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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



asked his audience if they really 

 thought the children of to-day were 

 young savages, and quoted Emerson 

 and Longfellow as authorities on the 

 question. The Rev. S. Gr. Smith 

 takes up the point and expresses him- 

 self as follows: '"When it is stated 

 that the child has many points of 

 contact with primitive man, it is not 

 meant that the child is a savage, but 

 that ' in its immaturity ' we can learn 

 much respecting it from the study of 

 child races. The child has neither 

 the virtues nor the vices of the sav- 

 age, but he has many of the mental 

 characteristics. Embryology does not 

 teach that in prenatal life the child 

 passes into the form of every animal 

 in a menagerie, but that its life passes 

 through the stages that mark the 

 great subdivisions of all life. Nor 

 do the comparisons of the child with 

 primitive man imply that he must 

 pass through all the activities of sav- 

 age races, but that the development 

 of his faculties, the tendencies of his 

 desires, the state of his ignorance, all 

 illustrate the history of the develop- 

 ment of the race. Primitive man 

 may be understood by a study of the 

 child, and, conversely, the child may 

 be illustrated by primitive man." 



It must be borne in mind that the 

 child is in constant contact with its 

 elders, that it is subject to the re- 

 straints which they impose, and that 

 it lives more or less in an atmosphere 

 of affection and care. There is excel- 

 lent reason, therefore, why it should 

 not resemble primitive man in all 

 points. Its daily life is really con- 

 trolled and guided by a higher power. 

 In some cases there is even too much 

 control and guidance ; the conditions 

 are made too artificial, and the de- 

 velopment of the child's nature suf- 

 fers in consequence. When the age 

 of manhood or womanhood is reached 

 there is something lacking, precisely 

 because enough scope was not left 

 for the primitive or, as we may very 



properly say, the " savage " instincts 

 of childhood. A great French writ- 

 er, Joseph de Maistre, quotes a popu- 

 lar saying to the effect that " spoilt 

 children always turn out well." * So 

 far as there is any truth in it, the ex- 

 planation is that the spoilt child is 

 one that has a great deal of its own 

 way, and is left to work out the sav- 

 age and so acquire a sounder foun- 

 dation for its future life. In how 

 many of us are there not chained 

 savages that might have made their 

 escape in earlier years if they had 

 only been allowed ! It is a danger- 

 ous thing to try to make little angels 

 of children. 



The Rev. Mr. Smith is quite right 

 in what he says as to the predomi- 

 nance of the imagination in children, 

 this being another strong point of re- 

 semblance to primitive man. "The 

 beginnings of history and institu- 

 tions," he truly says, "can only be 

 understood when we remember that 

 races in their early development do 

 not have clearly marked activities 

 of imagination, reason, and memory. 

 They mix the three. So legends, 

 myths, and heroics are earnest efforts 

 of the undeveloped mind to make 

 objective the truth, and are not 

 clumsy lies at all." Applying this 

 to the child, the conclusion is that 

 "he must be fed through his imagi- 

 nation or he will not grow." A very 

 imaginative child is apt to be accused 

 of falsehood, when he simply fails to 

 distinguish between things imagined 

 and things remembered. Neither the 

 child nor the savage can concentrate 

 his attention, and to force either to 

 do so beyond a certain very limited 

 measure is simply to injure and de- 

 form such natural powers as he 

 possesses. The amount of mischief 

 which a dogmatic and over-logical 

 teacher, wholly ignorant of the psy- 

 chology of the child, can do is beyond 

 all calculation. 



* "Lcs enfans gates r6ussissent toujours." 



