The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-06-11
In MOman'S World.

- @AtN
years in regard to the great advantages
of the English system OF bringing up a
family of young children. BY the Eng
lish system is usually meant the nurs-
cry system. For the children of an Eng
lish family rarely share the family life
until they are nearly grown up says Mr..
N. r. #. Gilman in the "Outlooiy
graduate from the nursery into the
schoolroem, and there eat their meals,
study their lessons. and enjoy their pri-
waite fun and f%rolic, quite apart from the
older members of the family. Their gov
erness-not usually a highly educated
person-superintends their meals and
their studies, accompanies them upon
their walks and furnishes their minds
(usually) with her own narrow opinions
and prejudices. The boys are sent away
from home early to one of the large
English schools. so that their period of
nursery life' is comparatively short.
But the poor girls endure the placid.
monotonous existence until they are old
enough to acquit themselves properly in
society.
1t was my good fortune, fifteen years
ago, to make a visit of some months in
a typical English country house with
some very charming English people.
There were several children in the fam
lily, and they all appeared with clean
faces and neat pinafores at breakfast ev-
cry morning and remained through pray
ers. IN Sunday night they came silently
in to tea. They were never permitted to
join in the family conversation, and no
attempt was ever made to draw them out
or to talk to them upon intelligent sub
jects. They did not annoy the visitor by
being pert or ssprecocfous,'' for when
with us they never spoke, and their life
in the schoolroom was SO apart from us
that, at the end Of a long visit, ! did not
know the different children by name.
From the visitors point of view this was
an agreeable change from the average
American household, where the children
are constantly in evidence with their
eager curiosity and their endless ques-
tions. But for the children's own best
intellectual development this isolated sin
stitution life scarcely seems wise or
even kind.
.Flfteen years after this agrecaS.e visit
rot ne or two OF the Sc same children in
I on5cr. and they toll nc thar they them
selves felt that their early training had
utterly untitled them for the duties of
their later life. AS it happened, the sphere
of the daughters in this household was
to be a prominent one in society; their
parents expected them, SO soon as they
left the sehoolroom, to make themselves
agreeable to their Fathers guests at dim
ners and at afternoon teas. 1--WE had
nothing to say for ourselves for the first
three years." the eldest girl told me. I'VE
had never heard intelligent people talk
together. We knew nothing of the modern
political life Of our own country, and stil1
less of what was going on abroad. We
had read only children's Books, chiefly
Miss Yonge, and, although we had studied
some history and literature, we had ae-
quired no power of discussing anything
but the most trivial topics"
In strong contrast to this English house
hold-which is typical of mtapy--is the
life described so well in Mrs. Fields
biography of Mrs. Stowe-the delightful
family life of the Lyman Beecher home.
And there are many other homes like
this scattered through our W country.
Was there any subject in the world of
politics or philanthropy or literature
hio these fortunate children did not
hear talked over in that Beecher home?
They were the intimate friendAs of their
parents from their earliest years. Nor
did their parents talk down to their chill
dren's level. They took infinite pains that
their children should understand what
was going on in the outside world of men
and books. They tried to bring their
children up to their own high standards
in these matters. and the childish mind
was continually stimulated by listening to
conversation a little above its own easy
comprehension,
Now, it is a theory of modern kinder
gartners that children live too much in
the adult world; and, if the conversation
in the "adult world means neighborhood
| gossip. or talking over the children's own
talents, achievements, ailments and short
comings, his may be true. But If the older
members of the family are people of re-
finement and education no training will
ever dc more for the children than the
sharing of their maturer and larger life.
A child who, from the age of six or
eight years, hears the world of books dis
cussed familiarly, and is brought up to
hear the characters of Scott and Dickens
and Thackeray alluded to as if they were
real people, is certain to be eager to reach
the age when he can read those books. A
child who hears his parents intelligently
discuss the acting of a play of Shakes
peare or a lecture by Nansen-especially
if the parents are patient, and always
willing to answer all intelligent aues-
tions-is going to absorb information that
will never be forgotten, and which will
do more for his intellectual and moral
development than most of the facts which
he learns at school,
In our careful study of social conditions
in modern philanthropic work we have
learned what a dwarfing, d-egenerating in
f1uence so-called institution life' has up
on the children of our pauper and criminal
classes. A number Of children artiicially
herded together, apart from the broaden-
ing influence of family life, become inn
perfectly developed. This fact is the re-
suit of scientific study. But why is not
the English nursery and schoolroom sys-
tenn open to the same defects?
ITO be seen and not heard?'' has come
to mean, with our transatlantic cousins,
to be neither seen nor heard. And from
the standpoint of most "grown-ups''-for
real lovers of children are rare-this Is
the best plan for relieving ourselves of
the lively, noisy, obtrusive little animals
which most bright children are born to
be in their younger years. But does this