The Savannah morning news., 1903-04-05
OBSERVING, SILENT
CHILDREN.

Most of our impressions concerning
.,udren's thoughts and characters,
NC writer in the New York Even
ING Post, are entirely our own con-
,ictions which we allow ourselves to
oocant as certainly correct because of
,,,r relation to these young and i'm
.,a+ura lives and characters. Are we
.,ot their parents? their tutors? their
nice relatives who have lived a gen
.ration or mayhap two generations
,onrar than they have? Are we not
learned in the school of life? Do we
MT know the whole gamut of human
eynarience? Are not ethical theories
and the effects of environment as fam
;tar to us as our alphabets? Of
curse. we understand the children,
,,.bo stand agape at the threshold of
the great House of Life, and to whose
innocent eyes everything is a mys-
terry
perchance some precocious little one,
made brave by much caressing and
loss sensitive to possible ridicule than
those whose brains are not absorbed
nv too active conjecture, let's in n
rttle light upon what is going on in
the toiling immature thought, and then
the common exclamation is: What
q very queer child that Isl"
To us the conventions of what we
call "polite society" are so natural
and go on with so little thought on
our part as to what we are saying and
doing. that they have ceased to have
anv real meaning whatever. Our
children, looking on, soon learn the
vaIue of the use of the favorite adj
iective of social make believe, and dear
becomes to them a word of as little
Importance as the Mr.. and Mrs. to
which it is attached.
"Did YOU behave nicely? Did you
say, Good evening when you came
away?" "Oh, yes, mamma, L said just
what they always say to you, Good
evening, dear Mr.. JONES' and Good
evening dear Mrs. Jones. l have had
charming evening" Abashed by
the laughter which followed her deep
" emphasized little speech, the child's
eyes filled with tears. Her father
caught her up and, kissing her, said:
you are a wonderful mimic, Kitty;
you were thinking of mammals friend,
Mrs. =" wasn't 1 polite?" Yes, yes,
dear you were very polite-but that is
the grown peoples way of speaking,
and we did not know that you had
heard them"
Kitty, soothed by her fathers en-
brace and reassuring voice. took cour-
age: II don't think 1 got the dear
quite right; they always say it so
hard!" Poor little pilgrim, perhaps by
the time she reaches the stage where
she is called upon to say to wholly
Indifferent strangers Delighted to
have met you" the additions to our
English vocabulary will have found
something to exchange for what prop
erly expresses what we feel for our
most beloved. With the present rate
of word-coining, we ought to antici-
pate some substitutes for these illused
but truly invaluable standbys.
But it was not of small Kitty's adop-
ton of the mode of the day, which
for her was yet in it's dawn, that de-
sired to speak; it was of what she was
slowly learning and the perplexity it
occasioned. Deep down in her heart
she felt a painful thought arising
they don't mean what they say
they are all making believe" And
here begins our trouble: Kitty will
think this, but will never say it. She
will never commit the soiecism OF
asking: Mama, do you really love
Mrs. Jones so very much?" but she
questions it day by day, and in the
long run she answers herself: II don't
think she loves her at ALL" Kitty
has received a spot upon the white
robe of her trusting childhood which
is invisible tc her mothers eyes, but
will Notwithstanding, be reproduced at
every change in her expanding life.
Those wideopen brown eyes have
learned to distrust what they see.
The mystery of their silence is I'M
fashionable! Why do they so very
rarely unveil their surmises and
doubts regarding the things which are
OF such profound Importance in the
making and developing of their char
acters? 1t may be almost taken as
an axiom that the children who feel
most keenly, and are most sensitive to
impressions, speak least of what is
deepest down in their hearts.
All the natural events of family life
carry with them the strongest and
most forceful impressions of which
they say nothing. Even if a child
loses no more than a pet canary, it
sheds more tears in private than where
1t can be seen;if one beloved is carried
forth-from the home door with that
measured muffied tread never forgot
ten by those who have tighten it's
clasp of a helping hand, but it makes
no sound, and if it's nature is fine and
deep, asks no after questions.
1t 1t hears wrangling and bitter ar
gument going on between its parents,
It listens, is alarmed, it's peace is dis
turbed, its happiness is broken, but it
makes no comments. Yet if the argu-
1nent grows to strife and separation
follows, it rarely happens that children
over ten years old are not strongly
passed toward one parent or the other,
and that if a choice is given them
they are not ready at once to make
and abide by it. And this is not the
fruit of argument or persuasion, but
the product of their own silent reason
ing.
What children of divided households
suffer it would be hard to tell. And
the testimony of the poor young things
Drought into these terrible places of
torture, the inquests of coroners, to
testify to the conduct of murderous
fathers. and fighting or otherwise evil
mothers, is among the most terrible
thlngs disclosed to human ears and
minds. If you give yourself the pain
20 read, for the sake of studying the
influences of such learning upon child
rem these astonishingly clear and
comprehensive stories of what their
young eyes have seen, it will be like
u "a ~