It is hard to attune our minds to a correct appreciation of such incidents, when the clocks belong to us, and the child doesn’t. It is hard to be told that our pendulums are a necessary element, which we do wrong to begrudge, in the training of a boy’s observation. All modern writers upon children unite in denouncing the word “don’t,” as implying upon every occasion a censure which is often unmerited. But this protest reminds me of the little girl who, being told by her father she must not say “I won’t,” innocently inquired: “But, papa, what am I to say when I mean ‘I won’t’?” In the same spirit of uncertainty I would like to know what I am to say when I mean “don’t.” Auretta Roys Aldrich, who has written a book on “Children--Their Models and Critics,” in which she is rather severe upon adults, tells us a harrowing tale of a mother and a five-year-old boy who sat near her one day on a railway train. The child thrust his head out of the window, whereupon the mother said tersely: “Johnnie, stop putting your head out of the window!” That was all. No word of explanation or entreaty softened this ruthless command. Whether Johnnie obeyed or not is unrevealed, being a matter of no importance; but, “as they left the car,” comments the author, “they left also an aching in my heart. I longed to clasp the mother in my arms, for she, too, had been the victim of misunderstanding; and show her, before it was too late, how she was missing the pure gold of life for herself and her little boy.” Happily, before long, another mother entered, and her child also put his head as far as he could out of that troublesome window, which nobody seemed to have the sense to shut. Observing this, his wise parent sat down by his side, “made some pleasant remark about the outlook,” and then gradually and persuasively revealed to him his danger, discussing the matter with “much candor and interest,” until he was finally won over to her point of view, and consented of his own free will, and as a rational human being, to draw in his little head.
I think this double experience worth repeating, because it contrasts so pleasantly with the venerable anecdote which found its way into all the reading books when I was a small child, and illustrated the then popular theory of education. It was the story of a mother who sees her boy running rapidly down a steep hill, and knows that, almost at his feet, lies an abandoned quarry, half hidden by underbrush and weeds. Sure of his obedience, she calls sharply, “Stop, Willie!” and the child, with a violent effort, stays his steps at the very mouth of the pit. Had it been necessary to convince him first that her apprehensions were well grounded, he would have broken his neck meanwhile, and our school-books would have had one tale less to tell.