Heart and Soul by Maveric Post Part 17

As the heart of a child naturally begins developing before the soul feelings, let us talk about that first. And when we speak about the "heart," it is, of course, understood that we are not referring to the physical organ which pumps blood, but to that part of human nature which responds to affection and sympathy.

The heart of a child--what a mysterious, wonderful, sensitive, beautiful thing it is! How much it gives and how much it is capable of receiving!

And the one thing it wants most--the one it craves and hungers for, as an essential of its nourishment and growth--is love, tender, devoted, unfailing love. From the earliest babyhood, straight on to the years of maturity, and still on, that is the greatest need of the human heart for its full and happy growth.

In early childhood, where is it to get that tender, devoted love, if not from its mother? Will it get it from a well-paid nurse or governess, whether Swede or Irish, French or English? In the vast majority of cases, the nurse or governess hasn't it to give. Love is something which can't be bought with money. Many a governess is a discontented person, who thinks she is worthy of better things. Many a nurse is thick-skinned and bad-tempered. A large proportion of both have much more tender feeling for their wages and their selfish interests, than they have for the child entrusted to their care. Should anything different be expected? It is not their child. In a few months, or a few years, it will pa.s.s out entirely from their existence.

Plenty of people can be hired to take care of your child's body and its physical needs--nurses, governesses, doctors; plenty of people can look after the education of its intellect; nurses, teachers, tutors, professors--but no one can be employed to take your place in feeding it devoted love, because that love is G.o.d-given and G.o.d has not given it to the others, but has given it to you.

The mother who turns over the heart life of her child to the keeping of a paid employee is guilty of a vital neglect. If later on, it should happen that the child proves lacking in affection, sympathy, consideration for others, and fails to fulfill the mother's fond aspirations, in that respect, she has herself to blame, first of all.

If this simple truth could be brought home to every modern mother, it might prove very helpful to the next generation.

It is not difficult to suggest how the affections find nourishment and development. And remember we are not yet considering the moral feelings, but only the heart.

Love begets love; love is largely mutual; love thrives on the companions.h.i.+p of the loved ones.

The tenderness, sympathy, devotion of a mother, very surely and quickly open out the heart feelings of her child and meet with warm response.

The more constant the companions.h.i.+p, the more constant the outpouring of affection on both sides, the more that side of the child nature grows.

And the more it grows,--with mother watching over it, helping and guiding, setting the example--the more it has to give to other people and things. It will love a doll, a kitten, a puppy dog, and show them the same sort of tender attention that it receives from mother. It will feel sorry for a poor little bird with a broken wing; it will feel sorry for father, when he comes home tired with a headache; it will put its arms about father's neck and want to kiss the headache away.

As it grows older, it should be allowed to feel, and made to feel, that mother's love and father's love will never desert it--that that love may be counted on, as a mainstay of life, through thick and thin, fair weather and foul, to the very end. This should not be left as a matter of uncertainty, or wonder, or doubt. No mother should ever say to a child, or allow it to imagine, that if it should be naughty or bad, or do this, that or the other, mother would cease to love it, or father would cease to love it. Such an idea is poisonous to the true feeling and conception of love, which should be cherished in every child by every mother. Mother should take pains to make the child feel,--and she should take pains to make father do so, too,--that no matter what it does, their love for it will never weaken or waver. It is not enough to a.s.sume that this will be taken for granted--it should be confided to the child, at opportune moments, as the most sacred of secrets, the holiest of promises. And no time is more opportune for the telling of it--no time means more or counts more--than one of those moments when the child has done wrong and is troubled in its conscience, and feels ashamed and forsaken. That is a splendid occasion, for a mother's love and a father's love to prove themselves, by making doubly plain that although they, too, may feel ashamed, the strength and warmth of their love is undiminished.

