At a dinner-table one evening, a man who was interested in his own children stated a rule by which he made sure that no child of his would disobey him. The rule is infallible. He remarked to his companion:—

"I never give a command to my children."

"What do you do?" he was asked.

"I tell them stories."

That expresses a perfectly intelligible policy: Abdicate, and you will never have a disobedient child. You will also never have an obedient one. The fact that the man who made this statement was an Anarchist explains his theory. He regarded obedience not as a virtue, but as a defect. He was altogether consistent. A disbeliever in government for society, he declined to establish any government for his family. In place of government, however, he at least took pains to establish something else. This was a systematic appeal to the child's imagination.

If one had to choose between government and influence over children through the imagination, there might be some reason for discarding government. As a matter of fact, however, the use of the imagination, so far from being antagonistic to effective government, is indispensable to it. The reason why we parents so often fail in securing obedience, and, what is more important still, in developing in our children the spirit of obedience, is that we are deficient in imagination—or at least that what imagination we have is untrained.

In this faculty in which we are weak, children are strong. A little four-year-old I know, in making letters for his own amusement, frequently attaches arms and legs to them; it is his way of pictorially representing the animation he ascribes to them. Indeed, he sometimes goes so far as to transfer in mind these limbs to the object which the letters spell. Thus, he laboriously prints the letters P-I-G, adds to each letter a lively pair of legs, and exclaims: "See, the pig is running!" Mental processes like that, complicated though it is, are common with children. A child left alone in the nursery with his blocks will find them transformed into trains, steamboats, people, trees, animals, whatever he wills. In this picturesque form imagination may be called fancy; but it has many other phases. Imagination is an element in memory. Ability to recall a sound requires imagination. When, for instance, a child repeats a word he has heard some one use, his imagination has enabled him to summon up the sound of that word. Imagination is an element in emulation. When a child is trying to outdo another, or outdo his own past performances, he has to picture to his mind what he or his competitor has done and what the desirable outcome of the struggle would be. Imagination is an element even in fear and hope. When a child dreads a punishment or eagerly awaits a reward, it is his imagination that gives him the power to anticipate.

Like every other instinct, imagination needs training. We all carry about with us a menagerie of instincts. Some of them have been ill-treated. In what a pitiable shape is the dyspeptic's food instinct! It has died of over-indulgence, and its corpse mocks him at every meal. The instinct of fighting has been given a bad name, and in many a well-conducted menagerie is kept chained; but it has been known to survive the most rigorous repression, and to spring out with most abounding vitality in the midst of a meeting on behalf of peace. We have learned to avoid those people whose instinct of curiosity is not bridle-wise; and we all have recourse at times to those who have nourished, groomed, and trained their play instinct. The fact is, that the process of education consists largely in transforming these instincts of ours, which in their original state are wild and unmanageable, into domesticated and useful habits.

Now, imagination is a vigorous beast. Its youthful antics are very picturesque and amusing; it is sometimes whimsical and troublesome; but it can be made of the greatest service. Indeed, for all kinds of work, I know of no species of instinct which I would more highly recommend. As a draught animal it is indefatigable; and nothing else can take its place for pleasure-driving. Yet I have heard of a private school for young women from which all fairy books are excluded, on the ground that a girl's imagination needs repression. Like some other instincts, imagination cannot be altogether repressed, though it can be tamed and guided. If it is left boxed up and wild, it is apt to break out and take a canter through dangerous regions. Since, then, we cannot take a child's imagination from him, and we run into peril if we neglect it, the profitable course is to show him how to break it to harness and make it serve him.

We cannot do this, however, unless we have paid some attention to the training of our own imagination. As a wild young colt will trot about beside its dam, so a child's imagination will readily follow that of an older person. But the two must be at least in the same lot. If we are going to appeal to a child's imagination in teaching him how to obey, we must exercise some imagination in giving commands. We thus come upon that recurrent principle that the chief task in the training of children is the training of ourselves.

That imagination may be used in maintaining strictness of discipline seems to some to be almost a contradiction in terms. It seems like invoking an imp of dreams to assist in adding up a column of figures. In many minds imagination suggests dreaminess, wool-gathering, waywardness, irresponsibility. That is one reason why we parents who like to be obeyed, who are inclined to believe that it is a virtue to be dictatorial, and who sometimes confuse our own will with the immutable principles of righteousness, so often fall into error. To a child there is nothing more serious, nothing more real and regular, than the products of his imagination, and nothing more vague, whimsical, irregular, than the unexplained orders which he receives from grown people. If we wish to impress a child with the seriousness and reality of our authority, we had better put our imagination into condition.

