In the few years since this modern movement began much has been accomplished2, yet there is among many thoughtful people a strong reaction from the hopes awakened3 by the enthusiastic heralding4 of the newer aspects of psychology5. It had been supposed that our science would soon revolutionize education; indeed, taking the wish for the fact, we began to talk about the new and the old education (both mythical) and boast of our millennium6. I would not underrate the real progress, the expansion of educational activities, the enormous gains made in many ways; but the millennium! The same old errors meet us in new forms, the old problems are yet unsolved, the waste is so vast that we sometimes feel thankful that we cannot do as much as we would, and that Nature protects children from our worst mistakes.
What is the source of this disappointment? Is it not that education, like all other aspects of life, can never be reduced to mere7 science? We need science, it must be increasingly the basis of all life; but exact science develops very slowly, and meantime we must live. Doubtless the time will come when our study of mind will have advanced so far that we can lay down certain great principles as tested laws, and thus clarify many questions. Even then the solution of the problem will not be in the enunciation8 of the theoretic principle, but will lie in its application to practice; and that application must always depend upon instinct, tact9, appreciation10, as well as upon the scientific law. Even the aid that science can contribute is given slowly; meanwhile we must work with these children and lift them to the largest life.
It is in relation to this practical work of education that our effort to study children gets its human value. There are always two points of view possible with reference to life. From the standpoint of nature and science, individuals count for little. Nature can waste a thousand acorns11 to raise one oak, hundreds of children may be sacrificed that a truth may be seen. But from the ethical12 and human point of view the meaning of all life is in each individual. That one child should be lost is a kind of ruin to the universe.
It is this second point of view which every parent and every teacher must take; and the great practical value of our new study of children is that it brings us into personal relation with the child world, and so aids in that subtle touch of life upon life which is the very heart of education.
It is therefore that certain phases of the study of child life have a high worth without giving definite scientific results. Peculiarly significant among these is the study of the autobiographies14 of childhood. The door to the great universe is always to the personal world. Each of us appreciates child life through his own childhood, and though the children with whom it is his blessed fortune to be associated. If then it is possible for him to know intimately another child through autobiography15, one more window has been opened into the child world—one more interpretative unit is given him through which to read the lesson of the whole.
It is true, autobiographies written later in life cannot give us the absolute truth of childhood. We see our early experiences through the mists, golden or gray, of the years that lie between. It is poetry as well as truth, as Goethe recognized in the title of his own self-study. Nevertheless the individual who has lived the life can best bring us into touch with it, and the very poetry is as true as the fact because interpretative of the spirit.
It is peculiarly necessary that teachers harassed16 with the routine of their work, and parents distracted with the multitude of details of daily existence, should have such windows opened through which they may look across the green meadows and into the sunlit gardens of childhood. The result is not theories of child life but appreciation of children. How one who has read understandingly Sonva Kovalevsky's story of her girlhood could ever leave unanswered a child starving for love I cannot see. Mills' account of his early life is worth more than many theories in showing the deforming17 effect of an education that is formal discipline without an awakening18 of the heart and soul. Goethe's great study of his childhood and youth must give a new hold upon life to any one who will appreciatively respond to it.
A better illustration of the subtle worth of such literature, in developing appreciation of those inner deeps of child life that escape definition and evaporate from the figures of the statistician, could scarcely be found than Pierre Loti's “Story of a Child.” There is hardly a fact in the book. It tells not what the child did or what was done to him, but what he felt, thought, dreamed. A record of impressions through the dim years of awakening, it reveals a peculiar13 and subtle type of personality most necessary to understand. All that Loti is and has been is gathered up and foreshadowed in the child. Exquisite19 sensitiveness to impressions whether of body or soul, the egotism of a nature much occupied with its own subjective20 feelings, a being atune in response to the haunting melody of the sunset, and the vague mystery of the seas, a subtle melancholy21 that comes from the predominance of feeling over masculine power of action, leading one to drift like Francesca with the winds of emotion, terrible or sweet, rather than to fix the tide of the universe in the centre of the forceful deed—all these qualities are in the dreams of the child as in the life of the man.
And the style?—dreamy, suggestive, melodious22, flowing on and on with its exquisite music, wakening sad reveries, and hinting of gray days of wind and rain, when the gust23 around the house wails24 of broken hopes and ideals so long-deferred as to be half forgotten,—the minor25 sob26 of his music expresses the spirit of Loti as much as do the moods of the child he describes.
Such a type, like all others, has its strength and its weakness. Such a type, like all others, is implicitly27 in us all. Do we not know it—the haunting hunger for the permanence of impressions that come and go, which pulsates28 through the book till we can scarcely keep back the tears; the brooding over the two sombre mysteries—Death and Life (and which is the darker?); the sense of fate driving life on—the fate of a temperament29 that restlessly longs for new impressions and intense emotions, without the vigor30 of action that cuts the Gordian knot of fancy and speculation31 with the swift sword-stroke of an heroic deed.
It is fortunate that the translator has caught the subtle charm of Loti's style, so difficult to render in another speech, in an amazing degree. This is peculiarly necessary here, for accuracy of translation means giving the delicate changes of color and elusive32 chords of music that voice the moods and impressions of which the book is made.
Let us read the revelation of this book not primarily to condemn33 or praise, or even to estimate and define, but to appreciate. If it be true that no one ever looked into the Kingdom of Heaven except through the eyes of a little child, if it be true that the eyes of every unspoiled child are such a window, take the vision and be thankful. If, perchance, this window should open toward strange abysses that reach vaguely34 away, or upon dark meadows that lie ghost-like in the mingled35 light, if out of the abyss rises, undefined, the vast, dim shape of the mystery, and wakens in us the haunting memories of dead yesterdays and forgotten years, if we seem carried past the day into the gray vastness that is beyond the sunset and before the dawn, let us recognize that the mystery or mysteries, the annunciation of the Infinite is a little child.
December, 188-
I am almost too old to undertake this book, for a sort of night is falling about me; where shall I find the words vital and young enough for the task?
To-morrow, at sea, I will commence it; at least I will endeavor to put into it all that was best of myself at a time when as yet there was nothing very bad.
So that romantic love may find no place in it, except in the illusory form of a vision, I will end it at an early age.
And to the sovereign lady whose suggestion it was that I write it, I offer it as a humble37 token of my respect and admiration38.
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systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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heralding
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| v.预示( herald的现在分词 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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enunciation
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| n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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acorns
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| n.橡子，栎实( acorn的名词复数 ) | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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autobiographies
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| n.自传( autobiography的名词复数 )；自传文学 | |
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autobiography
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| n.自传 | |
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harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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deforming
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| 使变形，使残废，丑化( deform的现在分词 ) | |
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awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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gust
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| n.阵风，突然一阵（雨、烟等），（感情的）迸发 | |
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wails
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| 痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 ) | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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pulsates
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| v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的第三人称单数 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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elusive
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| adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的 | |
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condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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