Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young

CHAPTER XV. THE IMAGINATION IN CHILDREN.

The reader may, perhaps, recollect that in the last chapter there was an intimation that a portion of the force which was produced, or rather liberated and brought into action, by the consumption of food in the vital system, expended itself in the development of thoughts, emotions, and other forms of mental action, through the organization of the brain and of the nerves.

Expenditure of Force through the Brain.

The whole subject of the expenditure of material force in maintaining those forms of mental action which are carried on through the medium of bodily organs, it must be admitted, is involved in great obscurity; for it is only a glimmering of light which science has yet been able to throw into this field. It is, however, becoming the settled opinion, among all well-informed persons, that the soul, during the time of its connection with a material system in this life, performs many of those functions which we class as mental, through the medium, or instrumentality, in some mysterious way, of material organs, just as we all know is the case with the sensations-that is, the impressions made through the organs of sense; and that the maintaining of these mental organs, so to speak, in action, involves a certain expenditure of some form of physical force, the source of this force being in the food that is consumed in the nourishment of the body.

There is certainly no apparent reason why there should be any antecedent presumption against the supposition that the soul performs the act of remembering or of conceiving an imaginary scene through the instrumentality of a bodily organ, more than that it should receive a sensation of light or of sound through such a channel. The question of the independent existence and the immateriality of the thinking and feeling principle, which takes cognizance of these thoughts and sensations, is not at all affected by any inquiries into the nature of the instrumentality by means of which, in a particular stage of its existence, it performs these functions.

Phenomena explained by this Principle.

This truth, if it be indeed a truth, throws great light on what would be otherwise quite inexplicable in the playful activity of the mental faculties of children. The curious fantasies, imaginings, and make-believes-the pleasure of listening to marvellous and impossible tales, and of hearing odd and unpronounceable words or combination of words -the love of acting, and of disguises-of the impersonation of inanimate objects-of seeing things as they are not, and of creating and giving reality to what has no existence except in their own minds-are all the gambollings and frolics, so to speak, of the embryo faculties just becoming conscious of their existence, and affording, like the muscles of motion, so many different issues for the internal force derived from the food. Thus the action of the mind of a child, in holding an imaginary conversation with a doll, or in inventing or in relating an impossible fairy story, or in converting a switch on which he pretends to be riding into a prancing horse, is precisely analogous to that of the muscles of the lamb, or the calf, or any other young animal in its gambols-that is, it is the result of the force which the vital functions are continually developing within the system, and which flows and must flow continually out through whatever channels are open to it; and in thus flowing, sets all the various systems of machinery into play, each in its own appropriate manner.

In any other view of the subject than this, many of the phenomena of childhood would be still more wonderful and inexplicable than they are. One would have supposed, for example, that the imagination-being, as is commonly thought, one of the most exalted and refined of the mental faculties of man-would be one of the latest, in the order of time, to manifest itself in the development of the mind; instead of which it is, in fact, one of the earliest. Children live, in a great measure, from the earliest age in an ideal world-their pains and their pleasures, their joys and their fears being, to a vast extent, the concomitants of phantasms and illusions having often the slightest bond of connection with the realities around them. The realities themselves, moreover, often have far greater influence over them by what they suggest than by what they are.

Indeed, the younger the child is, within reasonable limits, the more susceptible he seems to be to the power of the imagination, and the more easily his mind and heart are reached and influenced through this avenue. At a very early period the realities of actual existence and the phantasms of the mind seem inseparably mingled, and it is only after much experience and a considerable development of his powers, that the line of distinction between them becomes defined. The power of investing an elongated bag of bran with the attributes and qualities of a thinking being, so as to make it an object of solicitude and affection, which would seem to imply a high exercise of one of the most refined and exalted of the human faculties, does not come, as we might have expected, at the end of a long period of progress and development, but springs into existence, as it were, at once, in the very earliest years. The progress and development are required to enable the child to perceive that the rude and shapeless doll is not a living and lovable thing. This mingling of the real and imaginary worlds shows itself to the close observer in a thousand curious ways.

The true explanation of the phenomenon seems to be that the various embryo faculties are brought into action by the vital force at first in a very irregular, intermingled, and capricious manner, just as the muscles are in the endless and objectless play of the limbs and members. They develop themselves and grow by this very action, and we ought not only to indulge, but to cherish the action in all its beautiful manifestations by every means in our power. These mental organs, so to speak-that is, the organs of the brain, through which, while its connection with the body continues, the mind performs its mental functions-grow and thrive, as the muscles do, by being reasonably kept in exercise.

