The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought | Page 2

BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX I.--AUTHORITIES
INDEX II.--PLACES, PEOPLES, TRIBES, LANGUAGES
INDEX III.--SUBJECTS

CHAPTER I.
CHILD-STUDY.
Oneness with Nature is the glory of Childhood; oneness with

Childhood is the glory of the Teacher.--_G. Stanley Hall_.
Homes ont l'estre comme metaulx, Vie et augment des vegetaulx,
Instinct et sens comme les bruts, Esprit comme anges en attributs. [Man
has as attributes: Being like metals, Life and growth like plants, Instinct
and sense like animals, Mind like angels.]--Jehan de Meung.
The Child is Father of the Man.--Wordsworth.
And he [Jesus] called to him a little child, and set him in the midst of
them.--Matthew xviii. 2.
It was an Oriental poet who sang:--
"On parent knees, a naked, new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st, while
all around thee smiled; So live, that, sinking in thy last, long sleep,
Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep,"
and not so very long ago even the anthropologist seemed satisfied with
the approximation of childhood and old age,--one glance at the babe in
the cradle, one look at the graybeard on his deathbed, gave all the
knowledge desired or sought for. Man, big, burly, healthy, omniscient,
was the subject of all investigation. But now a change has come over
the face of things. As did that great teacher of old, so, in our day, has
one of the ministers of science "called to him a little child and set him
in the midst of them,"--greatest in the kingdom of anthropology is
assuredly that little child, as we were told centuries ago, by the prophet
of Galilee, that he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The child,
together with woman, who, in so many respects in which the essential
human characteristics are concerned, so much resembles him, is now
beyond doubt the most prominent figure in individual, as well as in
racial, anthropology. Dr. D. G. Brinton, in an appreciative notice of the
recent volume on Man and Woman, by Havelock Ellis, in which the
secondary sexual differences between the male and the female portions
of the human race are so well set forth and discussed, remarks: "The
child, the infant in fact, alone possesses in their fulness 'the chief
distinctive characters of humanity. The highest human types, as
represented in men of genius, present a striking approximation to the

child-type. In man, from about the third year onward, further growth is
to some extent growth in degeneration and senility.' Hence the true
tendency of the progressive evolution of the race is to become
child-like, to become feminine." (_Psych. Rev._ I. 533.)
As Dr. Brinton notes, in this sense women are leading
evolution--Goethe was right: _Das Ewig-weibliche zieht uns hinan_.
But here belongs also the child-human, and he was right in very truth
who said: "A little child shall lead them." What new meaning flashes
into the words of the Christ, who, after declaring that "the kingdom of
God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or,
There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you," in rebuke of the
Pharisees, in rebuke of his own disciples, "called to him a little child
and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you,
Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter
into the kingdom of heaven." Even physically, the key to the kingdom
of heaven lies in childhood's keeping.
Vast indeed is now the province of him who studies the child. In
Somatology,--the science of the physical characteristics and
constitution of the body and its members,--he seeks not alone to
observe the state and condition of the skeleton and its integuments
during life, but also to ascertain their nature and character in the period
of prenatal existence, as well as when causes natural, or unnatural,
disease, the exhaustion of old age, violence, or the like, have induced
the dissolution of death.
In Linguistics and Philology, he endeavours to discover the essence and
import of those manifold, inarticulate, or unintelligible sounds, which,
with the long flight of time, develop into the splendidly rounded
periods of a Webster or a Gladstone, or swell nobly in the rhythmic
beauties of a Swinburne or a Tennyson.
In Art and Technology, he would fain fathom the depths of those rude
scribblings and quaint efforts at delineation, whence, in the course of
ages, have been evolved the wonders of the alphabet and the
marvellous creations of a Rubens and an Angelo.

In Psychology, he seeks to trace, in childish prattlings and lore of the
nursery, the far-off beginnings of mythology, philosophy, religion.
Beside the stories told to children in explanation of the birth of a sister
or a brother, and the children's own imaginings concerning the little
new-comer, he may place the speculations of sages and theologians of
all races and