THE SAYINGS OF CHILDREN.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THR "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In the Spectator of September 27th a letter appeared containing many amusing and delightful anecdotes of children's sayings, all of them, from the child's point of view, entirely innocent, but some few of them, I venture to think, inappropriate for repetition. No one will dispute the right of "Lewis Carroll" to be considered a true child-lover, and the following letter of his to a friend puts the case far better
• "Who writ 'De Antiquis Deperclitis, or of inventions lout." than any words of mine could. You may think it worthy'of
"After changing my mind several times, I have at last decided to venture to ask a favour of you, and to trust that you will not misinterpret my motives in doing so. The favour I would ask is, that you will not tell me any more stories, such as you did on Friday, of remarks which children are said to have made on very sacred subjects—remarks which most people would recognise as irreverent, if made by grown-up people, but which are assumed to be innocent when made by children who are unconscious of any irreverence, the strange conclusion being drawn that they are therefore innocent when repeated by a grown-up person. The misinterpretation I would guard against is, your supposing that I regard such repetition as always wrong in any grown-up person. Let me assure you that I do not so regard it. I am always willing to believe that those who repeat such stories differ wholly from myself in their views of what is, and what is not, fitting treatment of sacred things, and I fully recognise that what would certainly be wrong in me, is not necessarily so in them. So I simply ask it as a personal favour to myself. The hearing of that anecdote gave me so much pain, and spoiled so much the pleasure of my tiny dinner-party, that I feel sure you will kindly spare me such in future. One further remark. There are quantities of such anecdotes going about. I don't in the least believe that 5 percent. of them were ever said by children. I feel sure that most of them are concocted by people who wish to bring sacred subjects into ridicule—sometimes by people who wish to undermine the belief that others have in religious truths ; for there is no surer way of making one's beliefs unreal than by learning to associate them with ludicrous ideas. Forgive the freedom with which I have said all this."
[There should, no doubt, be limits to the repetition of children's unconscious irreverences, but to say that they are deliberately repeated by grown-up people with the evil intent to undermine religion is utterly ridiculous. Voltairianism was never helped by childish babble of the kind referred to.—ED. Spectator.]
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