All children are weaned too early. The proper time is indicated by their teething. This process is usually painful and distressing. By a mechanical instinct the child, at that time, carries to his mouth and chews everything he holds. We think we make the operation easier by giving him for a plaything some hard substance, such as ivory or coral. I think we are mistaken. Far from softening the gums, these hard bodies, when applied, render them hard and callous, and prepare the way for a more painful and distressing laceration. Let us always take instinct for guide. We never see puppies try their growing teeth upon flints, or iron, or bones, but upon wood, or leather, or rags,—upon soft materials, which give way, and on which the tooth impresses itself.
We no longer aim at simplicity, even where children are concerned. Golden and silver bells, corals, crystals, toys of every price, of every sort. What useless and mischievous affectations they are! Let there be none of them,—no bells, no toys.
A little twig covered with its own leaves and fruit,—a poppy-head, in which the seeds can be heard rattling,—a stick of liquorice he can suck and chew, these will amuse a child quite as well as the splendid baubles, and will not disadvantage him by accustoming him to luxury from his very birth.
Language.
From the time they are born, children hear people speak. They are spoken to not only before they understand what is said to them, but before they can repeat the sounds they hear. Their organs, still benumbed, adapt themselves only by degrees to imitating the sounds dictated to them, and it is not even certain that these sounds are borne to their ears at first as distinctly as to ours.
I do not disapprove of a nurse's amusing the child with songs, and with blithe and varied tones. But I do disapprove of her perpetually deafening him with a multitude of useless words, of which he understands only the tone she gives them.
I would like the first articulate sounds he must hear to be few in number, easy, distinct, often repeated. The words they form should represent only material objects which can be shown him. Our unfortunate readiness to content ourselves with words that have no meaning to us whatever, begins earlier than we suppose. Even as in his swaddling-clothes the child hears his nurse's babble, he hears in class the verbiage of his teacher. It strikes me that if he were to be so brought up that he could not understand it at all, he would be very well instructed.[[6]]
Reflections crowd upon us when we set about discussing the formation of children's language, and their baby talk itself. In spite of us, they always learn to speak by the same process, and all our philosophical speculations about it are entirely useless.
They seem, at first, to have a grammar adapted to their own age, although its rules of syntax are more general than ours. And if we were to pay close attention to them, we should be astonished at the exactness with which they follow certain analogies, very faulty if you will, but very regular, that are displeasing only because harsh, or because usage does not recognize them.
It is unbearable pedantry, and a most useless labor, to attempt correcting in children every little fault against usage; they never fail themselves to correct these faults in time. Always speak correctly in their presence; order it so that they are never so happy with any one as with you; and rest assured their language will insensibly be purified by your own, without your having ever reproved them.