Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young Part 16

_Vegetable and Animal Life_.

There are a vast number of mechanical contrivances in use among men for thus putting force in store, as it were, and then using it more or less gradually, as may be required. And nature, moreover, does this on a scale so stupendous as to render all human contrivances for this purpose utterly insignificant in comparison. The great agent which nature employs in this work is vegetation. Indeed, it may truly be said that the great function of vegetable life, in all the infinitude of forms and characters which it a.s.sumes, is to _receive and store up force_ derived from the emanations of the sun.

Animal life, on the other hand, exists and fulfills its functions by the _expenditure_ of this force. Animals receive vegetable productions containing these reserves of force into their systems, which systems contain arrangements for liberating the force, and employing it for the purposes it is intended to subserve in the animal economy.

The manner in which these processes are performed is in general terms as follows: The vegetable absorbs from the earth and from the air substances existing in their natural condition--that is, united according to their strongest affinities. These substances are chiefly water, containing various mineral salts in solution, from the ground, and carbonic acid from the air. These substances, after undergoing certain changes in the vessels of the plant, are exposed to the influence of the rays of the sun in the leaves. By the power of these rays--including the calorific, the luminous, and the actinic--the natural affinities by which the above-mentioned substances were united are overcome, and they are formed into new combinations, in which they are united by very weak affinities. Of course, they have a strong tendency to break away from the new unions, and fall back into the old. But, by some mysterious and incomprehensible means, the sun has power to lock them, so to speak, in their new forms, so as to require a special condition of things for the releasing of them. Thus they form a reserve of force, which can be held in restraint until the conditions required for their release are realized.

The process can be ill.u.s.trated more particularly by a single case. Water, one of the substances absorbed by plants, is composed of oxygen and hydrogen, which are united by an affinity of prodigious force. It is the same with carbon and oxygen, in a compound called carbonic acid, which is also one of the princ.i.p.al substances absorbed by plants from the air. Now the heat and other emanations from the sun, acting upon these substances in the leaves, forces the hydrogen and the carbon away from their strong bond of union with oxygen, and sets the oxygen free, and then combines the carbon and hydrogen into a sort of unwilling union with each other--a union from which they are always ready and eager to break away, that they may return to their union with the object of their former and much stronger attachment--namely, oxygen; though they are so locked, by some mysterious means, that they can not break away except when certain conditions necessary to their release are realized.

_Hydrocarbons_.

The substances thus formed by a weak union of carbon with hydrogen are called hydrocarbons. They comprise nearly all the highly inflammable vegetable substances. Their being combustible means simply that they have a great disposition to resume their union with oxygen--combustion being nothing other than a more or less violent return of a substance to a union with oxygen or some other such substance, usually one from which it had formerly been separated by force--giving out again by its return, in the form of heat, the force by which the original separation had been effected.

A compound formed thus of substances united by very weak affinities, so that they are always ready to separate from each other and form new unions under the influence of stronger affinities, is said to be in a state of _unstable equilibrium._ It is the function of vegetable life to create these unstable combinations by means of the force derived from the sun; and the combinations, when formed, of course hold the force which formed them in reserve, ready to make itself manifest whenever it is released. Animals receive these substances into their systems in their food. A portion of them they retain, re-arranging the components in some cases so as to form new compounds, but still unstable. These they use in constructing the tissues of the animal system, and some they reserve for future use. As fast as they require the heat and the force which are stored in them they expend, them, thus recovering the force which was absorbed in the formation of them, and which now, on being released, re-appears in the three forms of _animal heat, muscular motion_, and _cerebral_ or _nervous energy_.

There are other modes besides the processes of animal life by which the reserved force laid up by the vegetable process in these unstable compounds may be released. In many cases it releases itself under ordinary exposures to the oxygen of the atmosphere. A log of wood--which is composed chiefly of carbon and hydrogen in an unstable union--lying upon the ground will gradually _decay_, as we term it--that is, its elements will separate from each other, and form new unions with the elements of the surrounding air, thus returning to their normal condition. They give out, in so doing, a low degree of heat, which, being protracted through a course of years, makes up, in the end, the precise equivalent of that expended by the sun in forming the wood--that is, the power expended in the formation of the wood is all released in the dissolution of it.

