Concerning Children

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Each child has been under careful observation and record from the very first. His special interests, his preferred methods, his powers and weaknesses, are watched and worked with carefully as he grows. If power of attention was weak at first, he is given special work to develope it. If observation was loose and inaccurate, that was laboured with. If the reasoning faculty worked with difficulty, it was exercised more carefully. He has been under such training from babyhood to twelve or fifteen years old as to give a full and co-ordinate development of his faculties,—all of them; and such a general grasp of the main lines of knowledge as to make possible clear choice of the lines of study for which he is best adapted. With such a childhood the youth will have much more power of learning, and a deep and growing interest—an unbroken interest—in his work.

The natural desire of mankind to know, and also to teach, and the steadily enlarging field of knowledge open to us, should make education the most delightful of processes. With our present methods the place of teacher is usually sought merely for its meagre salary, by women who "have to work," instead of being eagerly aspired to as the noblest of professions, and only open to those best fitted. The children are so overtaxed and mishandled that only the best intellects come out with any further desire to learn anything. Humanity's progress is made through brain-improvement, by brain-power. We need such schooling as shall give us better brains and uninjured bodies. Fortunately for us, the value of education is widely felt to-day, and new and improved methods are rapidly coming in. Our school-houses are more beautiful, our teachers better trained and more ambitious, and the beneficent influences of the kindergarten and of the manual training system are felt everywhere.

But, while much is being done, much more remains for us. With such honour and such pay as show our respect for the office of teacher, and such required training and natural capacity as shall allow of no incapables, we could surround our children from birth with the steady influence of the wisest and best people. More and more to-day is the school opening out. It connects with the public library, with art and industry, with the open fields; and this will go on till the time is reached when the child does not know that he is at school,—he is always there, and yet never knows it.

Where residence was permanent, the teachers of different grades could constantly compare their growing records, and the child's unfolding be watched steadily, and noted with a view to still further improvement in method. Travelling parties of children are not unknown to us. These will become more common, until every child shall know his earth face to face,—mountain, river, lake, and sea,—and gain some idea of political division as well.

Two main objections to all this will arise at once: one, that of expense; the other, that a child so trained would not have learned to "apply himself,"—to force himself to do what he did not like,—that it was all too easy.

The ground of too much expense cannot be held. Nothing is too expensive that really improves education; for such improvement cuts off all the waste product of society,—the defective and degenerate, the cripple, thief, and fool, and saves millions upon millions now spent in maintaining or restraining these injurious classes. Not only that, but it as steadily developes the working value of humanity, turning out more and more vigorous and original thinkers and doers to multiply our wealth and pleasure. Grant the usefulness of improved methods in education, and they can never be expensive. Even to-day the school-children become far better class of citizens than the street Arabs who do not go to school; and such school advantages as we have lower our expense in handling crime and disease. When we provide for every child the very best education,—real education of body, brain, and soul,—with the trained hand and eye to do what the trained will and judgment command, it is difficult to see where the "criminal class" is to come from.

As to its being too easy, and not developing sufficiently stern stuff in our youngsters, that has two answers. In the first place, this proposed line of advance is not without its difficulties. Whether a child is learning to sew or to shoot or to lay bricks, to solve examples in fractions or to play chess, there are always difficulties. To learn what you don't know is always a step up.

But why need we add to this the difficulty of making the child dislike the work? "Because it is necessary in this world to do what you don't like!" is the triumphant rejoinder.

This is an enormous mistake. It is necessary in this world to like what you do, if you are to do anything worth while. One of the biggest of all our troubles is that so many of us are patiently and wearily doing what we do not like. It is a constant injury to the individual, draining his nervous strength and leaving him more easily affected by disease or temptation; and it is a constant injury to society, because the work we do not like to do is not as good as it would be if we liked it.

The kind of forcing we use in our educational processes, the "attention" paid to what does not interest, the following of required lines of study irrespective of inclination,—these act to blunt and lower our natural inclinations, and leave us with this mischievous capacity for doing what we do not like.