Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/831

Rh punishment, Even the mother herself, beloved as she undoubtedly is, comes in for this antagonism. When the moral régime is severe and something like dread of punishment arises, the problem of self-protection is wont to be solved by well-known devices in the shape of subterfuges. In this way a child will say, "I didn't hear you," when a command is given and not at once obeyed; "I didn't make the mess, it was my hand," and so forth. Quite young children will find their way to little ruses and deceits of this sort when brought face to face with a sharp-faced threatening authority. Thus a mite of three, having in a moment of temper called her mother "monkey," and being questioned as to what she had said, replied, "I said I was a monkey." In some cases the child does not wait to be questioned. A little girl mentioned by Compayré, being put out at something the mother had done or said, cried "Nasty!" (vilaine); then, after a significant silence, corrected herself in this wise: "Dolly nasty" (poupée vilaine). The skill with which this transference was effected without any violence to grammar argues a precocious art.

I do not wish to say that these prevarications, these dodges for getting out of obedience, or, if disobedience has been detected, of evading punishment, are not rightly named untruths. With every wish to excuse children's peccadillos one can not but recognize here a rudiment of the wish and intention to deceive.

Yet surely it is a matter deserving of reflection that our modes of governing (or misgoverning) children so frequently develop these tricky prevarications. It is not too much to say that anything in the nature of a brutal and terrifying government drives children to these subterfuges as their only resource. I at least should never blame a child greatly for trying to save himself by an untruth with the terror of the "giant" armed with stick or cane hanging over him.

Our moral discipline may develop untruth in another way. When the punishment has been inflicted and the governor, relenting from the brutal harshness, asks, "Are you sorry?" or "Aren't you sorry?" the answer is exceedingly likely to be "No," even though this is in a sense untrue. More clearly is this lying of obstinacy seen where a child is shut up and kept without food. Asked, "Are you hungry?" the hardy little sinner stifles his sensations and pluckily answers "No," even though the low and dismal character of the sound shows that the untruth is but a half-hearted affair.

There is much even yet to be done in clearing up the modus operandi of children's lies. How quick, for example, is a child to find out the simple good-natured people, as the servant-maid or gardener, who will listen to his romancing and flatter him by appearing to accept it all as gospel! More significant is the fact