Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-25
Replies to Readers.

Grown-Up and Growing Up.
tn. n ths Snd
obvious . fact, i was graduated from col.
Monies. and after three years Of that. mar
gsa years od
saving that all good things come in threes)
past realize IN the sSt Of Your Article
that my problem is that Of adjusting my
f sS e aS gay r Of hnf 70 hGs
; economies is all right and has helped me
but Why ddp we have
second 5. Why has this recqsnisiOn Of the 6s
Cores that ths
shts SS fesl Tx ike evng three CHEERS
for your article. MOTHER OF THREE.
4 Reply:
Taking the last question first, it is
certainly true that there are lots of peo-
BILE who can't see child without want
ing to make him do something, or teach
aim something, or correct him for
something. They can't help seeing the
child as a creature to be recreated as
soon as possible in their own image.
Even so good book in its day as Little
Women" had false name and false
that's Just what a child shouldn't be.
The whole charm and advantage of
heing a little girl is that you are not a
lNttle woman. Look at collection Of
books for children of SO years ago, and
yau can hardly believe that the young
oaeS who read those books or could be
made to read them, were of the same
order Of creation as the tots Of today.
Moralizing was certainly responsible for
the difference.
Yet there is moralizing and moral
izing. The Objectionable form of it
then and now was the stupid assump-
ticn that the child would be attracted
to; your way of doing things by your
superior example: and since you had no
tendency to shout or romp or NEEDLE
or. get your hands dirty or slide down
the baniSter or pull the cats tail or
Sass" back, this proved how easy as
we'll as how viIGuous it was to refrain
fr6m these unnecessary and impolite
proceedings. To later age preaching
is said to have the effect of making
virtue llideous and vice attractive. 1t
runs that danger from the very begin
nirlg.
Little boys have an advantage in ex-
pressing their reactions to this often
wesl-intentioned miShandllng IN terms
of their contempt for the other sex.
Good little boys are known as "sissies,"
and lower than that you can't fall in
the boys vocabulary. What little girls
do under the same provocation, don't
know. The simple fact is that that
type Of moralizing won't work. Children
listen to it If they must and run away
frotn 1t as soon as they get chance.
Bat moralizing In the proper sense of
making children moral is indispensable.
We don't differ so much, when you con-
sides the essentials, from the former
generations in what we want children
to d5 as in the means we employ to get
them to do it. What we are aiming at
is t0 get the child to cooperate in
guiding its behavior toward desirable
ends To secure the cooperation of the
child involves understanding, and to
avoid opposition requires more still. So
long as you just preached and laid
down the law and enforced 1t and paid
no attention to what was going on in
side Nhe child you weren't likely to dis
cover child psychology. The easiest
explanation was original sin, and you
started upon the path Of conversion
early and kept at it steadily. The child
just had to At into the adult setting
and make the best of it.
The Largest sense Of contrast appears