With nourishment and care of this kind the heart nature of a child is almost sure to grow and thrive. Its love will feel the influence of the big love it receives and want to respond in kind. In due time, it may say to itself, and confide as a holy secret to mother, that its feeling for her and father will never change, either, no matter what happens, to the end of time.

As regards consideration for others, with the constant help and guidance and example of a devoted mother, this can be made to grow and thrive, too, until it becomes a beautiful and sensitive part of second nature.

With such feelings nourished and cherished in this way, there is ground for hope that one of a parent's sweetest and most fundamental aspirations, in regard to the off-spring, will not be disappointed. The heart will be in the right place.

Now, on the other hand, it is only too easy to see what may happen and what does frequently happen, if this sacred responsibility of a mother is neglected.

Suppose the child is left, for the greater part of the time, day in and day out, to the companions.h.i.+p and care of a hired subst.i.tute, a nurse or governess? In the first place, the subst.i.tute is very apt to have no love at all, or what little it has, may be a very thin and shoddy variety. Frequently a nurse is unsympathetic, irritable, and selfish.

That does not provide either good nourishment, or good example, for the tender heart feelings.

When a child does wrong, the nurse scolds it and displays an ill-feeling which is the very contrary of tenderness and affection. That is bad enough, but it is not half so bad as the fact that this same repellent treatment is very often accorded a child when it has not done wrong at all, but has merely obeyed some spontaneous and beautiful impulse of its little nature, which an irritable nurse does not bother to understand.

The way that a nurse wishes a child to go is not usually prompted by any loving consideration for the heart feelings of the child, but a very selfish consideration for the convenience and prejudices of the nurse.

I have known many cases where the sensitive feelings of a little boy or girl have been turned to violent dislike by a nurse, or a governess. For days and weeks and months they have been obliged to live in the constant companions.h.i.+p and under the constant influence of an antipathy which sours and freezes their affections. I have known cases where a nurse, in order to achieve her own ends and relieve herself of trouble, has told a child to lie quietly in bed, when the light goes out, or a big and horrible bugaboo will creep out of the darkness and spring upon it. In such cases, the nurse takes good care to keep the child from giving a hint of this to mother or father, under pain of equally terrifying consequences. I have friends to-day, grown up men and women, who cannot go into a dark room, anywhere, without a s.h.i.+ver and shudder of nameless dread, which began with that same black bugaboo.

I have known countless cases, where a nurse has said to a child, who has done something wrong or annoying: "I don't love you any more. I don't like you now at all." And I have known countless cases where mothers, themselves, have said and acted the same thing. And the effect of that is to belittle and corrupt in the child's heart a bigger and deeper conception of love, as a loyal and steadfast thing, with no string attached to it. If a nurse, or a mother, can withdraw her love, for a slight cause, then a child when it grows up can expect to do the same; a wife can withdraw her love from her husband, if he does something to displease her; a husband from his wife; a son and a daughter from their parents; a sister from her brother. How sad that seems, at first, and how it hurts! But little by little, as one sees and learns, and as the twig is bent--do not many up-to-date young people adapt themselves very comfortably to that belittled conception of love? Do not the divorce courts and remarriages and scattered children and the talk and acts of emanc.i.p.ated women give ample evidence of it?

How glibly a certain kind of woman talks about sons and daughters lacking affection, and being so selfish, and so inconsiderate of others!

How many of those women have taken the trouble to consider whether the heart feelings of those sons and daughters were nourished and cherished and guided, by the devotion of a loving mother?

This is a woefully inadequate sketch of one of the most important elements of life, one of the most vital factors in the formation of human character, about which volumes might be written. It may be enough, however, to suggest reflection and a better understanding on the part of some mothers, well-intentioned, but confused by progressive theories, who are really in need of help.

We may now move on to the moral and spiritual feelings.

The most casual observer has no difficulty in noting the fact that most children to-day are lacking in discipline, obedience, respect, consideration for others, and many other qualities, which have been regarded as essential to a well-bred person. There has been no end of talk about it lately, as we know.

