Your Child Today and Tomorrow
- REVIEWS AND CRITICISM.
- Author:
Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg. Phila.:
Lippincott Company, 1913. Pp. 234. Illus.
Mrs. Gruenberg does not assume to have made any original contributions to our knowledge of children. “In my efforts,” she says, “to learn something about the nature of the child, as a member of child-study groups, and in my own studies, I have found a large mass of material?accumulated by investigators into the psychology and biology of childhood?which could be of great practical use to all concerned with the bringing up of children. In this little book I have tried to present some of this material in a form that will make it available for those who lack the time, or the special training, or the opportunity to work it out for themselves.” And with this motive she has achieved an eminent success. Her book is fluent, clear, and engaging, like the conversation of well bred people. It holds the attention, but never grips or fatigues it.
One could wish that Mrs. Gruenberg had included, perhaps in an appendix, an account of this “large mass of material” which she has consulted. Some of her readers will hardly be satisfied with her echo, however pleasing, of the masters of child study to whom she alludes. Only once does she give references, and that is in chapter XII, “The Stork or the Truth,” where she mentions more than twenty books and pamphlets dealing with sex knowledge for the child. It may with reason be objected that here is a situation in which books can be of the least use, and in which every parent has to think out his own way and choose his own time for conveying such information.
In chapter I Mrs. Gruenberg urges the need of child study. “Our instincts cannot be relied upon,” she says, “when it comes to understanding the child’s mind, the meaning of his various activities, and how best to guide his mental and moral development… . Each child is different from every other child in the whole world … the experts do not know your child; they have studied the problems of childhood, and their results you can use in learning to know your child. Your problem is always an individual problem.” And the particular problem which interests her is the development of personality, the flowering of instincts, and their grouping to form a well-balanced character. Of the physical care of the child she has little to say, and still less about education in any of its formal aspects.
When she considers the subject of punishment in chapter II, Mrs. Gruenberg ventures upon rather insecure ground. “Never punish in anger,” she says, and “we must allow every trace of anger to disappear.” Here we may remind her that children are no less individual than she made them out to be in the preceding chapter, and that there are youngsters upon whom the blaze of justifiable wrath has a most salutary effect. And pray why shouldn’t children learn in due season that human actions may be looked at in more than one way, and that what is amusing enough from their side of the question, may be expected to incur the anger of grown-ups with all manner of uncomfortable consequences? It is part of their initiation into the perplexities of life.
A very delightfully written chapter is devoted to the child’s imagination, and another to “The Lies Children Tell.” It is characteristic of Mrs. Gruenberg’s method that she dutifully accepts the conclusions of the leaders in child study, and hands them on to us uncritically. Later in the volume, when discussing “Children’s Ideals and Ambitions,” she misses an opportunity to make a criticism of value. She observes, “An interesting point that has been brought out by studies is the fact that degrading ideals are practically wanting in children.” In her chapter on lies she has admitted, “with some children lying is caused by their aesthetic instincts. It is much easier for them to describe a situation as they feel it should be, than to describe it as it actually was.” Yet Mrs. Gruenberg, following in the footsteps of many a trained psychologist, accepts as literally true the account which children give of their ideals! Here it is that grown-ups are so much more naif than the youngsters. In the first place it must be remembered that it is generally easier for a child to lie in response to a direct question which concerns anything as subjective as his ideals,?anything which cannot be proved or disproved by appealing to facts. In the second place, even if it were not as easy as it is, he would still be under temptation to give the answer most acceptable to the questioner (or least acceptable, if he were in perverse mood). As an instance,?one little girl who has been intimately known to the reviewer, cherished the ambition to become a ballet dancer. Yet when asked what she intended to be, she invariably said “a trained nurse,” and reaped the sympathy and approbation of her elders, who would have frowned upon dancing as the embodiment of all that is sinful.
It is in her stories of children’s sayings and doings that Mrs. Gruenberg shines. There are not too many of them; they are fresh and chosen with the utmost discretion and taste. The same thing may be said of the pictures. Like the stories, they show real youngsters in natural and unforced episodes, and contribute much to the pleasure the book cannot help giving to everyone who cares about children. A. T.
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