Children's Ways: Being Selections from the Author’s "Studies of Childhood," with Some Additional Matter

One of the few things we seemed to be certain of with respect to child-nature was that it is fancy-full. Childhood, we all know, is the age for dreaming; for living a life of happy make-believe. Even here, however, we want more accurate observation. For one thing, the play of infantile imagination is probably much less uniform than is supposed. There seem to be very serious children who rarely, if ever, indulge in a wild fancy. Mr. Ruskin has recently told us that when a child he was incapable of acting a part or telling a tale, that he never knew a child "whose thirst for visible fact was at once so eager and so methodic".

One may, nevertheless, safely say that a large majority of the little people are, for a time at least, fancy-bound. A child that did not want to play and cared nothing for the marvels of storyland would surely be regarded as queer and not just what a child ought to be.

Supposing that this is the correct view, there still remains the question whether children's imagination always plays in the same fashion. Now science is beginning to bring to light differences of childish fancy. For one thing it suggests that children have their favourite type of mental imagery, that one child's fancy may habitually move in a coloured world, another in a world of sounds, and so forth. The fascination ofRobinson Crusoe to many a boy lies in the wealth of images of movement and adventure which it supplies.

With this difference in the material with which a child's fancy plays, there are other differences which turn on his temperament and predominant feelings. Hence, the familiar fact that in some children imagination broods by preference on gloomy and alarming objects, whereas in others it selects what is bright and gladsome.

Perhaps I have said enough to justify my plea for new observations and for a reconsideration of hasty theories in the light of these. Nor need we object to a fresh survey of what is perhaps the most delightful side of child-life.