The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought Part 26

Fools and bairns should na see things half done.

--_Scotch Proverb_.

No one is born master.--_Italian Proverb_.

_Mother as Teacher_.

_Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu_ is a favourite dictum of philosophy; primitive peoples might, perhaps, be credited with a somewhat different crystallization of thought: _nihil est in puero quod non prius in parenti_, "nothing is in the child which was not before in the parent," for belief in prenatal influence of parent upon child is widely prevalent. The following remarks, which were written of the semi-civilized peoples of Annam and Tonquin, may stand, with suitable change of terms, for very many barbarous and savage races:--

"The education of the children begins even before they come into the world. The prospective mother is at once submitted to a kind of material and moral _regime_ sanctioned by custom. Gross viands are removed from her table, and her slightest movements are regarded that they may be regular and majestic. She is expected to listen to the reading of good authors, to music and moral chants, and to attend learned societies, in order that she may fortify her mind by amus.e.m.e.nts of an elevated character. And she endeavours, by such discipline, to a.s.sure to the child whom she is about to bring into the world, intelligence, docility, and fitness for the duties imposed by social life" (518. x.x.xI.

629).

Among primitive peoples these ceremonies, dietings, doctorings, tabooings, number legion, as may be read in Ploss and Zmigrodzki.

The influence of the mother upon her child, beginning long before birth, continued in some parts of the world until long after p.u.b.erty. The Spartan mothers even preserved "a power over their sons when arrived at manhood," and at the p.u.b.erty-dance, by which the Australian leaves childhood behind to enter upon man's estate, his significant cry is: "My mother sees me no more!" (398. 153). Among the Chinese, "at the ceremony of going out of childhood, the pa.s.sage from boyhood into manhood, the G.o.ddess of children 'Mother,' ceases to have the superintendence of the boy or girl, and the individual comes under the government of the G.o.ds in general."

That women are teachers born, even the most uncultured of human races have not failed to recognize, and the folk-faith in their ministrations is world-wide and world-old; for, as Mrs. Browning tells us:--

"Women know The way to rear up children (to be just); They know a simple, merry, tender knack Of tying sashes, fitting baby-shoes, And stringing pretty words that make no sense, And kissing full sense into empty words; Which things are corals to cut life upon, Although such trifles."

Intellectually, as well as physically,--as the etymology of the name seems to indicate,--the mother is the "former" of her child. As Henry Ward Beecher has well said, "the mother's heart is the child's school-room." Well might the Egyptian mother-G.o.ddess say (167. 261): "I am the mother who shaped thy beauties, who suckled thee with milk; I give thee with my milk festal things, that penetrate thy limbs with life, strength, and youth; I make thee to become the--great ruler of Egypt, lord of the s.p.a.ce which the sun circles round." In the land of the Pharaohs they knew in some dim fas.h.i.+on that "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."

The extensive role of the mother, as a teacher of the practical arts of life, may be seen from the book of Professor Mason (113). Language, religion, the social arts, house-building, skin-dressing, weaving, spinning, animal-domestication, agriculture, are, with divers primitive peoples, since they have in great part originated with her, or been promoted chiefly by her efforts, left to woman as teacher and instructor, and well has the mother done her work all over the globe.

The function of the mother as priestess--for woman has been the preserver, as, to so large an extent, she has been the creator, of religion--has been exercised age after age, and among people after people. Henry Ward Beecher has said: "Every mother is a priestess ordained by G.o.d Himself," and Professor Mason enlarges the same thought: "Scarcely has the infant mind begun to think, ere this perpetual priestess lights the fires of reverence and keeps them ever burning, like a faithful vestal" (112. 12).

Though women and mothers have often been excluded from the public or the secret ceremonials and observations of religion, the household in primitive and in modern times has been the temple, of whose _penetralia_ they alone have been the ministers.

_Imitation._

Tarde, in his monograph on the "Laws of Imitation," has shown the great influence exerted among peoples of all races, of all grades and forms of culture, by imitation, conscious or unconscious,--a factor of the highest importance even at the present day and among those communities of men most advanced and progressive. Speaking a little too broadly, perhaps, he says (541. 15):--

"All the resemblances, of social origin, noticed in the social world are the direct or indirect result of imitation in all its forms,--custom, fas.h.i.+on, sympathy, obedience, instruction, education, naive or deliberate imitation. Hence the excellence of that modern method which explains doctrines or inst.i.tutions by their history. This tendency can only be generalized. Great inventors and great geniuses do sometimes stumble upon the same thing together, but these coincidences are very rare. And when they do really occur, they always have their origin in a fund of common instruction upon which, independent of one another, the two authors of the same invention have drawn; and this fund consists of a ma.s.s of traditions of the past, of experiments, rude or more or less arranged, and transmitted imitatively by language, the great vehicle of all imitations."

