Safeguard Growing Childhood
Respect childhood, and do not hastily judge of it either for good or for evil. Allow a long time for the exceptions to be manifested, proved, and confirmed, before adopting special methods for them. Allow Nature to act in her place, for fear of thwarting her operations. You know, you say, the value of time, and do not wish to waste it. You do not see that to make a bad use of time is much more wasteful than to do nothing with it; and that a poorly taught child is further from wisdom than one who has not been taught at all.
You are alarmed at seeing him consume his early years in doing nothing! Really! Is it nothing to be happy? Is it nothing to jump, play, and run, all day long? In no other part of his life will he be so busy. Plato, in his ” Republic,” which is deemed so austere, brings up children only in festivals, games, songs, and pastimes. It might be said that he has done all when he has taught them how to enjoy themselves; and Seneca, speaking of the ancient Roman youth, says they were always on their feet, and were never taught anything which they could learn while seated. Were they of less value for this when they reached the age of manhood? Be not at all frightened, therefore, at this so-called idleness.
What would you think of a man, in order to turn his whole life to profitable account, would never take time to sleep? You will say that he is a man out of his senses: that he does not make use of his time but deprives himself of it; and that to fly from sleep is to run toward death. Reflect, therefore, that this is the same thing, and that childhood is the slumber of reason.
—Jean Jacques Rousseau.
Life’s Measure
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred years,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer in May,
Although it fall and die that night,—
It was the plant and flower of light:
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measure life may perfect be.
—Ben Jonson.
Alternate Reading: I John 3: 13-24.