Read Ebook: The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young by Morley Margaret Warner

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 367 lines and 41853 words, and 8 pages

On the contrary, the tendency is to prevent talk. The children of a family equally instructed will not find it worth talking about. They know what they want to know, and understand that the only person who can really tell them anything more is their mother, or whoever takes her place in this. If they do talk of it in the spirit in which they have been taught, such talk can do no harm, excepting in the presence of children not equally well instructed.

To meet this danger the mother can take certain precautions. Having won the confidence of her child, she can generally trust him to keep these matters confidential with her. She can explain that children do not always know the truth about these things, and sometimes do not know about them at all. That some mothers do not tell their children, but that she wants her child to understand everything just as it is, and to feel that she can trust him not to talk on these matters excepting when alone with her.

Of course there will be instances where this does not succeed, and the children eager and pure will speak in the presence of the neighbors' children and make trouble. Then the question is, Which is better, to run that risk and take the consequences, or to run the risk of allowing the child to remain ignorant? If the child could really remain ignorant, there might be room for argument against enlightening him, but there is great danger that he will be enlightened in a very unenlightened manner, and possibly by those same neighbors' children who are truly ignorant, though they may not be ignorant in just the way their fond parents believe them to be.

Many people still confound ignorance with innocence, though these are by no means related. The most ignorant person in the world might be the least innocent, and the most innocent might very well be the most enlightened. It not infrequently happens that the very children whose mothers are most opposed to enlightenment on this subject are dangerous companions for good children.

Having made this promise she must keep it. There is nothing more dangerous than to put a child off with evasive answers. He immediately jumps to the conclusion that there is some reason why his mother is afraid or ashamed to explain things to him, and if he has heard evil rumors it is quite natural for him to suspect that what he has heard is the truth and the whole truth, else why should his mother not help him? He soon feels ashamed to ask her questions which she refuses to answer, and he ceases to confide in her. There is nothing easier than to win and keep the confidence of a child, and often there is nothing more difficult than to regain it when once it is lost, particularly in this direction. It is a loss the mother can by no means afford to sustain.

Mothers sometimes object that their young sons bring them the most shocking or absurd stories which they have heard in school or elsewhere. The mother who gives one moment's serious thought to such a situation will be forced to the conclusion that for her to hear such tales is nothing compared to the child's hearing them, and that his coming to his mother is proof of his own innocence. It is surely her first duty, no matter how difficult or unsavory the task, to sift out the wrong from the right, to show the child wherein the story is absurd, wicked, and harmful. At such a crisis the mother should be very careful not to show any offence because the child has brought her the story. She may condemn the story as severely as she likes, but she must be careful that the child does not feel himself included in the condemnation. She must also be careful in denying the story not to deny the germ of truth which it will contain, or the child may conclude that she is talking against the facts, and is either ignorant or trying to conceal the truth. Many a mother has said in despair, "My boy of nine knows more about these things than I know myself."

It would be a great mistake to let the boy hear such a confession, as his very best safeguard is his confidence in the knowledge of his mother, or whoever assumes the duty of instructing him in these matters.

TELLING THE TRUTH

Should the mother tell pleasant but totally false stories as to the origin of the child,--or should she tell the truth?

It is generally safer to tell the truth. Excepting with very young children the fiction is not long believed, and a course of deception, having been entered upon, oftentimes proves a stumbling block in the way of later veracity. It is so much easier to go on telling fairy-tales. Moreover, the truth, properly conveyed, is far more beautiful than any fairy-tale.

The parent must not forget that the child's mind is a blank page upon which any picture may be drawn, and that the child sees only what is presented to him. The thousand problems, the thousand troubles and fears, and all the knowledge of evil that burden the mind of the adult are entirely absent from that of the child. He sees only the one shining fact, that he was once a part of his dear mother, nourished and protected by her until he was ready to open his eyes on the big world. The child has very little interest in details as a rule; and how to meet the demand for them, should it arise, will be considered later.

If the mother tells the story of the stork bringing the newcomer to the home, or of the doctor carrying him in his pocket, or the apothecary selling him over the counter, the child very soon learns that this is not true. He gets an inkling of the truth, understands that he has been deceived, and according to his age, his nature, and what he has heard, he will draw his conclusions as to why his mother did not tell him the truth.

