Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training - Mosiah Hall
PARENT AND CHILD
BY MOSIAH HALL
Volume Three
Child Study and Training
1916
FOR THE DESERET SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION, SALT LAKE CITY
A WORD OF INTRODUCTION
Home-making and the rearing of children is the fundamental business of this
world. To make a success of this business we must understand it. The loving
hearts of many parents are suffering for a multitude of mistakes that
loving intelligence might have prevented. We cannot save our children in
ignorance. To perform the duties of parenthood well, we must understand
them more clearly. We need light and uplift. These days demand greater
knowledge than ever before on the part of parents to meet and master the
problems that now confront fathers and mothers.
Particularly do we need to study child nature. A clearer understanding of
the laws governing the development of children would give parents great
help in guiding their children into paths of righteousness, and in
ministering to varying child needs as they develop.
To give definite help and new spirit to our work, this volume has been
prepared. The keynote of the book is _a more enlightened parenthood_. It
offers a series of lessons along a line most vital to parents--_Child Study
and Training_.
These lessons have been written for us by Mosiah Hall, Associate Professor
in Education of the University of Utah, and High School Inspector for the
State of Utah. We feel that he has done for our cause most excellent
service, and we gladly acknowledge our indebtedness to him.
This should be remembered: A book gives wisdom only in proportion to the
thought that is put into it by the reader. The suggestions of this volume
will become rich only as they are enriched by study. They will become
valuable only to the extent that they find application in our daily lives.
The lessons will be vitalized only as the teacher pours life into them.
To supplement and enrich the course, references are given with most of the
lessons, and a list of books is offered at the close of the book. Many of
these volumes have already been purchased and distributed through the
parents' class library. Each class should endeavor to procure at least one
copy of each of these books as it is called for in the various lessons. In
this way a good library can be gradually built up.
Our desire is to make these studies bring lasting returns for good. May God
add his blessings to make our work divinely successful,
Your brethren in the gospel,
Parents' Class Committee of Deseret Sunday
School Union Board,
HENRY H. ROLAPP, HOWARD R. DRIGGS.
NATHAN T. PORTER, EPHRAIM G. GOWANS.
A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
This treatise on child study and training has been prepared primarily for
the Parents' classes in Sunday School under the direction of the General
Board. It is well adapted also for study by Parent-Teachers' Associations
and for reading in the home.
Its purpose is to acquaint parents with the most vital problems of child
life and character and to suggest some methods of solving these problems.
The work is not offered as a complete course in this great subject; it is
intended rather to open up the field of child study for parents.
The welfare of the race depends upon the proper birth and the correct
rearing of children. That this little volume may add its mite towards
the solution of the problem--at once the hope and the despair of
civilization,--is the wish of its author.
To the Parents' Class Committee and the General Superintendency of the
General Board, I desire to express my appreciation for the suggestions and
help they have extended to me in the preparation of this work.
To my wife, who achieves in practice what I imperfectly state in theory,
these studies are affectionately dedicated.
MOSIAH HALL.
THE BIRTHRIGHT OF CHILDHOOD
_It Is the Sacred Right of the Child To Be Well-Born_
If the child has any divine right in this world, it is the right to be
well-born, to be brought into the world sound of body and whole in mind. To
be given anything short of such a good beginning is to be handicapped
throughout life. Education and training cannot make up for the defects
imposed on the child by the sins of the fathers, which, the Good Book tells
us, are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
It is a fact to challenge attention that the child is the product of the
entire past. His essential nature is comparatively fixed at birth and is
beyond the power or caprice of parent or environment to change in any
fundamental particular during the short period of a lifetime. This
assertion must not be wrongly interpreted; the possibilities of training
and education are great, but they can do little to overcome all of the
defects placed upon the child by heredity.
Science tells us that normal children are born with the same number and
kind of instincts. By instinct is meant the tendency to do certain things
in a definite way without previous experience. In all children, for
example, we find the instinct of fear, the instinct for play, for
self-preservation. These instincts begin to manifest themselves more or
less strongly as the child develops.
