Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers
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CRUEL FRIGHTENING OF CHILDREN
The most acute suffering is that produced by FEAR, and those who
suffer most acutely from fear are YOUNG children.
Who does not remember the intense agony in youth based upon the
superstitious teachings of some foolish older person?
And how many children are made miserable through the hideous fear
that comes from threats and from punishment postponed?
If a man should be whipped incessantly for three or four hours he
would think his tormentor a monster of brutality.
Yet you say to a child:
"I will whip you for that to-morrow."
You sentence that child to hours of the most acute mental
suffering, and if the child be nervous and unusually sensitive,
you may permanently injure its health. ----
Here is a scene unfortunately not rare in this country:
A thin, nervous little boy, perhaps ten years old, was walking
along a suburban street. Suddenly, on turning a corner, he was
confronted by a man, apparently his father.
The child stood trembling. The man, in a voice of cold,
concentrated anger, said:
"Didn't I tell you to come early. You go to the house and WAIT
THERE TILL I COME BACK AND FIX YOU."
The man walked on, to get the drink of beer or whiskey that
should add to his natural cruelty, and the poor child, without a
word, started for home to await the coming punishment.
No more cruel treatment was ever endured by any human being than
the punishment inflicted by that thoughtless man on the nervous,
helpless child placed in his power.
Later, of course, there followed the punishment; a huge, powerful
man striking repeatedly the delicate body of the child,
emphasizing the brutality of his blows with more brutal words,
and feeling when it was over that he had gloriously done his duty
as a typical American father.
Of course, the actual brutal beating was only a small part of the
child's ordeal.
The most horrible part was the waiting for the punishment. No
man in the death cell ever suffered more than thousands of
children suffer every day waiting for the brutality which is to
exemplify our savage notions concerning the education of
children.
If such a monstrous parody on a father should be met in some
lonely wood by a huge gorilla and treated as that father treats
his own son, he would complain bitterly of the gorilla's
ferocity. Yet it would not equal in any way his own brutal and
less excusable cruelty. ----
If a parent says that he cannot bring up his children and control
them without beating them, you may say to that parent:
You never struck a child in your life except when you were angry,
and you would not have dared to strike it if it had been of your
own size.
Children born of decent parents can be brought up, and ARE
brought up, without beatings, and if yours are a different kind
of children it is a reflection on YOU, and on your whole brood
and family.
The poor, ignorant hen can teach its young ones to scratch and
hunt worms, and acquire whatever education they need without
hurting them, and a human being should be able to do for his own
as much as a hen can do.
IT IS NATURAL FOR CHILDREN TO BE CRUEL
You have perhaps read that Mrs. Isabelle Bailey, of Palmyra,
N.J., was cruelly tortured by three little girls.
The unfortunate woman was eighty-five years old, paralyzed, and
confined to her bed.
The three children, two of them eight and one eleven years old,
tormented the poor woman in a brutal manner, of which details
shall not be published here.
The helpless woman ultimately died, and the children were charged
with murder. ----
This horrible story is mentioned in the hope of concentrating the
minds of mothers and fathers on the fact that children are
naturally more cruel, more vicious, than grown people.
The children mentioned in this case were, perhaps, abnormal and
unusual monstrosities. But they serve to illustrate the fact
that infancy and childhood duplicate, in the individual, the
primitive animal life on earth.
Many children are brutally punished and ruined for life because
ignorant parents imagine that childhood is naturally pure and
innocent and good, and that a child which misbehaves must be
abnormally wicked.
If parents knew more about the physical and mental development of
their children, they would be better fitted to have charge of
them. ----
It is a fact taught by embryology that the human body before its
birth passes through numerous stages of development which
correspond exactly with the lower forms of animal life.
After birth the child develops MENTALLY in the same way, passing
through inferior mental stages and reaching a state of
benevolence, honesty, truthfulness and self-restraint only as a
result of long education and wise control.
A perfectly truthful child probably never existed. All childish
races of savages are incessant liars and thieves. All children
passing through the primitive stages of mental development are
naturally given to deception, and even to theft, especially when
they are frightened by the consequences of truth, and when things
which they desire are denied them.
All children are cruel--and there is no greater brutality than
confiding a helpless animal to the tender mercies of a young
child.
There may be a few exceptions, but they are very rare, and there
is no reason why parents should expect their particular children
to be the exceptions.
You may see a man of mature age, kind-hearted, absolutely
benevolent and just. And you may learn that when he was a baby
he bit his nurse, lied, and was cruel to animals and to other
children.
But parents are stupidly egotistical, and believe that their
pretty children ought to be born morally perfect.
This moral perfection can be obtained only as the result of
education.
Don't expect your children to be models of virtue.
Don't brutalize them by punishments and contempt because you
discover that their primitive mental life duplicates the mental
conditions of inferior animals.
