"VARYING CHILDNESS."

ANECDOTES of animals are proverbially untrustworthy, and the standard of veracity in those told of children is very little higher. In both cases the value of the relation depends solely upon its accuracy, but while the gap between men and animals caused by the lack of a common language is so great that only a scientist can be trusted to observe and describe without slipping in his own explanations and mis- taking them for facts, ordinary persons could, if they chose, repeat a child's actual words and give a fair idea of the cir- cumstances in which they were uttered. Every family could supply stories of real value in throwing light upon the natural workings of the childish mind; and therefore upon problems of moral and intellectual education. Unluckily parents and friends alike seem to think that the interest of an anecdote depends upon its absurdity, and in addition to displaying great carelessness as to the precise words used, the age of the child at the time, and other essential points, they often deliberately invent stories and father them on children who, according to their disposition, either grow to believe that they are true or exhaust themselves in angry denials.

Even when people in all good faith are relating tales of their own childhood strange inaccuracies are likely to creep in. A friend recently gave me a curious instance of this. On the Sunday after the death of Queen Victoria, as her eyes followed the prayers for the Royal Family and her ears heard the clergy man reading them with the necessary alterations, she had a strong impression that it was not the first time in her life that she had gone through this experience. If it had been possible for her to remember the death of William IV. she would unhesitatingly have declared that she remembered it clearly. Pulled up short by the fact that the event occurred about thirty years before she was born, she tried to think what could have caused the illusion. Suddenly the words "Princess Charlotte" rose before her, and she recollected that as a child of six she had been in the habit of using a large print George IV. Prayer-book that had belonged to her father when a boy, and that this name and others had been ruled out in red ink.

What is called " conceit " and obstinacy in young children is often sheer inability to recognize that ideas firmly im- printed on their mind can have any origin except actual fact, or that what is new to them can possibly be old to others. A boy of nine was amusing himself by measuring a square of carpet, and was asked by an older cousin "How many inches are there in a foot ? " "Fourteen." "No; twelve." The boy was silent for a few seconds, and then said with quiet firm- ness: "Well, I s'pose Mr. Smiff told us wrong. He's our mafrmatical master?' A boy of seven was asked by his brother-in-law, a distinguished mathematician, what sums he was doing at school. "Multiplication. It's an awful good

thing to do," adding with serious goodwill, "1 'dviee you to do it, James ! "

The exaggerations of children ought not to be confused with untruthfulness, nor even with self-deception. Exaggeration often results from the natural and legitimate desire to produce upon their toughened elders by mere description the same effect that was produced upon themselves by actually witness- ing a scene, or experiencing a pain, or a pleasure, or a sur- prise. A child does not really believe that the ditch he tried to jump was as wide as the canal, nor that the dog which sprang out on him was very much bigger and fiercer than other dogs; neither does he expect you to believe it. He simply wants to give you a sharp impression of these terrors and adventures. It is once more a case of literature and dogma.

A literal accuracy of statement is dear to most children at a certain stage of their development, and they are specially careful in exacting it from their elders. A mother who had taken her children to visit a recently opened museum said as they came away, "It really was not worth while to go. Nothing was finished." Presently a little voice was raised, "Weren't the fossils finished, Mother ? "

Even the most gently bred children have conceptions of the rights of property which are essentially similar to those which bring men and women into the police-court on charges of cruelty. It is extremely difficult to induce little boys and girls to believe that " my " kitten or " my " puppy means first and chiefly "mine to take care of and protect." Although birds are very common pets, I have never beard of any child wishing to coerce or ill-treat them. Probably their imperfect tameness never permits the little owners to feel the same sense of power and possession. As far as lifeless objects are con- cerned, their first question when they begin to grasp that their notions are not the same as their elders' is nearly always, "Is it mine to do as I like with ? " and the amount of pleasure derived from the object largely depends on the answer. One day I gave a little girl a present, and thinking to double its value in her eyes placed it in a gaily coloured box. "A pitty bets," she remarked thoughtfully, presently adding : "Tan I do 'at I 'ike iv it ? " "Yes," I replied, not thinking of any dangerous purpose to which it could readily be turned. " put it in the fy-er 'en I do down'taire 1" was her delighted exclamation.

A boy of five asked his mother to give him a fine lavender bush, the only one in the garden. She said that he might call it " his " if he liked, and presently discovered that he had violently wrenched the branches apart and was standing in the middle of the bush. "You said it was mine ! " he protested at the first word of blame. A boy of seven asked in the same way for two dozen chrysanthemums just coming into flower. Early the next morning he pulled the whole of them up by the roots and replanted them a few feet away. Considering that the entire operation took about half an hour, it is easy to imagine how many survived the treatment. His defence warn exactly the same as the younger boy's. As far as omission to feed an animal is concerned, I have never heard a child give ownership as an excuse for neglect. Even parents who claim the "right" to apply pokers, heated or otherwise, to their children's bodies, hesitate to assert publicly that they have the " right " to starve them.

