The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-02-26
Acknowledged Fact That Every
Mother In The World Thinks
Her Offspring The Brightest
Very Beautiful and Touching But Why Rub 1t Into Ones
Friends Says the Kindergarten Lady Who Tries to Els
tablish School and Found This State of Affairs
by DOLLY DALRYMPLE.>

remember once a nice old lady said
to me:
Il love my children better than any,
thing in the world, which is perfectly
natural, but as they have one by one
grown up and married, my first advice
to them when they have had children of
their own was to avoid discussing them
as they would the plague, because if
there is one subject about which people
deceive themselves more than another, 1t
is their own children
I have never forgotten this, and all
through my life l have found the fatuous
parent stalking conspicuously, ready at
any moment to enter into dissertation
upon her offspring and the wonderful
things that he has said and done.
In speaking of this sort of thing with
a very clever kindergarten teacher re-
Gently 1 asked her II there was any
psychological reason why such state of
affairs existed, whereupon she mildly re-
piled;
This attitude is not confined to any
special class of women, even the most
superior who read Maeterlinck, Suder-
mann, Schopenhauer, and George Bernard
Shaw; those who know about pedagogy
and parental duties; those who are thor
oughly familiar with current literature
and the livest topics of the day; those
who are frivolous and foolish as we'll as
those who are sedate and unenthusiastic
on every other subject, think that their
geese are swans, and that while other
children may be quite wonderful in many
respects, they can't be compared in any
way to their own particular offspring"
Doubtless you have made a study of
such conditions 1 reflected, land sure
ly with all your experience you have had
ample time to make observations
81 have, indeed said she smilingly,
"and they began early in life. Years
ago in. my little home town l decided to
open a kindergarten school. By way of
inaugurating it 1 made a round of visits
to my friends, asking If they would send
their children to my school, and it was
the nature of their replies that forever
ruined my faith in the perspicacity of
the average father and mother
II suppose you did encounter many
amusing lHlnSS III your Sdiu L,
knowing full we'll that there is no sub
ject so near to womans heart as that
of her children and their wonderful
merits.
in every case" said the kindergarten
teacher, there seemed to be firmly rooted
In the mothers mind the fact that her
child was the brightest that had ever
been born, and that the doctors had
strongly advised against developing the
childs mind. One mother said to me:
"Oh, the doctor says my child is the
most wonderful creature he has ever
seen. She is an infant phenomenon, and
that if we send her to school now he
will not answer for the consequences.
Another said:
1.-THE doctor says little girl must
not go to school until she is 10 years
old That her brain is abnormally de-
veloped now and that she is absolutely a
genius. She knows all the names of the
animals and can make noise like at
least four of them. and she is only )
years old. "
Still another told me that her d-year-
old boy was absolutely scary, he was
20 bright
why" said she, "he asked me yes