Three sentences from either of my parents would have laid the hobgoblin to rest forever, and I recollect that I did, several times, essay to broach the subject to my mother, very unskillfully, I dare say, for she did not encourage my preliminary remarks, and resolution failed me before I reached the point. I was a tall girl of fourteen when I confessed to her that, for five or six years, I believed that I had really seen the devil!
Lastly—for my rambling “talk” has already transcended the limits I at first assigned to it—Babies have a right to be babies.
That precocious and unnatural growth of prudence, propriety, and learning in young children, which is variously described as “old-fashioned,” “smart,” and “wearing a gray head upon green shoulders,” is sometimes an offensive, always a pitiable sight. A life without childhood is like an arid summer day, to which the dew of morning has been denied. There are blossoms which the heat of incipient decay has forced into premature expansion. We all understand this law of Divine husbandry. Happy is she who has never had reason to tremble at sight of this early and brilliant bloom; who has not wept unavailing tears over the pale blossom, as it lay, crushed and faded, at the grave’s mouth! Well is it then for the bereaved mother’s peace of mind if she can, in the review of the brief years during which the gifted one was lent to her, comfort herself with the thought that she strove, in patient, far-seeing love, to repress, rather than stimulate, the unhealthy growth of intellectual powers that were in danger of outstripping physical vigor; that she rose superior to the vulgar ambition to have her child excel all others of his age in scholarship and showy accomplishments. Ah! it is not until the golden locks are hidden by the green sod, and the busy brain forever still, that, recalling the deep sayings and vivid thought-flashes that made us look upon our noble boy with such triumphant affection, we measure the short mound with tear-blinded eyes, and say: “We should have known, from the first, that all our bright dreams for him were to suffer rude, terrible awakening here! When we should have looked for the blade only, the bud appeared and the flowers. The fruit could only ripen in heaven!”
Do not seek to make of your children monstrous, uncomely, infant phenomena. If, by some special interposition of preserving mercy, their lives and health do not fall a sacrifice to your weak vanity, you will discover, when your prodigy has completed his course of book-study, that he is not one whit better fitted for the actual fight with life and labor than is the fellow-student who used to ran wild, with torn hat, trousers out at the knees, rough fists, chapped by wind and weather, and pockets frightfully distended by a miscellaneous collection of unripe apples, jack-stones, peanuts, top-cord, “taffey,” whistles, gingerbread, pocket-knife, hard-boiled eggs, iron nails, of assorted sizes, and, perhaps, a living specimen or two, in the shape of a spotted terrapin or a June-bug, with a string tied to its leg; the while your Pindar Augustus, in white linen pants and cheeks to match, sat in learned abstraction from all mean and common things, his spine curved, and his baby-brows knit over his Homer or Euclid. It is distressing, yet instructive, to see how the mill of every-day life grinds down college geniuses into very ordinary men; how the oft-quoted logic of events proves the “bright particular star” of
the family circle and the school-room to be, after all, a luminary of, at best, the fourth or fifth magnitude. You gain nothing except mortification and disappointment, by cheating your wonderful scion out of his childhood.
I am afraid that most of us, even those who have not fallen into the gravely absurd error just referred to, are yet apt to expect too much of our bairns. They may be marvels of sweetness, and sprightliness, and filial devotion, but they are only babies after all. “Children should be seen—not heard!” is often repeated by us in thoughtlessness or ignorance of the real character of the maxim. It is illiberal and cruel, and belongs to the age when a father held almost unlimited power over the very life of his child; when the younger members of the household never dared to sit down in the presence of their parents, without their express and gracious permission. I agree that a pert, loud-tongued child is an offence, at all times, but do not let us, on this account, condemn to silence the bird-like voices that make sweetest music in our hearts and homes. Even birds sing sometimes when we would rather they should refrain; so let us be forbearing with the clamor of the babies. Do not pretend to judge them by the rules you would apply to grown people.
“Father!” says a bright-eyed boy, as his parent enters the house at evening, “did you remember to get me the ball you promised?”
“I did not, Tom. You shall certainly have it to-morrow.”