There were two small boys in a town of the Middle West. Active, spirited, mischievous, and in other respects healthy, these two tads—the younger about four years old, I believe—gave their father and mother much concern. One day an old drill-sergeant established in the neighborhood a class for boys, and in a short time received these two as pupils. The transformation was sudden. The boys were soldiers. Happily, their mother was imaginative. They were therefore soldiers not merely in the class, but also at home. The standards of conduct put before them, the punishments dealt out to them, and the rewards bestowed upon them were such as befitted defenders of the home. Obedience, promptness, chivalry, order, courage, regularity, honor, truthfulness, were not unreasonable qualities to expect from such as they. When one of these warriors was absent without leave for the greater part of a day—in other words, ran away—it was not inappropriate that he should be kept in solitary confinement on short rations. The discipline meted out to those youngsters was, from any point of view, severe. Even corporal punishment, which, as ordinarily applied, is crudely devoid of the imaginative element, became measurably glorified; it was a part of the hardship which they were called upon to endure as good soldiers. Of course this rÉgime was accompanied with plenty of instruction in military traditions and practices. A constant visitor to that household has found in the manliness and good breeding of these children a source of amazed gratification. In another family, who had no access to a drill-sergeant with a streak of poetry, a somewhat different method has been in vogue. The boys in that family do not belong, as it were, to the regular army, but rather to the militia. They are not always under a military rÉgime, but are liable to a summons at any time. When they hear the command, "Fall in," they know they are expected to stand in line and await orders. In the absence of their parents, they know that the older person left in charge is their commanding officer; and upon their parents' return they know that they will be called upon to fall into line, salute, and report to their father. Each is supposed to report any infraction of discipline which he himself—not his comrades—has committed. No punishment is administered as a result of such report, except for deliberate concealment. Each also reports some especial pleasure he has had. A good report is followed by formal and official congratulation. A reminder in the form of a sign, marked "Remember the Report," and placed in a conspicuous position in the nursery, has helped to train and direct their imagination. Since the report includes a record of enjoyments as well as of offenses, this reminder is not so threatening as to many people it would seem. Indeed, the proposal that such a sign be used met with instant approval from the young militiamen.

Those who object to tin soldiers as toys will have little patience with this metamorphosis of real children into creatures of militarism. Very well, let them be monks instead, or members of a labor union, or railway employees, or idealized legislators, or even honest policemen, anything that will not put too great a strain on the imagination—of the adults. The point is simply that the exercise of the strictest authority over children is compatible with the most lavish use of the imagination.

There is nothing necessarily soft or flabby about the imaginative life. There is no special reason why little children should be afflicted with continual talk about the dear little birdies or the sweet little flowers. Indeed, the natural taste of children seems to be attracted in the opposite direction. One small boy, when he inquired about a bloody Bible picture, and was put off with the explanation that it was not a pleasant story, expressed the views of many of his age when, looking up angelically, he exclaimed with ecstasy, "I like to hear about horrid things."

Even the rod can, as I have suggested, be used imaginatively. A small boy who is well acquainted with the story of the Israelites in Egypt has invoked its aid. He is not overburdened with a sense of moral responsibility. One day, when he was dawdling over his task of changing his shoes and stockings, it was suggested that his father be an Egyptian and he be an Israelitish slave. He joyfully acquiesced. His father took the tip of a bamboo fishing-rod as badge of authority and stood by. In a few moments the boy was dawdling. A slight rap over the shins recalled him to his duty. There was no complaint; for he knew it was the business of the overseer to keep the slave at his task. His shoes and stockings were changed in a very much shorter time than was customary; and he contemplated his finished work with satisfaction. A few days later, when he had a similar task to perform, he proposed of his own accord a repetition of the performance; and carried out his part with spirit. When we adults remember how much we rely upon some outside stimulus to keep us at our work—the need of money, the esteem of our neighbors, the fear of disease, the mandate of the law—we ought to be able to understand the reason why such an appeal to the imagination as this acted as a reinforcement of the boy's will, and therefore, by very reason of its disciplinary character, was actually welcomed.

