In the elaborately efficient curricula of our modern colleges, although there are courses of instruction in almost every branch from Book-agenting to Motherhood, and from Sewing to Integral Calculus, there is one of endeavor which is, as yet, hopelessly uncharted. I speak of the art, or, of course, it should be science, of being an old-maid aunt!
It seems a simple matter to the casual observer and, perhaps, that is why no one has thought necessary to study the subject and offer a course. We remember how successfully it was done in our youth by those delightful old ladies who came for visits and taught us to knit and were almost sure to have some sort of confection concealed somewhere about their person or room. We remember how they implanted the idea that certain words were beyond the vocabulary of any lady, and that a child’s whole duty in life was to be polite in such matters as “Sir” and “Ma’am”, to be obedient to any of the species, Grown-People, and to be ready at all times to help in the search for spectacles. Their lot was easy enough and the very suggestion that they needed to be instructed in their capacity of aunt, would be ridiculous!
It is no wonder then, with that picture in view, that I launched forth upon a visit to my small nephew and nieces with no premonitions of the shoals which lay ahead. After five days in the presence of the strenuous regime which surrounds and enfolds the modern child, I have returned once more to the quiet back waters of old-maidenhood and to contemplation. And now a sadder and a wiser aunt, I offer some suggestions which might help another unwary one before she breaks into the complicated existence of the newly developed genus, Child.
In the first place, don’t use that obnoxious word “DON’T”. Its use you will find, or more likely be told, curbs the child’s free spirit and destroys his personality. If, thereof you find him with a redpepper as a toy, don’t try to take it from him, for being stronger than he you may succeed and thereby put a dent in his tender young willpower! Just trust that if he should get it into his eyes or mouth the result will not be fatal, and feel confident that thereafter he will seek some other form of toy! Or should you find him standing on a chair, before a blazing fire, reaching for something on the mantel piece, don’t remove him forcibly at once and try to convince him that he should never get there again. No! Rather divert his mind to something else in the room so that he will get down of his own accord, and leave the desired object until there is nobody present to divert him! For do you not see that if you tell him that there are things in the world which he cannot do, you will bind his free and birdlike soul and sadden his little life? Be comforted, though, for, perhaps, when he does fall the fire will be out, or the chair will tip the other way!
In the second place don’t be surprised to hear him cry, nay rather howl lustily, all the while he is being fed. Of course you think at once that he must surely be ill; in your memories of childhood such an occurrence meant only some dread disease. But before you send a hurried call for the doctor, take a look at the food. You will find that a sad and terrible change has come over the stomachs of children! No longer can they digest oatmeal when accompanied by its time-honored companions, sugar and cream, but must eat it plain in a luke warm state. Other cereals have also lost these erstwhile friends, in spite of the alluring but deceptive impression which you may have gotten from advertisements, and are eaten, or rather absorbed, for the doing has lost its gusto, plain. So don’t pity the child when you see him eating a teaspoonful of sugar just before he goes to bed, for that is his theoretical dole of sweetness for the day. Just hope that somewhere in the background is a friendly cook who is not yet aware of the fact that children have lost their powers of digestion!
And most important of all, don’t offer him any sort of refreshment, most particularly not the innocent-looking but deadly animal cracker! When Mrs. Noah, for it must have been she who invented that confection for the small voyage-wearied Ham, Shem, and Japheth, made the first animal crackers, she probably thought that she was doing a great thing and that children throughout the age would call her blessed. And so they have until now a fearful discovery has been made: animal crackers are absolutely indigestible! We shudder as we think of the menageries we ourselves have consumed! To what heights of perfection might our excellent health have risen, were it not for those wolves lurking in the form of sheep or elephants or overgrown curly-tailed dogs! To what size might our present too rotund forms have grown, were it not for those deadly processions marched hither and yon and then eaten in never varying order, head; tail, when present; feet; and then two bites on the body. Farewell, Animal Cracker, you are discovered at last! No more shall you with your treachery delight and entertain innocent little children, unless some fathers, defiant of the new laws of nature and the edicts of scientific mothers, procure you on the sly!
And so it goes. No! The duties of an old-maid aunt cannot be entered upon lightly. It would really be a charitable act for some one to study the subject and offer a course for those of us the numbers of whose nephews and nieces continue to increase. And we in the meantime can only hope that the pendulum of change will not delay too long in swinging back to the old-fashioned child, about whom, inside and out, we have a little knowledge if it is only empirical!
An Obscure Source of Education
Obviously a great deal of education, moral as well as intellectual, and even physical, is coming from the war, and it obviously comes in part from an immensely increased amount of reading on informing subjects, even in the newspapers. But the call for this reading contains a farther, and relatively obscure, source of education worth thinking of. We can no longer risk wasting our time, as it is to be feared most of us have done, by picking up to read the first thing that strikes our fancy. The greatly increased mass of material has forced upon us the habit of selecting what we read. The usefulness and importance of that habit hardly need dwelling upon to the constituency of this Review.