trust a youthful burglar to go alone to a reformatory why can not I trust him to go alone to work?
The answer is that the individual is weak rather than vicious. He is strong enough to last over night, but not strong enough to last a month. He goes to the institution. He learns the trade of a carpenter or a stone-cutter—then he has some incentive in life. He gets out of the habit of being bad. When he comes out he is proud of his job, and as soon as we get him work he wants to show how well he can do it—the past is behind him forever.
This new children's crusade started in 1900. We are now going on the theory that the law is not one-tenth of the problem. Psychology, for want of a better word, is the other nine-tenths. The solution of the problem of child delinquents lies chiefly in knowing how to get at truth, in getting loyalty to the state and to the law. Once you get a boy to go regularly to school the problem is solved. On the other hand, we do not want him to think that the court is a brute or dead easy.
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CHILDREN'S RELIGIOUS IDEAS
A CHILD'S PRAYER
Please, God, grandpa has gone to you. Take good care of him. Please always mind and shut the door, because he can't stand drafts.
(371)
A PRAYER TO THE DEVIL
A little child was seen to bury a piece of paper in the ground. On examination of the paper by a curious adult, it was seen to contain the following: "Dear devil, please come and take aunt. I can't stand her much longer."
(372)
MEN ARE GODS
Seeing a group of workmen, a child said:
"Mama, are these gods?"
"Gods? Why?"
"Because they make houses and churches, same as God makes moons and people and ickle dogs."
(373)
A WRESTLE WITH OMNIPRESENCE
A girl who had been taught that God is everywhere said, one day:
"Mama, me don't see God. I dess He's don to take a walk."
(374)
GOD POSSESSES A BODY.
A child who heard the expression, "this footstool," used in a conversation, asked the man on whose knees she sat at the time the meaning of the expression. On being told that the earth is often spoken of as "God's footstool," she exclaimed:
"O-h-h! what long legs!"
Another child drew a picture of Jesus and of God, making God have very long arms.
(375)
HEAVENLY MAIL FACILITIES
A child whose grandmother had just died asked her mother if God had a street and a number. When asked why she wanted to know, she replied:
"Nothing, only I wanted to write a letter to Him to send grandma back again."
(376)
A COWORKER WITH GOD
A three-year-old boy was with a woman whose home was a second home to him. They were in the flower-garden. Seeing a crocus in bloom, and remembering that the previous fall he had put the bulb into the ground (as one of his age so often does things, by the help of others), he asked, "Did I make that flower grow?" When told that God sent the rain and the sunshine which made it grow, he insisted that he had had a part in the process, and finally dropt the subject by saying:
"God and I make the flowers grow."—A. B. Bunn Van Ormer, "Studies in Religious Nurture."
(377)
Children's Thoughts About God—See Anthropomorphism.
CHINA AND AMERICA COMPARED
They tell a story of President Sheffield,
of North China College, and a great military
official, who is his friend. I met the general
once during the Chinese New-year holidays.
He is a large, fine-looking man, very
liberal and progressive, and much interested
in Western customs. One day, when calling,
he was discussing these. Suddenly he drew
his chair very close to Dr. Sheffield and said
in a confidential whisper: "Tell me, is it
true that in your country the woman and
not the man is the head of the household?"
Dr. Sheffield drew a little nearer and answered
in the same manner: "Well, I will
tell you just how it is. Sometimes it is the
one, and sometimes it is the other. It just
depends on who is the stronger." "Ah!"
and the general leaned back with a sigh of
relief. "That is just the way it is with us."—Frances
B. Patterson, "Student Volunteer
Movement," 1906.
(378)