This process may be greatly accelerated by heat. If a portion of the wood is raised in temperature to a certain point, the elements begin to combine with the oxygen near, with so much violence as to release the reserved power with great rapidity. And as this force re-appears in the form of heat, the next portions of the wood are at once raised to the right temperature to allow the process of reoxidation to go on rapidly with them.

This is the process of combustion. Observations and experiments on decaying wood have been made, showing that the amount of heat developed by the combustion of a ma.s.s of wood, though much more intense for a time, is the same in _amount_ as that which is set free by the slower process of re-oxidation by gradual decay; both being the equivalent of the amount absorbed by the leaves from the sun, in the process of deoxidizing the carbon and hydrogen when the wood was formed.

The force imprisoned in these unstable compounds may be held in reserve for an unlimited period, so long as all opportunity is denied them of returning the elements that compose them to their original combinations. Such a case occurs when large beds of vegetable substances are buried under layers of sediment which subsequently become stone, and thus shut the hydrocarbonaceous compounds beneath them from all access to oxygen. The beds of coal thus formed retain their reserved force for periods of immense duration; and when at length the material thus protected is brought to the surface, and made to give up its treasured power, it manifests its efficiency in driving machinery, propelling trains, heating furnaces, or diffusing warmth and comfort around the family fireside. In all these cases the heat and power developed from the coal is heat and power derived originally from the sun, and now set free, after having lain dormant thousands and perhaps millions of years.

This simple case of the formation of hydrocarbons from the elements furnished by carbonic acid and water is only adduced as an ill.u.s.tration of the general principle. The modes by which the power of the sun actually takes effect in the decomposition of stable compounds, and the formation of unstable ones from the elements thus obtained, are innumerable, and the processes as well as the combinations that result are extremely complicated. These processes include not only the first formation of the unstable compounds in the leaf, but also an endless series of modifications and re-arrangements which they subsequently undergo, as well in the other organs of the plant as in those of the animal when they are finally introduced into an animal system. In all, however, the general result is substantially the same--namely, the forcing of elements into unnatural combinations, so to speak, by the power of the sun acting through the instrumentality of vegetation, in order that they may subsequently, in the animal system, give out that power again by the effort they make to release themselves from the coercion imposed upon them, and to return to the natural unions in which they can find again stability and repose.

One of the chief elements employed in the formation of these weakly-combined substances is _nitrogen_--its compounds being designated as nitrogenous substances, and noted, as a cla.s.s, for the facility with which they are decomposed. Nitrogen is, in fact, the great _weak-holder_ of nature. Young students in chemistry, when they learn that nitrogen is distinguished by the weakness of its affinities for other elements, and its consequent great _inertness_ as a chemical agent, are often astonished to find that its compounds--such as nitric acid, nitre, which gives its explosive character to gunpowder, nitro-glycerine, gun-cotton, and various other explosive substances which it helps to form--are among the most remarkable in nature for the violence and intensity of their action, and for the extent to which the principle of vitality avails itself of them as magazines of _force_, upon which to draw in the fulfillment of its various functions.

186 _GENTLE MEASURES_.

But this is really just what should be expected. It is the very _weakness of the hold_ which nitrogen maintains upon the elements combined with it that facilitates their release, and affords them the opportunity to seize with so much avidity and violence on those for which they have a strong attraction.

It is as if a huntsman should conduct a pack of ferocious dogs into a field occupied by a flock of sheep, quietly grazing, holding the dogs securely by very strong leashes. The quiet and repose of the field might not be seriously disturbed; but if, on the other hand, a child comes in, leading the dogs by threads which they can easily sunder, a scene of the greatest violence and confusion would ensue.

In the same manner, when nitrogen, holding the particles of oxygen with which it is combined in the compounds above named by a very feeble control, brings them into the presence of other substances for which they have a very strong affinity, they release themselves at once from their weak custodian, and rush into the combinations which their nature demands with so much avidity as to produce combustions, deflagrations, and explosions of the most violent character.

