The Old Nursery.
And so, too, of the life indoors. He remembers much of this in comparison with the later years. He remembers exactly where each piece of furniture stood in the old nursery. He can tell you with what colour the ottoman was covered in which his brothers’ and sisters’ outdoor things were kept, and he vividly remembers standing upon it to look out of the window and watch the gardener at work. He can recall exactly how much of the spout was broken belonging to the old grey teapot in which was brewed the senna tea, but he cannot tell you what the stuff tasted of—though he is sure that it was nasty. The nursery, the stairs, and the passages are in his memory so many playgrounds; he forgets the many childish tears that he shed, and the childish tragedies that befell him, while the games and the laughter and the pleasantness of his early surroundings are easily recalled.
But if he examines carefully into his early impressions he will find that the events which older persons might be expected to remember are forgotten, while the little matters that brought to his babyhood’s experience sensations of pain or pleasure—but especially the latter—are clear. That is to say, the memory markings made in early childhood do not include the greater number of things which came in contact with the various senses of the child, but are really few in number and connected invariably with special sensations.
It is a vast mistake to measure the importance of a child’s interests by those of a grown-up person. It is easy for the latter to forget every detail of a house in which he has passed some months or even years of middle age, but he will remember a shallow step leading down from one of his nurseries to the other.
How small a thing! Yes, but it was productive of great sensations. It was the first step he had ever known—by it was revealed to him the entirely new idea that one room could be on a different level from another. Then he found that it was a splendid place to sit upon—just the right height for him—and a still better place upon which to set up bricks and toys in order to knock them down and hear the crash of their fall. But, best of all, it was the place where his first deed of daring was performed. There came a day when he ventured to jump down! It was the first time that he had really cared for spectators: it was the first time that he had looked round for applause. For all these reasons—all connected with new sensations of pleasure—that little shallow wooden step made a deeper memory mark upon his mind than many subsequent places or events that have perhaps helped to turn the current of his life. But, after all is said, it is impossible not to feel that the unknown is so largely in excess of the known, in this as in many other subjects, that the only thing to be done is to try to induce those who have to do with little children to remember that much is possible and even probable—to act, that is, as if the youngest child may possibly remember for its good or ill any smallest fact or object with which its senses are brought into contact.
CHAPTER III
THE CHILD—ITS IMAGINATION
The imagination of the poet, of the novelist, of the advertiser of a patent medicine, is as nothing compared with that of a little child. No one who is unable to realise this will understand children or be really successful in their upbringing.
The Riotous Imagination of Children.
Unimaginative Parents.