654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sciousness of an injured self. This reflective element is not yet 

 moral ; the sense of injury may turn by and by into lasting ha- 

 tred. Yet it holds within itself possibilities of something higher. 

 But of this more when we come to envisage the child in his rela- 

 tion to authority. 



The same predominance of self, the same kinship with the 

 unsocial brute which shows itself in these germinal animosities, 

 is said to reappear in the insensibility or unfeelingness of chil- 

 dren. The commonest charge against children from those who 

 are not on intimate terms with them, and sometimes, alas ! from 

 those who are, is that they are heartless and cruel. 



That children often appear to the adult as unfeeling as a 

 stone is, I suppose, incontestable. The troubles which harass 

 and oppress the mother leave her small companion quite uncon- 

 cerned. He either goes on playing with undisturbed cheerful- 

 ness, or he betrays a momentary curiosity about some irrelevant 

 circumstances connected with the affliction which is worse than 

 the absorption in play through its tantalizing want of any genu- 

 ine feeling. Brothers and sisters may be ill ; but if the vigorous 

 little player is affected at all, it is only through loss of compan- 

 ions, if this is not more than made up for by certain advantages 

 of the solitary situation. If the mother is ill, the situation is 

 interesting merely as supplying him with new treats. A' little 

 boy of four, after spending half an hour in his mother's sick- 

 room, coolly informed his nurse: " I have had a very nice time; 

 mamma's ill ! " The order of the two statements is significant 

 of the child's mental attitude toward others' sufferings. If his 

 faithful nurse has her face bandaged, his interest in her torments 

 does not go beyond a remark on the "funniness" of her new 

 appearance. 



When it comes to the bigger human troubles this want of 

 fellow-feeling is still more remarkable. Nothing is more shock- 

 ing to the adult observer of children than their coldness and 

 stolidity in presence of death. While a whole house is stricken 

 with grief at the loss of a beloved inmate the child preserves his 

 serenity, being affected at most by a feeling of awe before a great 

 mystery. Even the sight of the dead body does not always excite 

 grief. Mrs. Burnett, in her interesting reminiscences of child- 

 hood, has an excellent account of the feelings of a sensitive and 

 refined child when first brought face to face with death. In one 

 case she was taken with fearsome longing to touch the dead body 

 so as to know what " as cold as death " meant ; in another, that of 

 a pretty girl of three with golden-brown eyes and neat, small 

 brown curls, she was impressed by the loveliness of the whole 

 scene, the nursery bedroom being hung with white and adorned 

 with white flowers. In neither case was she sorry, and could not 