Children also have certain capacities. Capacity may be defined as the
possibility to develop skill in certain directions. One, for instance, may
have a greater capacity to develop musical ability than another; so with
art or business, or ability for any other work. Capacities, more than
instincts, seem to depend on the characteristics of parents or immediate
ancestors. Thus a child may take after father or mother, or grandparent in
this or that particular ability. Instincts, on the other hand, seem to be
his inheritance from the race. But whatever his gifts from parent or past
the child is born a distinct individual. This is true not only with regard
to his physical organism but in respect to his spiritual nature. The
relative strength of his instincts, added to the number and quality of his
capacities determine what is called individuality. This is what makes each
child differ from all others, and this distinctive nature cannot be
essentially changed, within our brief lives, though it does possess
marvelous powers of development and adaptation. For illustration:
Cultivation may develop a perfect specimen of a crabapple, but no amount
of careful training could change the crabapple into a Johnathan. Likewise,
no system of education can hope to change a numskull into a Newton, or to
produce a Solomon from a Simple Simon.
The first vital concern of parents, therefore, should be to see that the
child is not robbed of his sacred birthright to be well-born.
It is a matter of regret that the white race generally is such a sorry
mixture of humanity. The good and the bad, the intelligent and the
ignorant, the feeble-minded and the strong, the criminal and the righteous,
have been combined so frequently and in so many ways that the marvel
is that more of the human race are not degenerate as the result of
contamination. Since the great characteristic of heredity is to breed true
and thus perpetuate its kind, and since training and education must take
the individual as he is, with only limited power to change his intrinsic
nature or to develop any capacity not present at birth, it becomes a matter
of serious importance that parents do all in their power to guide properly
the mating of their children. The teaching of the Gospel on this point is
most significant.
Heredity determines to a great extent the kind and the nature of the
individual, and thereby sets limits, which the environment may not
overcome. Among these limitations are the following:
1. The relative strength of instincts.
2. The number and kind of capacities.
3. The form, size and quality of bodily organs.
4. Susceptibility to, or power to resist disease.
5. The possibilities of mental attainment.
6. The possibilities of emotional and spiritual response.
7. The possibility to execute undertakings, to control situations, and to
govern self as well as others.
Heredity also endows a person with his peculiar temperament, with his good
or bad looks, and with the chief components of what is called personality.
On the other hand, training and education have almost everything to say
respecting the relative standing of the individual among the members of his
kind--whether or not he shall be a blighted or a perfect specimen. A fine,
sweet, juicy crabapple is more desirable than a scrubby, diseased Jonathan.
It is the province of training and education to take the individual as he
is born, and endeavor to make of him a perfect specimen of his kind. "A
child left to himself bringeth his parents to shame." If left alone or
improperly trained, a child is almost certain to revert to a lower type of
individual. The same high possibilities that, properly directed, produce
the superior being, if neglected, or subjected to a vicious environment,
produce the moral degenerate. The child is born morally neither good nor
bad, and while inherited tendencies may make development in one direction
easier than in another, it is possible for a favorable environment,
assisted by education, to develop any normal child into a sweet, wholesome
product of his kind.
Shearer in his "Management and Training of Children," says: "The child may
inherit instincts, but a kind Providence has ordained that he shall not
inherit habits. He may inherit certain tastes, but he does not inherit
temptation. He may bring into the world tendencies, but he does not bring
with him prejudices."
LESSON I
_Questions for Discussion_
1. What does the expression "being well-born" mean to you?
2. What responsibility is laid upon parents by the fact that the child is
the product of the past? Read the second commandment here and discuss its
significance in application to this point.
3. What are some of the instincts and capacities given to the child by
heredity?
4. Explain the difference between an instinct and a capacity. What seems
to be the source of our instincts?--our capacities?
5. What are the chief limitations placed by heredity upon the child?
6. What may education and environment hope to accomplish?
_References_: "The Right of the Child to be Well Born," will be found a
helpful book to study here. It may be well, if the book is available, to
have someone appointed to report on it or to read a few choice paragraphs
from it. Also read "Being Well Born," by Guyer.