Two other boys similarly acquainted with the experiences of Israel in Egypt contrived an application of one of those experiences to their own case. They had several times been thrilled by the account of the exciting race between the Israelites and the Egyptians to the Red Sea, and had repeatedly found relief in the safe arrival of the Israelites on the other side and the literally overwhelming defeat of the cruel army of Pharaoh. One evening their mother was engaged in washing the supper dishes, and they were engaged, as usual, in helping her by wiping the silver. On several occasions they had been so little intent on their work that their mother had finished all the washing and had wiped the china and glassware before they had wiped and put away the silver. This evening one of them suddenly became seized with a fancy. His mother was the Egyptian army and he and his comrade were the host of Israel. When the last fork had rattled into its place and the silver-drawer was shut, what a shout of joy arose! The Egyptians had been outdistanced; the Israelites were safe. After that, when there were signs of inattention, the warning cry, "The Egyptians are coming!" would rouse them into instant and happy action. Now those children usually do this work rapidly. They have formed in themselves a valuable habit.

That was not a device. It was the exemplification of a principle. A habit, I suppose, can be beaten into a child; but it is more lasting as well as more wholesome if it has been created, in part at least, by the child's own will; and it is the imagination, charged as it is with feeling, which can most surely summon the will into activity.

The difference between ignoring this principle and recognizing it may be illustrated by contrasting two concrete instances. In the one case the mother appears at the nursery door.

"Look at this room!" she exclaims; "it is very untidy." She thus puts the brand of disapproval upon disorder. "All the blocks and toys must be put away and you must be all washed for supper by six o'clock; and you have so much to do, you must begin at once."

"But I want to build this house."

"No; you must begin now." This is for the purpose, the mother explains to herself, of preparing the child to meet the harsh demands of an unfeeling world.

She notes that the child begins listlessly to pick up some of the scattered blocks, one by one, and drop them into the box where they are kept. After an absence of several minutes she returns. She sees but little change, although the child is hastily putting some toys away. She is aware, however, that this activity started only when her footfall sounded in the hall.

"If those things are not all in their places on time, I shall have to punish you."

The mother is vexed, the child is unhappy and rebellious. A daily experience of this sort may result finally in some kind of habit in the child; but only at great cost of effort to the mother, and at the sacrifice of much of the normal relationship between the two.

Another mother appears at the door of the nursery.

"In five minutes it will be time to begin to put away the blocks and toys," she announces, thus giving some time for the builder to complete operations. Then she asks, "What are you going to be this evening?"

"I think I'll be Michael bringing the wood to the wood-box for the fire."

In five minutes she calls: "Michael, I want all the wood put into the wood-box."

The builder is now transformed for the time being into Michael. He has seen the lusty Irishman carry great armfuls of wood, and his own frail arms assume new dignity. He gathers the blocks by the dozen, and as he lets them fall, kerplunk, into the box, he sees great logs falling into place. In a few moments his mother reappears.

"You have been working hard, Michael, haven't you? I think you will have the wood in its place in plenty of time. How much better the room looks without those logs of wood lying all about! You can carry a good many logs at once, can't you?"

Repeated every day, this process will inevitably develop into a habit of orderliness. The regularity of the process is not in the least impaired by the fact that one evening it assumes the form of stacking up firewood, another evening of bringing in bags of coal to the cellar, another evening of loading merchandise on to a vessel. It is the same will that directs Michael, and the coal man, and the stevedore, and it is the same brain that receives the repeated impression of promptness and good order. In each case, whether it is Michael, or the coal man, or the stevedore, the workman is doing his task under orders; he is subject to authority. And if Michael, or the coal man, or the stevedore fails to do his duty, it is not inappropriate that he should suffer a penalty. Of course it will be more effective if the penalty can be made suitable to the character. Whether it is made suitable or not will depend largely upon the imagination of the person in authority. As a rule, however, the spirit of such a process as that which I have illustrated is less that of discipline than of instruction, or perhaps more accurately, the spirit of discipline through instruction. It is, in fact, just because instruction plays so large a part in the government of children that those in authority need to have constant recourse to their imagination.

Deficiency in imagination is exhibited by parents not merely in their relation to their children, but quite as frequently in the relation between husband and wife. Criticism of the one by the other in the presence of the children can be accounted for, as a rule, only by a defective imagination. If the critic could be put for a moment in the place of the child who has heard the reproof, he would be amazed at discovering how he had weakened not only the mother's authority, but also his own. In a certain household, let us say, the mother is strongly of the opinion that it is injurious for the children to eat anything between meals; the father, however, scouts the idea, and actually keeps, in his pocket, sweetmeats for which he invites the children to search. If he had imagination enough to look into his own children's minds, he would be mortified at what he would see. Parents at cross-purposes are simply exhibiting their own stupidity. Without imagination, therefore, there can be only the most ineffective government in the family.

