Farmington

by Clarence Darrow

I remember that when I was a child two things used to cause me the greatest trouble. One was the fact that I had to go to bed so early at night, and the other that I had to get up so early in the morning. I have never known a natural child who was ready to go to bed at night or to get up in the morning. I suppose this was because work came first, and pie was put off to the end of the day; and we did not want to miss any of the pie. Of course there were exceptions to the rule. We were ready to get up in the gray dawn of the morning, to go a-fishing or blackberrying, or to celebrate the Fourth of July, or on Christmas, or to see a circus come to town, or on any such occasion. And likewise we were ready to go to bed early the night before, so that we might be ready to get up. I remember one of my lies in connection with getting up in the morning. It was my father’s custom to call us some time before breakfast, to help do the chores; and as this was work and the bed was warm, we were never ready to get up. On this particular morning I was called twice, but seemed to be sound asleep, and did not move. Thereupon at the next call my father came up the stairs, saying, “You know what you are going to get,” and asking why I had not come before. There was nothing else to do, and so I promptly answered that I did not hear him the first two times. Somehow I learned that he surmised or found out that I had lied, and after this I regarded him as a sort of Sherlock Holmes. I did not know then, any more than my father did, that the reason I lied was that I was afraid of being whipped. Neither did my parents, or any of the others, understand that to whip us for lying only served to make us take more pains to conceal the truth.

We were given certain rules as to our treatment of animals. We were told to be kind to them, but no effort was made to awaken the imagination of the child so that in a way he might put himself in the place of the helpless beings with whom he lived. I am sure that had this been done the rule would not have been required.

In our association with each other, we were more simple and direct. When we lied to each other, we soon found that our tales were disbelieved, and thus the punishment was made to fit the crime. But among ourselves we were generally truthful, no matter how long or persistently our teachers and parents had made it seem best for us to lie. We knew that the other boys cared very little for the things that parents and teachers thought important; and, besides, we had no jurisdiction over each other, except as the strongest and most quarrelsome might take for himself, and against him we always had the right to combine for self-defence.

I seem to be living again in the world of the little child, and so hard is it to recross to that forgotten bourne that I cannot help wishing to linger there. I remember that as I grew beyond the time to play base-ball and to join in other still more youthful games, I now and then had the rare privilege of revisiting these early scenes in sleep; and often and often in my waking moments, when I realized that I dreamed and yet half thought that all was real, I tried to keep my eyes tight shut that I might still dream on. And if I can now and then forget my years and feel again the life of the little child, why should I not cling to the fond remembrance and tell the story which he is all too young to make us understand?

It is rarely indeed that the child is able to prevent the sorrows of the man or woman; and when he can prevent them, and really knows he can, no man or woman ever looks in vain to him for sympathy or help. But the happiness of the child is almost wholly in the keeping of men and women of maturer years, and this charge is of the most sacred kind. If schools for the education of children were closed, and those for the instruction of parents were kept open, surely the world and the children would profit by the change. No doubt men and women owe duties to themselves that even their children have no right to take away; but these duties are seldom inconsistent with the highest welfare of the child.

As I look back at the father and mother who nourished me, I know that they were both wise and kind beyond others of my time and place; and yet I know that many of my deepest sorrows would have been spared had they been able to look across the span of years that divided them from me, and in thought and feeling become as little children once again.

The joys of childhood are keen, and the sorrows of childhood are deep. Years alone bring the knowledge that in thought and in feeling, as in the heavens above, sunshine and clouds follow each other in quick succession. In childhood the shadows are wholly forgotten in the brilliant radiance of the sun, and the clouds are so deep as to obscure for a time all the heavens above.

Over childhood, as over all the world, hangs the black pall of punishment,—which is only another name for vengeance and hate. In my day, and I fancy too often even now, parents believed that to “spare the rod” was to “spoil the child.” It was not the refinement of cruelty that made parents promise the child a whipping the next day or the next week, it was only their ignorance and thoughtlessness; but many times I went to bed to toss and dream of the promised punishment, and in the morning, however bright the sunshine, the world was wrapped in gloom. Of course it was seldom that the whipping was as severe as the fear that haunted the mind of the child; but the punishment was really there from the time it was promised until after it was given.

Few boys were mean enough to threaten to tell our parents or teacher of our misdeeds, yet there were children who for days or even weeks would hold this threat over their playmates and drag it forth on the slightest provocation. But among children this species of cruelty was generally condemned. We knew of no circumstances that could justify the threat to tell, much less the telling. A “tattle-tale” was the most contemptible of boys,—even more contemptible than a “cry-baby.” A “cry-baby” did not rank much below a girl. Still, we would suffer a great deal without flinching, to avoid this name.

In my time boys were not always so democratic as children are supposed to be. Somehow children do pick up a great deal from their elders, especially things they ought not to learn. I know that in our school there was always the same aristocracy as in our town. The children of the first families of the village were the first in the school. In games and sports these would usually get the foremost places, and each one soon knew where he belonged in the boys’ social scale. Certain boys were carefully avoided,—sometimes for sanitary reasons, more often, I fancy, for no reason at all. I am sure that all this discrimination caused the child sorrow and suffering that he could in no way defend himself against. So far from our teachers doing anything to show the cruelty and absurdity of this caste spirit, it was generally believed that they were kinder and more considerate and what we called “partial” to the children of influential parents than to the rest. And we were perfectly sure that this consideration had an important bearing on our marks.