Richard Carew - "The Survey of Cornwall"

Mangasar Magurditch Mangasarian - "The Truth About Jesus Is He a Myth?"

Henry David Thoreau - "Wild Apples"

Benjamin Harrison - "State of the Union Addresses of Benjamin Harrison"

Your Child: Today and Tomorrow

S >> Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg >> Your Child: Today and Tomorrow




The responsibilities we wish to develop, the sense of duty, no less
than the application and persistence, no less than knowledge and
skill, are types of habits which are best formed under the glow of
satisfying experience. Far from assuming a soft life for the child,
the idea of interest assumes the most strenuous kind of life. And
the experiences of all who have tried it justifies the assumption.
The experimental class already mentioned, similar experiments by
Mrs. Marietta Johnson at Fairhope, Alabama and elsewhere,
experimental classes at the Lincoln School and at the Horace Mann
School, at various "play" schools in this country and in England,
all show more continuous application of the children to whatever
they happen to have in hand, longer periods of intense activity, and
no sign whatever of loafing or shirking. The activities selected by
the children themselves involve just as much "discipline" as
anything that can be selected for them.

In these schools the children never hear the teacher call for
"attention," for although everybody knows that attention is an
essential of effective work, the attention takes care of itself
where the children already feel a genuine concern in the outcome.
And this concern insures satisfactory application, since the
children look forward to satisfying results. This does not mean, of
course, that either the work itself or the result is necessarily
"pleasant," in the ordinary sense. Often, indeed, it is quite the
reverse, as when the racer is exerting every last reserve of his
energy in the final spurt, or when the contestants are in suspense
awaiting the decision of the judges as to which is the best cake.
And the endless grind of practice and preparation is no more
"pleasant" to the child who knows the purpose and approves the
purpose of his efforts (having taken part in selecting the
undertaking) than similar exertion is to the child whose work is all
planned and directed by outsiders; but the satisfactions connected
with the exertions are different in the two cases, and the
corresponding results are correspondingly different.

The principle of interest as a guide to the training of children can
be applied in the home as well as in the school. It means, first of
all, taking into account the interests, tastes, preferences of the
children. As has already been suggested in earlier chapters, there
are many occasions when the child may be consulted or given a choice
of action, of amusements, of purchases, and so on--situations in
which it is a matter of indifference to older people, but in which
the making of a decision or a choice is both satisfying and valuable
to the child. Even where the decision is not an indifferent one, our
own should not be imposed in an arbitrary manner; when it differs
from that of the child, we can get his assent and cooperation, where
an arbitrary choice leaves him cold or even resentful.

The games children play, whether by themselves or with other
children, are only in part manifestations of tastes: they represent
to a degree stages of development. For the reason, therefore, that
interests develop, we shall find that what is a favorable time for
one child is not necessarily a favorable time for another child to
learn a particular thing. This is very well shown by the great
differences found among children, as to learning school subjects
like reading or writing. In some the interest is aroused very early,
and for them this is the best time; with others the interest does
not appear until the third or fourth grade, or even later, and for
such children this is the best time. There is no one period that is
best for all children; by attempting to treat all alike, therefore,
we not only waste a great deal of energy and good feeling, but we
often defeat our purpose by antagonizing the children and thus
making them resist the very things we want them to hug to
themselves. And this is just as true of what we try to do in the
home as it is of school teaching.

To discover the interests of the children requires that they be
given an opportunity to express themselves. This means in most cases
much more freedom than children have heretofore enjoyed. But it
means also constant vigilance on the part of the elders, not so much
to guard against the freedom being abused, as to guard against the
opportunity being wasted. The taste in games or in reading, the
choice of companions or of leisure time occupations must not only
show themselves to be indulged; they must be seized upon by those
who guide the children, as means for giving drive and direction to
further development. A child who devotes too much time to athletics
and too little to literature, may be drawn to reading through books
about athletic contests of the classics, or through modern stories
of college life. On the other hand, the boy who is prone to get his
satisfactions vicariously and to neglect active participation in
games and other activities, must be led through his reading,
properly selected and unostentatiously placed under his nose, to
more direct concern with producing practical effects in his
environment. The interest, once discovered, must be the means for
stimulating to greater exertion and to closer unification of the
child's activities.

One of the things that presents a difficulty in every generation is
the fact that the social and moral ideals change from age to age. We
are thus constantly tempted to put into the characters of our
children those traits that were valued highly by our parents,
without always considering the importance of each item for the days
in which our children will play their parts. Thus it comes about
that many of the virtues that have a traditional value may be
questioned when offered as staples for citizens of to-morrow.
Obedience, for example, is a permanent necessity in a society that
rests upon the assumption that one or a few chosen men represent the
will of the gods on earth, but has only a transitory value in a
democracy. As someone has said, obedience in childhood must be
considered as a scaffold that is useful while the lasting parts of
the structure are being put in place; when the desired structure is
completed, obedience is naturally removed as of no further service.
Now the kind of discipline required in a democracy calls for an
attitude or disposition that makes cooperation with others come as a
matter of course; it calls for the making of decisions, or the
forming of opinions, on the basis of facts; and it calls for the
habit of taking due account of the rights of others. The training
for this class of habits is best obtained through methods that take
full account of children's interests.

Just as the older outlook turned to "discipline" as a means for
obtaining freedom, the new psychology utilizes freedom as a means
for obtaining discipline. In both cases the end is of course the
same--that is, the liberation of the human spirit and the organizing
of the individual's powers to the greatest good. But as our ideas of
human relations and of values have changed, science has given us new
methods for attaining the final goals that we set ourselves.

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