Mothers often ask whether there is any more reason for refraining from the stork fiction than from the Santa Claus one. When Santa Claus is found out, the whole thing is generally understood as a joke, a pleasant sort of fairy tale. There was nothing hidden behind the fiction. In the other case, if the child chances somewhere to hear the facts stated in a coarse manner, he will be likely to feel instinctively that the new tale is the true one, and will naturally conclude that the pretty fable was told to conceal a most unsavory truth. His first impression of the real facts will in such a case be ugly and--in a deep sense--false. It will hurt his sensibilities, or arouse his lower nature, according to his temperament.

The mother can guide herself by a rule which has exceptions but which in the main holds good: The child able to ask a question is able to understand the answer.

This is by no means saying that all the facts should be stated at once. That would be absurd. The question asked should be answered as simply as possible, the parent remembering that children's questions are usually more profound to the hearer than to the asker. It is difficult for the adult not to read into the child's chance question all the profundity of his own years of experience, and the mother who approaches this subject with dread is almost invariably astonished and relieved to find how easily the child is satisfied.

Where the child asks by chance or design a question beyond his comprehension, or one that the parent is not ready to answer, he can be put off temporarily with the promise to explain another time. The child may forget all about it. If not, then the promise must be kept; and the very fact that the child remembers shows that he is thinking, and therefore ought to be helped. If the child asks questions which the mother feels sure he is not ready to have answered, she can promise to tell him when he gets older, explaining that he could not understand now. In such cases, however, the mother should always manifest a willingness to tell him something; she should talk with him enough to make him feel sure she will keep her promise. He should never be allowed to forget that he can go to his mother as frankly as to his own heart, with the certainty of finding sympathy and aid. And she should not let him forget that he is not to seek information from outside sources, such information being unreliable.

ON NATURE STUDY

Since the most beautiful and ideal way of presenting the facts of the renewal of life is through nature-study, a few words as to the handling of this interesting topic may be helpful to some mothers.

In all nature-work with the child, the subjects treated should be made interesting and beautiful. This cannot be too strongly insisted upon. The child has a right to the pleasure, the elevation of sentiment, the play of imagination which the contemplation of nature is able to give in such a peculiar degree. He has a right to the romance of the flower, cloud, bird, fish, animal life, plant life, in all their ramifications. It is a part of his soul-development. Consequently, whatever is done for him should be done in such a way as not to hurt his sensibilities. His pleasure in nature should be increased, not lessened, as a result of his study.

As his knowledge expands his interest should deepen. This will almost never be the case where the first instruction is purely technical. Nothing, for instance, has deadened the interest of children in plant life so much as the study of botany. This is because the school methods have been wrong, the work being almost always approached from the wrong end. It is because the learner's mind is dammed up by difficult and to him empty technical terms. As a consequence, the course of its flow in this direction is stopped, and instead of a clear stream leaping joyfully through the woods and meadows finally to reach the great goal of the boundless ocean, it resembles rather a motionless pond, the surface of which is covered with lifeless and unlovely debris. Naturally the child seeks to escape from this uninteresting and dead pool by turning his mental energies in other directions, and too often he loses interest forever, and with it the pleasure and the vast profit that might have come to him from a different conception of the subject.

Facts about the life of the plant should be abundantly presented, and the facts as collected and told to-day are well-nigh inexhaustible as well as fascinating. True stories of plant life can be, and should be, as interesting as any other stories. Technical terms should be used at first with great restraint, and, as a rule, only where they are obviously convenient or of such universal application that they are a distinct help in developing a sense of the continuity of living things. Those that are used should be so skilfully introduced, and their meaning so thoroughly digested, that they do not seem like technical terms.

Perhaps an illustration will make this point clearer. A child who loves flowers goes to school; he is given one of his favorites and told to pull it to pieces, look at its different parts, and label them with such words as petals, sepals, pistil, stamens; to these are presently added calyx, corolla, monopetalous, polypetalous, innate, adnate, indehiscent, etc., until the child's mind resembles a lumber room of senseless rubbish, in which the flower is buried and lost. To a sensitive child this process is exceedingly painful. He often feels as though he were murdering some helpless thing he had loved, and conceals his tears and his heartache for fear of being laughed at. Less sensitive children are soon wearied and disgusted, and the love for nature which might have been aroused in them, to the sweetening and steadying of their whole after-life, receives a fatal check.