It is evident, from these facts, that the parent should be pleased with, and should encourage the exercise of these embryo powers in his children; and both father and mother may be greatly aided in their efforts to devise means for reaching and influencing their hearts by means of them, and especially through the action of the imagination, which will be found, when properly employed, to be capable of exercising an almost magical power of imparting great attractiveness and giving great effect to lessons of instruction which, in their simple form, would be dull, tiresome, and ineffective. Precisely what is meant by this will be shown more clearly by some examples.

Methods exemplified.

One of the simplest and easiest modes by which a mother can avail herself of the vivid imagination of the child in amusing and entertaining him, is by holding conversations with representations of persons, or even of animals, in the pictures which she shows him. Thus, in the case, for example, of a picture which she is showing to her child sitting in her lap-the picture containing, we will suppose, a representation of a little girl with books under her arm-she may say,

"My little girl, where are you going?-I am going" (speaking now in a somewhat altered voice, to represent the voice of the little girl) "to school.-Ah! you are going to school. You don't look quite old enough to go to school. Who sits next to you at school?-George Williams.-George Williams? Is he a good boy?-Yes, he's a very good boy.-I am glad you have a good boy, and one that is kind to you, to sit by you. That must be very pleasant." And so on, as long as the child is interested in listening.

Or, "What is your name, my little girl?-My name is Lucy.-That's a pretty name! And where do you live?-I live in that house under the trees.-Ah! I see the house. And where is your room in that house?-My room is the one where you see the window open.-I see it. What have you got in your room?-I have a bed, and a table by the window; and I keep my doll there. I have got a cradle for my doll, and a little trunk to keep her clothes in. And I have got-" The mother may go on in this way, and describe a great number and variety of objects in the room, such as are calculated to interest and please the little listener.

It is the pleasurable exercise of some dawning faculty or faculties acting through embryo organs of the brain, by which the mind can picture to itself, more or less vividly, unreal scenes, which is the source of the enjoyment in such cases as this.

A child may be still more interested, perhaps, by imaginary conversations of this kind with pictures of animals, and by varying the form of them in such a way as to call a new set of mental faculties into play; as, for example,

"Here is a picture of a squirrel. I'll ask him where he lives. 'Bunny! bunny! stop a minute; I want to speak to you. I want you to tell me where you live.-I live in my hole.-Where is your hole?-It is under that big log that you see back in the woods.' Yes" (speaking now to the child), "I see the log. Do you see it? Touch it with your finger. Yes, that must be it. But I don't see any hole. 'Bunny' (assuming now the tone of speaking again to the squirrel), 'I don't see your hole.-No, I did not mean that any body should see it. I made it in a hidden place in the ground, so as to have it out of sight.-I wish I could see it, and I wish more that I could look down into it and see what is there. What is there in your hole, bunny?-My nest is there, and my little bunnies.-How many little bunnies have you got?'"-And so on, to any extent that you desire.

It is obvious that conversations of this kind may be made the means of conveying, indirectly, a great deal of instruction to young children on a great variety of subjects; and lessons of duty may be inculcated thus in a very effective manner, and by a method which is at the same time easy and agreeable for the mother, and extremely attractive to the child.

This may seem a very simple thing, and it is really very simple; but any mother who has never resorted to this method of amusing and instructing her child will be surprised to find what an easy and inexhaustible resource for her it may become. Children are always coming to ask for stories, and the mother often has no story at hand, and her mind is too much preoccupied to invent one. Here is a ready resort in every such emergency.

"Very well," replies the mother to such a request, "I'll tell you a story; but I must have a picture to my story. Find me a picture in some book."

The child brings a picture, no matter what. There is no possible picture that will not suggest to a person possessed of ordinary ingenuity an endless number of talks to interest and amuse the child. To take an extreme case, suppose the picture is a rude pencil drawing of a post, and nothing besides. You can imagine a boy hidden behind the post, and you can call to him, and finally obtain an answer from him, and have a long talk with him about his play and who he is hiding from, and what other way he has of playing with his friend. Or you can talk with the post directly. Ask him where he came from, who put him in the ground, and what he was put in the ground for, and what kind of a tree he was when he was a part of a tree growing in the woods; and, following the subject out, the conversation may be the means of not only amusing the child for the moment, but also of gratifying his curiosity, and imparting a great amount of useful information to him which will materially aid in the development of his powers.

Or you may ask the post whether he has any relatives, and he may reply that he has a great many cousins. He has some cousins that live in the city, and they are called lamp-posts, and their business is to hold lamps to light people along the streets; and he has some other cousins who stand in a long row and hold up the telegraph-wire to carry messages from one part of the world to another; and so on without end. If all this may done by means of a rude representation of a simple post, it may easily be seen that no picture which the child can possibly bring can fail to serve as a subject for such conversations.