Set them a good example, and by education make them what you want
them to be.
The ignorant and stupid belief that children are born naturally
good accounts for the brutality of many fathers and the ruin of
many young lives, making cowards of children, accentuating their
untruthfulness and cowardice and their cruelty through a desire
for revenge.
TWO THIN LITTLE BABIES ARE LEFT
The authorities of New York City, at this writing, have two
babies to give away.
A few days since there were about two hundred babies in the city
foundling asylum to be had for the asking.
Of all these little ones there remain but two whom nobody seems
to want.
These two forlorn little things are described as "thin and
nervous; inclined to cry, and not taking kindly to those who come
to pick out free babies for adoption."
Hundreds of women anxious for children have gone to the asylum,
have passed by the two little skinny babies, and have asked to be
informed as soon as fat babies should be on hand.
Presently we shall tell childless persons--especially
bachelors--why they should get a baby and bring it up.
But first, learn that the best possible choice would be one of
those two despised "thin" babies.
In all the world's history, the greatest men have begun life as
THIN babies.
You must know from common observation that in babyhood the head
is big out of all proportion to the rest of the body.
A baby one year old has in its brain alone at least one-third of
all the blood in its body.
THE BIGGER AND MORE ACTIVE THE BRAIN the more blood is required
to nourish it, and THE MORE THE REST OF THE BODY SUFFERS.
A baby luckily born may combine a good brain and a fat body. But
such luck is very rare.
Nine times out of ten the best baby MENTALLY is the
poorest-looking baby PHYSICALLY.
We have told you in this column about the pathetic babyhood of
the great Voltaire. Had he been in the foundling asylum during
the recent selection of babies, he would surely be among the
despised and rejected. Yet what a glory to have picked out and
raised the wonderful Voltaire!
Voltaire, whose name as a baby was Arouet, was the thinnest and
most nervous of babies. He had a disease very much like rickets;
he cried night and day, and there was little hope of keeping him
alive.
Pitt, the great British Prime Minister, was as sick and skinny a
baby as was ever seen. Pope, when a baby, would not have seemed
worth keeping alive to anybody but a loving mother.
We advise the women who have spurned the two thin babies in the
asylum to take another look at them. They may be the best two
babies in the entire lot.
A BABY CAN EDUCATE A MAN
If you will read Drummond's beautiful work "The Ascent of Man,"
you will learn that we owe to children the good that is in us.
It is the child that educates the father and mother.
If you are a solemn bachelor, gradually drying up in your selfish
life, try having a baby around for a while.
Get a despised thin one from the asylum. Get some good, kind old
woman to take care of it. Give the woman and the baby the
quietest room in your house or flat, and then watch the
improvement in your character.
You can feed the baby for the cost of one or two cocktails daily.
Your health will improve if you give up the cocktails, and watch
the effect of their substitute, milk, on the little child.
When you get up in the morning, if the hour is early, you will
find the old woman giving the baby its bath. The poor, little
thin thing will wriggle joyously in the warm water, once it gets
used to the daily bathing. Its head will be soaped first, then
sponged. It will be dried with a warm towel, and you can hit the
tin bathtub with your keys to keep it from crying while its
clothes are put on.
Hold the baby for a while each morning, letting its head rest on
your shoulder that its neck may not be strained. (This will give
the nurse a chance to prepare the bottle that follows the bath.)
It will get used to you after a few mornings. The first time it
shows affection for you, you will be the proudest man in your
office.
If asked to take a cocktail you will say:
"No, thank you. My cocktail money is spent to make a thin baby
fat."
If others boast of their friends, you will know that YOU have a
friend whom money cannot influence, one skinny little admirer at
home whose affection is genuine.
If a man shows delight in the love of his dog, you will say to
yourself:
"Any dog will like any man. But there are few that could get a
baby to like them in six days as that thin Jimmy likes me."
If you go home early, before the baby is put to bed, you will
find him trying to crawl along the floor, or trying to eat the
pattern in the carpet. He will look at you out of his pale,
little, blue eyes and reach his skinny arms toward you.
See if that does not make you glad that you tried the baby
experiment.
Gradually the thin body will get fatter, and the small, busy
mouth will begin a mumbling language of its own. The old nurse
will pretend to understand everything it says and will insist
that it knows your name.
The first tooth piercing the heated, suffering gum; the first
feeble steps with the help of a chair; the first tottering effort
all alone, with arms outstretched toward you, ending in a flabby
collapse, will delight you more than much experimenting with race
horses, if you are the right sort of man.
It will not be long before you will decide that the bringing up
of babies is your destiny, and a good one.
But when you bring a wife into the house, and she brings you
other babies, thin or fat, of your own, don't forget the original
thin Jimmy baby. Provide for the old nurse and for the
youngster. Say to your wife:
"Be fond of that Jimmy baby, for it was he who taught me that I
could not get along without you."
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