THE MIND OF THE CHILD.*

THE world has undoubtedly moved a long way in the right direction since Mr. Herbert Spencer predicted that our pre- sent system of education would be stigmatised by the future student of the remains of our civilisation, as fit for intending celibates only. If we have not actually got to the point of teaching the student the science of education, yet on all sides the child itself is being studied, and the fact is ever more widely recognised that the true end of education is development, not instruction. A new contribution to the literature which is to help us to understand our children comes to us in the shape of a book by Mr. H. K. Lewis, on the spiritual nature of the child, which, though excellent in intention and theory, will, we fear, not throw much new light on its subject-matter, for Mr. Lewis has compiled, not written, his book. We read with great amusement the anecdotes of modern children of which the first half of the book consists ; we plough more or less wearily through the accounts of children in the ancient world, in Eastern civilisations, and in savage countries ; and in the end we confess to a feeling like that of Mr. Calverley "in the gloaming," i.e., of wonder where on earth we are, and "what this is all about." In theory and intention, Mr. Lewis is excellent. In his introduction he tells us that he proposes "to discuss the child in his essential attributes, mental, moral, and spiritual," and further he pro- pounds the following excellent thesis :— " We want to handle the child, as we find him, with his ascertainable limitations, and his actual possibilities. For the discovery of these limits and possibilities can we adopt a more satisfactory course than that which the inductive method supplies ? We must protest, most vigorously, against beginning with theory, whether philosophical or theological. Living, healthy specimens are always to be had, until tampered with by quacks. The most promising samples, therefore, if the most reliable re- sults are to be secured, will be those that are taken from the earliest moment possible. Let these be studied, analysed, com- pared and classified. A fairly sound generalisation will then be possible."

But it is impossible to study the mind of a child merely through anecdotes of what it says and does. Mr. Lewis writes from the outside. He does not, as it were, get inside the mind of the child and tell us how the world looks to those

• Th. Child its Spiritual Hater,, By Henry King Lewis. London: Macmillan and Co.

newly-opened eyes. Instead of this, he collects from living children, and from the lives of what he calls " typical " children, stories of their doings and sayings on all sorts of

subjects, which stories he classifies and arranges under suitable headings. Hence, his observations are merely anecdotes written down in a note-book, not glimpses into the

mind of the child.

If it were possible to realise the multitude of new ideas—ideas of things seen and unseen—which the infant mind has to take in, a feeling of wonder would arise in the adult that the child is able so quickly to get a grasp on reason. In relation to things unseen its ideas, of course, develop later. Mr. Lewis tells an amusing story of a baby of two and a half years who asked her sister of four and a half whether God made "this pea." The sister replied that tied makes everything, where-

upon the younger child pulled a maggot out of the pea, re- marking," He didn't make much of a one of this, did He, Enid?" This story may be matched by the saying of a child known to

the present w riter, who inquired of her sister "Who makes the leaves come on the trees? Does Allman ? " (Allman was the gardener.)—" No," replied the sister, "God makes the leaves

come on the trees."—" I'm sure Allman doesn't let God come meddling in this garden," retorted the little one. The idea

of a creative but unseen Deity would appear at first sight very hard to grasp. But, in reality, is this so ? The small child takes so much on trust that the fact that it cannot understand a thing is no bar to its belief. All its little know- ledge is only belief in its mother's words,—and mother has been proved to be right so often that there is no reason to disbelieve her in this instance. So the God of child- hood is to the child a grown-up, tangible human being. He has existed for ever. He is, therefore, probably a very old man with a long beard. The liveliest curiosity is often manifested about him. "Father," a little boy once asked, "where does God live ? "—" In the sky," replied the father.—" In the sky ! Poor fellow," murmured the little boy, with a keen appreciation of the probable

clammy dampness of the clouds. Mr. Lewis gives us a. proof of the very human way in which the Creator is

regarded by the young in the following remark of a child : "I suppose God learned to do these clever things when he was a little boy." This appears in a group headed "Reasoning," and the remaining stories under this head are so amusing that we cannot resist quoting them :—

"Practical logician—George, a little boy of five Mother. have I been good lately ? I think you have.'—' Oh well, I

shall leave off praying now, for it is no use asking God to make me good, if I am good.' Another day he asked :—• Mother, have you done growing yet ? Yes ? then you can't grow any better than you are ? ' Reasoning from inadequate data= Mother, who was my mother when you were a little girl ?' Faculty of com. parison—A boy of six drew his mother's attention to a fly which was contemplating a drop of juice upon the table ; he remarked that to the fly that drop of water was a large pond. His analogical reasoning—' Papa, do you think the birds play hide and seek, when they call cuckoo ? ' On another occasion, during breakfast and while eating eggs and bacon—' Grandma, do fowls lay bacon ? ' After asking how old the world was and being told it was supposed to be many thousands of years old before Adam was created, he said Oh! what a lot of weeds there must have been ; Adam must have had enough to do to clear them all away.' A little child at two and a half years, on catching pussy in the act of stealing some milk, reproved her thus You're a. very naughty pussy ; I can't love you and Jesus can't love you, at least not very much.' The logic of the stomach,—Mabel (seven,

and a half), Christmas morning We had better not eat no brekner '—so as to be better prepared for grandma's Christmas dinner. A boy called on the nurse for help for his mother, who had had a new baby.' Nurse : 'And how old is mother's new baby ? '—Small boy : Oh; we don't know yet, mother only had it on Sunday.' The logic of this seems to be that the age of a baby is to be determined by internal evidence as the age of a tree by its rings."

We can cap these instances of remarkable reasoning power with a story of a little boy of five who had been learning to

repeat portions of the Sermon on the Mount. Being subse- quently shown some pictures of a revolution by his grand- mother, he asked her if she "loved the rebels."—" No," replied she, "they were wicked people ; I don't love them."— " Then you ought. Haven't you just heard me repeat, Thou shalt love thine enemies'? If you only love the good people who love you, what reward have ye ? Do not even the publicans the same ?"

The most curious part of Mr. Lewis's book is that he appears to be in total ignorance of the modern system of

education for children. Be seems to believe that babies of three are taught to read, and subsequently crammed full of hard, dry facts from that age onward to seven- teen. If we examine a little into what Mr. Lewis calla the 41 forcing processes of modern education," what do we find ? As the immense majority of the children of this country are educated in State schools, it will be fair to take a Board- school as an instance of how children are educated between what are justly considered the most important ages of three and seven. The child certainly comes to school at three, which age in a more fortunate class is regarded as being too young for any learning. But what is it taught ? Not the, to it, unmeaning and useless signs of the alphabet, but how to distinguish a blue bead from a red, and how to sing simple verses in unison; while, when it gets older and more advanced, it will rise to the in- estimable delights of constructing hills and dales out of wet sand in a shallow tin tray,—and of singing "action songs" marching round and round the school-hall. Meanwhile it is learning the invaluable lessons that unless it is punctual it will lose its red mark, and unless it attends to what " teacher " is saying it will not be able to keep up with the fun. Far from the little child of the present day being forced on with a series of lessons which it cannot understand, infant education has -never been conducted on so rational a system as now. How often does the parent of to-day say to his child, " Ah ! lessons were not made so easy to me when I was young" while be finds himself half wishing that he could go back to his -schooldays, and experience all the delights of the modern infant-school, called with great reason, not a school, but a garden of children.