Some mothers may, perhaps, think it must require a great deal of ingenuity and skill to carry out these ideas effectively in practice, and that is true; or rather, it is true that there is in it scope for the exercise of a great deal of ingenuity and skill, and even of genius, for those who possess these qualities; but the degree of ingenuity required for a commencement in this method is very small, and that necessary for complete success in it is very easily acquired.

Personification of Inanimate Objects.

It will at once occur to the mother that any inanimate object may be personified in this way and addressed as a living and intelligent being. Your child is sick, I will suppose, and is somewhat feverish and fretful. In adjusting his dress you prick him a little with a pin, and the pain and annoyance acting on his morbid sensibilities bring out expressions of irritation and ill-humor. Now you may, if you please, tell him that he must not be so impatient, that you did not mean to hurt him, that he must not mind a little prick, and the like, and you will meet with the ordinary success that attends such admonitions. Or, in the spirit of the foregoing suggestions, you may say,

"Did the pin prick you? I'll catch the little rogue, and hear what he has to say for himself. Ah, here he is-I've caught him! I'll hold him fast. Lie still in my lap, and we will hear what he has to say.

"'Look up here, my little prickler, and tell me what your name is.-My name is pin.-Ah, your name is pin, is it? How bright you are! How came you to be so bright?-Oh, they brightened me when they made me.-Indeed! And how did they make you?-They made me in a machine.-In a machine? That's very curious! How did they make you in the machine? Tell us all about it!-They made me out of wire. First the machine cut off a piece of the wire long enough to make me, and then I was carried around to different parts of the machine to have different things done to me. I went first to one part to get straightened. Don't you see how straight I am?-Yes, you are very straight indeed.-Then I went to another part of the machine and had my head put on; and then I went to another part and had my point sharpened; and then I was polished, and covered all over with a beautiful silvering, to make me bright and white.'"

And so on indefinitely. The mother may continue the talk as long as the child is interested, by letting the pin give an account of the various adventures that happened to it in the course of its life, and finally call it to account for pricking a poor little sick child.

Any mother can judge whether such a mode of treating the case, or the more usual one of gravely exhorting the child to patience and good-humor, when sick, is likely to be most effectual in soothing the nervous irritation of the little patient, and restoring its mind to a condition of calmness and repose.

The mother who reads these suggestions in a cursory manner, and contents herself with saying that they are very good, but makes no resolute and persevering effort to acquire for herself the ability to avail herself of them, will have no idea of the immense practical value of them as a means of aiding her in her work, and in promoting the happiness of her children. But if she will make the attempt, she will most certainly find enough encouragement in her first effort to induce her to persevere.

[Illustration: THE IMAGINATIVE FACULTY.]

She must, moreover, not only originate, herself, modes of amusing the imagination of her children, but must fall in with and aid those which they originate. If your little daughter is playing with her doll, look up from your work and say a few words to the doll or the child in a grave and serious manner, assuming that the doll is a living and sentient being. If your boy is playing horses in the garden while you are there attending to your flowers, ask him with all gravity what he values his horse at, and whether he wishes to sell him. Ask him whether he ever bites, or breaks out of his pasture; and give him some advice about not driving him too fast up hill, and not giving him oats when he is warm. He will at once enter into such a conversation in the most serious manner, and the pleasure of his play will be greatly increased by your joining with him in maintaining the illusion.

There is a still more important advantage than the temporary increase to your children's happiness by acting on this principle. By thus joining with them, even for a few moments, in their play, you establish a closer bond of sympathy between your own heart and theirs, and attach them to you more strongly than you can do by any other means. Indeed, in many cases the most important moral lessons can be conveyed in connection with these illusions of children, and in a way not only more agreeable but far more effective than by any other method.

Influence without Claim to Authority.

Acting through the imagination of children-if the art of doing so is once understood-will prove at once an invaluable and an inexhaustible resource for all those classes of persons who are placed in situations requiring them to exercise an influence over children without having any proper authority over them; such, for example, as uncles and aunts, older brothers and sisters, and even visitors residing more or less permanently in a family, and desirous, from a wish to do good, of promoting the welfare and the improvement of the younger members of it. It often happens that such a visitor, without any actual right of authority, acquires a greater influence over the minds of the children than the parents themselves; and many a mother, who, with all her threatenings and scoldings, and even punishments, can not make herself obeyed, is surprised at the absolute ascendency which some inmate residing in the family acquires over them by means so silent, gentle, and unpretending, that they seem mysterious and almost magical. "What is the secret of it?" asks the mother sometimes in such a case. "You never punish the children, and you never scold them, and yet they obey you a great deal more readily and certainly than they do me."

