The Washington herald., 1916-11-16
Seen and Heard by George Miner.


New York. Nov Is.-It is an odd fact that a
man who has not children and is not even married
Is the one to whose lot falls the distinction of
writing the most important book about children
that has been put forth.
This man is Mr.. George Henry Payne, who
used to be newspaper writer in New York and
Ia dramatic critic of distinction. Then he messed
some with politics and was a sort of protege of
Augustus Thomas.
OF course he knew a lot about stage babies.
but nobody suspected him of any particular knowl-
edge of the regular kind That's where he fooled
them. He spent more than year reading up on
every authority on the subject that any library in
this country could supply. He accumulated store
of knowledge that was simply amazing. His book
is called "The Child in Human Progress" He
asked me to read it and I promised to- but never
intended to keep the promise, for l reckoned
George Payne to be about as we'll equipped on the
child question William Jennings Bryan is on
the brands of vintage champagne. By accident l
read the book because night there was nothing
else to read and then talked with Payne afterward
and discovered that you don't need to be father
to be posted on children.
"Unquestionably," said Mr.. Payne this is the
country of the child Undoubtedly more serious
thought is being given in the present generation to
the subject than has been given before in the
entire history of the world More had been written
about the child in the last fifty years than had been
written in the world in all civilized times up to the
beginning of this half century.
''In order to appreciate this statement, one
must remember that the best friends of the child
Jesus, the Jewish Prophets and Mohammed-lived
centuries before the human theories that they
preached had really living existence.
"In this connection, it is germane to state that
the theory that philosophy and religion go hand in
hand with humanity is shattered by the fact that
Plato, Aristotle, Confucius and Guatama affected,
apparently, not single jot the ancient attitude of
insufferance toward undesired children
"The fact that less than fifty years have passed
since we began a definite policy concerning the
rights of children shows how rapidly the human
race moves The race may be, let US say, some
thing like 100000 years old. OF that time civilized
man, accepting the most generous figures on Egyp-
tian and Mesopotamian civilization, has existed
only 10000 years
"Humanized has existed not more than
a few hundred years. and it is within only fifty
years that the race has been concerned with the
protection of the child. How deeply are ingrained
the habits of barbarity and darkness, may be seen
from the fact that cannibalism broke out in Japan
not more than 100 years ago.
There has ever been on the question of his
children struggle between man and nature.
Endowed with the possibilities of large offspring,
man has fought the burdens that nature has thrust
upon him. On first view, it seems that parental
affection never develops to a great degree unless
the economic conditions favorable; yet the
various artifces and laws used by tribes to get rid
of children would show that parental affection kept
struggling with the inclination of men. In other
words, find female children sacrificed in one
place because they are useless, and all frst-born
children sacrificed in another place because the
gods must be propitiated, so it is evident that
parental affection, represented by the women,
was strong enough to force the male sovereigns
to invent plausible excuses and taboos in order to
have the women give up their offspring.
"The law of primogeniture and the varying laws
of inheritance have occasionally led to the study
of children children but generally the main
interest in them of historian and jurist has been
as channel for the transmission of property.
Theories about population and the fascinating
pursuit of unravelling tangled economic laws have
obscured the fact that the attitude of toward
children has been, with few variations, an index
to its social progress. The same thing has been
said of women, but while the Greeks treated
women we'll, yet with the exception of Thebes,
infanticde was common in all the Greek states"
Could you believe man without any children
of his could dig up all that?