The Washington herald., 1916-03-27

Little Isabel, the child Of friend OF
mine. went home from school one day last
week with a very poor report OF her
standing in mental arithmetic.
How is this. Isabel" her father asked.
Your marks in arithmetic are SO low.
vet you seem to know all the sums when
we go over your lessons together"
Yes. know. father" Isabel replied.
Il do know them. but it's this way:
Teacher asks me how many apples are
four apples and three apples, and says
must do it mentally. ! can see four apples
and the three little marks beside them
and 1 know it's seven apples. but she
wants it mentally and so 1 tell her it's
five apples"
The father thought 1t out and in telling
me about it said he had concluded that
the child must have had some hazy idea
that mentally" implied something op-
posed to. actual fact. and so. in trying to
please her teacher and give the answer
she supposed was wanted little Isabel
failed repo atedly in a study in which she
naturally cXcelled.
wonder how many Of our mothers
have met this same problem in their
child training? Perhaps il we all had the
good sense of this father and tried to get
the child's explanation of the failure. We.
too, might have discovered the reason
for badly learned lesson in time to
make a good scholar instead OF a poor
one out of our child. Children have a
natural desire to please those about
them: they instinctively look for the nod
and the smile of approval in all they do,
and so. If teacher or parent wants the
thing mentally" why, mentally they
will give it. though they know it's seven
instead Of FIVE!
Of
of parent and teacher is our greatest
obstacle to success in training our chill
dren. We can arm ourselves against
perversity: slowness and stupidity are at
least partly overcome by patience: but
we are exceptionally wise mothers II we
can refrain from making ourselves the
model for the child that tries to please
us in all things
l believe We mothers make no more
frequent mistake than this in rearing our
children. Prone to think ourselves per-
feet. we believe the way we do things
is the only way to do them. Our methods
of keeping house. of making beds and
sweeping rooms are just a little better
than the methods followed by the other
women We know; there are no church and
no political belief so right as our own,
and so those are the particular patterns
we lay down for our children to mold
themselves by. We forget that our point
of view Is not the only one in the world!
Naturally, the child that tries the hard
est to please is the one that is stamp
ed most deeply with our peculiarities,
that develops less along its own orig
inal lines. Instead of trying to turn
out new and improved kinds of hu-
man beings, we are so satisfied with
ourselves that we are &Quite content
to go on, year after year, repeating
our own old and worn-out type in
the young we are bringing up TO
carry on the worlds work when our
hands shall lay it down.
Now don't you think we would be
more sensible mothers If we did not
try to make our children into little
wooden replicas of ourselevs? If we
didn't go on, generation after genera
ton, repeating the same old mistakes
and failures, pruning away every
shoot of originality from their young
minds and training them all alike into
monotonous box borders of humanity?
Many mothers today, l am glad to
see, are beginning to realize that the
children haven't had a fair chance in
the past They feel that the 'do-it-
because-I-say-so" edict that has
hitherto been almost the only rule Of
conduct given the child is all wrong.
and that repression. not expression,
has been the natural result of such
training. The great educators OF the
day are coming to our rescue. They
are pointing out to US that the mind
and soul of little child 4 are full
of the most marvellous possibilities
OF originality, of beauty ana inveH-
ton. and so in the Montessori and
many other developmental schools thar
are multiplying themselves ell over
the world the'chiIdren are trained by
being allowed to work out their own
ideas instead of having to reflect
mentally what they think mother
and teacher want them to be.
Not long ago / visited one of these
new schools and watched the children
at thc!r drawing lesson. They were
given 40 model to follow They were
told they were to express their own