In her interesting article on "Imitation in Children," Miss Haskell observes: "That the imitative faculty is what makes the human being educable, that it is what has made progressive civilization possible, has always been known by philosophical educators. The energy of the child must pa.s.s from potentiality to actuality, and it does so by the path of _imitation_ because this path offers the least resistance or the greatest attraction, or perhaps because there is no other road.

Whatever new and striking things he sees in the movements or condition of objects about him, provided he already has the experience necessary to apperceive this particular thing, he imitates" (260. 31).

In the pedagogy of primitive peoples imitation has an extensive _role_ to play. Of the Twana Indians, of the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, Rev. Mr. Eells observes: "Children are taught continually, from youth until grown, to mimic the occupations of their elders." They have games of ball, jumping and running races, and formerly "the boys played at shooting with bows and arrows at a mark, and with spears, throwing at a mark, with an equal number of children on each side, and sometimes the older ones joined in." Now, however, "the'boys mimic their seniors in the noise and singing and gambling, but without the gambling." The girls play with dolls, and sometimes "the girls and boys both play in canoes, and stand on half of a small log, six feet long and a foot wide, and paddle around in the water with a small stick an inch in thickness; and, in fact, play at most things which they see their seniors do, both whites and Indians" (437. 90, 91). Concerning the Seminoles of Florida, we are told: "The baby, well into the world, learns very quickly that he is to make his own way through it as best he may. His mother is prompt to nourish him, and solicitous in her care for him if he falls ill; but, as far as possible, she goes her own way and leaves the little fellow to go his." Very early in life the child learns to help and to imitate its elders. "No small amount," Mr. MacCauley tells us, "of the labour in a Seminole household is done by children, even as young as four years of age. They can stir the soup while it is boiling; they can aid in kneading the dough for bread; they can wash the 'koonti' root, and even pound it; they can watch and replenish the fire; they contribute in this and many other small ways to the necessary work of the home" (496. 497, 498).

Of the Indians of British Guiana, Mr. im Thurn reports: "As soon as the children can run about, they are left almost to themselves; or, rather, they begin to mimic their parents. As with the adults, so with the children. Just as the grown-up woman works incessantly, while the men alternately idle and hunt, so the boys run wild, playing not such concerted games as in other parts of the world more usually form child's play, but only with mimic bows and arrows; but the girls, as soon as they can walk, begin to help the older women. Even the youngest girl can peel a few ca.s.sava roots, watch a pot on the fire, or collect and carry home a few sticks of firewood. The games of the boy are all such as train him to fish and hunt when he grows up; the girl's occupations teach her woman's work" (477. 219). The children imitate their elders in other ways also, for in nearly every Indian house are to be seen toy vessels of clay; for "while the Indian women of Guiana are shaping the clay, their children, imitating them, make small pots and goglets" (477.

298). And in like manner have been born, no doubt, among other peoples, some of the strange freaks of art which puzzle the _connoisseurs_ in the museums of Europe and America.

Mr. Powers, speaking of the domestic economy of the Achomwi Indians of California, says: "An Achomwi mother seldom teaches her daughters any of the arts of barbaric housekeeping before their marriage. They learn them by imitation and experiment after they grow old enough to perceive the necessity thereof" (519. 271). This peculiar neglect, however, is not entirely absent from our modern civilization, for until very recently no subject has been so utterly overlooked as the proper training of young girls for their future duties as mothers and housekeepers. The Achomwi, curiously enough, have the following custom, which helps, no doubt, the wife whose education has been so imperfect: "The parents are expected to establish a young couple in their lodge, provide them with the needful basketry, and furnish them with cooked food for some months, which indulgent parents sometimes continue for a year or even longer; so that the young people have a more real honeymoon than is vouchsafed to most civilized people."

Among the Battas of Sumatra, "It is one of the morning duties of women and girls, even down to children of four and five years old, to bring drinking-water in the _gargitis_, a water-vessel made of a thick stalk of bamboo. The size and strength of growing girls are generally measured by the number of _gargitis_ they can carry" (518. XXII.

110).

Of the Kaffir children Theal informs us: "At a very early age they commence trials of skill against each other in throwing k.n.o.bbed sticks and imitation a.s.segais. They may often be seen enjoying this exercise in little groups, those of the same age keeping together, for there is no greater tyrant in the world than a big Kaffir boy over his younger fellows; when above nine or ten years old they practise sham-fighting with sticks; an imitation hunt is another of their boyish diversions"

(543. 220).

Among the Apaches, as we learn from Reclus: "The child remains with its mother until it can pluck certain fruits for itself, and has caught a rat by its own unaided efforts. After this exploit, it goes and comes as it lists, is free and independent, master of its civil and political rights, and soon lost in the main body of the horde" (523. 131).

