| Mr
A. Stevenson of Arthur, Ont., has a very able and interesting
article on "The speech of children," in a
recent number of Science, which ought to be appreciated
by all who are interested in the development of the
young. Some of the expressions which Mr. Stevenson has
noticed are common to many children, though there is
a wide diversity owing to the capabilities of the child.
Some children have very little of what is called "baby
talk," and seem to emerge (almost at once) from
muteness into fairly good English. Others, more often
found among boys than girls, appear to develop the linguistic
powers more slowly. The tendency to shorten words and
drop hard consonants is similar to that of primitive
or deteriorated races. In fact it seems that the child
in its early development passes through all the stages
from the lower to the higher, as represented by the
animal as well as the human species. it may jar on some
loving mothers to be told that their darlings are merely
little human animals, but it is largely true, all the
same. Of course there are ages of race-culture heredity
behind the child, that separate it from the mere animal.
But we have all seen how a dog or a cat can be refined
up to modern tastes as to its diet and creature comforts.
It is when the child begins to think and wonder that
the great void between the beast and the human becomes
evident. And there is nothing on earth more beautiful
and refreshing than the innocent thought and wonder
of a thoughtful little child. If a child is at all thoughtful
it seems to get farther than the sagest mind ever got.
It is a pity to fill one of these pure individualities
with all sorts of unnatural fact. For my part I would
prefer to prolong their ideal world, where every field
is a universe undiscovered, and every bird or squirrel
a fairy or genii. After all, the ideal writer is the
one who has the children for an audience. The present
writer has such an audience, where he reigns more supreme
than Howells or Stevenson in both realism and romance.
He has no rivals, though he has the severest of critics,
for, the natural child, being an acute philosopher,
can see through humbug and nonsense quicker than many
an adult mind, for all its love of the wonderful and
the unknown, and "Now, papa, that's silly, that's
not a nice story at all; tell us a nice story,"
greets the unfortunate author whose imagination has
not been up to the usual requirements. If the audience
is allowed to choose its own subject the general cry
will be "a cat," or "a dog"; the
adventures of a cat or a dog being as interesting as
those of Sinbad if related rightly. Perhaps a small
boy shouts out, "No, a bear! a bear!" Children
like to be frightened just a little, not too much; so
the bear story is voted unanimously. The present writer,
who some time ago ran out of the whole stock of nursery
epics in prose and song, has had since to draw largely
on imagination. The epic with the traditional hero,
be he feathered, quadruped or human it matters not,
but interesting must be his history, this Ulysses of
the primitive folk. Prose is their favorite, as it allows
directness, and the mind of the child is all set on
the action or incident. Everything is presented as a
picture. In poetry the child first catches the rhythm
and sound. Tragedy is a favorite. They realize also
pathos, and have a strong sense of a humorous situation,
even when they cannot tell why.
The present
writer seldom falls into verse when catering to this
pigmy literary world, as he feels it easier to please
the adult mind than compete in a sphere where "Mother
Goose" is both Homer and Shakespeare. I find, however,
that my child public enjoys the epic, which really means
the adventures of a hero or a set of heroes, and the
tragedy. In the former the Homer must not dare to nod
for an instant, and in the latter the action must be
simple and direct.
C.
Huyia
Yeddo, we are told by The Chicago Tribune, came to Chicago
from Tokio, the city of the gentle and the exquisite,
to arrange for the Japanese exhibit at the World's fair.
He and his assistants have found the easy and natural
manners of this intelligent America too much for them,
and they have resolved to go home as soon as possible.
"Too much crowd; no can stay," said one of
these innocent old-world persons to a reporter. It seems
as they walked up State street one evening they were
beset by a mob of young hoodlums who pushed them off
the sidewalk, punched their faces, assailed them with
insulting epithets and finally left one of them insensible.
"These youths," said the Japanese narrator,
"were perfect strangers and quite unknown to me,"
and he added that they were supposed to be of the gentlemanly
class of Chicago. Anyone who has qualified himself to
live in imagination will realize the sorrow and amazement
of these poor souls, exposed to the tender mercies of
such a crowd. Let them take this experience as a warning,
and when they return to Japan let them use their best
endeavors to stem the tide of Americanization and Anglicization,
which will certainly in the end sweep away all that
is gentle, all that is lovely, all that is exquisite
in their ancient and inimitable habit of life. The Japanese
may perhaps be ignorant of some useful things which
we know, but the lessons which they have to teach to
us are of vastly greater importance.
L.
One
of the most interesting articles in the April number
of The Fortnightly Review is that by Sir Archibald Geikie,
F.R.S., upon "Scenery and the imagination."
The author deals first with the ancient conceptions
of the physical phenomena of the world, and shows how
the legends of gods and demi-gods arose from an attempt
to explain the disturbances which it was plain to be
seen had taken place in the face of the earth. He then
contrasts with these the new ideas which modern science
has brought to the appreciation of natural beauty. He
says: "It will not be hard to show that in dissipating
the misconceptions which have grown up around the question
of the origin of scenery, science has put in their place
a series of views of nature which appeal infinitely
more to the imagination than anything which they supplant."
This is certainly true and the writer sets about to
prove it. It is almost impossible that a man should
be too learned if with his knowledge and acquirements
he brings the right spirit towards life. If he has a
genial soul and wealth of sympathy every new fact or
perception which he makes his own is just so much pleasure
added to life. It increases his power of comparison
and generalization, and enables him to call upon every
fact in nature and life for illustrations or correlations
which will throw additional light upon the subject in
hand. We can form some idea in reading the works of
Darwin what a pleasure in life his must have been, as
with profound knowledge he compared, observed and sifted.
Sir A. Geikie quotes these lines from Lowell, which
express very beautifully the attitude of a poet toward
the new and profounder science:—
"I
grieve not that ripe knowledge takes away
The charm
that nature to my childhood wore,
For, with that insight cometh, day by day,
A greater
bliss than wonder was before;
The real does not clip the poet's wings;
To win the
secret of a weed's plain heart
Reveals some clue to spiritual things,
And stumbling
guess becomes firm-footed art."
It
would be as useless to argue that the knowledge of the
convulsions and transformations which have made the
world what it is cannot add to our appreciation of the
beauty of the world as to maintain that a musician gains
no pleasure from a knowledge of the structure of the
sonata he plays on, the sculptor from a knowledge of
the anatomy of the statue which he admires. There is
one part of such a pleasure in natural scenery which
every one can enjoy, and that is the perception of its
ancientness. I can never look on any portion of the
old Laurentian range without an added feeling of wonder.
I shall never forget what a sensation of loneliness
and awe came over me as from the Isle aux Coudres (itself
haunted with the oldest historical associations for
Canadians) I watched the sun go down behind the mountains
that gather over Bay St. Paul. There was not a cloud
in the sky, and as darkness came on the presence of
the mountains seemed to grow vaster. They wrapped themselves
in darkness and stood aloof, obscure in their ancientness.
S.
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