The force which the elements display in these reunions is always--and this is one aspect of the great discovery of modern times in respect to the _persistence_ or _constancy_ of force which has already been referred to--precisely the same in amount as that which was required for dissevering them from their original combinations with such substances at some previous time. The _processes of vegetation_ are the chief means employed for effecting the original separations, by the power of the sun, and for forming the unstable compounds by which this power is held in reserve. The _animal system_, on the other hand, takes in these compounds, remodels them so far as is required to adapt them to its structure, a.s.similates them, and then, as occasion requires quires, it releases the concealed force, which then manifests itself in the forms of _animal heat_, of _muscular motion_, and of _cerebral and nervous power_.

In what way, and to what extent, the knowledge of these truths should influence us in the management and training of children in respect to their extraordinary activity, is the question we have next to consider.

_Practical Applications of these Principles_.

If we watch a bird for a little while hopping along upon the ground, and up and down between the ground and the branches of a tree, we shall at first be surprised at his incessant activity, and next, if we reflect a little, at the utter aimlessness and uselessness of it. He runs a little way along the path; then he hops up upon a twig, then down again upon the ground; then "makes believe" peck at something which he imagines or pretends that he sees in the gra.s.s; then, canting his head to one side and upward, the branch of a tree there happens to strike his eye, upon which he at once flies up to it. Perching himself upon it for the moment, he utters a burst of joyous song, and then, instantly afterwards, down he comes upon the ground again, runs along, stops, runs along a little farther, stops again, looks around him a moment, as if wondering what to do next, and then flies off out of our field of view. If we could follow, and had patience to watch him so long, we should find him continuing this incessantly changing but never-ceasing activity all the day long.

We sometimes imagine that the bird's movements are to be explained by supposing that he is engaged in the search for food in these evolutions.

But when we reflect how small a quant.i.ty of food his little crop will contain, we shall be at once convinced that a large proportion of his apparent pecking for food is only make-believe, and that he moves thus incessantly not so much on account of the end he seeks to attain by it, as on account of the very pleasure of the motion. He hops about and pecks, not for the love of any thing he expects to find, but just for the love of hopping and pecking.

The real explanation is that the food which he has taken is delivering up, within his system, the force stored in it that was received originally from the beams of the sun, while the plant which produced it was growing. This force must have an outlet, and it finds this outlet in the incessant activity of the bird's muscles and brain. The various objects which attract his attention without, _invite_ the force to expend itself in _certain special directions_; but the impelling cause is within, and not without; and were there nothing without to serve as objects for its action, the necessity of its action would be none the less imperious. The lion, when imprisoned in his cage, walks to and fro continuously, if there is room for him to take two steps and turn; and if there is not room for this, he moves his head incessantly from side to side. The force within him, which his vital organs are setting at liberty from its imprisonment in his food, must in some way find issue.

Mothers do not often stop to speculate upon, and may even, perhaps, seldom observe the restless and incessant activity of birds, but that of their children forces itself upon their attention by its effects in disturbing their own quiet avocations and pleasures; and they often wonder what can be the inducement which leads to such a perpetual succession of movements made apparently without motive or end. And, not perceiving any possible inducement to account for it, they are apt to consider this restless activity so causeless and unreasonable as to make it a fault for which the child is to be censured or punished, or which they are to attempt to cure by means of artificial restraints. They would not attempt such repressions as this if they were aware that all this muscular and mental energy of action in the child is only the outward manifestation of an inward force developed in a manner wholly independent of its will--a force, too, which must spend itself in some way or other, and that, if not allowed to do this in its own way, by impelling the limbs and members to outward action, it will do so by destroying the delicate mechanism within. We see this in the case of men who are doomed for long periods to solitary confinement. The force derived from their food, and released within their systems by the vital processes, being cut off by the silence and solitude of the dungeon from all usual and natural outlets, begins to work mischief within, by disorganizing the cerebral and other vital organs, and producing insanity and death.

_Common Mistake_.

We make a great mistake when we imagine that children are influenced in their activity mainly by a desire for the objects which they attain by it.

It is not the ends attained, but the pleasurable feeling which the action of the internal force, issuing by its natural channels, affords them, and the sense of power which accompanies the action. An end which presents itself to be attained invites this force to act in one direction rather than another, but it is the action, and not the end, in which the charm resides.