As far as I have been able to learn, there is a fairly general consensus of opinion that this is due to a lack of the proper kind of early training in the home. As often as this question has come up in my presence, it has always been answered readily and confidently to this same effect, and the answer has met with unanimous approval of men and women alike.

But I have never heard one single woman attempt to explain how it is that, with all the emanc.i.p.ation, and higher education, and scientific enlightenment, which has been placed at her disposal, modern mothers should fail to give their children a better training than ever, instead of a worse. Is it good for the children? No, of course not, they admit.

Don't modern mothers love their children? How absurd! Every mother loves her children--more than a man can understand. Then why is it modern children don't receive proper training by their modern mothers? Oh, well, a good many women, nowadays, have so many other things to do, they haven't the time. Are these other things more important than the welfare of their children? Not that--nothing could be more important. Then, why--?

If anybody gets that far with the average modern woman, he has done very well. She usually shrugs her shoulders, tells you not to be silly and parries with some feeling remarks about husbands and fathers. What do they do? And how do they do it? And who's really to blame?

If you ask a modern man the same question, and no women are present, he may express himself confidentially, that most women, nowadays, are so fed up on civic committees, or recreation centers--bridge parties or pink teas--uplift movements or school boards--golf, tennis, automobiling--that they don't know what's going on in their own homes.

They have advanced ideas about everything--princ.i.p.ally themselves. When it comes to the children, their advanced ideas result, pretty much, in letting them get along without any home training at all.

The women, when left to themselves, usually have little trouble in convincing themselves that if men had the proper kind of love for their wives and showed them the consideration and devotion which every feminine heart craves and is ent.i.tled to, there would be no trouble at all about the home. Every true woman would be found to respond magnificently. In nearly every case, the fault begins with the man--in his neglect and selfishness--and then man-fas.h.i.+on, he turns around and tries to lay it at the door of the woman. And so forth and so on.

But again, no one attempts to suggest, or explain, why it is that the modern husband, who is better educated and more enlightened than husbands ever were before, should be behaving so badly. It is enough to agree and expatiate on the fact, without countless examples, that that is how it is.

And the average mother, to-day, will be found expressing the fervent hope that her son will not grow up to be as self-centered and neglectful of his wife, as most husbands are.

The effect of such talk, naturally, is to becloud the point at issue and confuse the mind. The point is that even in the minds of the women, the unseemly behavior of young people of both s.e.xes is due to a lack of proper training in childhood. No enlightened woman believes, or claims, that two wrongs make a right. She does not believe that a man could, or should, take the place of a mother in dealing with children. She does not believe that he should become soft and effeminate, for the tender training of infants, but on the contrary, should be energetic and manly, for the battle of success.

As far as the children are concerned, she cannot but admit that the immediate responsibility has nowhere else to rest but in her. If she chooses to pa.s.s it over to a nurse or governess, that is her affair. It is for her to engage or discharge the nurse and governess as she sees fit. And it is rare indeed to find a mother anywhere who would think of allowing any interference with what she considers her fundamental right.

If she neglects her responsibility, or fails in it, and the results are more or less disastrous, it is a very feminine excuse, to argue that she has a selfish and inconsiderate husband. The care of the children was her affair, not his; both herself and nature agree upon insisting that this should be so.

In this connection, therefore, it is to the mothers, princ.i.p.ally, that we should address ourselves. At some other time, we may, if we choose, enter upon a discussion of that complex and much confused question of husband and wife in their relation to each other.

Under present-day conditions, curiously enough, the first thing it seems necessary to ask a mother is this:

Did you ever stop to reflect upon the tremendous and wonderful importance which may attach to the bringing up of one single child? Even if your heart feelings are rather anemic and your soul-feelings have become so muddled and confused by practical considerations that you no longer get any real message or inspiration from those two divine sources, yet you still have left a modern and enlightened brain. Even that is enough to make you almost dizzy at the thought of this thing, if you will pause long enough to give it careful attention.