While the child's love for flowers, and his sentiment concerning them, should not be harmed by his plant work, on the other hand a certain tendency to weak sentimentality wherever encountered should be restrained. He should not be a mere receptacle for dry ashes nor yet a mush of sentimentality. The wise leader will discover the broad middle course where love of the flower shall be deepened, and, as it were, broadened, by knowledge of its wonderful structure and functions. These can be well understood without so much as one technical term, though the skilful introduction of a few helpful words will not detract at all from the pleasure of the study, and will be most convenient.

The universality of life and mind and soul, the universality of the methods of their manifestations even, the unity of life,--nothing by itself, everything going out into and permeating everything else,--this great truth, which ought to burst upon the young mind with controlling force at a critical period later, should have its way prepared in childhood.

So far as technical terms are concerned, the child will gladly take them--in small doses--when he understands the things they represent,--that is, when the knowledge comes before the label; and when he recognizes their convenience in grouping the different varieties and species so that their relations to themselves and to other plants can be kept in the mind with a minimum of exertion.

The time comes when the analysis of the flower can be as interesting as any part of the work, if it has been preceded by other information and if it is pursued intelligently and delightfully. To illustrate again. The wild rose looked at simply as a thing of beauty and perfume becomes yet more interesting to the child who watches the bee gather its golden pollen and its luscious nectar. There is a bond of union now between the fragile flower and its winged guest that begets an altruism which later becomes normally the corner-stone of character. When the graceful tribute of the bee to the flower is presently understood, and the child learns that the seeds of the flower have to thank the bee for their life, the mind expands yet more, and glows at the thought of this relationship in which each of these charming creatures practically preserves the life of the other.

Now, too, the thought that the seed, the child of the plant, is at the heart of every flower, that it is for this nascent life, this new venture into the great world, that the blossom unfolds in beauty and sheds its perfume on the summer air, yet more expands the joyous interest taken in the blossom. The mind, through a knowledge of these facts, can leap out into wider spaces of feeling and imagination. Thus every truth the child learns about the rose in those first tender years ought to add to his poetic conception of it. Thus he should learn his rose until the time comes when its relation to certain other plants will be full of meaning and full of interest. Perhaps the child has studied the apple blossom, the strawberry flower, the peach blossom in this same delightful way. With a very little help he will recognize the similarity of all three to the rose. He will be delighted to know that these are as truly related as they seem to be, that they are indeed cousins in one charming family. How they came to be so different will be a natural question, the answer to which will involve the latest and most valuable scientific discoveries. Indeed, in studying nature we should begin with the latest discoveries of science, which are biological and vital, and end with man's earlier efforts toward knowledge,--that is, with classification and nomenclature. When the child knows his plants he may be interested in their relationships and willing to do the necessary drudgery toward establishing them. If not, it doesn't matter, he has the really vital part of the subject, the part that will best help him toward understanding all life, his own included.

It is to foster a high sentiment toward the life of the plant that the numerous so-called unscientific botanies which crowd the book-stores to-day are so valuable, and the numbers that are sold testify to the interest this side of the subject awakens. What technical botany has anything like the sale of these less technical books? So far as the real development of the world at large is concerned they are of inestimably more use than the technical works, though of course those were the stern Puritan parents who have given rise to this flock of lovely non-puritanical children, and without which they of course could not have existed.

The technical botanies indeed have their use to-day, and it can be confidently expected that they will be more used than ever before, because of the large numbers who have had their interest quickened and a desire to know more awakened. Those who would have found botany interesting in spite of the old methods will pursue it yet more eagerly under the new. Many who would have turned away from it entirely will continue their study into the technical works, while great numbers who have no leaning toward technical study and would have had nothing to do with botany under the old methods, under the new will assimilate the best truths the study of this subject is able to give, and so far from finding a wild rose less fragrant or less beautiful because of their close scrutiny of it, they will find it infinitely more so,--infinitely more rich in affording poetical thoughts, comparisons, and images.

What is true of plant life is equally true of animal life. The first attention should be directed toward the animal itself, its life and habits, technical information coming afterwards.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEED

In dealing with the special subject of this book too much stress cannot be laid upon the value of associating the phenomena of the renewal of life with all other vital phenomena, instead of divorcing it from them.

Two reasons why the subject of reproduction has such undue prominence in the minds of many people are, first, the manner in which it has been made conspicuous through concealment; and second, the fact that when spoken of at all, it has been treated as a unique phenomenon unrelated to anything else. These are not the only reasons, but they are strong ones, and their existence is quite unnecessary.