On the Andaman Islands, "little boys hunt out swarms of bees in the woods and drive them away by fire. They are also expected regularly to collect wood." From their tenth year they are "accustomed to use little bows and arrows, and often attain great skill in shooting." The girls "seek among the coral-reefs and in the swamps to catch little fish in hand-nets." The Solomon Islands boy, as soon as he can walk a little, goes along with his elders to hunt and fish (326. I. 6). Among the Somali, of northeastern Africa, the boys are given small spears when ten or twelve years old and are out guarding the milk-camels (481 (1891).

163).

Of the Eskimo of Baffin Land, Dr. Boas tells us that the children, "when about twelve years old, begin to help their parents; the girls sewing and preparing skins, the boys accompanying their fathers in hunting expeditions" (402. 566). Mr. Powers records that he has seen a Wailakki Indian boy of fourteen "run a rabbit to cover in ten minutes, split a stick fine at one end, thrust it down the hole, twist it into its scut, and pull it out alive" (519. 118).

Among the games and amus.e.m.e.nts of the Andamanese children, of whom he says "though not borrowed from aliens, their pastimes, in many instances, bear close resemblance to those in vogue among children in this and other lands; notably is this the case with regard to those known to us as blind-man's buff, leap-frog, and hide-and-seek,"--Mr.

Man enumerates the following: _mock pig-hunting_ (played after dark); _mock turtle-catching_ (played in the sea); going after the Evil Spirit of the Woods; swinging by means of long stout creepers; swimming-races (sometimes canoe-races); pus.h.i.+ng their way with rapidity through the jungle; throwing objects upwards, or skimming through the air; playing at "duck-and-drakes"; shooting at moving objects; wrestling on the sand; hunting small crabs and fish and indulging in sham banquets, comparable to the "doll's feast" with us; making miniature canoes and floating them about in the water (498. 165).

_Education of Boys and Girls._

With the Dakota Indians, according to Mr. Riggs, the grandfather and grandmother are often the princ.i.p.al teachers of the child. Under the care of the father and grandfather the boy learns to shoot, hunt, and fish, is told tales of war and daring exploits, and "when he is fifteen or sixteen joins the first war-party and comes back with an eagle feather in his head, if he is not killed and scalped by the enemy."

Among the amus.e.m.e.nts he indulges in are foot-races, horse-racing, ball-playing, etc. Another branch of his education is thus described: "In the long winter evenings, while the fire burns brightly in the centre of the lodge, and the men are gathered in to smoke, he hears the folk-lore and legends of his people from the lips of the older men. He learns to sing the love-songs and the war-songs of the generations gone by. There is no new path for him to tread, but he follows in the old ways. He becomes a Dakota of the Dakota. His armour is consecrated by sacrifices and offerings and vows. He sacrifices and prays to the stone G.o.d, and learns to hold up the pipe to the so-called Great Spirit. He is killed and made alive again, and thus is initiated into the mysteries and promises of the Mystery Dance. He becomes a successful hunter and warrior, and what he does not know is not worth knowing for a Dakota.

His education is finished. If he has not already done it, he can now demand the hand of one of the beautiful maidens of the village" (524.

209, 210).

Under the care and oversight of the mother and grandmother the girl is taught the elements of household economy, industrial art, and agriculture. Mr. Biggs thus outlines the early education of woman among these Indians: "She plays with her 'made child,' or doll, just as children in other lands do. Very soon she learns to take care of the baby; to watch over it in the lodge, or carry it on her back while the mother is away for wood or dressing buffalo-robes. Little girl as she is, she is sent to the brook or lake for water. She has her little work-bag with awl and sinew, and learns to make small moccasins as her mother makes large ones. Sometimes she goes with her mother to the wood and brings home her little bundle of sticks. When the camp moves, she has her small pack as her mother carries the large one, and this pack is sure to grow larger as her years increase. When the corn is planting, the little girl has her part to perform. If she cannot use the hoe yet, she can at least gather off the old corn-stalks. Then the garden is to be watched while the G.o.d-given maize is growing. And when the harvesting comes, the little girl is glad for the corn-roasting." And so her young life runs on. She learns bead-work and ornamenting with porcupine quills, embroidering with ribbons, painting, and all the arts of personal adornment, which serve as attractions to the other s.e.x. When she marries, her lot and her life (Mr. Riggs says) are hard, for woman is much less than man with these Dakotas (524. 210).

More details of girl-life among savage and primitive peoples are to be found in the pages of Professor Mason (113. 207-211). In America, the education varied from what the little girl could pick up at her mother's side between her third and thirteenth years, to the more elaborate system of instruction in ancient Mexico, where, "annexed to the temples were large buildings used as seminaries for girls, a sort of aboriginal Wellesley or Va.s.sar" (113 208).

