REFLECTIONS OF THE CHILD MIND.
ACHILD'S remark often takes us by suzprise, and therein lies its charm. It may be but our own form of speech reflected from a new angle or adjusted along familiar paths. Speaking of Elijah, a small boy said : " And the ravens brought him bread and milk every day." Doubtless he had a vision of the ravens carrying neat little bowls of steaming food in their beaks, and found no difficulty in the presentation of this familiar food in this manner. Sometimes the im- mature simplicity of the youthful mind makes a shrewd guess at truth, as in a group of " tines " discussing their arrival on this planet. One said the doctor brought him, another that his mother bought him at a shop, and a little girl added modestly : " My mother was too poor to buy me ; I was home-made."
Nearly all children have a strong dislike of anything unreal, and are very quick to detect it. One delightful little person of five or six, much exercised over the laying of a floor, by complicated measures and a spirit-level, elicited a full explana- tion from an intelligent workman. This she retailed quite correctly to an admiring father. The next day, when two men friends were with him, the father called her and asked her to repeat again what she had told him. He received the reply : " If you do not understand from one explanation, I think you had better ask the workman yourself." " She did show off," the parent added, " but not quite in the way desired." The effect of the war was very curious on those so young that they remembered no other conditions. A little boy of five was taken out to tea and regaled on the best obtainable. At the end he thanked his hostess very prettily, and added : " Quite a pre-war tea." This same little boy, when inviting a few small friends to blow soap-bubbles with him, called it his " bubble committee."
It is naturally difficult for the infant mind to grasp the intricacies of our English titles of honour and respect, as a certain Lord found when inspecting a National school. The children had been well drilled that they were to say " My Lord," and not " Sir," and all went well until this Peer of the Realm turned to a sweet little girl and said : " And how old are you, my child ? " and she answered : " My God, I am seven." Probably the only impression left on her mind by the instruction was that it was something rather irreverent. It is almost pathetic to hear of an infant, asked by an inspector the meaning of Epiphany, replying, "A man at the station," having thus interpreted the teacher's rendering "a manifesta- tion." Now and then the simple logic of a child brings the stupid threats of the uneducated guardian to none effect, as when a nurse told a little boy if he did a certain thing again she would throw what he liked best out of the window, and was confronted with a repetition of the naughtiness and the remark : " And I like my little sister best." There is also the directness of the little girl who was refused chocolates on the ground that she only had them " now and then," and on a second request meeting with a reminder, said : " Yes, but that was then, and this is now."
There is often a perfect simplicity in a child's religion, though it may be applied somewhat unexpectedly. A small boy- friend of mine informed his mother at the end of his first term at a preparatory school that he " absolutely believed in prayer." The mother was deeply touched, and inquired the origin of this fervent faith. She was told : " We are not allowed to fight at our school, but I had to fight a boy, and all the time I prayed that the matron should not see us, and she didn't." Hence this complete confidence in the power of prayer. A child's supposed grievance rests, now and then, on rather surprising facts, and it is as well to reserve full sympathy until the end of the story is reached. So a mother thought whose little girl came and complained that her small brother Tommy had broken her very best doll. " How naughty of Tommy," said the mother ; " how did he do it ? "
"I banged him on the head with it," said the small girl, still evidently feeling aggrieved. Sometimes there is a pathetic difference in what is said by the " grown-up " and what is understood by the child. One mite, told to sit in its high chair " for the present," expressed its injured feelings at last by saying : " I have sat and sat, and have had no present." So children tread the paths around us, surprising little mirrors of our deeds and words, often holding up the glass of truth, and flashing an unexpected light, for those who have the eyes
to see. MELESINA SETON-CHRISTOPHER.
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