Of course as soon as they go to school a new ideal begins to take possession of the childish soul. Up there in her tribunal sits the teacher, omniscient and omnipotent, invested with such authority that the parental authority pales into insignificance in comparison with it. Parental authority extends only to their children. But the teacher’s! She has command over so many children! With sovereign munificence she distributes her gracious favours. She designates one child to act as “monitor” (oh, what exalted pre-eminence!); another may carry her books home; the third is permitted to restore the stuffed owl into the teacher’s cabinet, or to clean the blackboard; the fourth has the rare privilege of being sent out to purchase the teacher’s ham sandwich! And then there are the various punishments the teacher can inflict upon the children entrusted to her. Oh, it’s just grand to be a teacher!
But, above all, the desire is to rule over many. Have I omitted to mention the “princess”? Incredible! Only few children are so naive as to betray this wish. But all would love to become “queens,”—ay, with all their hearts. The fairy tales are full of them. How the proud prince came and helped the poor girl mount his steed, saying: “Now you’ll sit by me and be my Queen!” Innumerable Cinderellas in the north and in the south, in the east and in the west, sit at their compulsory tasks and dream of the prince who is to free them.
All have one secret dread: To be lost in the vast multitude. They want to accomplish something, want to stand out over the others. Vanity causes more suffering than ambition. Soon, too soon, they learn that, these sober days princes do not go roaming about promiscuously as in the golden days of fairydom. But hope finds a way and soars on the wings of fantasy into the realm of the possible and yet wonderful. Are there not queens in the world of arts? Do they not rule like real queens their willingly humble subjects? Haven’t they everything that a queen has: Gold, fame, honour, recognition, admiration, envy? Almost every girl goes through this stage. She wants to become a great artist. A prima donna such as the world has never yet known; a danseuse, who shall have the tumultuous applause of houses filled to the last seat; a celebrated actress whose finger-tips princes shall be permitted to kiss; a violinist whose bow shall sway the hearts of men more than the golden sceptre of a queen ever could.
This dream runs through the souls of all girls. It yearly furnishes the art dragon with thousands and thousands of victims. The happy parents believe it is the voice of talent crying imperatively to be heard. In reality it is only the beginning of a harassing struggle to get into the lime-light, a struggle that all women wage with in exhaustible patience as long as they live. And thus numberless amateur female dilettanti vainly contend for the laurel because they are so presumptuous as to try to transform a childish dream into a waking reality.
It is even more interesting to make a survey of what girls just past puberty do not wish to become. Not one wants to marry. (Reasons can always be found.) Not one wants to be an ordinary merchant’s wife. And life then takes delight in bringing that to pass which seemingly they did not wish....
In boys the matter is more complicated. The sex-urge is not manifested so clearly in them as in girls. It requires great skill in the understanding of human conduct to discover in the games that boys play the symbolic connection with the natural impulses. It is remarkable that boys’ earliest ideals are employments that are in some way or other related to locomotion. All little boys first want to be drivers, conductors, chauffeurs, and the like. Motion seems to fascinate the boy and to give him more pleasure than anything else. A ride in a street car or a bus which seems to us elders so obviously wearisome is such a wonderful thing for a child. Just look at the solemn faces of the little boys as they sit astride the brave wooden steed in the carousal! “Sonny, don’t you like it? Why aren’t you laughing?” exclaims the astonished mother.
A child is still at that stage of development when motion seems something wonderful. Is it possible that in this a secret (unconscious) sex-motive, such as is often felt by one when being rocked or swung in a swinging boat, does not play a part? Many adults admit this well-known effect of riding. This is in all probability one of the most potent and most hidden roots of the passion for travelling. Freud very frankly asserts in his “Contributions to a sexual theory” that rhythmical motion gives rise to pleasurable sensations in children. “The jolting in a travelling wagon and subsequently in a railway train has such a fascination for older children that all children, at least all boys, sometimes in their life want to be conductors and drivers. They show a curious interest in everything connected with trains and make these the nucleus of an exquisite system of sexual symbolism.”
Be this as it may. The fact is that all the little ones want to become drivers of some vehicle, that they can play driver, rider, chauffeur, car, train, etc., for hours at a time, that in the first years of their lives their fantasies are fixed only on objects possessing the power of motion, beginning with the baby-carriage and ending with the aeroplane.
This stage lasts a variable period in different children. In some cases up to puberty and some even beyond this. I know boys who have almost attained to manhood who are still inordinately interested in automobiles and railways. In these cases we are dealing with a fixation of an infantile wish which will exercise a decisive influence on the individual’s whole life. In most cases the first ideal loses its glamour before the magic of a uniform. The first uniform that a child sees daily is that of the “letter-carrier.” In his favour, too, is the fact that he is always on the go, going from house to house. The “policeman” too, promenading up and down in his uniform, engages the child’s fantasy. So too the dashing “fireman.” Needless to say all these are very soon displaced and wholly forgotten in favour of the “soldier.”