p. 11 | The Training of Children by Elisabeth Burns-Howell

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 7, 1913

The Training of Children

By Elisabeth Burns-Howell

By Elisabeth Burns-Howell

Value of Symbol and Story

How children do love a story! Nor is such a preference peculiar to childhood, altogether, for in this regard, “Men are but children of a larger growth.”

Note how the successful public speaker or teacher recognizes this element in the make-up of his hearers, when he wishes to drive home a telling point in his argument or instruction.

Does he spin an elaborate and extended web of theory, or deduce a long array of abstract principles, however correct and demonstrable, upon those phases of his theme which he wishes most to impress?

Quite the contrary. He knows there is no surer way of killing interest. So he minimizes the amount of theory presented, and packs his discourse with concrete example, with objective illustration, with plain pictures for the imagination, and pertinent phrases to catch the ear — thus locking in the memory by numerous familiar tokens the new, and it may be hitherto unwelcome, concept.

The Saviour applied this method in its highest degree of excellence, in His teaching, by means of parables.

What clear imagery, what complete mental pictures, allied to the perfect moral precept or spiritual inference, does the mind recall at mention of the sower, the tares, the leaven, the hid treasure, the pearl of great price, the good samaritan, the lost sheep, the good shepherd, the talents, the ten virgins, etc. “From the known to the unknown” and “from the concrete to the abstract” are trite, but none the less true, principles of pedagogy.

And every mother is or ought to be a natural pedagog — she is certainly the first teacher that Nature provides, and the most constant.

Work of woman?—school work; the home is her school, All Nature her primer, her Bible the rule That she solves problems by; she teaches and learns Life-lessons in patience and power by turns.

Now since she must and does teach, whether graciously and effectively, or unwillingly and irksomely — “as a slave scourged to his dungeon” — depends largely upon the methods employed.

I remember how as Froebel students in training for the art of kindergarten — for that beautiful system of child training is truly an art — it was impressed upon our minds that there were two distinctions in motherhood — physical and spiritual. Both phases may and should be included in the same individual, but often the reverse is true.

The veriest Hottentot is capable of physical motherhood, that is, she bestows upon the child his physical or animal being with such faculties of a higher order as he may or may not possess. But to pass beyond the mere animal or bodily existence and its needs to the development of the higher side of the child life, to minister to the unfolding mentality, to lead the ascending soul in its upward process of expansion, to kindle the awakening spirit,—this is spiritual motherhood.

It may be found in a high state of perfection in the antiquated spinster, even, who mothers the tiny tots in the village school; and be wholly lacking in the brusque, material sort of individual who is too busy providing for the bodily needs of her brood, to be “bothered” with trying to teach them. She leaves that to the teacher at school, or in the church, because “that’s their business,—housekeeping’s mine.”

Who has not seen the look of disappointment on a little inquisitive, upturned face, as some really deep question agitated the tender mind, when mother was “too busy”—she seems always too busy to answer or explain—“Run along now with your nonsense,” or “Don’t bother me with your questions, ask your teacher,” etc.? Is it small wonder such mothers lose the confidence of their children in later years, at a time when such confiding would often prove their salvation?

Now this may seem an exaggerated type. In these days of mothers’ clubs, child study circles, etc., her number is diminishing, we are happy to note. But memory will furnish you with more than one such example, if you will take a little excursion with her into the past. At least it is so in my case. Through some seven years of public school work, how many women I recall who were willing enough to cook and sew and wash and iron for their children, and did it well, too; but to tell them stories — O, dear, no! they simply couldn’t, and — “What did the children go to school for if it wasn’t to learn, and what was the teacher paid for if the mothers had to do the teaching?”

In those days the child study leaven was just beginning to work, and the result of our efforts as teachers, to interest mothers in the observation of the mental and moral characteristics of their offspring, with a view to a better coöperation with the work of the school, was sometimes amusing, if its real meaning had not been too tragic.

However, it is not for the indifferent home teacher that these lines are penned — she is simply referred to as an example of warning in passing — but as an effort to be of some little help to that legion of the faithful who cease not to toil for their precious charges day and night —

“To fashion fair garments from foot up to head, To weave or to spin, and to bake daily bread.”

But excellent and necessary as this all may be, they do not stop here. Tho her heart is by the hearthstone, her eye is set heavenward, and thither she leads her little flock day by day.

“Rising up early,” the key-note of a glad good morning is sounded in a snatch of song to greet the new-born day. The children catch the humor, and start their little race merrily.

But Mary is inclined to grumble about the cold, so while they are all hurried through the ordeal of ablutions and the morning toilet, mother tells a little story of the Eskimo in his frozen home of ice and snow. This pleases Jimmie, in particular, for he has just learned a new Eskimo song at school, and is simply bursting with information on the habits and customs of the queer little dwellers of the North. So mother allows him to finish the story while she goes about the breakfast. Meanwhile Mary has finished lacing her shoes, and really feels quite comfortably glad that she doesn’t live in the frigid zone, where she “surely would freeze to death.”

So her little “grouch” against the crisp winter weather is much more effectually cured by this adroit lesson in contrasts than could have been effected by any amount of scolding for her fault-finding, or a lecture on the beauty and duty of a contented spirit.

Thus this wise mother manages her little brood tactfully, in all their childish vicissitudes. For example, Harriet, age five, is inclined to greediness. So while she “helps” mother at the baking, and begs for “just one more cooky”—she has already had three—she is kindly, even laughingly, tho none the less firmly, refused, with the remark that she “had better look out or she’ll be like Naughty Nannie.” Now Harriet has had experience with mother’s stories, so a hint is sufficient to cause the cooky to immediately pass into oblivion, and she pricks up her ears for the narrative.

(Concluded next week)