Give a child a bow and arrow, and send him out into the yard to try it, and if he does not happen to see any thing to shoot at, he will shoot at random into the air. But if there is any object which will serve as a mark in sight, it seems to have the effect of drawing his aim towards it. He shoots at the vane on the barn, at an apple on a tree, a knot in a fence--any thing which will serve the purpose of a mark. This is not because he has any end to accomplish in hitting the vane, the apple, or the knot, but only because there is an impulse within him leading him to shoot, and if there happens to be any thing to shoot at, it gives that impulse a direction.

It is precisely the same with the incessant muscular activity of a child.

He comes into a room and sits down in the first seat that he sees. Then he jumps up and runs to another, then to another, until he has tried all the seats in the room. This is not because he particularly wishes to try the seats. He wishes to _move_, and the seats happen to be at hand, and they simply give direction to the impulse. If he were out of doors, the same office would be fulfilled by a fence which he might climb over, instead of going through an open gate close by; or a wall that he could walk upon with difficulty, instead of going, without difficulty, along a path at the foot of it; or a pole which he could try to climb, when there was no motive for climbing it but a desire to make muscular exertion; or a steep bank where he can scramble up, when there is nothing that he wishes for on the top of it.

In other words, the things that children do are not done for the sake of the things, but for the sake of the _doing_.

Parents very often do not understand this, and are accordingly continually asking such foolish questions as, "George, what do you wish to climb over that fence for, when there is a gate all open close by?" "James, what good do you expect to get by climbing up that tree, when you know there is nothing on it, not even a bird's nest?" and, "Lucy, what makes you keep jumping up all the time and running about to different places? Why can't you, when you get a good seat, sit still in it?"

The children, if they understood the philosophy of the case, might answer, "We don't climb over the fence at all because we wish to be on the other side of it; or scramble up the bank for the sake of any thing that is on the top of it; or run about to different places because we wish to be in the places particularly. It is the internal force that is in us working itself off, and it works itself off in the ways that come most readily to hand."

_Various Modes in which the Reserved Force reappears_.

The force thus stored in the food and liberated within the system by the vital processes, finds scope for action in several different ways, prominent among which are, First, in the production of animal heat; Secondly, in muscular contractions and the motions of the limbs and members resulting from them; and Thirdly, in mental phenomena connected with the action of the brain and the nerves. This last branch of the subject is yet enveloped in great mystery; but the proof seems to be decisive that the nervous system of man comprises organs which are actively exercised in the performance of mental operations, and that in this exercise they consume important portions of the vital force. If, for example, a child is actually engaged at play, and we direct him to take a seat and sit still, he will find it very difficult to do so. The inward force will soon begin to struggle within him to find an issue. But if, while he is so sitting, we begin to relate to him some very surprising or exciting story, to occupy his _mind_, he will become motionless, and very likely remain so until the story is ended. It is supposed that in such cases the force is drawn off, so to speak, through the cerebral organs which it is employed in keeping in play, as the instruments by which the emotions and ideas which the story awakens in the mind are evolved. This part of the subject, as has already been remarked, is full of mystery; but the general fact that a portion of the force derived from the food is expended in actions of the brain and nervous system seems well established.

Indeed, the whole subject of the reception and the storing up of force from the sun by the processes of vegetable and animal life, and the subsequent liberation of it in the fulfillment of the various functions of the animal system, is full of difficulties and mysteries. It is only a very simple view of the _general principle_ which is presented in these articles. In nature the operations are not simple at all. They are involved in endless complications which are yet only to a very limited extent unravelled. The general principle is, however, well established; and if understood, even as a general principle, by parents and teachers, it will greatly modify their action in dealing with the incessant restlessness and activity of the young. It will teach them, among other things, the following practical rules:

_Practical Rules_.

1. Never find fault with children for their incapacity to keep still. You may stop the supply of force, if you will, by refusing to give them food; but if you continue the supply, you must not complain of its manifesting itself in action. After giving your boy his breakfast, to find fault with him for being incessantly in motion when his system has absorbed it, is simply to find fault with him for being healthy and happy. To give children food and then to restrain the resulting activity, is conduct very a.n.a.logous to that of the engineer who should lock the action of his engine, turn all the stop-c.o.c.ks, and shut down the safety-valve, while he still went on all the time putting in coal under the boiler. The least that he could expect would be a great hissing and fizzling at all the joints of his machine; and it would be only by means of such a degree of looseness in the joints as would allow of the escape of the imprisoned force in this way that could prevent the repression ending in a frightful catastrophe.