There are a great many different means which may be employed in combination with each other for acquiring this kind of ascendency, and among them the use which may be made of the power of the imagination in the young is one of the most important.

The Intermediation of the Dolls again.

A young teacher, for example, in returning from school some day, finds the children of the family in which she resides, who have been playing with their dolls in the yard, engaged in some angry dispute. The first impulse with many persons in such a case might be to sit down with the children upon the seat where they were playing, and remonstrate with them, though in a very kind and gentle manner, on the wrongfulness and folly of such disputings, to show them that the thing in question is not worth disputing about, that angry feelings are uncomfortable and unhappy feelings, and that it is, consequently, not only a sin, but a folly to indulge in them.

Now such a remonstrance, if given in a kind and gentle manner, will undoubtedly do good. The children will be somewhat less likely to become involved in such a dispute immediately after it than before, and in process of time, and through many repetitions of such counsels, the fault may be gradually cured. Still, at the time, it will make the children uncomfortable, by producing in their minds a certain degree of irritation. They will be very apt to listen in silence, and with a morose and sullen air; and if they do not call the admonition a scolding, on account of the kind and gentle tones in which it is delivered, they will be very apt to consider it much in that light.

Suppose, however, that, instead of dealing with the case in this matter-of-fact and naked way, the teacher calls the imagination of the children to her aid, and administers her admonition and reproof indirectly, through the dolls. She takes the dolls in her hand, asks their names, and inquires which of the two girls is the mother of each. The dolls' names are Bella and Araminta, and the mothers' are Lucy and Mary.

"But I might have asked Araminta herself," she adds; and, so saying, she holds the doll before her, and enters into a long imaginary conversation with her, more or less spirited and original, according to the talent and ingenuity of the young lady, but, in any conceivable case, enough so to completely absorb the attention of the children and fully to occupy their minds. She asks each of them her name, and inquires of each which of the girls is her mother, and makes first one of them, and then the other, point to her mother in giving her answer. By this time the illusion is completely established in the children's minds of regarding their dolls as living beings, responsible to mothers for their conduct and behavior; and the young lady can go on and give her admonitions and instructions in respect to the sin and folly of quarrelling to them-the children listening. And it will be found that by this management the impression upon the minds of the children will be far greater and more effective than if the counsels were addressed directly to them; while, at the same time, though they may even take the form of very severe reproof, they will produce no sullenness or vexation in the minds of those for whom they are really intended. Indeed, the very reason why the admonition thus given will be so much more effective is the fact that it does not tend in any degree to awaken resentment and vexation, but associates the lesson which the teacher wishes to convey with amusement and pleasure.

"You are very pretty"-she says, we will suppose, addressing the dolls-"and you look very amiable. I suppose you are very amiable."

Then, turning to the children, she asks, in a confidential undertone, "Do they ever get into disputes and quarrels?"

"Sometimes," says one of the children, entering at once into the idea of the teacher.

"Ah!" the teacher exclaims, turning again to the dolls. "I hear that you dispute and quarrel sometimes, and I am very sorry for it. That is very foolish. It is only silly little children that we expect will dispute and quarrel. I should not have supposed it possible in the case of such young ladies as you. It is a great deal better to be yielding and kind. If one of you says something that the other thinks is not true, let it pass without contradiction; it is foolish to dispute about it. And so if one has any thing that the other wants, it is generally much better to wait for it than to quarrel. It is hateful to quarrel. Besides, it spoils your beauty. When children are quarrelling they look like little furies."

The teacher may go on in this way, and give a long moral lecture to the dolls in a tone of mock gravity, and the children will listen to it with the most profound attention; and it will have a far greater influence upon them than the same admonitions addressed directly to them.

So effectually, in fact, will this element of play in the transaction open their hearts to the reception of good counsel, that even direct admonitions to them will be admitted with it, if the same guise is maintained; for the teacher may add, in conclusion, addressing now the children themselves with the same mock solemnity:

"That is a very bad fault of your children-very bad, indeed. And it is one that you will find very hard to correct. You must give them a great deal of good counsel on the subject, and, above all, you must be careful to set them a good example yourselves. Children always imitate what they see in their mothers, whether it is good or bad. If you are always amiable and kind to one another, they will be so too."

The thoughtful mother, in following out the suggestions here given, will see at once how the interest which the children take in their dolls, and the sense of reality which they feel in respect to all their dealings with them, opens before her a boundless field in respect to modes of reaching and influencing their minds and hearts.

The Ball itself made to teach Carefulness.

