m*- w - Clpdigital.org

942 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
ANALYZING
{.Continued f\
which Mrs. Scott plays with a child and
this tells a story of honor and sometimes
even of honesty. If the child plays very
carefully and is fairly quick to obey the
rules, he has already developed an idea of
honor which will never leave him and
which will probably insure him from
ever spending time behind barred windows
in his after life.
Honor and honesty, like all the other
character traits, are developed by the
child's environment. The mother who
constantly makes promises which she
never fulfills is making her child into a
dishonorable man whose word you can
never believe. Threats, bad table manners
by father, quarrels before the child,
displays of temper are reflected in the
mirror which a child forms.
One cannot depend much on heredity
because a child is only partly the son of
his parents. He is the son of a long
line of parents, each of whom contributes
his mite to the youngster. But you
can control his environment and develop
his character and personality by every
move you make before him. You must
take him seriously, for already life is the
most serious thing he knows. When
you treat him as a child—talk baby talk
and feed him milk from a spoon after
he is old enough to drink it himself,
laugh at his pranks and snicker when he
calls grandpa a liar you are seeing him
from your point of view and not from
his. The oldest chestnut in the world
speaks of this: "When in Rome do as
the Romans do."
If a child is "good", his case may be
more serious than that of a bad one.
"We must see through children's virtues,"
said Mrs. Scott shrewdly. "We
must not be too content with our good,
our docile, our quiet child, who never
causes us any serious thought. That
child may turn out the most serious
problem. That child may be lacking.in
initiative, originality and self dependence."
So Mrs. Scott's laboratory is an indict-
YOUR CHILD
•om page 848 )
ment of parents. When someone goes
to her it is an admission that they have
failed, at least at present, although she
hopes that the time will come when no
mother will bring up a child until she
has had advice from an expert.
When Mrs. Scott, who is a Russian,
asked Tolstoi who the greatest American
of today is, he answered her, "John
Dewey".
It is to John Dewey that she gives
credit for her basic ideas. He is a professor
of education and child study in
Columbia University, a man so shy himself
that he has effaced himself from the
public yet whose writings have had a
greater influence upon teachers in the
whole world than any other work. He
is ranked as one of the three great philosophers
of the time. His books and
his courses of study are tremendously
difficult and they are of course for teachers
and not for parents. Mrs. Scott is
one of the advance outposts of his work,
although her basic ideas are really all
which she owes to him.
You can do a great deal for your own
child by applying the ideas sketched in
this article. Try to look at things from
his point of view instead of from your
own and try to read between the lines of
his speech. He says but a part of what
he means. We have a world populated
with persons who are subnormal—able
to use one-third to a half of the abilities
with which they were endowed at birth.
You have felt it yourself in those momentary
flashes of brilliance which astound
you and reveal hidden depths in
your own mentality. If you could use
those flashes all the time, turn them into
a great stream of light you could make
twice the salary you now enjoy, perhaps
a hundred times as much because the
great and the little are divided by an
extremely narrow gulf. It may be too
late for you to help yourself, but how
about the youngster? Give him a
chance; think in his terms and talk his
language.