_Games and Plays._

In the multifarious games of children, echoes, imitations, re-renderings of the sober life of their elders and of their ancestors of the long ago, recur again and again. The numerous love games, which Mr. Newell (313. 39-62) and Miss Gomme (243) enumerate, such as "Knights of Spain," "Three kings," "Here comes a Duke a-roving," "Tread, tread the Green Gra.s.s," "I'll give to you a Paper of Pins," "There she stands a lovely Creature," "Green Grow the Rushes, O!" "The Widow with Daughters to marry," "Philander's March," "Marriage," etc., corresponding to many others all over the globe, evidence the social instincts of child-hood as well as the imitative tendencies of youth.

Under "Playing at Work" (313. 80-92), Mr. Newell has cla.s.sed a large number of children's games and songs, some of which now find their representatives in the kindergarten, this education of the child by itself having been so modified as to form part of the infantile curriculum of study. Among such games are: "Threading the Needle," "Draw a Bucket of Water," "Here I Brew and here I Bake," "Here we come gathering Nuts of May," "When I was a Shoemaker," "Do, do, pity my Case," "As we go round the Mulberry Bush," "Who'll be the Binder?"

"Oats, Pease, Beans, and Barley grows." Mr. Newell includes in this category, also, that well-known dance, the "Virginia Reel," which he interprets as an imitation of weaving, something akin to the "Hemp-dressers' Dance," of the time of George III., in England.

In a recent interesting and valuable essay, "Education by Plays and Games," by Mr. G. E. Johnson, of Clark University,--an effort "to present somewhat more correctly than has been done before, the educational value of play, and to suggest some practical applications to the work of education in the grades above the kindergarten,"--we have presented to us a list of some five hundred games, cla.s.sified according to their value for advancing mental or physical education, for cultivating and strengthening the various faculties of mind and body.

These games have also been arranged by Mr. Johnson, into such cla.s.ses and divisions as might be held to correspond to the needs and necessities of the pupils in each of the eight grades above the kindergarten. Of the educational value of play and of "playing at work,"

there can be no doubt in the mind of any one at all acquainted with the history of the individual and the history of the race. As Mr. Johnson justly observes (269.100): "The field of the study of play is very wide; the plays are well-nigh infinite, and as varied as life itself. No one can estimate the value of them. Given right toys and surroundings, the young child has an almost perfect school. It is marvellous how well he learns, Preyer does not overestimate the facts when he says the child in the first three or four years of his life learns as much as the student in his entire university course. In the making of mud pies and doll dresses, sand-pile farms and miniature roads, tiny dams and water-wheels, whittled-out boats, sleds, dog-harnesses, and a thousand and one other things, the child receives an acc.u.mulation of facts, a skill of hand, a trueness of eye, a power of attention and quickness of perception; and in flying kites, catching trout, in pressing leaves and gathering stones, in collecting stamps, and eggs, and b.u.t.terflies, a culture also, seldom appreciated by the parent or teacher."

Upon the banner of the youthful hosts might well be inscribed _in hoc ludo vincemus_. Yet there is danger that the play-theory may be carried to excess. Mr. James L. Hughes, discussing "The Educational Value of Play and the Recent Play-Movement in Germany," remarks: "The Germans had the philosophy of play, the English had an intuitive love of play, and love is a greater impelling force than philosophy. English young men never played in order to expand their lungs, to increase their circulation, to develop their muscles in power and agility, to improve their figures, to add grace to their bearing, to awaken and refine their intellectual powers, or to make them manly, courageous, and chivalrous.

They played enthusiastically for the mere love of play, and all these, and other advantages resulted from their play" (265. 328).

Swimming is an art soon learned by the children of some primitive races.

Mr. Man says of the Andaman Islanders: "With the exception of some of the erem-taga-(inlanders), a knowledge of the art of swimming is common to members of both s.e.xes; the _children_ even, learning almost as soon as they can run, speedily acquire great proficiency"

(498. 47).

_Language._

With some primitive peoples the ideas as to language-study are pretty much on a par with those prevalent in Europe at a date not so very remote from the present. Of the Kato Pomo Indians of California, Mr.

Powers remarks: "Like the Kai Pomo, their northern neighbours, they forbid their squaws from studying languages--which is about the only accomplishment possible to them save dancing--princ.i.p.ally, it is believed, in order to prevent them from gadding about and forming acquaintances in neighbouring valleys, for there is small virtue among the unmarried of either s.e.x. But the men pay considerable attention to linguistic studies, and there is seldom one who cannot speak most of the Pomo dialects within a day's journey of his ancestral valley. The chiefs, especially, devote no little care to the training of their sons as polyglot diplomatists; and Robert White affirms that they frequently send them to reside several months with the chiefs of contiguous valleys to acquire the dialects there in vogue" (519. 150).