STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 66 1 



rendering this little service the helper should not only be willing 

 but glad. 



Just as there are these sporadic growths of affectionate con- 

 cern and wish to please in relation to the mother and others, so 

 there is ample evidence of kindness to animals. The charge of 

 cruelty in the case of little children is indeed seen to be a gross 

 libel as soon as we consider their whole behavior toward the 

 animal world. 



I have touched above on the vague alarms which this animal 

 world has for tiny children. It is only fair to them to say that 

 these alarms are for the most part transitory, giving place to in- 

 terest, attachment, and fellow-feeling. In a sense a child may be 

 said to belong to the animal community, as Mr. Rudyard Kip- 

 ling's account of the Jungle prettily suggests. Has he not indeed 

 at first more in common with the dog and cat, the pet rabbit or 

 dormouse, than with that grown-up human community which is 

 apt to be so preoccupied with things beyond his understanding, 

 and in many cases at least to wear so unfriendly a mien ? We 

 must remember, too, that children as a rule know nothing of the 

 prejudices, of the disgusts, which make grown people put animals 



so far from them. The boy C was nonplussed by his mother's 



horror of the caterpillar. A child has been known quite spon- 

 taneously to call a worm " beautiful." 



As soon as the first fear of the strangeness is mastered a child 

 will take to the animal. A little boy of fifteen months quickly 

 overcame his fright at the barking of his grandfather's dog, and 

 began to share his biscuits with him, to give him flowers to smell, 

 and to throw stones for his amusement. This mastery of fear by 

 attachment takes a higher form when later on the child will 

 stick to his dumb companion after suffering from his occasional 

 fits of temper. Ruskin gives in his reminiscences a striking ex- 

 ample of this triumph of attachment over fear. When five years 

 old, he tells us, he was taken by the serving man to see a favorite 

 Newfoundland dog in the stable. The man rather foolishly 

 humored the child's wish to kiss Leo (the dog), and lowered him 

 so that his face came near the animal's. Hereupon the dog, who 

 was dining, resenting the interruption of his meal, bit out a piece 

 of the boy's lip. His only fear after this was lest Lion (the dog) 

 should be sent away.* 



Children will too at a quite early age betray the germ of a 

 truly humane feeling toward animals. The same little boy that 

 bravely got over his fear of the dog's barking would, when nine- 

 teen months old, begin to cry on seeing a horse fall in the street. 

 More passionate outbursts of pity are seen at a later age. A boy 



* Praeterita, pp. 105, 106. 



