Parent and Child.
by Mosiah Hall.
A WORD OF INTRODUCTION
Home-making and the rearing of children is the fundamental business of this world. To make a success of this business we must understand it. The loving hearts of many parents are suffering for a mult.i.tude of mistakes that loving intelligence might have prevented. We cannot save our children in ignorance. To perform the duties of parenthood well, we must understand them more clearly. We need light and uplift. These days demand greater knowledge than ever before on the part of parents to meet and master the problems that now confront fathers and mothers.
Particularly do we need to study child nature. A clearer understanding of the laws governing the development of children would give parents great help in guiding their children into paths of righteousness, and in ministering to varying child needs as they develop.
To give definite help and new spirit to our work, this volume has been prepared. The keynote of the book is _a more enlightened parenthood_. It offers a series of lessons along a line most vital to parents--_Child Study and Training_.
These lessons have been written for us by Mosiah Hall, a.s.sociate Professor in Education of the University of Utah, and High School Inspector for the State of Utah. We feel that he has done for our cause most excellent service, and we gladly acknowledge our indebtedness to him.
This should be remembered: A book gives wisdom only in proportion to the thought that is put into it by the reader. The suggestions of this volume will become rich only as they are enriched by study. They will become valuable only to the extent that they find application in our daily lives.
The lessons will be vitalized only as the teacher pours life into them.
To supplement and enrich the course, references are given with most of the lessons, and a list of books is offered at the close of the book. Many of these volumes have already been purchased and distributed through the parents" cla.s.s library. Each cla.s.s should endeavor to procure at least one copy of each of these books as it is called for in the various lessons. In this way a good library can be gradually built up.
Our desire is to make these studies bring lasting returns for good. May G.o.d add his blessings to make our work divinely successful,
Your brethren in the gospel, Parents" Cla.s.s Committee of Deseret Sunday School Union Board, HENRY H. ROLAPP, HOWARD R. DRIGGS.
NATHAN T. PORTER, EPHRAIM G. GOWANS.
A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
This treatise on child study and training has been prepared primarily for the Parents" cla.s.ses in Sunday School under the direction of the General Board. It is well adapted also for study by Parent-Teachers" a.s.sociations and for reading in the home.
Its purpose is to acquaint parents with the most vital problems of child life and character and to suggest some methods of solving these problems.
The work is not offered as a complete course in this great subject; it is intended rather to open up the field of child study for parents.
The welfare of the race depends upon the proper birth and the correct rearing of children. That this little volume may add its mite towards the solution of the problem--at once the hope and the despair of civilization,--is the wish of its author.
To the Parents" Cla.s.s Committee and the General Superintendency of the General Board, I desire to express my appreciation for the suggestions and help they have extended to me in the preparation of this work.
To my wife, who achieves in practice what I imperfectly state in theory, these studies are affectionately dedicated.
MOSIAH HALL.
THE BIRTHRIGHT OF CHILDHOOD
_It Is the Sacred Right of the Child To Be Well-Born_
If the child has any divine right in this world, it is the right to be well-born, to be brought into the world sound of body and whole in mind. To be given anything short of such a good beginning is to be handicapped throughout life. Education and training cannot make up for the defects imposed on the child by the sins of the fathers, which, the Good Book tells us, are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
It is a fact to challenge attention that the child is the product of the entire past. His essential nature is comparatively fixed at birth and is beyond the power or caprice of parent or environment to change in any fundamental particular during the short period of a lifetime. This a.s.sertion must not be wrongly interpreted; the possibilities of training and education are great, but they can do little to overcome all of the defects placed upon the child by heredity.
Science tells us that normal children are born with the same number and kind of instincts. By instinct is meant the tendency to do certain things in a definite way without previous experience. In all children, for example, we find the instinct of fear, the instinct for play, for self-preservation. These instincts begin to manifest themselves more or less strongly as the child develops.
Children also have certain capacities. Capacity may be defined as the possibility to develop skill in certain directions. One, for instance, may have a greater capacity to develop musical ability than another; so with art or business, or ability for any other work. Capacities, more than instincts, seem to depend on the characteristics of parents or immediate ancestors. Thus a child may take after father or mother, or grandparent in this or that particular ability. Instincts, on the other hand, seem to be his inheritance from the race. But whatever his gifts from parent or past the child is born a distinct individual. This is true not only with regard to his physical organism but in respect to his spiritual nature. The relative strength of his instincts, added to the number and quality of his capacities determine what is called individuality. This is what makes each child differ from all others, and this distinctive nature cannot be essentially changed, within our brief lives, though it does possess marvelous powers of development and adaptation. For ill.u.s.tration: Cultivation may develop a perfect specimen of a crabapple, but no amount of careful training could change the crabapple into a Johnathan. Likewise, no system of education can hope to change a numskull into a Newton, or to produce a Solomon from a Simple Simon.
The first vital concern of parents, therefore, should be to see that the child is not robbed of his sacred birthright to be well-born.
It is a matter of regret that the white race generally is such a sorry mixture of humanity. The good and the bad, the intelligent and the ignorant, the feeble-minded and the strong, the criminal and the righteous, have been combined so frequently and in so many ways that the marvel is that more of the human race are not degenerate as the result of contamination. Since the great characteristic of heredity is to breed true and thus perpetuate its kind, and since training and education must take the individual as he is, with only limited power to change his intrinsic nature or to develop any capacity not present at birth, it becomes a matter of serious importance that parents do all in their power to guide properly the mating of their children. The teaching of the Gospel on this point is most significant.
Heredity determines to a great extent the kind and the nature of the individual, and thereby sets limits, which the environment may not overcome. Among these limitations are the following:
1. The relative strength of instincts.
2. The number and kind of capacities.
3. The form, size and quality of bodily organs.
4. Susceptibility to, or power to resist disease.
5. The possibilities of mental attainment.
6. The possibilities of emotional and spiritual response.
7. The possibility to execute undertakings, to control situations, and to govern self as well as others.
Heredity also endows a person with his peculiar temperament, with his good or bad looks, and with the chief components of what is called personality.
On the other hand, training and education have almost everything to say respecting the relative standing of the individual among the members of his kind--whether or not he shall be a blighted or a perfect specimen. A fine, sweet, juicy crabapple is more desirable than a scrubby, diseased Jonathan.
It is the province of training and education to take the individual as he is born, and endeavor to make of him a perfect specimen of his kind. "A child left to himself bringeth his parents to shame." If left alone or improperly trained, a child is almost certain to revert to a lower type of individual. The same high possibilities that, properly directed, produce the superior being, if neglected, or subjected to a vicious environment, produce the moral degenerate. The child is born morally neither good nor bad, and while inherited tendencies may make development in one direction easier than in another, it is possible for a favorable environment, a.s.sisted by education, to develop any normal child into a sweet, wholesome product of his kind.
Shearer in his "Management and Training of Children," says: "The child may inherit instincts, but a kind Providence has ordained that he shall not inherit habits. He may inherit certain tastes, but he does not inherit temptation. He may bring into the world tendencies, but he does not bring with him prejudices."
LESSON I
_Questions for Discussion_
1. What does the expression "being well-born" mean to you?
2. What responsibility is laid upon parents by the fact that the child is the product of the past? Read the second commandment here and discuss its significance in application to this point.