Divisions of time are a great puzzle to many children. One has only to remember the prolonged disputes as to when the twentieth century began in order to realize that it is a difficulty shared in some degree by their elders. Poverty of language sometimes, however, makes childish ideas seem more confused than they really are. For several weeks in suc- cession a girl between four and five asked me every morning as soon as she opened her eyes, "Is it to-morrow " although she clearly understood what was meant by yesterday and even the day before yesterday. It last it dawned on me that she only knew the names of three days : Tismass, which came at tremendous intervals ; Sunday, which occurred more fre- quently; and 'Ord Mether's S'ow, an orgy which she repre- sented by tying up her jaw and putting her arm in a sling and as to the recurrence of which (though much to be desired) she was gravely uncertain. To-morrow was a day when nothing particular happened, a name that could be used to fill all gaps. Most children sharing this belief would have begun by a hopeful question as to the day they liked best, but although naturally gay she was a person of

chequered experience, and thought that the regulating powers were conciliated by very modest demands. Her knowledge of animals was extraordinarily small ; there did not appear to be a single one that she could recognize in a picture book. One day I showed her a coloured picture of a stag drinking at a mountain pool, and asked her what it was. " A pig standin' on its head" was the prompt reply.

Sometimes the ludicrous point in childish definitions arises from the inadequacy of their conceptions. "What is a storm ?" asked a child of six. A sister three or four years older replied, "Oh, it's a thing that comes in the night and makes a noise in the chimney." Considering that these children lived on the edge of a wide common facing the open eea, the answer showed great poverty of thought and language. The six-years-old son of a well-to-do-farmer often heard labourers complain of being "hard up," and said to his special friend the head-carter, "Why are they hard up P It's so easy to get money. I know how father does it." "Tell me how, then ! " said the man. "Why, you buy a book of tickets. It only costs half-a-crown, and then you can get as much money from the bank as ever you like."

" Where does coal come from ?" I was asked by a boy of seven. Before I could reply his brother of five, considered a cleverer child, said impatiently, "From Bratton, o' course 1" (the nearest railway station, where he had seen large heaps). Parents are apt to confuse the relative value of mere memory and of reasoning power. A child is often called clever because, having been told that three fours are twelve and four threes are twelve he remembers it; whereas the clever child is the one who, although he may say that the sum is ten or fourteen, knows without being told that, whatever the correct number may be, four threes must come to the same as three fours.

Resemblance in sound, or misunderstood metaphor, is the origin of many childish mistakes. A girl of four, sharing her aunt's bedroom, frequently heard her repeat the collect con- taining the words "perils and dangers of this night." Dangers she understood, and chiefly associated with the sea-shore, "perils" she heard as "barrels," and the picture that invariably rose before her mind was of a dark jetty running out into the sea and covered with huge black casks, and there was a conception of some mysterious power which compelled human beings to resort thither much against their will. Many years later she visited Rouen, and happening to be down by the river an hour after sunset saw a wharf covered with a large consignment of wine. Instantly the thought flashed across her mind, "Here are the barrels and dangers of the night."

A boy of six was long puzzled by a verse in the well-known missionary hymn, "They call us to deliver their land from error's chain." He thought that the inhabitants of some small island were inextricably mixed up with a chain about the size of an iron boa-constrictor, and were calling on all well-disposed people to hew it asunder and cast the fragments into the sea. As he believed the chain to be dead matter "which couldn't hurt them," their outcry gave him a low opinion of their courage and energy : "Why don't they do it themselves P"

"Mother," protested a pretty little boy indignantly when the door closed on a too gushing visitor, "Mother, why did you let her say so ? I'm not a bottled-cherry angel !"

Argument from analogy is an awkward weapon in a child's hands. A girl of eight reading a story book learned the pre- viously unknown fact that servants receive wages, and asked her devoted nurse in much surprise, " Nanna, do you have money for living here ?" "Yes, dear," was the reply, "if your father did not give me wages how should I have money to buy dresses P" A child of four listened in silence to question and answer. The same evening their mother, dressed for a large dinner party, went to the nursery to say good-night. Seeing the little one's eyes fixed on her dress she asked, "Do you think it pretty, darling ? " The child drew a deep sigh and drawled out solemnly : "What a lot of money my father must pay you for living here ! "

It was a ease of " 0 wonderful son that can so astonish a mother ! " until the nurse called to mind the earlier scene. Most of what are considered "extraordinarily precocious" remarks are capable of equally simple explanation, while what are repeated as gratuitous criticisms have often been dragged from children by foolish or unfair questions. A well-mannered boy of ten was repeatedly asked how he liked a relative's new bonnet. At first he would make no answer, and then simply replied that he did not care for it very much; further badgered by an elderly man, he said, "I think it is too young for her." His mother made a bad ease worse by exclaiming, "You must be careful what you say, dear ! People are not all as good-natured as your aunt Eleanor ; they don't like to hear the truth."

The loyalty shown by young children to their parents is very greats though it is apt to slacken when they go to school and home methods are exposed to criticism. This was certainly not the case with one quick-witted little girl, the only daughter of a devoted but slightly eccentric couple. The day after she had returned to school her class-fellows were telling one another what they bad done during the holidays. She told them that she had spent hers in Ireland, and it incidentally came to light that she had performed the journey alone, her father having assured her that people who knew where they were going always arrived safely. Most of the girls felt surprised, and an affected young person of thirteen or fourteen exclaimed disdainfully, "Fancy your going alone ! Why, even when I drive to school in a close carriage Mamma always sends her maid with me." My small friend eyed her contemptuously and replied with ineffable dignity, "Your mother is perfectly