THE CHILD by Mary Wood-Allen

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 11, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 24.

THE CHILD

By Mary Wood-Allen

By Mrs. Mary Wood-Allen, M.D.

A LITTLE human soul has come into the world. It is encased in a tenement-house of clay. It can see nothing, hear nothing. It is perfectly helpless. As we look at it lying there in its blank existence, we instinctively ask, “Why did it come into the world at all? and if there was a reason for its coming, why should it come so unable to help itself?”

Upon the practical answers to these questions largely depends the destiny of the race.

We may answer them briefly by saying that the human soul comes into the world (1) to be developed; (2) to teach others.

Each child is a separate individual as soon as he breathes his first breath of atmospheric air; he has individual rights and needs; and it is as obligatory upon those who have him in their care to recognize these rights and needs in his helpless infancy as it will be in his more assertive maturity. His training from the very outset should be to secure his development. He has not come here to entertain or amuse any one. He is not put here to be subject to any one’s arbitrary will or commands. He is put here to grow; and anything that interferes with his growth is inimical to his welfare.

His caretakers, in whatever they do for him from his earliest infancy, should ask themselves, “Is this for his best good? Will this promote his development?” There is no item of care, no fact of environment, that should not be subjected to this inquisition, and conduct should be based on the answer.

In these days of helpless infancy are to be laid the foundations of character. What are the virtues which we desire should flourish? What are the vices we wish to thwart? How shall we accomplish our desires? These queries cover the whole range of child-life and training. The catalogue of virtues would embrace all good qualities of body, mind, heart, and spirit; but they are summed up in a few words,—health, truthfulness, justice, courtesy, purity.

We shall find, if we observe closely, that the vices are often virtues misdirected or distorted; and that if we assiduously cultivate the virtues, pruning and checking redundant growths, we shall have comparatively little trouble with the vices.

But is not the child handicapped by the inheritance of ancestral sins? Let us consider a little this question of heredity. We sometimes excuse ourselves or our children for the manifestation of evil tempers on the ground that it is an inheritance, and therefore can not be avoided. Scripture tells us (Eze. 18:20) that we are each responsible for our own conduct, and that we are not justified in blaming our forefathers for our faults. If this is justice, then we must find in heredity no bar to our progress, no excuse for our faults. Is the child at birth simply a machine set to run in a fixed groove, from which no deviation can be made?—By no means. Neither is it a blank, waxen tablet, on which you may write anything you please. It is rather a bundle of capabilities, varying in character and in strength; and life in all its experiences will develop these varying capabilities in various ways.

Environment and heredity work together to create character. They can not be separated, and psychology to-day is telling us that it is not simply environment that makes us, but that part of our environment to which we pay attention. In the training of a child, then, our motive should be to arouse an interested attention to all that it is desirable for him to acquire.

Each child has in him material for good and evil. Each child has his own individuality through which the trainer must work to arouse attention. The problem of what motives to use, what methods to employ, is presented anew with each child, even in a family of children inheriting the same ancestry. A practical discussion of motives and methods will be the subject of this series of articles.

In addition to the purpose of his own development, we said the child came helpless into the world to be a teacher of others. Probably the greatest teacher of morals and manners is the little child. We are spurred on to the continual cultivation of the best in ourselves when we realize that keen little eyes are watching us, quick little ears are hearing us, and bright little minds are following our conduct to copy it in its minuteness of good or bad. Slips in grammar, deviations from exactitude of speech, awkward gestures, harsh tones, unkind words,—all are recognized by our consciousness most painfully when we see them repeated in our children. For their sake we are more careful, more truthful, more courteous; and so the unconscious child becomes the world’s most powerful teacher.