“And our own history?”
“Of course; from savagery to today—that is a simple story, endlessly interesting as they grow older.”
“What do you mean, then, by cutting off the past?”
“I mean that their stories, poems, pictures, and the major part of their instruction deals with the present and future—especially the future. The whole teaching is dynamic—not static. We used to teach mostly facts, or what we thought were facts. Now we teach processes. You’ll find out if you talk to children, anywhere.”
This I mentally determined to do, and in due course did. I may as well say right here that I found children more delightful companions than they used to be. They were polite enough, even considerate; but so universally happy, so overflowing with purposes, so skilful in so many ways, so intelligent and efficient, that it astonished me. We used to have a sort of race-myth about “happy childhood,” but none of us seemed to study the faces of the children we saw about us. Even among well-to-do families, the discontented, careworn, anxious, repressed, or rebellious faces of children ought to have routed our myth forever.
Timid, browbeaten children, sulky children, darkly resentful; nervous, whining children, foolish, mischievous, hysterically giggling children, noisy, destructive, uneasy children—how well I remembered them.
These new ones had a strange air of being persons, not subordinates and dependents, but equals; their limitations frankly admitted, but not cast up at them, and their special powers fully respected. That was it!
I am wandering far ahead of that day’s conversation, but it led to wide study among children, analysis, and some interesting conclusions. When I hit on this one I began to understand. Children were universally respected, and they liked it. In city or country, place was made for them, permanent, pleasant, properly appointed place; to use, enjoy, and grow up in. They had their homes and families as before, losing nothing; but they added to this background their own wide gardens and houses, where part of each day was spent.
From earliest infancy they absorbed the idea that home was a place to come out from and go back to; the sweetest, dearest place—for there was mother, and father, and one’s own little room to sleep in; but the day hours were to go somewhere to learn and do, to work and play, to grow in.
I branched off from Nellie’s startling me with her “new-literature-for-children” idea. She went on to explain it further.
“The greatest artists work for children now, John,” she said. “In the child-gardens and child-homes they are surrounded with beauty. I do not mean that we hire painters and poets to manufacture beauty for them; but that painters and poets, architects and landscape artists, designers and decorators of all kinds, love and revere childhood, and delight to work for it.
“Remember that half of our artists are mothers now—a loving, serving, giving spirit has come into expression—a wider and more lasting expression than it was ever possible to put into doughnuts and embroidery! Wait till you see the beauty of our child-gardens!”
“Why don’t you call them schools? Don’t you have schools?”
“Some. We haven’t wholly outgrown the old academic habit. But for the babies there was no precedent, and they do not ‘go to school.’ ”
“You have a sort of central nursery?” I ventured.
“Not necessarily ‘central,’ John. And we have great numbers of them. How can I make it any way clear to you? See here. Suppose you were a mother, and a very busy one, like the old woman in the shoe; and suppose you had twenty or thirty permanent babies to be provided for? And suppose you were wise and rich—able to do what you wanted to? Wouldn’t you build an elaborate nursery for those children? Wouldn’t you engage the very best nurses and teachers? Wouldn’t you want the cleanest, quietest garden for them to play or sleep in? Of course you would.
“That is our attitude. We have at last recognized babies as a permanent class. They are always here, about a fifth of the population. And we, their mothers, have at last ensured to these, our babies, the best accommodation known to our time. It improves as we learn, of course.”
“Mm!” I said. “I’ll go and gaze upon these infant paradises later—at the sleeping hour, please! But how about that new literature you frightened me with?”
“Oh. Why, we have tried to treat their minds as we do their stomachs—putting in only what is good for them. I mean the very littlest, understand. As they grow older they have wider range; we have not expunged the world’s past, my dear brother! But we do prepare with all the wisdom, love, and power we have, the mental food for little children. Simple, lovely music is about them always—you must have noticed how universally they sing?”
I had, and said so.
“The coloring and decoration of their rooms is beautiful—their clothes are beautiful—and simple—you’ve seen that, too?”
“Yes, dear girl. It’s because I’ve seen—and heard—and noticed the surprisingness of the new child that I sit here fairly guzzling information. Pray proceed to the literature!”
“Literature is the most useful of the arts—the most perfect medium for transfer of ideas. We wish to have the first impressions in our children’s minds, above all things, true. All the witchery and loveliness possible in presentation—but the things presented are not senseless and unpleasant.
“We have plenty of ‘true stories,’ stories based on real events and on natural laws and processes; but the viewpoint from which they are written has changed; you’ll have to read some to see what I mean. But the major difference is in our stories of the future, our future here on earth. They are good stories, mind, the very best writers make them; good verses and pictures, too. And a diet like that, while it is just as varied and entertaining as the ‘once upon a time’ kind, leaves the child with a sense that things are going to happen—and he, or she, can help.
“You see, we don’t consider anything as done. To you, as