It is surprising, on the other hand, how the exercise of the imagination will clear away many perplexing difficulties in discipline; for in the light of the imagination many of these difficulties are seen to be problems in moral instruction. Let me illustrate.

The boys whom I have already described as militiamen were left by their parents, for a day, in charge of a competent nurse. When they were called upon to report in the customary military fashion concerning their behavior, they all confessed to certain offenses involving the marring of property.

"Would you have done that if mamma or I had been there?" their father asked.

"No," was the reply.

"Then you sneaked on us."

That word "sneaked" was apparently new to them; it upset their gravity. The entire company, including the commander, was soon convulsed. What could be done? The case could not be allowed to end thus. Finally, after some degree of order was restored, the commander proposed that they all take turns in sneaking on one another. The plan which was accepted with enthusiasm was this: Two of the boys were to leave the room; then the third, in their absence, was to find some precious possession of each of the two and destroy it. No sooner, however, were the victims in another room than they raised a vigorous protest. As this was to be not a punishment but an experiment, the protest was heeded. The tables were turned; one of the victims was appointed executioner, and the executioner took the place of victim. After several trials it was proved that nobody wished to have his property destroyed. They thus learned that, however much fun it was to sneak on some one else, they did not wish any one else to sneak on them. Although they agreed, too, that if each had a turn there would be nothing unfair, they were all unwilling to lose precious possessions even for the fun of playing an underhand trick. By this time one of the boys had decided that all sneaking "was bad." It was then proposed to the other two that their father go out, and that they should sneak on him. This seemed to be a solution. They would have the fun and suffer none of the loss. When they had committed themselves to this opinion, their father called their attention to the fact that he had already had his turn at being victim, and that now it was only fair that he should have his turn at being executioner. There was no escape. At the very moment when they were looking for all the gain and none of the loss, they were confronted with the prospect of suffering, perfectly justly, all of the loss and having none of the gain. By that time the word "sneak" conveyed an idea that was quite the opposite of humorous, and they were in position to appreciate their father's repudiation of any intention to act as a sneak. It was necessary for them to travel a long and roundabout way before they reached the point at which they could genuinely disapprove what they themselves had done. In the frame of mind in which at first they had been, punishment would have been meaningless; it would have signified nothing more than that an older person was vexed at something, and that they had to bear the ill effects of the vexation. What they needed primarily was not discipline but instruction. Incidentally, it may be added, they had a good deal of discipline in the process.

We are likely to forget that moral distinctions are not instinctive, but are the product of experience. The capacity to distinguish between the good and the evil is, we may all agree, inherent; but ability in deciding what acts belong in the category of the good and what in the category of the evil is acquired. There is no magic voice within a little child informing him what a lie is and warning him that it is evil. It is not enough, moreover, to tell a child over and over again that lying is wrong; it is equally necessary to instruct him so that he will recognize a lie when he encounters it. The knack of recognizing the difference between truth and falsehood is like the knack of recognizing the difference between edible and poisonous mushrooms. It comes only after careful instruction and long practice, and it is not as easy as it seems. Is "Alice in Wonderland" falsehood? Are the statements in Stevenson's "Child's Garden of Verses" true? I believe I could set an examination in the subject, asking for reasons for the answers, which a good many parents could not satisfactorily pass. A child who habitually lies may be consciously doing wrong; but it is also possible that he has been simply ill-taught, or is not old enough to be taught at all in this subject. In order to reach a child's mind for the purpose of enabling him to see the difference between a lie and the truth, we must have imagination enough to put ourselves in the child's place sufficiently to find out what his conception of the truth is. It is easy to assume that a child is lying when he is merely experimenting with language, or is desiring to please, or is playing with his fancies. If we want children to understand us, we must exercise enough imagination to understand them. After we have established some basis of mutual understanding, we can feel free to proceed with rigorous discipline.

I hope I shall not be misunderstood. It is not necessary that a child should understand the reason for a command before he obeys. Obedience first and reasons afterwards is a good rule, and one that may even prevent disasters. It is necessary, however, that a child should understand what it is he is commanded to do or not to do. It requires some imagination to ascertain whether the child understands this or not.

