A RE there really any children to whom the slang adjective
" smart " could possibly apply ? It certainly applies in all its disagreeable significance to the children in Mr. E. IL Cooper's new book, " The Twentieth- Century Child " (John Lane, 6s.) Mr. Cooper has bad, he gives his readers to understand, exceptional advantages for studying this new creation, this—in his judgment— fine Fleur of childhood to whom he has lost his heart. "I know this young world so well," he assures us ; and perhaps if the reader is interested in children be may be amused to look at Mr. Cooper's pictures of a new land of Lilliputian fashion. Children have changed, he explains. "Even during the past ten or twelve years a close observer must have noticed the increasingly rapid development of the nursery intellect." The life of a former generation " did not tend towards brilliancy of speech. This is the property of the children who swarm round one at London At Homes' and country garden parties, whom one is allowed to take to Hurlinghaui, Brighton, and garden parties at the Zoo, who sell at bazaars, distribute programmes at charity concerts, and bicycle in the Park."
Now we catch a glimpse of the new nursery. Mr. Cooper
will introduce us to his favourite inmates. " Good behaviour is commendable but monotonous " in his eyes, and he tells us it can at least be said for his private circle of friends that they are "insupportable to the nerves sometimes, confounding to the brain often, but dull never." Shyness is a quality with which he is out of sympathy. It is "not charming," we read, " when it is the curtain of a vacuum, and in any case a little of it goes a long way in my mind. Downcast eyelids are very pretty if they are lifted up to display laughing, all-com- prehending eyes ; nervously trembling lips are delightful when they are controlled at last to form the words of an epigram." The mothers of these children have not a great deal of time to spare for them. Indeed, "in point of fact," he explains, "you have only to pay visits in a dozen country houses, or lunch, dine, and have tea in a score of London houses, in order to discover that, to a considerable number of busy women, children are simply a nuisance; while to many others they are mere playthings, pretty ornaments for the back seat of a carriage, amusing toys to relieve the ennui of a tea party, picturesque additions to the costume in which the hostess receives the Princess or the desirable millionaire." Against such ladies our author makes no indictment. He does not expect that modern women " will suddenly return en masse to the mediaeval occupations of jam- making, embroidery, tea parties, and child nurture," any more than he himself proposes "to return to the occupations of the same period, i.e., to put on a helmet and sword and go forth to dispute with Messrs. Cook and Son the possession of Pales- tine." Still, he feels that the fashionable mother might take measures to "safeguard these babes." Governesses who teach well, brilliant women even, are, he thinks, easily come by; but a woman, though she have much Latin, may not have authority and judgment sufficient to "return a decided refusal when her cousin calls to take the picturesque little person to an at home for the third time that week, or, when the Princess wants to carry her off to raffle dolls at a bazaar." We agree with him that governesses able to snub relations
and rout Royalty are somewhat rare. In the matter of refusing invitations much difficulty seems to be experienced among Mr. Cooper's friends. It should be possible, he points out, to refuse invitations for children without assigning reasons. " Three small people go to A on Tuesday, and for that reason, and that reason only, they are not going to B and 0 on Wednesday and Thursday; this is the simple truth, and as it does not look nice in black and white (especially when A is a duchess and the other two are not ; an accident which happens constantly, sometimes not without foresight, but mostly by sheer malignant bad luck) it is beat to say nothing at all."
But to leave these details of management and go back to the children themselves. Mr. Cooper exhibits them at play, at lessons, and at their prayers. On the last subject he is a great authority, having looked through, he tells the reader, who can hardly fail to feel pity, some sixty manuals intended for the use of children. The " two nicest children " he knows are introduced at their devotions. They are quarrelling violently, and as is their custom, we are told, when angry, are addressing one another by their titles. Another little girl, aged four, stoutly refuses to repeat the same prayers every night, exclaiming : " God must think me so stupid to say the same thing again and again." A fourth, "when it comes to a petition for blessings on relatives and friends, will settle down to enjoy herself like an actress in the crack scene of a play. Her parents come first; then all such relations as are present, the suppliant keeping half an eye all the time on each person to see how he or she takes it ; then a long list of her mother's young men ' and her own, which (her acquaintances being chiefly military) gives her audience the impression that she is going straight through the Army List." Lessons are dull things, and Mr. Cooper, though he quotes many pert remarks made by youthful victims of instruction, does not contrive to write amusingly of them. It is when he turns to the subject of play that the reader is most entertained and astounded. We hear of children who "go back to school after their Christmas holidays, and to the seaside after the riot of a London season, and show few signs of being the worse for it all " ; and of " a small child of my acquaintance who had sixty-three toys given her one Christmas, and could with difficulty be persuaded to finish unpacking them." The majority of parents, however, the reader is assured for his comfort, do not allow "the ten frenzied weeks" of the London season to disturb their nur- series at au. As to the funny sayings and "epigrams" quoted for the reader's amusement, only two or three are really amusing. As an instance of an epigram, here is the best we can find. A little girl who was travelling in Italy wrote in her diary that "it may be the home of music,' but the family are out of town." "I didn't mean to laugh, but my face slipped," is a really funny saying, the best in the book; and the philosophic suggestion of the child who refused to declare that she had been good or admit that she had been naughty, but took refuge in the non-committal statement that she bad been " comfortable," is worth recording.
Mr. Cooper's book will lead no simple or credulous persons to desire the entrée to the fashionable world as he depicts it,—approached, that is, by the nursery stairs. It seems such a very unattractive place. Perhaps the least agreeable chapter in the whole book is the one entitled "An Auto- biography." It purports to be genuine child's work. Mr. Cooper even goes so far as to beg that, in the unlikely contingency of any one discovering the identity of the heroine, be will bold his peace. The Hon. Helen Estcourt-Darcy tells her own story, tells how her mother died and her father was married again to a Parisian opera-dancer. The situation obviously requires delicate handling. Mr. Cooper would have done better not to have attempted it.
For some time past the working world has been afforded glimpses of the conspicuous class, and the stage on which that class disports itself, as reflected in the distorted mirror of the daily Press. The variety show thus provided does not, we think, do its spectators much good; but it is very possible to exaggerate the importance of stage effects. The actors play to the gallery, which applauds, remonstrates, and forgets. Hitherto the curtain bas not risen upon the nursery. Mr. Cooper pretends to have raised it, and the tableau he presents and explains is not pleasant to look upon. A crowd of weary pleasure-seekers surround a. dressed-up child. The contours of the face are childish, but the expression is sophisticated and almost bold. Instinctively we look away ; but let us look again. The figure is dressed in real clothes, bat is it a real child P And this crowd of fine ladies and idle gentlemen, are they real either? Was not the Duchess dragged in to com- plete the mice-en-scene, and is not the figure in the carriage a stage-property Princess ? The illusion is well managed, so well that it is not easy to say for certain, but we cannot avoid a suspicion that the whole scene is an arrangement of wax- works, and that none of these poseurs are made of flesh and blood.
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