This impulse to extend rule appears more plainly in many of the little ceremonial observances of the child. Very charmingly is this respect for rule exhibited in all dealings with animals, also dolls and other pets. Not only are they required to do things in a proper orderly manner, but people have to treat them with due deference. One little fellow when saying good-night to his mother insisted on her going through with his doll precisely the same round of kissing and hand-shaking that he required in his own case.
This jealous regard for ceremony and the proprieties of behaviour is seen in the enforcement of rules of politeness by children who will extend them far beyond the scope intended by the parent. A delightful instance of this fell under my own observation, as I was walking on Hampstead Heath. It was a spring day, and the fat buds of the chestnuts were bursting into magnificent green plumes. Two well-dressed "misses," aged, I should say, about nine and eleven, were taking their correct morning walk. The elder called the attention of the younger to one of the trees, pointing to it. The younger exclaimed in a highly shocked tone: "Oh, Maud (or was it 'Mabel'?), you know you shouldn't point!"
The domain of prayer well illustrates the same tendency. The child is wont, as we have seen, to think of God as a very, very grand person, and naturally, therefore, extends to him all the courtesies he knows of. Thus he must be addressed politely with the due forms, "Please," "If you please," and the like. The German child shrinks from using the familiar form "Du" in his prayers. As one maiden of seven well put it in reply to a question why she used "Sie" (the polite form of "you") in her prayers: "Ich werde doch den lieben Gott nicht Du nennen: ich kenne ihn ja gar nicht" (But I mustn't call God "thou": I don't know him, you see). On the other hand, God must not be kept waiting. "Oh, mamma," said a little boy of three years and eight months (the same that was so insistent about the kissing and hand-shaking), "how long you have kept me awake for you; God has been wondering so whenever I was going to say my prayers." All the words must be nicely said to him. A little boy, aged four and three-quarter years, once stopped in the middle of a prayer and asked his mother: "Oh! how do you spell that word?" The question is curious as suggesting that the child may have regarded his silent communication to the far-off King as a kind of letter.
The Enforcer of Rules.
Not only do children thus of themselves extend the scope of our commands, they show a disposition to make rules for themselves. If, after being told to do a thing on a single occasion only, a child is found repeating the action on other occasions, this seems to show the germ of a law-making impulse. A little boy of two years and one month was once asked to give a lot of old toys to the children of the gardener. Some time after, on receiving some new toys, he put away, of his own accord, his old ones as before for the less fortunate children.
That the instinct for order assists moral discipline may be seen in the fact that children are apt to pay enormous deference to our rules. Nothing is more suggestive here than their talk among themselves, the emphasis they are wont to lay on the "must" and "must not". The truth is that children have a tremendous belief in the sacredness of rules.
This recognition of the absolute imperativeness of a rule properly laid down by the recognised authority is seen in the frequent insistence on its observance in new circumstances. It has been pointed out by Professor Preyer that a child of two years and eight months will follow out the prohibitions of the mother when he falls into other hands, sternly protesting, for example, against the nurse giving him the forbidden knife at table. Very proper children rather like to instruct their aunts and other ignorant persons as to the right way of dealing with them, and will rejoice in the opportunity of setting them straight even when it means a deprivation for themselves. The self-denying ordinance, "Mamma doesn't let me have many sweets," is by no means beyond the powers of a very correct little person.
A still clearer evidence of this respect for law as such, apart from its particular enforcement by the parent, is supplied by children's way of extending the rules imposed on themselves to others. No trait is better marked in the normal child than the impulse to subject others to his own disciplinary system. With what amusing severity are they wont to lay down the law to their dolls, and to their animal playmates, subjecting them to precisely the same prohibitions and punishments as those to which they themselves are subject! Nor do they stop here. They enforce the duties just as courageously on their human elders. A mite of eighteen months went up to her elder sister, who was crying, and with perfect mimicry of the nurse's corrective manner, said: "Hush! hush! papa!" pointing at the same time to the door.
This judicial bent of the child is a curious one and often develops a priggish fondness for setting others morally straight. Small boys have to endure much in this way from the hands of slightly older sisters proficient in matters of law and delighting to enforce the moralities. But sometimes the sisters lapse into naughtiness, and then the small boys have their chance. They too can on such occasions be priggish if not downright hypocritical. A little boy had been quarrelling with his sister named Muriel just before going to bed. On kneeling down to say his prayers and noticing that Muriel was sitting near and listening, he prayed aloud in this wise, "Please, God, make Muriel a good girl," then looked up and said in an angry voice, "Do you hear that, Muriel?" and after this digression resumed his petition.
This mania for correction shows itself too in relation to the authorities themselves. A collection of rebukes and expositions of moral precept supplied by children to their erring parents would be amusing and suggestive. Here is an example: A boy of two—the moral instruction of parents by the child begins betimes—would not go to sleep when bidden to do so by his father and mother. At length the father, losing patience, addressed him with a man's fierce emphasis. This mode of admonition so far from cowering the child simply offended his sense of propriety, for he rejoined: "You s'ouldn't, s'ouldn't, Assum (i.e., 'Arthur,' the father's name), you s'ould speak nicely".