IMPORTANT LAWS OF HEREDITY
_A Wise Application of the Laws of Inheritance Is the Most Certain Means of
Developing a Superior Race_
In the preface of Dr. Guyer's remarkable book, "Being Well Born," we read
the following: "It is no exaggeration to say that during the last fifteen
years, we have made more progress in measuring the extent of inheritance
and in determining its elemental factors than in all previous time." If
this is true, it would seem to be almost criminal for teachers and parents
to neglect to acquaint themselves with the fundamental laws of heredity.
This author says further: "Since what a child becomes is determined so
largely by its inborn capacities, it is of the utmost importance that
teachers and parents realize something of the nature of such aptitudes
before they begin to awaken them. For education consists in large measure
in supplying the stimuli necessary to set going these potentialities and of
affording opportunity for their expression."
_Mendel's_ law is probably the most important known principle of
inheritance. Through its application practically all of the improvements in
plants and animals have been brought about. This law may be explained as
follows: A certain kind of pure bred fowl is found which is either pure
white or black. If either color is mated with its own color the resulting
progeny will be true to the color of the parents, but if a white and a
black are crossed the result will be blue fowls possessing one-half the
characteristics of each parent, but strange to say, if two blue fowls are
mated the progeny will not be all blue, one-fourth will be white like one
grandparent, another one-fourth black like the other grandparent, and
one-half will be blue like the parents. If this experiment is repeated with
plants and animals having opposite characteristics, the same ratios as
above always result. This indicates that truly heritable traits or
characters are separate units and are inherited independently. The breeder
is thus enabled through selecting the traits or characters that are wanted
and crossing them with a well-known stock, to produce almost any trait or
quality that he desires. This law makes it possible to estimate the results
of cross breeding with almost mathematical exactness. Improved varieties of
fruits, grains and vegetables have been produced in this manner, and with
animals marvelous results have been achieved.
Luther Burbank, in his little book, "The Training of the Human Plant,"
says: "There is not a single desirable attribute which, lacking in a
plant, may not be bred into it. Choose what improvement you wish in a
flower, a fruit, or a tree, and by crossing, selection, cultivation and
persistence, you can fix this desirable trait irrevocably." And further:
"If then we could have twelve families under ideal conditions where these
principles could be carried out unswervingly, we could accomplish more for
the race in ten generations than can now be accomplished in a hundred
thousand years. Ten generations of human life should be ample to fix any
desired attribute. This is absolutely clear, there is neither theory nor
speculation."
_Acquirements of parents_ during their lifetime, according to the best
authorities, are not transmitted to any noticeable extent to their
children. This appears to be due to the fact that the cells concerned in
reproduction are set aside during embryonic life and from then on are
practically unmodified by the succeeding development and experiences of the
parent. In fact, during the lifetime of the individual, the germ cells are
so completely isolated from the growing organism that nothing but
nourishment in the shape of blood can possibly reach them, hence they can
be affected only by a vitiated or poisonous blood supply. It seems to be
true, therefore, that only the old, deeply-impressed traits, capacities,
or racial characters can be inherited. This is, no doubt, the chief secret
of the power of heredity to breed true.
It has been a popular belief that if parents acquired skill in music,
mathematics, or special ability in any other particular that such ability
could be imparted to their children, but in the light of the above facts,
this appears to be impossible. Of course, if such ability is a slumbering,
inborn trait of either parent, or of some immediate ancestor, the ability
might be transmitted.
It is reasonable to suppose, however, that any acquired trait or ability
of the parent, if practised and continued steadily by his children and
their descendants for many generations, will come to be an inborn trait
or character capable of being transmitted. Otherwise, it is extremely
difficult to understand how the human family can progress and become
permanently improved.
_Galton's_ law is believed to be approximately correct. It may be stated
as follows: Children inherit on the average one-half their characteristics
from parents, one-fourth from grandparents, one-eighth from
great-grandparents, and so on in ever diminishing ratio to remote
ancestors. But owing to the fact that some inheritable traits or
characters are likely to be dominant and others recessive, Galton's law
must be modified, so that only under the most favorable conditions can it
be regarded as reliable.
Owing to the fact that the primary elements or traits of character
contributed by each parent may combine in many ways in the embryo,
considerable variation in the children of the same parents is
inevitable--one child may resemble the father, another the mother, and
yet another some near ancestor. Variability is, therefore, the rule among
offspring in the same family, and in some instances it is decidedly
pronounced, but in all cases, the variation must be confined to the
possible combinations of characters transmitted from parents and ancestors.
_The law of regression_ represents the tendency of the extreme elements of
the race constantly to seek the middle or mediocre level. For example, the
children of superior parents are not likely to be so brilliant as their
parents, and the offspring of inferior people are somewhat better than
their parents. This "drag of the race" or "pull of ancestors" is no doubt
due to the fact that selection has never been practiced, hence the
two-thousand nearby ancestors were most likely an average lot of people,
and the "pull" is from the higher towards the lower level. The "pull" is a
help to the children of inferior parents but is a handicap to the superior.
If long-continued selection of parents were practiced, the regression
would disappear and the "pull" would be upward. Selection of parents
possessing superior elements of character and the prevention of the unfit
and the criminal from propagating their kind, seem the surest hope we have
of producing a permanently higher type.
It is well known that the extremes of the race are less fertile than the
means; and since fertility is the chief factor in fixing the type, in the
absence of selection and repression, the race appears doomed to remain at
the dead level of mediocrity. The tremendous significance of this fact is
that the welfare of the race--the gradual substitution of a superior for
the present mediocre type--rests absolutely upon the willingness and
ability of the superior class to do their full share in propagating the
race.
LESSON II
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. What is the principle of heredity as discovered by Mendel? Explain by
illustrating how it works out in plants and animals.
2. What practical application is made of this law in producing better seed
and better breeds?
3. Illustrate Galton's law.
4. What significance has these laws in the improvement of the human race?
5. Account for the variability of children in the same family.
6. Why are some children inferior, some superior to their parents?
7. Illustrate the "pull of ancestors."
8. How might this "pull" be made upward instead of downwards, as it now
seems to be?
9. What sacred responsibility rests upon superior people to propagate the
race?
10. What are the gospel teachings regarding mixed marriages and the rearing
of families?
11. What practical steps can and should be taken to prevent feeble-minded
and vicious people from propagating their kind?
_Reference_: The Jukes-Edwards family by Dr. A.E. Winship. If this book be
available, have some member of the class make a report on it. "Training the
Human Plant," and "Being Well Born," will also be found helpful here.
THE MOTHER AND THE EMBRYO
_The Care of the Mother During the Embryonic Period Determines Largely the
Future Welfare of the Child_
In common with every organism the infant develops from a single germ cell
of almost microscopic size. Wrapped in this tiny cell are all the
possibilities of structure and character that combine to form the
complicated bodily organism and the particular mental endowment of the
coming child.
It was once believed that almost any kind of physical or mental change
could be brought about in the cell through appropriate control of the
environment, but the results of careful observation and experiment are
opposed to this view; all evidence points to the fact that no new character
or element can enter the embryo from without. The cell itself holds the
secret of what the future individual shall be.
The sole connection between the embryo and the mother is the narrow,
umbilical cord which contains no nerves and whose only function is to carry
blood to the growing organism; it may be seen, therefore, how impossible it
is for mental impressions and disturbances on the part of the mother to in
any way reach and affect the embryo. Once started on the road to
development, the embryo is so thoroughly subject to inner laws that nothing
from without can modify or change the direction of its growth except some
physical cause which interferes with the blood supply. An adequate supply
of pure blood is the principal requirement of the growing organism.
Whatever interferes with the blood supply or in any way affects its purity,
has an injurious affect upon the embryo. There is not the least doubt that
lack of nutrition and serious ill-health on the part of the mother have an
extremely bad effect upon the unborn offspring. Severe shock or grief,
worry, nervous exhaustion, disease, and poisons in the blood of the mother
are the most serious sources of injury; they render nutrition defective and
if poison enters directly the blood of the mother or is generated by toxins
through disease, the embryo will be poisoned and may be destroyed. Among
these poisons are alcohol, lead, and the toxins from tuberculosis and the
venereal diseases, gonorrhea and syphilis. To gonorrhea is attributed 80
per cent. of the blindness of children born blind; it is declared to be the
cause of 75 per cent. of all the surgical operations for female disorders
and of 45 per cent. of involuntary sterility in childless women. Syphilis
is the chief cause of feeble-mindedness, paresis, or softening of the
brain, and of most other mental defects in children.
From the foregoing, it is evident that the proper care of the mother so as
to insure a pure blood supply for the offspring ought to be one of the
chief concerns of society. This should not be left to the haphazard efforts
of individuals but ought to be provided for by the state. According to the
statements of life insurance companies, "expectant mothers are the most
neglected members of our population." Dr. Van Ingen, of New York City,
estimates that 90 per cent, of women in this country are wholly without
prenatal care.
Luther Burbank shows that in order even for a plant to grow properly it
must have abundance of sunshine, good air, and nourishing food; but not
many mothers at this time may have even these poor luxuries. Instead, too
many mothers are slaves to an insanitary kitchen where sunshine is scarcely
known and where overwork and worry destroy all appetite for food.
The welfare of the race demands that the mother shall be properly nurtured
and protected during this critical period. Abundance of sunshine, pure air,
light exercise and a variety of wholesome food are absolutely essential,
and the utmost pains should be taken to prevent worry, excitement, sickness
and above all contact with or exposure to poisons or disease.
It was once thought that whatever causes a mental disturbance in the mother
leaves its impress on the child. It is fortunate that this old notion is
false, as we have shown nothing but a physical change affecting the blood
supply can possibly influence the developing organism. Now and then a red
"flame" spot or so-called birthmark is found on the new-born child, but
this is due always to some physical cause which may be easily explained,
never is it a result of fear of some red object on the part of the mother.
LESSON III
DISCUSSION
1. How does embryonic life begin?
2. What is characteristic of the cell?
3. What secret does it hold?
4. What is the principal need of the embryo?
5. State fully how the blood supply may be vitiated and what terrible
consequences may follow.
6. How should the mother be cared for during this critical period?
7. How may mother drudgery in the home be reduced to a minimum?
8. What directions does Mrs. West give for the care of the mother? (See
bulletin, "Parental Care," by Mrs. West, which may be had free for the
asking. Address Children's Bureau, Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.)
9. _References_: The following books will be found helpful: "The Training
of the Human Plant," by Burbank; "The Right of the Child to be well born,"
by Dawson; "Being Well Born," by Guyer.
If these are available, they may be circulated through the parents'
library.
THE PLASTIC AGE OF CHILDHOOD
_Prolonged Infancy and the Long Period of Plasticity in the Infant Make
Training and Education Possible_
The child is born the weakest and most helpless of creatures. Unlike the
young of most animals, which within a few hours after birth move about and
perform most of the movements necessary to their existence, the infant is
so helpless that all its needs must be supplied by parents, otherwise it
would perish. Immediately after birth a colt or calf can walk or run almost
as fast as its mother; the chick just out of its shell can run about and
peck at its food. The child at one year of age can barely totter around and
all of its needs must be looked after by others. Moreover, the infant at
birth is practically blind and deaf and the senses of taste and smell and
touch just sufficiently developed to enable it to take nourishment.
This slowness of development, or prolonged infancy as it is called, is of
vast significance to the child. It marks at once the chief distinction
between the human infant and the young of all other animals. It makes
possible a long period of adjustment and training which otherwise would be
impossible. Most animals are born with a nervous system highly developed
and with most of the adjustment to the environment ready made, so that
after a short time all the activities of life are perfected and thereafter
automatic action and instinct rule their lives. Because of this lack of
infancy and absence of plasticity of the nervous system, animals are little
more than machines that perform their task with unvarying regularity in
response to outside stimulations. Animals, therefore, are unable to adjust
themselves to a change in environment, and as a result their lives are in
constant danger. In fact, countless millions of the lower forms of life are
perishing every hour because of the lack of possibility of adjustment.