Education, therefore, should remove both of these stumbling-blocks. The first one is easily removed, though the value of its removal depends entirely upon the manner in which that removal is accomplished. The second is also easily removed, the only difficulty being how to do it in the most helpful manner. The problem, then, for the instructor to solve is, how fully to acquaint the child with the phenomena of the reproductive life without making the subject unduly prominent.

This can well be done by interesting him in all the phenomena of living things, and allowing the reproductive function to take its place, not as something alone and different from everything else, but as one in a series of vital phenomena, all equally important and all interesting; not as something peculiar to human life or to the higher animals, but belonging equally to every living thing, whether animal or plant, and manifesting itself in the same way everywhere. Nor is this as difficult as at first glance it may seem. Indeed it is not difficult at all if one can begin with the young child, building little by little the foundation upon which later to erect a noble superstructure.

But what about those children who are no longer in their infancy? How are they to be taught?

In practically the same way, with some modification of method.

Since the aim here is to present the subject from the beginning, the first succeeding chapters will deal with it as applied to the young child. Following this, methods for use with older children will be discussed.

Objects to be accomplished with the younger children in the study of the plant.

To make them feel that the plants are living things with activities like other living things.

To convey a clear idea of the true relation of seed to plant. This can be amplified later to cover the reproductive phenomena of human life.

To give them a foundation for understanding the relation of father to child, when the time comes to explain that.

Some children naturally think of the plant as alive; they endow it with thought, feeling, and emotion; talk to it, consult it, caress it. Others do not. In both cases it is of value to the child to know the deeper truths concerning the life of the plant. In the one case it will steady sentimentality and guard against later loss of interest, in the other it will stimulate imagination and foster a high type of sentiment.

An easy and effective way to begin the study of the plant is to watch it as it sprouts from the seed. Since a large seed, easy to see and simple in structure, is best, an ordinary bean answers the purpose admirably, particularly as the bean has the convenient habit of rising up above the ground when it sprouts, the development of the embryo proceeding in full view. Any of the common varieties will answer the purpose, though of course the larger the bean the more easily it can be observed.

A child of three or four will be interested in watching a seed grow. The first season he may get only one idea, the seed grows into a plant. The next season the experiment may be repeated with as much of the story of the plant added as the little one can understand. Thus Spring after Spring the child plants his seeds and watches them grow, constantly adding to his store of knowledge about them, until the story of the plant and its seed is as familiar to him as any fairy-tale, and has gone into his consciousness to stay there forever. Let us examine the bean, then, and see what can be learned from it, the information thus obtained to be shared with the child as fast as his age and his power of understanding permit.

First let us examine the dry bean. It is hard, so hard that we can scarcely bite it. Put it to soak in tepid water, leaving it over night. Next day look at the changes that have taken place in it. The first thing we notice is that it has swollen until it is twice as large as it was, being now soaked full of water. It is also softer than it was. Its outer skin during the process of soaking has loosened, being no longer firmly attached to the body of the bean. This skin, being unable to stretch, soon splits open by the swelling of the bean inside. We can easily slip it entirely off.

Having done this let us take a good look at the bean that is now out of its skin. We see that it is composed of two thick parts which are joined together at only one end. These two thick parts which make the bulk of the bean are called seed-leaves .

Just at the point where they seem to be joined together there is a tiny flat white object. Looking closely at this we discover it to be a plant consisting of two minute leaves and a little blunt tip. As a matter of fact, the two seed-leaves are not attached directly to each other, but each is attached to this tiny plant, or embryo, as it is called. The word "embryo" is a valuable one to use later, and its precise meaning can easily be fixed by always calling the young plant tucked away in the seed the embryo. The difficulty of learning new words does not lie in their length, but in not knowing what they mean. A child who has been to the circus has no trouble in remembering the word "elephant," and the child who frequently hears the word "embryo" spoken in connection with the plant concealed between the cotyledons quickly and unconsciously learns it.

Place some of the soaked beans on damp cotton, and plant others in a pot of earth, or, if it is Summer, in the garden. Those sprouted in the house in the Winter must be kept warm. In a short time the little white embryo tucked away in the bean begins to grow. We say the bean sprouts. As the embryo develops, its little blunt tip grows down into the ground and gives off roots. At the same time its two tiny white leaves grow large and green, coming out from the seed-leaves into the air and sunshine. As the stem lengthens the seed-leaves are lifted up above the ground along with the embryo. The bean thus seems to come out of the ground, and children are very apt to want to cover it up. But it has not really unplanted itself. The lower part of the stem and the roots hold it firmly in the earth.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet