The mother-teacher of religion

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Editor's Introduction ii

Mother's Creed and Prayer 13

II 12 Editor's Introduction

Many homes, realizing the danger that threatens, seek earnestly to do their full duty toward their children. Conscious of the new interest in religious education and fully beHeving that the child can be so reared that he will never know conscious estrangement from God, they are asking how they may do their part. Parents are asking for religious materials suitable for use with their children from the earliest years. They are demanding the methods to be used in making these materials effective, and inquiring concerning the laws which govern the spiritual growth of childhood.

The present volume is an attempt to help parents on these problems. It addresses the mother primarily, since inevitably she must have most to do with the young child; yet the father is not left out. It deals chiefly with the pre-school age, for this is the most important time for the grounding of first religious impressions, and it is also the time when the church and the church school can contribute but httle to the child.

In deciding what to put into the volume the author has made a skillful balance between theory and practice. Enough of the religious psychology of childhood is set forth to make an intelligent approach to the concrete materials presented. This is accomplished in untechnical terms and with a wealth of illustration such as gives the principles immediate appHcation. A considerable number of prayers, stories, pictures, songs, etc., are supplied so that the mother may have an abundance of usable lessons directly available. The whole is woven together in such a way that the mother herself will have the advantage of a course in religious pedagogy while guiding and stimulating the spiritual development of her child.

The editor sends this book forth with much satisfaction, believing that it will meet a very definite need in many homes, and confident that children who during their early years are trained in accordance with its principles and materials will have laid firm the foundation for a worthy structure of Christian character.

THE MOTHER'S CREED AND PRAYER

/ believe being a mother the holiest privilege given a human being. Grant, heavenly Father, that I may in motherhood meet the great opportunity of training my child to be a child of thine.

/ believe that mother-love is sent of God. Help me to understand its full significance — to know that love means more than the ardent outpouring of lavish affection. Grant that with my love there may be the seeing eye, the hearing ear, the understanding heart, so that I may better understand the needs of my child and lead him in the natural unfolding of the life thou hast given him.

/ believe in the gospel of good health. Help me to minister faithfully to the physical welfare of my child. Help me to realize that religion and morality are closely related to good health and sound physical vigor.

/ believe that nothing is trivial or of little importance that concerns my child. Grant that I may have that sympathetic understanding of child nature that makes me a child with my child, laughing with his joys, sorrowing in his sorrows, sympathetic with his faults, helping him through my greater experience, to be fine and true and noble in the little things that count so much in the making of character. Help me to be all that I desire him to become. Help me through the days of his early childhood to be always patient and full of cheer. And if the way now and then seems one of drudgery or the demand for strength to meet the task too great, grant me the larger vision that I may see my child in man's estate, the kindly deeds of a noble life given in service; or, perchance, that I may hear men say of him, "Here is a man in all that true manhood means." Then shall I feel repaid a thousand fold and thank thee, my Father, that thou hast bestowed upon me the high privilege of being a mother.

Chapter I Beginnings

When shall I begin to teach my child religion? This is a question earnestly asked by many mothers who are concerned over the spiritual welfare of their children. The answer is, As soon as he is born.

At first thought this may seem strange. Such a starting point may seem premature, for is it not commonly understood that before a child can be taught religion he must be capable of understanding about God and our relations to him? And that the child cannot begin to be religious until he is old enough to "say his prayers"?

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that as soon as the child is born we may begin to lay the foundations for a religious character and life. For, in its broadest and best meaning, religion is right living. Jesus came that we might have abundant life. And all factors that build for a full, rich life lived at its best have their part in spiritual development and training. Many of these influences begin the moment the babe has set his feet on the ''shores of time."

Laying the Foundations

Not until about three years of age is the child able to grasp much of the thought about God. Yet before this time he may have been given many impressions which, while they are not definitely remembered in later years, nevertheless supply the prepared soil in which seeds of more direct instruction find favorable conditions for growth.

From the very first, right habits of sleeping, feeding, and responding to care and attention can be formed; this will in the end save much fretting, ill-nature, and rebellion, all of which have their bearing on mood and disposition and, through these, on the spiritual nature. The foundations of good health and freedom from pain and discomfort can in no small degree be insured; and good digestion, healthy nerves, and normal bodily functioning play no small part in determining the quahty of the moral and religious life. Through wise and loving care and through providing a congenial atmosphere in the home, happiness, cheerfulness, and good nature may be promoted — ^f actors which lie at the very foundation of all the finer spiritual qualities. Through loving and sympathetic companionship the bonds of affection and understanding can be established between parents and child which will render example and instruction doubly effective when the child has become old enough to respond to them.

In all these and many other ways, then, the mother can from the earliest days of her child's life be making sure that the beginnings are right. These factors, rightly considered, are as much a part of the child's rehgious training as the more direct teaching he will later receive. To neglect these essentials may leave a fatal weakness in the foundations upon which the higher spiritual structure rests.

The Unbreakable Unity

Let the mother therefore realize that life, her child's hfe, is a great unity. There is no part of it that does not affect all other parts. There is no time jn the life that does not in some measure determine all that part of the life which comes after. There is no experience — no train of thought, no affection, no ideal, no decision, no loyalty that does not owe much to what has preceded it in experience.

This point of view offers the mother cause both for rejoicing and for a hesitant approaching of her task. On the one hand she realizes that she need not wait for the years to pass and

BEGINNINGS 17

bring her babe the power to understand great thoughts and grasp deep meanings before she can begin to form his character and shape his destiny. On the other hand she recognizes that there is no time to waste, that foundations are being laid, habits set up, and the background estabhshed upon which all later building of character and destiny must rest. With or without her help this is taking place.

With the love of motherhood prompting her and with the religious motive actuating her, every true mother will therefore seek to know her child, and from the first so nurture and guide him that this bit of divine life may never know the tragedy of separation from its Author.

First Impressions: An Interpretation

"Alpha — Night — Silence — a struggle for the light, and he did not know what light was. An effort to cry, and he did not know that he had a voice. He opened his eyes and 'there was light.' He opened his lips and hailed the world with a cry for help. He did not know the language of the inhabitants of the planet upon which Providence had cast him. So he saluted them in the one universal speech of God's creatures, a cry. EverybodyT— every one of God's children understands that. A tiny craft in sight of new shores — he could not tell from what port he was cleared; he did not know where he was. He had no reckoning, no chart, no pilot. No one knew whence he came. Some one said he came from heaven. And the baby himself knew as Httle about it as the learned people gathered to welcome him. There was a man's voice, the Doctor's, strong and reassuring. There was a woman's voice, soothing and comforting, the voice of the nurse. And one was a mother's voice. There is none other hke it. It was the first music he had ever heard in this world and the sweetest."^

1 Robert J. Burdette in Chimes From a Jester's Bells. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis.

Chapter II The Awakening Mind

The mind of a child I Who may know what it contains? As we look down upon the small mass of flesh and soul we call a babe, who can understand the mental state of this new being who has no memories, no plans, no ambitions; who has neither ideas nor connected thoughts; who understands no language, nor recognizes any object upon which the eye may rest?

The Mind at Birth

Yet here this child is, and he possesses some sort of consciousness. He is aware, even if but dimly, of sights and sounds and contacts and tastes and temperatures. These cannot mean to him what they do to us, but he in his own way responds to them. Speech is to him not made up of .words and sentences, but of a buzzing, rumbhng, hissing continuity of meaningless soimd. The immediate en\dronment does not consist of people and chairs and cribs and lamps and tables and what-not, but of a confused mixture of impressions with no object or person separated from the puzzling complex. The world to the new-born child ''is a big, blooming, buzzing confusion," says William James.

From the first, the babe is sensitive to hunger, to pain, and to other forms of discomfort. He may not know just what is troubling him when his stomach becomes empty, but he reahzes that something is the matter and acts accordingly. He may not know what is causing the pain nor even from what part of the body the pain comes when a pin is sticking, but he is aware that something is wrong with his world and voices a protest. Where knowledge and intelligence are not yet ready

i8

THE AWAKENING MIND 19

to guide instinct takes hold and the child does what his race has grown accustomed to do in similar circumstances through a million generations. At the beginning the child is an automaton. He has neither thought, conscious desire, nor purposed will. He is nevertheless a living automaton, and will soon pass from the automatic stage.

Bodily movements are not at first directed by conscious purpose, for one can manifestly not purpose to perform an act which one has never learned to perform — one must have a copy for his act. Hence the first movements of the child are random movements, the result of the sheer impulse to move, wriggle, kick, thrust, turn the head, rather than to be quite still and immobile.

These early movements are not only random and impulsive, but they are for the most part unrelated to each other, they are uncoordinated. So we observe that the two hands do not act in unison as successfully as they later come to do. The legs do not seem always to agree as to direction or time of action. The eyes, even, have not yet developed perfect team work and may look in different directions instead of acting together.

Getting Under Way

''A very imperfect machine, this new-born babe," an uninformed observer might say. Yet a most marvelous machine — and much more than a machine. For this small life has wrapped up in it in potential form all that the life can ever become. It is Hke the acorn with the perfect oak tree at its heart. Nurture, training, education do not add new powers; they only make actual through growth and development what was already there through the gift of nature.

So, a little later we find this imperfect mind has changed. Memory begins, and the mother has the joy that comes from seeing that her child remembers her face and recognizes her.

Sensation has become more perfect, and food that is not of a pleasing temperature or taste is refused. Objects are perceived, and the child will follow with his eyes and head the f| w

AFTER XIXE MONTHS IX LIFE'S SCHOOL movement of a thing that attracts his attention. Familiar articles come to be associated with their uses, and a sight of the feeding bottle brings a demand for food; a gHmpse of wraps

THE AWAKENING MIND 21

and the gocart creates the expectation of a trip out; the rattle is shaken, the ball thrown and promising objects put into the mouth.

While all this is going on a similar development is taking place in the affections and emotions. There comes a day when the child smiles when pleased. Unmistakable expressions of anger occur when things do not go right. Cooing, crowing, and gurgling announce that all is right with the world. Nestling, reaching, and clasping tell of the beginnings of love for the mother.

As the months pass understanding broadens and the power to grasp the meaning of speech and of actions grows. The child knows from word or tone when he is being reproved and when he is being praised. He is receiving impressions of conduct and learning to respond to control. He tears a book and has his hands spatted for it; memory and association come to his aid on the next occasion and he foregoes the pleasure of hearing the r-r-r-p of the tearing sheet; he is developing selfrestraint and control.

Gradually out of countless impressions of approval and disapproval, out of rewards and punishments, out of lessons learned by pain of consequences and by restraints or promptings of mother and father the sense of right and wrong develops. Probably for every child at one time in his existence right is what he is allowed to do, and wrong is what he is restrained from doing.

So, little by little, line upon Hne and precept upon precept, the child learns his world and how to adjust himself to it. Parallel with this development the physical and mental powers are enlarging. Sensation reaches its capacity, memory and imagination increase, reason dawns, imitation takes hold, feeling and emotion grow deeper and broaden their range. Muscular skill increases, bodily parts learn to work together, play becomes a controlling motive.

From beginnings which at the first seem but a promise the mother sees taking place before her the miracle of growth which transforms her helpless babe into a self-directing being, responsible in his own right to his Creator and capable of taking his place in the world of men and affairs.

The Law of Spiritual Growth

It is necessary that the mother who would guide her child's religious development should understand the laws of his mental growth, for the same powers of mind and heart are used in religious thought and feeling that apply to other aspects of experience. In coming to understand about God the child employs the same mental processes as when he comes to understand something in his human relationships. When his feeKngs of love, friendship, and loyalty go out to Jesus these are the same feeHng activities which come into play in his love, friendship, and loyalty to his earthly parents and friends. When the age has come for making choices and reaching decisions for himself, the same laws will govern in the matter of religion that control in other affairs.

Because of this significant truth it follows that the child can progress no faster in his religious development than in the rest of his development. He cannot understand or use religious truths that are beyond his grasp any more than he can other truths which he cannot comprehend. He cannot experience feelings or emotions too deep or too exalted for him in rehgious lines any more than he can in other lines.

Therefore religious training must be suited to the child. Strong meat must not be fed to babes. "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear," is the irrevocable law which must be obeyed.

"The American Home Series" published by The Abingdon Press (Pamphlets):

THE AWAKENING MIND 23

The Education of the Baby Until It is One Year Old. The First Year in a Baby's Life.

The Second and Third Years.

The Biography of a Baby, Milicent W. Shinn. Published

by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Fundamentals of Child Study (Chap. V), Kirkpatrick. Published by The Macmillan Company, New York.

Chapter III Physical Foundations

In the olden day the physical nature was held in low regard. ''The world, the flesh, and the devil" were all condemned in the same breath. The soul was thought to suffer contamination by its contact with the body, and the body was neglected, abused, and sometimes even cruelly maimed in the vain hope of purifying the spirit by mortifying the flesh!

The Body and the Soul

But in this better day we no longer accept such a false and debasing doctrine. Good health ministers to beauty of soul as well as body. In Browning's words,

"All good things are ours, Nor soul helps flesh more now Than flesh, helps soul."

The mother who would guide aright her child's rehgious development must understand the whole child. She must reahze that religion is inextricably bound up with the entire life. There is no possibility of considering spiritual growth separated from the normal growth of body and mind. Re- Hgion not only concerns every department of Hfe, but is in turn influenced by all that life contains.

If we could but know our children better — know the frail little body, and especially the dehcate and tender brain and nervous system! Ordinarily we do not think of babies being nervous. "Nerves" are a luxury reserved for harassed or overworked adults. Mother is tired with a stinging weariness, or father comes home from a day of racking cares, and the nerves are on edge. Each needs quiet and rest and soothing ministrations and sleep to "knit up the raveled sleeve of care."

But the baby? The baby, who has no work, no care, no burdens to shoulder? — Who knows? This new and unripe brain, "these untried nerves — do they too not feel the strain and tension of existence? Do they not weary under infantile troubles as real as those that disturb our own peace of mind? May they not become frayed by worry or fretting, or too much attention and excitement, or too many people about, or want of sleep at proper time?

Sleep and Rest

The observing mother realizes how easily and quickly the young child tires. A happy, hilarious play spell is on, and it seems a pity to stop it. But after a time the enjoyment lessens, signs of fretting are seen, and perhaps the baby cries. The child is overtired; the play should have been stopped sooner and the weary brain and nerves given a chance to recover their tone. Such overtiring, if it occurs too often, leads the child to irritable moods and fretful tempers, thereby spoiling the disposition as well as retarding growth and development.

For the first three months the babe needs for the most part but to sleep and eat. Plentiful sleep remains one of the chief requirements throughout childhood. Many children who are cross and unruly and who show undesirable streaks of rebellion are but the victims of shortened hours of sleep and are paying the penalty which nature never fails to exact of those who trespass on her laws. Sleep is nature's best restorer and builder.

At birth, from eighteen to twenty hours a day should be devoted to sleep; at six months, from sixteen to eighteen hours; during the second year, from fifteen to sixteen hours; the third year, from fourteen to fifteen hours; and for the next three years an average of thirteen hours. Up to school age children should take a day nap to break the long strain on the nervous system of a day of active play. The habit of an early and regular bedtime hour following a simple meal should be as fixed as the setting of the sun. Children who are allowed to suit their own fancy about going to bed, or those whose bedtime hour is changed on every slight pretext cannot escape the penalty sure to be imposed on disposition as well as body for the disregard of inexorable law.

Food, Growth, and Character

Of equal importance in building good foundations is the matter of nutrition. Probably few mothers think when feeding their children or planning a dietary of any important effects beyond physical growth and health. Yet science teaches us that there is an undoubted relation between malnutrition and moral delinquency and degeneracy.

For the young infant the mother's milk is the natural and best food. No substitute for it has ever been discovered. While we have no complete statistics for the entire country, it is known that for large masses of our population one baby out of every ten born dies during its first year. This is a considerably larger percentage than of soldiers killed at the front in the late European war. It is safer to be a soldier in active modern warfare than to be a baby during the first year of life in modern America! And physicians everywhere tell us that the greatest single factor in this tragic infant mortahty is feeding. Three fourths of the babies who die the first year are bottle fed. Nearly one third of a milhon children die annually in the United States under five years of age — more from incorrect feeding than from any other causes, or probably from all other causes combined.

But it is not a question of mortahty only. Not all improperly fed children die under the mistreatment, but none of those who live escape the later handicap which malnutrition is sure to place upon them. Out of one hundred and one Better Babies selected at random from a contest, eighty-nine were breast fed, eight were fed by a combination of breast and bottle, and only four on the bottle alone. Who can estimate the greater advantage and larger promise lying ahead of the child who has a good physical start in life! No considerations of personal or selfish nature should cause the mother to refuse or neglect the sacred duty of nursing her offspring.

Regularity of feeding is almost as much a factor in good nutrition of young children as the quality of the food itself. The baby should be fed by the clock just as it should be put to sleep by the clock. This is in part because regular feeding is one of the factors of good nutrition; it is also a factor in the grounding of certain fundamental physical habits which lay the foundations of stability of character. ^'But," says one mother, "surely my baby knows better when it is hungry than I could know." No, such is not the case. The baby is quite certain to interpret various kinds of discomfort as hunger, and therefore to get into the habit of expecting to be fed at all times. The result is an overworked stomach, indigestion, more discomfort, and more clamoring for food. On the other hand, the baby, if healthy, can be trained to become hungry at regular intervals, take a full meal, and then be satisfied until feeding time comes again.

A psychologist writes that one of the most common errors of adults in dealing with children's minds is that of interpreting the child's mind in terms of their own. One wonders whether the same principle does not hold for many careless or ignorant parents in dealing with the bodies of their children. Paul was generous in his judgment when he said, "We do not feed strong meat to babes." For that is, in effect, just what we do when we allow the child to have food not adapted to his age. Sara is between two and three years of age. She was given several ice-cream cones at a summer picnic — because she cried for them. The next day she was cross and fretful and had a rash over her face. ^Tt's the heat," said her mother. 'Tt is indigestion caused by improper feeding," said the doctor. Eighteen months' old Bobbie was given peanuts by a doting grandparent because ''he always gave his children what they wanted to eat and it didn't hurt them." Sequel: vomiting, fever, castor oil, several days of peevishness and low spirits, and so much of happiness, health, and good nature checked out of the bank of Bobbie's future.

The good old family doctor, sitting by the bedside of a sick child, said to the young mother gently but with terrible meaning: 'Tt is true that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, but perhaps it is even more true that the ignorance or carelessness of the mothers is visited upon them."

In the surveys that have been made in our public schools an alarmingly large proportion of children have been found suffering from various forms of malnutrition. These children come from the "best" homes as well as from the homes of the poorer classes. In most cases it is not so much a question of the amount of money spent on the table as of the careful study of a particular child's needs for his health and correct growth. A serious aspect of the matter is that not only is the child's physical development being retarded but his mental power is being impaired and his whole future jeopardized.

It is stated by Dr. WilHam R. Emerson that probably one third of our school children are not up to normal health, although apparently they may seeni to be fairly well and strong. Many of these troubles, possibly most of them, had their origin during the first five years of the child's Kfe.

The Breath of Life

It is as possible to starve the child for want of air as for want of food. When we close the drafts of a stove we shut out the oxygen and the fire burns low or goes out. When we keep the baby in a close, ill- ventilated room we rob him of the life-giving oxygen and the lires of life burn low — they may even go out if some ailment or disease attacks the weakened organs. The pale face, the anemic body, the tendency to take cold are evidences of oxygen starvation.

Referring again to the one hundred and one Better Babies in the contest: eighty had always slept alone, and ninetyone had always slept with the windows open. The "drafts" were kept open for the young organism so that the fires of growth and health might burn brightly.

Many mothers, sensing the fact that the young child requires more heat than the adult, are afraid of the open air or out-of-doors for their children. It is just at this period of Hfe, however, that the child is making his most rapid growth, and so needs an abundance of pure air and sunshine. The outdoor nap when the weather permits, outdoor play in proper clothing to insure protection, abundance of sunKght at all seasons of the year— these are valuable insurance against sickness and disease and the surest guarantee of vigor ' and normal development.

Clothing and Comfort

In the dressing of her child the sensible mother will know its needs and not be too much influenced on the one hand by tradition nor on the other by the fads of the day. Miss Shinn tells us that babies lose a great deal of their normal activity through the wearing of clothes. Since children do not live in tropical forests nor have their own hair coverings they must wear clothes, but we ought to leave the little limbs as free as we can without risk from cold. A chance to roll about nude in a room that is safely warm is a great thing for a baby. Freedom of movement, adaptation to play, protection against the weather and physical comfort should be considered ahead of convention and fashion, though attractiveness and artistic effect need not be neglected.

so THE MOTHER-TEACHER OF RELIGION

In many cities of our country children's health clinics have been estabHshed. In these cHnics five essential factors are taken as the basis of good health :

A STATE PRIZE BABY

The Good Nature back of this Smile means much for future Disposition and Character

1. To get children to take proper food at proper intervals.

2. To prevent over fatigue.