Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1922-12-01

One day last winter my six-year-old
boy ran to me and said, Come out
and see a birds nest with four blue
eggs in it."
In surprise I took his hand and
walked beside him through the gar
den to a leafless wintry rosebush to
which he pointed triumphantly. "But
where is the nest?" l asked.
Fright there" he insisted, indicat-
ing a bleak branch with not so much
as a straw on it.
But there is no nest" 1 insisted.
Then he withdrew his hand and
looked up into my face with utmost
.scorn. Can't you make-believe any
thing?" he said.
What was my response? What
should have been my response do you
think? Well, 1 believe the words that
rushed to my lips were the right
and true words. I said, "Why, dar-
ling, I beg your pardon for being so
stupid! OF cours 1 can make-be-
lieve and I'll never be so dull again."
The next week, however, there oc-
Cured in my household a very diff
ferent kind of falsehood. A little girl
of whom 1 had temporary charge had
found a purse with a good deal of
money in it. We had talked about this
among our neighbors and in the
child's presence until she felt very
proud of herself. One day she came
to me with a dollar bill in her hand.
81 certainly will make you rich
sometime" she exclaimed, quoting a
remark which we had frequently
made among ourselves. Here is a
dollar I found under a rock"
I cannot tell just why I did not
believe her, but after accepting the
dollar, of which she made me a pres
ent, 1 went to my purse. 1t had been
taken out of that. I called her in
from her play and very quietly told
her I felt sure she had taken the dol
lar from me and asked her why she
had done so.
She denied it-she even protested
piously that she could not be so base
as to steal from one to whom she
owed so much kindness. 1 did not
argue VI ldloC MY NO1CCJ L Simply
kept saying, why did you take it?"
az feel sure you took it." "Tell me
why you took it."
Suddenly she broke down and ad-
mitted her guilt. OF course her rea-
son was clear: She wanted to be
talked about more, to hear people
say, mabel has found more money"
u Ill - Ioo;,o for kh0 Daanau IL
self; she had given it back to me.
The first of these cases, that of the
birds nest story was an act of harm
less and beautiful imagination; the
second was a lie. The spirit of the
first should be encouraged, the sec
ond required a punishment which
would make clear to the child's con-
science the baseness of her deed.
1t is seldom hard to know the diff
ference between flights of a child's
Imagination and his untruths. To
sympathize with the former, however,
we must pause for a few minutes and
try really to understand children's
natures.
1t is very unjust to confuse the
UeduLlIul SlIC OF Will IAO
spirit of cowardice and vanity which
is at the root of most lying. 70 be
good mothers we must realize that
our little children up to ten years of
age are like Poets and Artists and
Musicians-to a great extent they live
in their busy imaginations.
Mr.. Lloyd George sent to an inter-
national conference of reform lead
ers of many nations, meeting in Lon
don on October 18th, the following
message:
"Unless the peoples Of the world
are to be submerged by a wave of
materialism, we must call into play
the moral forces which alone can
save and ~vitalize the nations"
The kindergarten is a moral force.
All of our children are entitled to
this educational advantage.
The National kindergarten Asso-
citation, s West 10th street, New York,
will tell you how to work for a kinder
garten in your public school.
THE PATRIOTIC ORDER SONS OF