Your Child Today and Tomorrow | Page 5

not an indication of perversity in her
particular Johnny or Mary? How many know that these instincts are the
most useful and the most usable traits that the child has; that the
checking of these impulses may mean the destruction of individual
qualities of great importance in the formation of character? How many
know how wisely to direct these instincts without thwarting them?
How many mothers--good housewives--know anything at all about the
imagination, that crowning glory of the human mind? They admire the
poet's flights of fancy; but when, on being asked where his brother is,
Harry says, "He went off in a great, great, big airship," they feel the call
of duty to punish him for his lies!
Many of us have realized in a helpless sort of way that there is need for
expert knowledge in these matters, and have comfortably shifted the
responsibility to the teacher. Parents are often heard to say, when a
troublesome youngster is under discussion, "Just wait until he begins to
go to school." It is not wise to wait. There is much to be done before
the school can be thought of, or even before the kindergarten age is
reached. Indeed, a child is never too young to profit from the
application of thought and knowledge to his treatment.
Of course, the training value of the school's work is not to be
underestimated. The social intercourse that the child experiences there,
the regularity of hours, the teacher's personality, all have their favorable
influence in the molding of the child's character. But neither must we
overestimate the powers of the school. The school has the child but a
few hours a day, for barely more than half the year; the classes are
unconscionably large. We all hope that the classes will be made smaller,
but they never can be small enough, within our own times, for the

purpose of really effective moral training. The relations between
teacher and pupil can never be as intimate as are those of parent and
child. The teacher knows the child, as a rule, only as a member of a
group and under special circumstances; the parents alone have the
opportunity to know closely the individual peculiarities of the child;
they alone can know him in health and in sickness, in joy and in sorrow,
in his strength and in his weakness. The parents can watch their child
from day to day, year after year; whereas the teacher sees the child for a
comparatively short period of his development, and then passes him on
to another.
The time was--and for most of our children still is--when the teacher
had to know nothing but her "subjects"; the nature of the child was to
her as great a mystery as it is to the ordinary person who never learned
anything about it. She was supposed to deal with the "average" child
that does not exist, and to attempt the futile task of drawing the laggard
up to this arbitrary average and of holding the genius down to it. The
effort is being made to have the teacher recognize the individuality of
each child; but the mother is still expected to confine her ministrations
to his individual digestion.
In a dozen different ways the effective methods in the treatment of
children, at home or in school, in the church or on the playground,
depend upon knowledge and understanding, as is the case in all
practical activities. Instincts alone are never sufficient to tell us what to
do, notwithstanding the fact that so much really valuable work has been
achieved in the past without any special training.
It may be true that in the past the instincts of the child adapted him to
the needs of life. It may also be true that the instincts of adults adapted
them in the past to their proper treatment of children. We should realize,
however, that the conditions of modern life are so complex that few of
us know just what to do under given conditions unless we have made a
special effort to find out. And this is just as true of the treatment of
children as it is of the care of the health, or of the building of bridges. It
is for this reason that the results of child study are important to all who
have to do with children--whether as teachers or as parents, whether as

club leaders or as directors of institutions, whether as social workers or
as loving uncles and aunts.
It is impossible to guarantee to anyone that a study of child nature will
enable him or her to train children into models of good behavior.
Knowledge alone does not always produce the desired results;
nevertheless, an understanding of the child should enable those who
have to deal with him