Now, nine-tenths of the whispering and playing of children in school, and of the noise, the rudeness, and the petty mischief of children at home, is just this hissing and fizzling of an imprisoned power, and nothing more.

In a word, we must favor and promote, by every means in our power, the activity of children, not censure and repress it. We may endeavor to turn it aside from wrong channels--that is, to prevent its manifesting itself in ways injurious to them or annoying to others. We must not, however, attempt to divert it from these channels by damming it up, but by opening other channels that will draw it away in better directions.

2. In encouraging the activity of children, and in guiding the direction of it in their hours of play, we must not expect to make it available for useful results, other than that of promoting their own physical development and health. At least, we can do this only in a very limited degree. Almost all useful results require for their attainment a long continuance of efforts of the same kind--that is, expenditure of the vital force by the continued action of the same organs. Now, it is a principle of nature that while the organs of an animal system are in process of formation and growth, they can exercise their power only for a very brief period at a time without exhaustion. This necessitates on the part of all young animals incessant changes of action, or alternations of action and repose. A farmer of forty years of age, whose organs are well developed and mature, will chop wood all day without excessive fatigue. Then, when he comes home at night, he will sit for three hours in the evening upon the settle by his fireside, _thinking_--his mind occupied, perhaps, upon the details of the management of his farm, or upon his plans for the following day. The vital force thus expends itself for many successive hours through his muscles, and then, while his muscles are at rest, it finds its egress for several other hours through the brain. But in the _child_ the mode of action must change every few minutes. He is made tired with five minutes' labor. He is satisfied with five minutes' rest. He will ride his rocking-horse, if alone, a short time, and then he comes to you to ask you to tell him a story. While listening to the story, his muscles are resting, and the force is spending its strength in working the mechanism of the brain. If you make your story too long, the brain, in turn, becomes fatigued, and he feels instinctively impelled to divert the vital force again into muscular action.

If, instead of being alone with his rocking-horse, he has company there, he will _seem_ to continue his bodily effort a long time; but he does not really do so, for he stops continually, to talk with his companion, thus allowing his muscles to rest for a brief period, during which the vital force expends its strength in carrying on trains of thought and emotion through the brain.

He is not to be blamed for this seeming capriciousness. These frequent changes in the mode of action are a necessity, and this necessity evidently unfits him for any kind of monotonous or continued exertion--the only kind which, in ordinary cases, can be made conducive to any useful results.

3. Parents at home and teachers at school must recognize these physiological laws, relating to the action of the young, and make their plans and arrangements conform to them. The periods of confinement to any one mode of action in the very young, and especially mental action, must be short; and they must alternate frequently with other modes. That rapid succession of bodily movements and of mental ideas, and the emotions mingling and alternating with them, which const.i.tutes what children call play, must be regarded not simply as an indulgence, but as a necessity for them. The play must be considered as essential as the study, and that not merely for the very young but for all, up to the age of maturity. For older pupils, in the best inst.i.tutions of the country, some suitable provision is made for this want; but the mothers of young children at home are often at a loss by what means to effect this purpose, and many are very imperfectly aware of the desirableness, and even the necessity, of doing this. As for the means of accomplis.h.i.+ng the object--that is, providing channels for the complete expenditure of this force in the safest and most agreeable manner for the child, and the least inconvenient and troublesome for others, much must depend upon the tact, the ingenuity, and the discretion of the mother.

It will, however, be a great point gained for her when she once fully comprehends that the _tendency_ to incessant activity, and even to turbulence and noise, on the part of her child, only shows that he is all right in his vital machinery, and that this exuberance of energy is something to be pleased with and directed, not denounced and restrained.

CHAPTER XV.

THE IMAGINATION IN CHILDREN.

The reader may, perhaps, recollect that in the last chapter there was an intimation that a portion of the force which was produced, or rather liberated and brought into action, by the consumption of food in the vital system, expended itself in the development of thoughts, emotions, and other forms of mental action, through the organization of the brain and of the nerves.