died: "Please, God, grandpapa has
gone to you. Please take great care
of him. Please always mind and
shut the door, because he can't stand
the draughts." A little girls idea,
"Isn't there a Mrs. God?" sounds
very ridiculous. But stop to think a
moment; the greatest people Of an,
tiquity the Greeks-for many thou
sands of years believed there was
The logical conclusions of child
theology are also very perplexing tc
answer as in this story related by
Sully: "a boy of four and a hall
years was one day in the kitchen
with his mother, and would keep
taking up the knives and using them
At last his mother said: Il. you will
cut your fingers, and if you do they
won't grow again He thought foI
a moment and then said with tone
OF deep conviction: But God would
make them grow. He made me, SO
he could mend my fingers, and if ]
were to cut the ends off | should say
God, God, come to your work, and
he would say, all right"
These are but a few anecdotes of
the many with which Professor Sui
ly's pages are filed. Those of a
theological character may suggest
that parents are somewhat too eager
and too early in placing the idea of
God and the mysteries of Creator
and Providence before the mind of a
child. This was Rousseau's idea in
his education of Emile, but there is
much to be said on the other side of
the question, but this, as in fact Pro-
fessor Sully's whole work, we must
leave to those interested in child
study.
CHICAGO, March 20.
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