Children's Ways / Being selections from the author's "Studies of childhood," with some additional matter

by James Sully

I think, then, that we may give the small offenders the benefit of the doubt, and not attribute their rough handling of animals to a wish to inflict pain, or even to an indifference to pain of which they are clearly aware. Wanton activity, the curiosity of the experimenter, and delight in showing one's power and producing an effect, seem sufficient to explain a large part of the unlearned brutality of the first years.

We have now looked at one of the darkest sides of the child and have found that though it is decidedly unpleasant it is not quite so ugly as it has been painted. Children are no doubt apt to be greedy, and otherwise unsociable, to be ferocious in their anger, and to be sadly wanting in consideration for others; yet it is some consolation to reflect that their savageness is not quite that of brutes, and that their selfishness and cruelty are a long way removed from a deliberate and calculating egoism.

The Promise of Humanity.

Pure Ishmaelite as he seems, however, a child has what we call the social instincts, and inconsistently enough no doubt he shows at times that after all he wants to join himself to those whom at other times he treats as foes. If he has his outbursts of temper he has also his fits of tenderness. If he is now dead to others' sufferings he is at another time taken with a most amiable childish concern for their happiness.

The germ of this instinct of attachment to society may be said to disclose itself in a rude form in the first weeks of life, when he begins to get used to and to depend on the human presence, and is miserable when this is taken from him.

In this instinct of companionship there is involved a vague inarticulate kind of sympathy. Just as the attached dog may be said to have in a dim fashion a feeling of oneness with its master, so the child. The intenser realisation of this oneness comes after separation. A girl of thirteen months was separated from her mother during six weeks. On the return of the latter she was speechless, and for some time could not bear to leave her restored companion for a minute. A like outbreak of tender sympathy is apt to follow a fit of naughtiness when a child feels itself taken back to the mother's heart.

Sympathy, it is commonly said, is a kind of imitation, and this is strikingly illustrated in its early forms. A child has been observed under the age of seven months to look unhappy, drawing down well the corners of the mouth in the characteristic baby-fashion when his nurse pretended to cry.

This imitative sympathy deepens with attachment. We see something of it in the child's make-believe. When, for example, a little girl on finding that her mother's head ached pretended to have a bad head, we appear to see the working of an impulse to get near and share in others' experiences. The same feeling shows itself in play, especially in the treatment of the doll, which has to go through all that the child goes through, to be bathed, scolded, nursed when poorly, and so forth.

From this imitative acting of another's trouble, so as to share in it, there is but a step to that more direct apprehension of it which we call sympathy. Children sometimes begin to display such understanding of others' trouble early in the second year. One mite of fourteen months was quite concerned at the misery of an elder sister, crawling towards her and making comical endeavours by grunts and imitative movements of the fingers to allay her crying. I have a number of stories showing that for a period beginning early in the second year it is not uncommon for children to betray an exuberance of pity, being moved almost to tears, for example, when the mother says, "Poor uncle!" or when contemplating in a picture the tragic fate of Humpty Dumpty.

Very sweet and sacred to a mother are the first manifestations of tenderness towards herself. A child about the age of two has a way of looking at and touching its mother's face with something of the rapturous expression of a lover. Still sweeter, perhaps, are the first clear indications of loving concern. The temporary loss of her presence, due to illness or other cause, is often the occasion for the appearance of a deeper tenderness. A little boy of three spontaneously brought his story-book to his mother when she lay in bed ill; and the same child used to follow her about after her recovery with all the devotion of a little knight. At other times it is the suspicion of an injury to his beloved one, as when one little fellow seeing the strange doctor lay hold of his mother's wrist stood up like an outraged turkey-cock, backing into his mother's skirts, ready to charge the assaulter.