There is literally no end to the modes by which persons having the charge of young children can avail themselves of their vivid imaginative powers in inculcating moral lessons or influencing their conduct. A boy, we will suppose, has a new ball. Just as he is going out to play with it his father takes it from him to examine it, and, after turning it round and looking at it attentively on every side, holds it up to his ear. The boy asks what his father is doing. "I am listening to hear what he says." "And what does he say, father?" "He says that you won't have him to play with long." "Why not?" "I will ask him, why not?" (holding the ball again to his ear). "What does he say, father?" "He says he is going to run away from you and hide. He says you will go to play near some building, and he means, when you throw him or knock him, to fly against the windows and break the glass, and then people will take your ball away from you." "But I won't play near any windows." "He says, at any rate you will play near some building, and when you knock him he means to fly up to the roof and get behind a chimney, or roll down into the gutter where you can't get him." "But, father, I am not going to play near any building at all." "Then you will play in some place where there are holes in the ground, or thickets of bushes near, where he can hide." "No, father, I mean to look well over the ground, and not play in any place where there is any danger at all." "Well, we shall see; but the little rogue is determined to hide somewhere." The boy takes his ball and goes out to play with it, far more effectually cautioned than he could have been by any direct admonition.

The Teacher and the Tough Logs

A teacher who was engaged in a district school in the country, where the arrangement was for the older boys to saw and split the wood for the fire, on coming one day, at the recess, to see how the work was going on, found that the boys had laid one rather hard-looking log aside. They could not split that log, they said.

"Yes," said the teacher, looking at the log, "I don't wonder. I know that log. I saw him before. His name is Old Gnarly. He says he has no idea of coming open for a parcel of boys, even if they have got beetle and wedges. It takes a man, he says, to split him."

The boys stood looking at the log with a very grave expression of countenance as they heard these words.

"Is that what he says?" asked one of them. "Let's try him again, Joe."

"It will do no good," said the teacher, "for he won't come open, if he can possibly help it. And there's another fellow (pointing). His name is Slivertwist. If you get a crack in him, you will find him full of twisted splinters that he holds himself together with. The only way is to cut them through with a sharp axe. But he holds on so tight with them that I don't believe you can get him open. He says he never gives up to boys."

So saying, the teacher went away. It is scarcely necessary to say to any one who knows boys that the teacher was called out not long afterwards to see that Old Gnarly and Old Slivertwist were both split up fine-the boys standing around the heaps of well-prepared fire-wood which they had afforded, and regarding them with an air of exultation and triumph.

Muscles reinvigorated through the Action of the Mind.

An older sister has been taking a walk, with little Johnny, four years old, as her companion. On their return, when within half a mile of home, Johnny, tired of gathering flowers and chasing butterflies, comes to his sister, with a fatigued and languid air, and says he can not walk any farther, and wants to be carried.

"I can't carry you very well," she says, "but I will tell you what we will do; we will stop at the first tavern we come to and rest. Do you see that large flat stone out there at the turn of the road? That is the tavern, and you shall be my courier. A courier is a man that goes forward as fast as he can on his horse, and tells the tavern-keeper that the traveller is coming, and orders supper. So you may gallop on as fast as you can go, and, when you get to the tavern, tell the tavern-keeper that the princess is coming-I am the princess-and that he must get ready an excellent supper."

The boy will gallop on and wait at the stone. When his sister arrives she may sit and rest with him a moment, entertaining him by imagining conversations with the inn-keeper, and then resume their walk.

"Now," she may say, "I must send my courier to the post-office with a letter. Do you see that fence away forward? That fence is the post-office. We will play that one of the cracks between the boards is the letter-box. Take this letter (handing him any little scrap of paper which she has taken from her pocket and folded to represent a letter) and put it in the letter-box, and speak to the postmaster through the crack, and tell him to send the letter as soon as he can."

Under such management as this, unless the child's exhaustion is very great, his sense of it will disappear, and he will accomplish the walk not only without any more complaining, but with a great feeling of pleasure. The nature of the action in such a case seems to be that the vital force, when, in its direct and ordinary passage to the muscles through the nerves, it has exhausted the resources of that mode of transmission, receives in some mysterious way a reinforcement to its strength in passing round, by a new channel, through the organs of intelligence and imagination.

These trivial instances are only given as examples to show how infinitely varied are the applications which may be made of this principle of appealing to the imagination of children, and what a variety of effects may be produced through its instrumentality by a parent or teacher who once takes pains to make himself possessed of it. But each one must make himself possessed of it by his own practice and experience. No general instructions can do any thing more than to offer the suggestion, and to show how a beginning is to be made.