Advice to a Mother on the Management of Her Children

by Pye Henry Chavasse

AMUSEMENTS.

179. Have you any remarks to make on the amusements of a child?

Let the amusements of a child be as much as possible out of doors; let him spend the greater part of every day in the open air; let him exert himself as much as he please, his feelings will tell him when to rest and when to begin again; let him be what Nature intended Mm to be—a happy, laughing, joyous child. Do not let him be always poring over books:—

"Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife,
Come, hear the woodland linnet!
How sweet his music! On my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,—
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless,—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than, all the sagea can."—Wordsworth.

He ought to be encouraged to engage in those sports wherein the greatest number of muscles are brought into play. For instance, to play at ball, or hoop, or football, to play at horses, to run to certain distances and back; and, if a girl, to amuse herself with a skipping rope, such, being excellent exercise—

"By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,
The sports of children satisfy the child."—Goldsmith.

Every child, where it be practicable, should have a small plot of ground to cultivate, that he may dig and delve in, and make dirt-pies if he choose. Children now-a-days, unfortunately, are not allowed to soil their hands and their fine clothes. For my own part, I dislike such model children; let a child be natural—let him, as far as is possible, choose his own sports. Do not be always interfering with his pursuits, and be finding fault with him. Remember, what may be amusing to you may be distasteful to him. I do not, of course, mean but that you should constantly have a watchful eye over him; yet do not let him see that he is under restraint or surveillance; if you do, you will never discover his true character and inclinations. Not only so, but do not dim the bright sunshine of his early life by constantly checking and thwarting him, Tupper beautifully says—

"And check not a child in his merriment,—
Should not his morning be sunny?"

When, therefore, he is either in the nursery or in the play-ground, let him shout and riot and romp about as much as he please. His lungs and his muscles want developing, and his nerves require strengthening; and how can such be accomplished unless you allow them to be developed and strengthened by natural means?

The nursery is a child's own domain; it is his castle, and he should be Lord Paramount therein. If he choose to blow a whistle, or to spring a rattle, or to make any other hideous noise, which to him is sweet music, he should be allowed, without let or hindrance, to do so. If any members of the family have weak nerves, let them keep at a respectful distance.

A child who never gets into mischief must be either sly, or delicate, or idiotic; indeed, the system of many persons, in bringing up children, is likely to make them either the one or the other. The present plan of training children is nearly all work (books), and very little play. Play, and plenty of it, is necessary to the very existence of a child.

A boy not partial to mischief, innocent mischief, and play, is unnatural; he is a man before his time, he is a nuisance, he is disagreeable to himself and to every one around. He is generally a sneak, and a little humbug.

Girls, at the present time, are made clever simpletons; their brains are worked with useless knowledge, which totally unfits them for every-day duties. Their muscles are allowed to be idle, which makes them limp and flabby. The want of proper exercise ruins the complexion, and their faces become of the colour of a tallow candle! And precious wives and mothers they make when they do grow up! Grow up, did I say? They grow all manner of ways, and are as crooked as crooked sticks!

What an unnatural thing it is to confine a child several hours a day to his lessons; why, you might as well put a colt in harness, and make him work for his living! A child is made for play; his roguish little eye, his lithe figure, his antics, and his drollery, all point out that he is cut out for play—that it is as necessary to his existence as the food he eats, and as the air he breathes!

A child ought not to be allowed to have playthings with which he can injure either himself or others, such as toy-swords, toy-cannons, toy-paint-boxes, knives, bows and arrows, hammers, chisels, saws, &c. He will not only be likely to injure himself and others, but will make sad havoc on furniture, house, and other property. Fun, frolic, and play ought, in all innocent ways, to be encouraged; but wilful mischief and dangerous games ought, by every means, to be discountenanced. This advice is frequently much needed, as children prefer to have and delight in dangerous toys, and often coax and persuade weak and indulgent mothers to gratify their wishes.

Painted toys are, many of them, highly dangerous, those painted green especially, as the colour generally consists of Scheele's green—arsenite of copper.

