Bits about Home Matters. Helen Hunt Jackson
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Bits about Home Matters - Helen Hunt Jackson страница 8
Название: Bits about Home Matters
Автор: Helen Hunt Jackson
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4057664616951
isbn:
He looked very pale, almost as if he had had a fit of illness. No wonder. It was the whole battle of life fought at the age of four.
It was late in the afternoon of this the third day. Willy had been sitting in his little chair, looking steadily at the floor, for so long a time that his mother was almost frightened. But she hesitated to speak to him, for she felt that the crisis had come. Suddenly he sprang up, and walked toward her with all the deliberate firmness of a man in his whole bearing. She says there was something in his face which she has never seen since, and does not expect to see till he is thirty years old.
"Mamma!" said he.
"Well, dear?" said his mother, trembling so that she could hardly speak.
"Mamma," he repeated, in a loud, sharp tone, "G! G! G! G!" And then he burst into a fit of crying, which she had hard work to stop. It was over.
Willy is now ten years old. From that day to this his mother has never had a contest with him; she has always been able to leave all practical questions affecting his behavior to his own decision, merely saying, "Willy, I think this or that will be better."
His self-control and gentleness are wonderful to see; and the blending in his face of childlike simplicity and purity with manly strength is something which I have only once seen equalled.
For a few days he went about the house, shouting "G! G! G!" at the top of his voice. He was heard asking playmates if they could "say G," and "who showed them how." For several years he used often to allude to the affair, saying, "Do you remember, mamma, that dreadful time when I wouldn't say G?" He always used the verb "wouldn't" in speaking of it. Once, when he was sick, he said, "Mamma, do you think I could have said G any sooner than I did?"
"I have never felt certain about that, Willy," she said. "What do you think?"
"I think I could have said it a few minutes sooner. I was saying it to myself as long as that!" said Willy.
It was singular that, although up to that time he had never been able to pronounce the letter with any distinctness, when he first made up his mind in this instance to say it, he enunciated it with perfect clearness, and never again went back to the old, imperfect pronunciation.
Few mothers, perhaps, would be able to give up two whole days to such a battle as this; other children, other duties, would interfere. But the same principle could be carried out without the mother's remaining herself by the child's side all the time. Moreover, not one child in a thousand would hold out as Willy did. In all ordinary cases a few hours would suffice. And, after all, what would the sacrifice of even two days be, in comparison with the time saved in years to come? If there were no stronger motive than one of policy, of desire to take the course easiest to themselves, mothers might well resolve that their first aim should be to educate their children's wills and make them strong, instead of to conquer and "break" them.
The Reign of Archelaus.
Herod's massacre had, after all, a certain mercy in it: there were no lingering tortures. The slayers of children went about with naked and bloody swords, which mothers could see, and might at least make effort to flee from. Into Rachel's refusal to be comforted there need enter no bitter agonies of remorse. But Herod's death, it seems, did not make Judea a safe place for babies. When Joseph "heard that Archelaus did reign in the room of his father, Herod, he was afraid to return thither with the infant Jesus," and only after repeated commands and warnings from God would he venture as far as Nazareth. The reign of Archelaus is not yet over; he has had many names, and ruled over more and more countries, but the spirit of his father, Herod, is still in him. To-day his power is at its zenith. He is called Education; and the safest place for the dear, holy children is still Egypt, or some other of the fortunate countries called unenlightened.
Some years ago there were symptoms of a strong rebellion against his tyranny. Horace Mann lifted up his strong hands and voice against it; physicians and physiologists came out gravely and earnestly, and fortified their positions with statistics from which there was no appeal. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, whose words have with the light, graceful beauty of the Damascus blade its swift sureness in cleaving to the heart of things, wrote an article for the "Atlantic Monthly" called "The Murder of the Innocents," which we wish could be put into every house in the United States. Some changes in school organizations resulted from these protests; in the matter of ventilation of school-rooms some real improvement was probably effected; though we shudder to think how much room remains for further improvement, when we read in the report of the superintendent of public schools in Brooklyn that in the primary departments of the grammar schools "an average daily number of 33,275 pupils are crowded into one-half the space provided in the upper departments for an average daily attendance of 26,359; or compelled to occupy badly lighted, inconvenient, and ill-ventilated galleries, or rooms in the basement stories."
But in regard to the number of hours of confinement, and amount of study required of children, it is hard to believe that schools have ever been much more murderously exacting than now.
The substitution of the single session of five hours for the old arrangement of two sessions of three hours each, with a two-hours interval at noon, was regarded as a great gain. So it would be, if all the brain-work of the day were done in that time; but in most schools with the five-hours session, there is next to no provision for studying in school-hours, and the pupils are required to learn two, three, or four lessons at home. Now, when is your boy to learn these lessons? Not in the morning, before school; that is plain. School ends at two. Few children live sufficiently near their schools to get home to dinner before half past two o'clock. We say nothing of the undesirableness of taking the hearty meal of the day immediately after five hours of mental fatigue; it is probably a less evil than the late dinner at six, and we are in a region where we are grateful for less evils! Dinner is over at quarter past three; we make close estimates. In winter there is left less than two hours before dark. This is all the time the child is to have for out-door play; two hours and a half (counting in his recess) out of twenty-four. Ask any farmer, even the stupidest, how well his colt or his lamb would grow if it had but two hours a day of absolute freedom and exercise in the open air, and that in the dark and the chill of a late afternoon! In spite of the dark and the chill, however, your boy skates or slides on until he is called in by you, who, if you are an American mother, care a great deal more than he does for the bad marks which will stand on his week's report if those three lessons are not learned before bed-time. He is tired and cold; he does not want to study--who would? It is six o'clock before he is fairly at it. You work harder than he does, and in half an hour one lesson is learned; then comes tea. After tea half an hour, or perhaps an hour, remains before bed-time; in this time, which ought to be spent in light, cheerful talk or play, the rest of the lessons must be learned. He is sleepy and discouraged. Words which in the freshness of the morning he would have learned in a very few moments with ease, it is now simply out of his power to commit to memory. You, if you are not superhuman, grow impatient. At eight o'clock he goes to bed, his brain excited and wearied, in no condition for healthful sleep; and his heart oppressed with the fear of "missing" in the next day's recitations. And this is one out of the school-year's two hundred and sixteen days--all of which will be like this, or worse. One of the most pitiful sights we have seen for months was a little group of four dear children, gathered round the library lamp, trying to learn the next day's lessons in time to have a story read to them before going to bed. They had taken the precaution to learn one lesson immediately after dinner, before going out, cutting their out-door play down by СКАЧАТЬ