Instruction in manners, like instruction in morals, requires the use of the imagination. The adult who is receiving his first lesson in golf ought to be able to understand why a child has difficulty in properly holding his spoon; the difference between a niblick and a stymie is not nearly so hard to learn as the difference between "Please" and "Thank you." Manners are more arbitrary than the technical terms of a game or a calling. Why it should be wrong but not naughty to eat with your knife or to sing at the table, children do not readily see.

As with regard to morals and manners, so with regard to all that a child has to learn, instruction is best coupled with imagination. A generation ago my grandfather wrote a book. Its tide seems to attach it to a long bygone age. It is called "Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young."[2] I know of no book which in spirit or in principles is more modern. I do not think its substance will ever be antiquated. It was through no fault or merit of mine that the author of this book was my grandfather; so I can see no reason why I should not be as free as any one else might be in expressing the wish that every parent who has some interest in the training of children might not only possess a copy, but also read it studiously. His words, with their touch of quaintness, concerning the use of imagination in the teaching of children were but the transcript of the principles which he had established by use and found practicable.

Are the children restive or boisterous? Do they talk incessantly and nonsensically? A little imagination will suggest what should be done with them. They are steam engines under full head of steam. If you do not wish to starve them into lassitude, set their activity to work in some direction that will not be troublesome. Has one of the children pinched his hand in the door or bumped his head? Summon up your imagination. He is a man who has met with an accident; call the ambulance, which comes in the form of a two-legged creature, to carry him to the hospital, which to grown-up eyes looks amazingly like the couch in the sewing-room; give him some medicine out of a bottle, which has the appearance of a shoe-horn. Is there an altercation in the nursery? Let there be a court established, and the issue heard and decided in due form. No retinue of servants can work such wonders as a moderately alert imagination.

If we parents have allowed our own imaginations to become atrophied through disuse, so that we are incapacitated from sharing in the most vivid part of our children's world, there is at least one thing we can do; we can restrain our natural impulse to interfere with our children's imagination. For a generous portion of every day we can leave our children alone. We are, of course, useful to them in emergencies, but ordinarily we prosy folk are in their way. What a nuisance we are when we impose upon an imaginative child that horror known as a mechanical toy! The nodding mandarin is so insistently a mandarin that no child with a healthy imagination can respect it. Off with its head! it then can conceivably be the pillar of a house, or a chimney for a steamboat. Large flat wooden dolls that come in a game-set have been known to serve admirably as roofs for block houses. Shall we allow the children to abuse their toys in this wise? exclaims the prosaic adult. The children might well reply, Must we be forced to lose our real world and to live in a commonplace, unreal world like yours? Elaborate dolls, complicated mechanisms, elegant playthings, may gratify the vanity of an adult, and even whet the curiosity of the growing boy and girl, but will not take the place of real toys like blocks of wood and spools and marbles. If we must nag him at other times, at least in his play let us leave the child alone with his imagination and the materials which his imagination can best use. If we are nonplussed by the enjoyment which a child finds in such simple things, it is because we have not the imagination to perceive that these very same simple things are the most capable of varied transformation.

Like those complicated toys which are made merely because the adults, who have the money, buy them, some kindergartens are engines of destruction. The play instinct, which psychologists kindly explain is simply the instinct for self-directed activity, is in mortal peril from people who are always for supervising children's games. Controlling the play of children is really attempting the impossible. As soon as it is controlled from the outside, play ceases to be play. If some one else directs the child, he ceases to be self-directed. Play is not mere recreation; it is sometimes very serious business. What makes it play is that it is not done under orders. And real play requires imagination. We parents can spoil our children by confining them to the artificial things we enjoy in lieu of our own minds. If we wish to amuse ourselves, we can do so for a time by spoiling our children. But if we wish them to enjoy life, as well as to grow strong in body and mind and character, we will not tempt them by the spices, the mechanisms, the artifices of our world, but will leave them as much as possible to wander and play and work unmolested in the world of simple things. Simple food, simple occupations, simple toys, simple surroundings—at least such we call them; in fact, there are no riches like them to the child—or the adult for that matter—who has not been robbed of his imagination. If we have lost ours, and must go about our task of instruction and discipline in the unreal way of the dry-as-dust, we can at least leave the child his. That is possible for the dullest of us.

[2] By Jacob Abbott. (Harper and Brothers.)