Children's paint-boxes are very dangerous toys for a child to play with; many of the paints are poisonous, containing arsenic, lead, gamboge, &c, and a child, when painting, is apt to put the brush into his mouth, to absorb the superabundant fluid. Of all the colours, the green paint is the most dangerous, as it is frequently composed of arsenite of copper—arsenic and copper—two deadly poisons.

There are some paint-boxes warranted not to contain a particle of poison of any kind these ought, for a child, to be chosen by a mother.

But, remember, although he ought not to be allowed to have poison paint-boxes and poison painted toys, he must have an abundance of toys, such as the white wood toys—brewers' drays, millers' waggons, boxes of wooden bricks, &c. The Noah's Ark is one of the most amusing and instructive toys for a child. "Those fashioned out of brown, unpainted pine-wood by the clever carvers of Nuremberg or the Black Forest are the best, I think, not only because they are the most spirited, but because they will survive a good deal of knocking about and can be sucked with impunity From the first dawn of recollection, children are thus familiarised with the forms of natural objects, and may be well up in natural history before they have mastered the ABC" [Footnote: From an excellent article About Toys, by J Hamilton Fyfe in Good Words for December 1862.]

Parents often make Sunday a day of gloom; to this I much object. Of all the days in the week, Sunday should be the most cheerful and pleasant. It is considered by our Church a festival, and a glorious festival it ought to be made, and one on which our Heavenly Father wishes to see all His children happy and full of innocent joy. Let Sunday, then, be made a cheerful, joyous, innocently happy day, and not, as it frequently is, the most miserable and dismal in the week. It is my firm conviction that many men have been made irreligious by the ridiculously strict and dismal way they were compelled, as children, to spend their Sundays. You can no more make a child religious by gloomy asceticism, than yon can make people good by Act of Parliament.

One of the great follies of the present age is, children's parties, where they are allowed to be dressed up like grown-up women, stuck out in petticoats, and encouraged to eat rich cake and pastry, and to drink wine, and to sit up late at night! There is something disgusting and demoralising in all this. Their pure minds are blighted by it. Do not let me be misunderstood: there is not the least objection, but, on the contrary, great advantage, for friends' children to meet friends' children; but then let them be treated as children, and not as men and women!

180. Do you approve of public play-grounds for children?

It would be well, in every village, and in the outskirts of every town, if a large plot of ground were set apart for children to play in, and to go through regular gymnastic exercises. Play is absolutely necessary to a child's very existence, as much as food and sleep; but in many parts of England where is he to have it? Playgrounds and play are the best schools we have; they teach a great deal not taught elsewhere; they give lessons in health, which is the grandest wealth that can be bestowed—"for health is wealth;" they prepare the soil for the future schoolmaster; they clear the brain, and thus the intellect, they strengthen the muscles; they make the blood course merrily through the arteries; they bestow healthy food for the lungs; they give an appetite; they make a child, in due time, become every inch a man! Play-grounds and play are one of the finest institutions we possess. What would our large public schools be without their play and cricket grounds? They would be shorn of half their splendour and their usefulness!

There is so much talk now-a-days about useful knowledge, that the importance of play and play-grounds is likely to be forgotten. I cannot help thinking however, that a better state of things is dawning. "It seems to be found out that in our zeal for useful knowledge, that knowledge is found to be not the least useful which treat boys as active, stirring, aspiring, and ready." [Footnote: The Saturday Review, December 13, 1862.]

181. Do you approve of infant schools?

I do, if the arrangements be such that health is preferred before learning. [Footnote: "According to Aristotle, more care should be taken of the body than of the mind for the first seven years; strict attention to diet be enforced, &c. . . . . . The eye and ear of the child should be most watchfully and severely guarded against contamination of every kind, and unrestrained communication with servants be strictly prevented. Even his amusements should be under due regulation, and rendered as interesting and intellectual as possible."—The Rev John Williams, in his Life and Actions of Alexander the Great] Let children be only confined for three or four hours a day, and let what little they learn be taught as an amusement rather than as a labour. A play-ground ought to be attached to an infant school; where, in fine weather, for every half-hour they spend in-doors, they should spend one in the open air; and, in wet weather, they ought to have, in lieu of the play-ground, a large room to romp, and shout, and riot in. To develop the different organs, muscles, and other parts of the body, children require fresh air, a free use of their lungs, active exercise, and their bodies to be thrown into all manner of attitudes. Let a child mope in a corner, and he will become stupid and sickly. The march of intellect, as it is called, or rather the double quick march of intellect, as it should be called, has stolen a march upon health. Only allow the march of intellect and the march of health to take equal strides, and then we shall have "mens sana in corpore sano" (a sound mind in a sound body).

