Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1901-07-26
svashin9ton Standard
OLYMPIA. WASH.
FRIDAY EVENING. JULY g. 1901.
Children and Their Pets.

rem, unless It is to predict the weather
for the coming week. The most sage
and conscientious parent may lave 4
child which upsei- all known nursery
conventions, and the person who is
careless in every daily habit may find
himself, some day. possessed oi y small
Puritan descendant whose every look
and act l. Icproach. Nobody can
tell. On general principles, children
are benefited by having animals to
play with and take care of. but it is
not one OF those benefits which de.
scend like the SIN and rain, without
trouble to anyone. 1t has to be
worked for.
There is a certain amount OF the
savage in most children, and the saw
age is natural Ishmaclite. His in
stlnct is to fight, to be suspicious, and
to tyrannize, on the theory tina, if he
does not prove his strength he will be
abused. Those so-called savage tribes
IN which different principles prevail
will usually be found to have some
sort OF civilization to their credit.
The child is necessarily subject,
obliged to conform to the will Of his
superiors, and to do a thousand things
which he does not particularly like,
and the necessity for which he cannot
in the nature of things see. Therefore,
his impulse is to "take it out" on
somebody. The only somebody at
hand, when he is in bad humor, may
be the cat, and he consequently takes
it out on the cats tail. If she be a
patient animal she will submit, with
out resistance; otherwise she will give
the youngster lesson which he will
not soon forget. If she submits he is
likely to be carried away by the love
of experiment, and keep on teasing
her until she resents it with claws, or
or until his natural guardians inter-
vene and stop the investigation.
A great deal OF the cruelty and de-
structiveness of children is simply ex-
pertinent. The infant has all the laws
OF the universe to discover, and among
them are the laws OF animal and hu-
man Psychology. He goes about in
vestigating these in much the same
way as his elders do. Few of us have
come by our knowledge OF human ma
ture without somebody's suffering for
it directly or indirectly. How do we
know that men or women suffer in any
given situation unless We ourselves
have experienced or caused, or seen in
one near to us, such unhappiness?
The question is, then, how to teach
the child what he needs to know with
as little cost to himself and others as
possible. Some parents are injudi.
cious in fostering the child's natural
notion that everything is against him.
When he bumps his head on the chair
they alphabetically cry. Naughty
chair, to hit babyw When the kitten
scratches him, they box the kittens
ears and condole with the sufferer.
But even when this is not done, the
child's natural barbarous instincts
will crop out sometimes.
One way to teach the child the value
OF animal life is to give him the prop.
erty interest rs an influence. If he is
given one out of flock of chickens,
or pair of pigeons, or canary-pre-
ferably something which cannot cas-
lily be mauled and abused-he will
usually develop sort of interest in
the animal which will prevent his
knocking it on the head. If there is
more than one child in the family and
each has its share in the livestock of
the place, the case is all the better.
Each will then have the instinct OF
protecting its pet from possible en-
croachments by the others, and the
public sentiment in the little COM
munity will condemn teasing and
worrying. If the child really does de-
velop love of animals he will COM
monty better the instruction of his
parents, and rebel at having the horse
whipped or the chickens killed for
dinner. This is inconvenient now and
then, but not nearly as announcement
~ the opposite extreme would be.
Still another plan which may be fol-
lowed with older children is that of in.
structions Is to the habits and nature
of animals. The unframed instinct
for investigation will then receive le-
climate exercise, and q great deal OF
children's mischief is simply the exu.
berance of perfectly legitimate i'm
pulses, which, if guided Alright, would
make well-behaved troop of lads and
lasses out of restless mob of young
vandals. The child should be encour-
aged to study nature by watching the
ways Of birds and animals, not in
cages, but out of doors, by tanning a
squirrel or bird without imprison-
ing it, by feeding animals and taking
care OF them. If it is absolutely i'm.
possible to teach the child to be kind
to his pets, perhaps it is wise for him
not to have any, at least of the kind
which he can easily abuse, or which
will endure great deal without being
actually killed.
ALTHOUGH carpet-bagism has only
just been introduced in the Philip.
pines, the carpet-bag officials are al
ready beginning to get into trouble for
using their official positions for their