In these two cases the "companionship" lasted but a few months, but there are children whose imaginary companions grow up with them and get older as they get older.
[Illustration: Imagination supplies this two-year-old a prancing steed.]
In some instances there is a group of such imaginary companions, and their activities constitute "a continued story," of which the child is a living centre, although not necessarily the hero.
It seems to me that the power to create his own friends must be a great boon to a child who is forced to be alone a great deal or has no congenial companions.
There need be no fear—except perhaps in very extreme cases—that such activity of the imagination is morbid. A little girl who plays with her dolls is really doing the same thing, only that she has a symbol for each of her imaginary companions.
But although an imaginative child is much easier to teach later on, and although he does not trouble you with the incessant nagging "What shall I do now?" the mother whose idea of good conduct is "keeping quiet" will find the unimaginative child much easier to care for. He is very much less active and therefore "less troublesome." This explains why this priceless gift of imagination has so often been discouraged by parents and teachers. But they did not know that they were actually harming the child by so discouraging him, or, let us hope, they would not have chosen the easier way. For, after all, we are not looking for the easiest way of getting along with children, but for the best, and the best for them will prove in the end to be the best for us.
It must certainly try your patience, when you are tired, at the end of a day's work, to have Harry refuse to come to be put to bed because you called him "Harry"; and he replies, perhaps somewhat crossly: "I am not Harry, I told you. I am little Jack Horner, and I have to sit in my corner." But no matter how hard it may seem, do not get discouraged. Once you are fully aware of the importance of what seems to be but silly play, you will add this one more to your many sacrifices, and find that it will bring returns a hundredfold. And, after all, as in so many other problems, when you resolve to make the sacrifice, it turns out to be no sacrifice. For, once you approach the problem in an understanding spirit, the flights of the child's imagination will give you untold pleasure.
Another reason why imagination has been suppressed by those who are in charge of children is the fear that it will lead to the formation of habits of untruthfulness. It is very hard to realize, unless you understand the child's nature, that the child is not lying when he says something that is manifestly not so to you and the other adults. I have heard children reproved for lying when I was sure that they had no idea of what a "lie" is. In one family an older boy broke a plate and, when charged with the deed, denied it flatly. His little brother, however, confessed and described just how he had broken it. Now, the older boy was telling a falsehood consciously— probably from fear of punishment. The little fellow, however, was not telling an untruth—from his point of view. He really imagined having broken that plate. He had heard the event discussed by the family until all the incidents were vivid to him and he pictured himself as the hero.
Up to a certain time it is impossible for the child to distinguish between what we call real and his make-believe. Both are equally real to him, and the make-believe is ever so much more interesting.
Until about the fifth year a child does not know that he is imagining; between the ages of four and six the imaginative period is at its height, and there begins to appear a sort of undercurrent of consciousness that it is all make-believe, and this heightens the pleasure of trying to make it seem real. Gradually the child learns to distinguish between imaginary experiences and real ones, but until you are quite certain that he does distinguish, do not attach any moral significance to his stories. Should an older child be inclined to tell falsehoods, you may be sure that this is not because his imagination has been cultivated. There are then other reasons and causes, and they must be studied on their own account.