Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-11-13
BRAIN oFT-1 CHILD
PAINS AND rnrhsknA1 TO LIT
TIE ONES.
Tots Are Adults iA Miniature Tickle
With Enthusiastically
Greedy

Peace has her victories no less renowned
than war, and childhood has its pains and
| trials equally with adult life.
The child Is but '.grown-up'' in minia-
| ture, marching, as he marches. through a
world Of its own, and partaking OF joysand
| sorrows by the way. The child in dts gar
den is very much like the man in his town.
1t is unreasonable. but more often sweetly
unreasonable than the adult. viii confess;
it is clamorous over its play, makes its
mates and breaks its acquaintances with
similar fickleness and abruptness, Is moved
by whims and self-interest, Is frankly
greedy of appetite, has its moments, Of ex-
pansive generosity, its fits of idealism and
it's craving for popularity.
Yet in this general resemblance there are
differences, due mainly to the child's lack
of analysis and to a certain weak impul-
siveness which he shares with his mother
On being invited to give some of his choco-
lates to his little friend child obstinately
refused: and presently, upon hearing of
how heinous an offense against hospitality
he had been guilty. handed over his whole
booty, and as obstinately refused to share
in it.
Sense of Ownership.
1t is the sense of personal possession. of
ownership that is almost the strongest of
all passions in the child. This is of a color
with vanity, with the vast egoism which
fills the childish mind to the exclusion of
almost everything else. There are six for
Johnny and six for you" was a verdict
that evoked passionate cry of the heart
NO no; six for me and six for Johnny"
The poor soul could not bear the wound
to It's vanity. The iron entered it.
This trait. in combination with that tickle
ness of mood, brings about odd revolutions
and inconsistencies of conduct. It would be
absurd to look for consistency in a child.
If it is good. it is very. very good; and if
1t Is bad 1t IS horrio. It's abasement Is as
great and unmeasured as it's self-glorifica-
ton, and for the same reason Egoism de-
mands that as a criminal or a martyr 1t
must be as marked and as notorious as it
would be as hero. The child, indeed
must hold the stage or he is unhappy He
Is greedy of praise, and will take as much
fattery as the vainest of women. Am /
not doing 1t goodly" becomes a common
place of its conversation and invites, nay,
exacts, the familiar but er-pleasing an
SWer.
Imagination and Invention.
Children are usually credited with more
imagination than they possess Imagina-
ton is not a primitive property of the
mind which has worn off us like the hair of
our heads in our progress toward civiliza-
ton. The child, therefore, as representative
of the cave man, is not on that account
ina ginative. But he his on; that account in
ventiVe. Most of his make-belief is mat
Ter Oh lnVe0tlOn, not OIL Inere
are, of course imaginative children who
can simulate emotions which they have no
real cause for feeling and live in that sim
uiation, as an actor pm, his stage, daily.
That makes an inner theater Of life to
which admission Is diffieult, partly because
of natural shyness and partly because of
the child's inability to express himself.
But most make-belief Is mere invention.
To suppose himself coachman. or a bur-
glar. or a crocodile does not witness to the
possession of agination sby a child. who
may be- land usually Is, merely rehearsing
certain phenomena ofclife he remembers
What demonstrates the child's' lack of
imagination Is his inability to realize other
emotions than those which he is Temporal
rily experiencing. 1t issby an easy quality
of mind. common toi human nature. that
children listening to!a tale will thrill with
fears, or hopes or nnuSement. This shows
no superior faculty. But Ito synthesize
emotions suddenly+-that is, to fuse together
familiar emotions and thus strike out a
new realization of something unknown and
able-that would be to discover
real ina gination Thus a child who had
seen and heard of death in bird and beast
and had scarcely stopped to pity, but had
gazed rather with inqusitive interest on
the remains suddenly broke into passionate
tears on observing that his mother looked
i'll and others grave. His little mind jump
ed to the worst This-this was the begin
ming of the end. this was death. 'fYou are
going to die, mummy he sobbed.
Pains OF Childhood.
The pains of childhood come mostly from
this inability to analyze and to explain. 1t
is really dumb creature that prattles to
US through many years OF childhood. If a
child can think, and yet cannot clothe it's
thoughts. surely it must then suffer the
most Every one who Is not too distant
now from those early days can remember
some instances in which his own world
grew suddenly black and forbidding be-
cause while the child understood, 1t could
not speak. Mutely, then. 1t must face Its
fate with lips that cannot reveal, and eyes
that are msinterpreted
This familiar trait in childhood Is so
we'll known and appreciated that it made
the enormous popular success Of book
called misunderstood a generation back.
But 1t would be possible. as was exemplified
In this same book. to serltimentalize too Sc
riously on that childish disa ability. For
there is wonderful lack of continuity IN
the childish mind which must inevitably
keep it happy on very little. This merciful
dispense ton Is dealt out to all young
things 1.-The wind is tempered y
The worst of pain is mental and In most
children mental processes are brief. A
child taken out of wretchedness for one
happy day would see from that vantage
inf OF onnfn he n q