See [Faith, a Child’s].
Child, The, as an Educator—See [Home, Foundation of the Republic].
Child Training—See [Prodigy, A]; [Training Children].
Child’s View of God—See [Anthropomorphism].
Childhood and Nature—See [God in the Child Mind].
CHILDLIKE TRUST AND MATURITY
A few days since, just after the recent snow-storm, I passed in the street a little fellow drawing a sled; a little, rosy-cheeked boy, who was so full of perfect happiness that his entire face was crinkled into a smile. He made a beautiful picture. That sled was his only responsibility, and that, along with the snow, made out for him a perfect heaven. I watched the lad and wished I were a boy again. It was a foolish wish, and yet not altogether foolish. There was something exquisite in the situation which one would have been not only foolish but stupid not to appreciate. He had no burden. His sled was unloaded, and slipt along over the frosty pavement almost of its own momentum. He had no anxieties. The little fellow’s heart is sometimes bruised, I suppose, but child bruises do not last as long as older bruises.
But I had not gone many steps past him before I revised my wish, and thought only how beautiful it would be to have the innocence of the boy and his simple trust, and along with that the mature equipment opening out into the vast opportunities that form the heritage of years that are ripe.—Charles H. Parkhurst.
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Children—See [Cruelty to Children].