STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD. 357 



cliildren had not, one suspects, received mnch. systematic religious 

 instruction. They had perhaps gathered in a casual way the in- 

 formation that good people, when they die, are to go to a nice 

 place. Children pick up much from the talk of their better-in- 

 structed companions which they only half understand. In any 

 case it is interesting to note that they placed their heaven in the 

 country, the unknown beautiful region where all sorts of luxuries 

 grow. How like the idea of the happy hunting grounds to which 

 the American Indian consigns his dead chief ! One would have 

 been glad to examine these Boston children as to how they com- 

 bined this belief in going to the country with the burial of the 

 body in the city. 



In the case of children who pick up something of orthodox 

 religious creed the idea of going to heaven has somehow to be 

 grasped and put side by side with that of burial. How the child- 

 mind behaves here it is hard to say. It is probable that there are 

 many comfortable and stupid children who are not troubled by 

 any appearance of contradiction. As we saw in the remark of the 

 American child about the deacon, the child-mind may oscillate 

 between the indigenous idea that the man lives on in a sense un- 

 derground and the imported idea that he has passed into heaven. 

 Yet undoubtedly the more thoughtful kind of child does try to 



bring the two ideas into agreement. The boy C attempted to 



do this first of all by supposing that the people who went to heaven 

 (the good) were not buried at all ; and later by postponing the 

 going to heaven, the true entrance being that of the body by way 

 of the tomb. Other ways of getting a consistent view of things 

 are also hit upon. Thus a little girl of five years, probably start- 

 ing from the knowledge that it is the body which she interpreted 

 as the trunk which is put under ground, and perhaps following 

 the hint given by a drawing of cherub heads, thought that the 

 head only passed to heaven. A little boy of six, reflecting the 

 early process of human thought as still registered in such words 

 as spirit (cf. rrveVa), held that God took the breath to heaven. 



In what precise manner children imagine the entrance into 

 heaven to take place I do not feel certain. The legend of being 

 borne by angels through the air probably assists here. It has 

 been suggested to me that the theory entertained by many chil- 

 dren that old people shrink and become of the size of children is 

 connected with this thought about going to heaven. Just as we 

 arrive on earth as babies in the arms of angels, so growing small 

 again we are carried back from earth to heaven. This may be so 

 in certain cases, although some of my facts show that the child 

 thinks of old people as getting small without any direct reference 

 to death. 



Coming now to ideas of supernatural beings, it is to be noted 