A modern battles.h.i.+p, or an airplane, or an automobile, is a vastly complicated and efficient piece of machinery. If you, yourself, left to your own resources, had the ability to turn out a complete battles.h.i.+p of the most improved design, you would doubtless consider that you had achieved something to be immensely proud of. But the greatest battles.h.i.+p on earth is not one-hundredth part as complicated and efficient a piece of machinery as your little son. And one of a dozen different faculties with which your son is equipped--the power of memory, for instance--is infinitely more intricate and more wonderful than anything and everything about a battles.h.i.+p put together.

You might have an ambition to paint a beautiful picture, or compose beautiful music, or write beautiful poetry, or do something else with your life which you deem to be useful or beneficial to your fellow men.

But by cheris.h.i.+ng such ambitions in your son and transmitting to him all that is best in your own self, this same result may be obtained for the use and benefit of your fellow men. And in addition to that, you will have given to the world a wonderful human being, who may be able to achieve many bigger and better things than you could hope to do. More than that, your son may be able to transmit the ambitions and feelings which you have given him, to his children and their children, until your one achievement in making a splendid son, may expand and multiply into a wonderful lot of men and women, each and every one of whom may achieve more useful and beautiful things for the benefit of mankind than you could hope to do. All this may readily come about, if you apply yourself unsparingly to the unique and glorious task of making your son the right kind of man.

This is only one part of the wonder. If you are willing to devote your heart and soul to this one task, another recompense is in store for you--a mult.i.tude of sublime recompenses. Each and every fine and beautiful thing your son does, as long as you live, will fill you with deeper gladness, more intense joy, than anything you yourself could possibly accomplish, through your own efforts. That is the crowning miracle of a mother's love and every mother who loves her own with all her heart, knows that it is eternally true. Just to look at your son and feel that he is fine and right and worthy of all the love you have lavished on him, is to taste an exquisite contentment, to which no other kind of earthly pleasure is comparable.

And this same feeling of contentment will be waiting to steal into your heart upon the coming of your son's children--each and every one. Your mother's love will find a renewal of its glory in your grandchildren.

For they, too, have in them the same mysterious spirit of you which you cherished in your son. And so, as you sit back, in old age, in brooding contentment over the young lives, so full of possibilities, you may reflect, in the sweetest way imaginable, that it is going on indefinitely, this essence of you and yours, on and on, to the end of time, fulfilling on earth the unfathomed but divine purpose of the all-wise Creator.

People whose interest in life is centered in self-indulgence and material pleasure, may regard with dread the approach of old age; but not so a mother, whose deepest feelings have gone unreservedly to her children. To her it will come smiling, with the radiance of that most beautiful of all periods--a golden Indian summer.

Take it all in all--for the reasons we have suggested and many others--the bringing up and giving to the world of a fine human being, the endeavor to make that human being as nearly right as possible, is the most important, the most profoundly significant undertaking that exists on earth. The all-wise Creator has entrusted that work, in a most beautiful and soul-stirring way, to mother love, the deepest and strongest feeling of which humanity is capable.

If a mere man will devote the greatest part of his energies, day in and day out, year in and year out, to making pictures, or making stoves, or making money, to support the family,--how can a mother be unwilling to devote as much of her energy to this sacred task, which she knows is of more vital consequence than any material thing?

Would that some one might be found to carry this message to every mother in the land--some one whose voice is so tender and true and appealing, that it might find its way straight to the core of their hearts and souls--clearing up the tangle of confused notions which the s.e.xless reason and self-interest of progressive intellects have been making!

In the meanwhile, we must be content to see things as they are and pin our faith to the belief that, as the baleful effects of the current misunderstanding become more and more apparent, the mother love, of its own accord, will become sufficiently alarmed, to throw aside its lethargy and seek to make amends by devoting itself more consistently to the welfare of its own.