In the education of a young child, it is better to instruct him by illustration, by pictures, and by encouraging observation on things around and about him, than by books. It is surprising how much, without endangering his health, may be taught in this way. In educating your child, be careful to instil and to form good habits—they will then stick to him for life.

Children at the present day are too highly educated—their brains are over-taxed, and thus weakened. The consequence is, that as they grow up to manhood, if they grow up at all, they become fools! Children are now taught what formerly youths were taught. The chord of a child's life is ofttimes snapped asunder in consequence of over education:—

"Screw not the cord too sharply, lest it snap"—Tennyson.

You should treat a child as you would a young colt. Think only at first of strengthening his body. Let him have a perfectly free, happy life, plenty of food to eat, abundance of air to breathe, and no work to do; there is plenty of time to think of his learning—of giving him brain work. It will come sadly too soon; but do not make him old before his time.

182. At what age do you advise my child to begin his course of education—to have his regular lessons?

In the name of the prophet,—Figs! Fiddlesticks! about courses of education and regular lessons for a child! You may as well ask me when he, a child, is to begin Hebrew, the Sanscrit, and Mathematics! Let him have a course of education in play; let him go through regular lessons in foot-ball, bandy, playing at tic, hares and hounds, and such like excellent and really useful and health-giving lessons. Begin his lessons! Begin brain work, and make an idiot of him! Oh! for shame, ye mothers! You who pretend to love your children so much, and to tax, otherwise to injure, irreparably to injure their brains, and thus their intellects and their health, and to shorten their very days. And all for what? To make prodigies of them! Forsooth! to make fools of them in the end,

183. Well, then, as you have such a great objection to a child commencing his education early in life, at what age may he, with safety, commence his lessons? and which do you prefer—home or school education?

Home is far preferable to a school education. He is, if at home, under your own immediate observation, and is not liable to be contaminated by naughty children; for, in every school, there is necessarily a great mixture of the good and of the bad; and a child, unfortunately, is more likely to be led by the bad than by the good. Moreover, if he be educated at home, the mother can see that his brain is not over-worked. At school the brain is apt to be over-worked, and the stomach and the muscles to be under-worked.

Remember, as above stated, the brain must have but very little work until the child be seven years old; impress this advice upon your memory, and let no foolish ambition to make your child a clever child allow you, for one moment, to swerve from this advice.

Build up a strong, healthy body, and in due time the brain will bear a moderate amount of intellectual labour.

As I have given you so much advice, permit me, for one moment, to address a word to the father of your child:—

Let me advise you, then, Mr. Pater familias, to be careful how you converse, what language you use, while in the company of your child. Bear in mind, a child is very observant, and thinks much, weighs well, and seldom forgets all you say and all you do! Let no hasty word, then, and more especially no oath, or no impious language, ever pass your lips, if your child be within hearing. It is, of course, at all times wicked to swear; but it is heinously and unpardonably sinful to swear in the presence of your child! "Childhood is like a mirror, catching and reflecting images. One impious or profane thought, uttered by a parent's lip, may operate upon the young heart like a careless spray of water thrown upon polished steel, staining it with rust, which no after scouring can efface."

Never talk secrete before a child—"little pitchers have long ears;" if you do, and he disclose your secrets—as most likely he will—and thus make mischief, it will be cruel to scold him; you will, for your imprudence, have yourself only to blame. Be most careful, then, in the presence of your child, of what you say, and of whom you speak. This advice, if followed, might save a great deal of annoyance and vexation.

184. Are you an advocate for a child being taught singing?

I am: I consider singing a part of his education. Singing expands the walls of his chest, strengthens and invigorates his lungs, gives sweetness to his voice, improves his pronunciation, and is a great pleasure and amusement to him.