Some of What I Read for You...

Education is the nation's point of departure, the wellspring of the rising generation's movement, and the nerve of the new generation. Is there in the universe a subject more important than man? Or is there among all studies a matter more intricate than this human being, or more absorbing?

The son of this age takes up a book or a magazine, and it gives him no pleasure to search in it for crumbling ruins, nor for the diversion of legends and tales of jinn and spirits. Rather he is realistic, he is scientific, an investigator of truth, working to reach the ideal, to reach perfection, to reach the point where man becomes brother to man, so that wars fade away, hatred dies out, and security and stability prevail.

Attention to education, and concern for the child in all the stages of his growth, has never in any age occupied the place this age has opened for it, whether in the home, the school, or society; every gesture of the child has come to carry meaning for parents and educators!

Here is the magazine (Parents) publishing an extensive study entitled "Hostility in the Child," in which the writer devotes herself to examining one of the child's behaviors from his first months until his entry into school. She says in this endeavor that hostility has been, and remains, one of the gravest dangers besetting social relations; its source is the home and the child's first environment. But once the educator understands this instinct consciously, and hastens to remedy it, investigating its foundations and the causes of its appearance, he can uproot it and work to lighten its weight.

How do we define the hostile feeling?

Here the writer says that it is every instinct that aims at destruction and at the harm of others. The susceptibility to this instinct grows in the child's soul as his capacity for speech, thought, and learning grows; and we must accept this reality with an open heart. Children may at times feel hostility toward parents, brothers and sisters, and educators, and everyone connected with them must watch where the dart of their anger is aimed at a given moment. Fortunately, modern science supplies us with various means by which to help our children — among them, teaching the child how to distinguish between the natural hostile feeling and the dangerous, destructive hostile act.

The situations that sweep over the psyche of the grown person do not pass through the child, for the horizon of his thinking is very limited indeed. He is comfortable and pleased when he has eaten his fill and slept, and his misery and resentment appear when he is hungry or in pain. The child may link the touch of his mother's fingertips and her face, on the one hand, with his meals on the other; so if he sees the face and feels the caress of the fingertips and then fails to obtain his food, he suffers and despairs, and expresses it in screaming and weeping. If we look for other causes we find many of them: he may rage when he throws away a toy he was playing with, and his smile returns when it is given back; or he may see his mother's face and smile, then the face disappears and he feels alone and cries for help! From all this we conclude that his screaming came as a result of his inability to obtain what he wants...

The researcher goes on to say that every family has various methods it follows in raising its children, but there are general rules of education which educators would do well to follow. Then she draws our attention to understanding the situation, so that we do not judge the child a failure merely for a fit of anger or a bout of screaming; for the child who has reached one year of age cannot act from prior awareness, and anger is merely a psychological response to some annoyance.

Thinking begins in the child in the seventh or eighth month, and this does not mean that he has gained his power of memory; so there is no reason for the mother to take a negative stand. Likewise, showing pity alone is a mistake she must avoid, and it does no good for her to double her tenderness toward him the moment he rages or grows angry, for by that she encourages him to be angry on purpose in order to win her affection and draw out her tenderness.

It behooves the parents to keep their balance and their calm until the cloud lifts and the sun shines out anew; and they must be alert to strange, abnormal behavior. Layla, for example, is a child of three and a half, pleasant company and merry, with two brothers older than herself, and she had long heard her parents' praise of her gentle manners and her cheerful face. But suddenly, and without cause, she began to avoid playing outside the house, her excuse being that a dog was trying to bite her — and the strangest part is that she had never feared going near animals. Then she could no longer bear to be alone in her room, and took to telling fantastic tales of ravening beasts, and in vain did her family try to convince her that her notions were untrue and that she should give up these fancies. The observer would not judge from appearances that such behavior springs from the motives of hostility; yet in fact Layla felt that she was forever the source of giving, and that her right was always being wronged. So she hated her parents in secret, and would have liked to burst out screaming and weeping; but in the depths of her soul there was a restraint calling her to remain the pleasant, merry girl. Her fear, then, sprang from an inner feeling, not from dread of the animal.

Educators must consider this behavior a sign of growth in the child's soul, and so help him toward gaining his independence, and not incline to pressure and threats. The urge toward freedom grows in his soul as his body and mind grow; and his thought turns to the outer world after his second year, so that he tries to discover for himself everything new he meets — he runs and jumps and plays without knowing why he does all this.

Samir sees the telephone, so he tries it, but he fails to hear his father's voice, because he did not use it properly; and he falls into envy when he sees his mother putting on different clothes for various occasions, or when he sees her ill, or worn out with visitors — all of them ordinary situations, yet they stir the child's interest, entangle his thinking, or arouse his fear and his anger at once.

Along with movement and curiosity, imagination widens at this age, so the child expresses his anger upon his toys if he cannot do so upon family and friends. And when he reaches the age of four he becomes able to control himself and command his nerves; but here another face of expression begins: he may hold himself back from annoying his sister, yet he casts out what stirs within him in noise and clamor. Even the most docile of children expresses hostility. Salwa is a quiet child; when her little brother was born she used to try to come near him and touch him, but she changed quickly the moment she felt that this new guest was taking her mother's attention away from her, arousing the visitors' interest, and monopolizing the sweet presents. Still, she went on showing love for the brother, while making mischief and being contrary in other situations.

Until then it had pleased her to hear that she behaved like a big girl; but now she began to curl her lips on hearing that expression.

The mother perceived the fire of jealousy flaring up in her daughter's soul, so she began to spend more time with her and tried to convince her in practice that she was still the object of her concern. At school, the feeling of hostility may obstruct the child's natural course, so that he becomes angry and resentful, far from his companions; and bad habits may grow in him, such as stealing from home or from school, at which he grows inventive in concocting excuses, or he may leave the house in the morning to play all day instead of going to school.

Anger alone is not the cause of the child's abnormal behavior; loneliness shares in it too, paining the soul, and under its effect the child feels deprivation and resentment. Educators must therefore be alert to these behaviors, and work consciously to understand the individual and treat him, so as to help the growth of a sound mind and a healthy soul.

From the atmospheres of home and school we take a step toward society, and this time the magazine "Coronet" carries us back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reviewing with charm some of the rules of conduct followed in that period among various peoples — while we, from the summit of an age surging forward, stand and heave a sigh of wonder and astonishment at this rapid development, and sometimes ask ourselves: did they really go on like that?...

Society took pains to lay down rules for the individual to

follow, and here the writer relates some of them, in the spirit of curiosity and of comparison between the two ages:

These are counsels for the lady of that age: Bathe upon rising from sleep, preferably using rainwater, for washing the body even once a day is among the most important of social requirements; wash your hair likewise with water and soap, and if you find it harsh, use some oils. Beware of using powders or ointments on your face; instead, take every two months a spoonful of charcoal powder dissolved in water or milk — this helps to preserve the purity and clearness of the complexion.

A young man must not lean out of the window if he catches sight of a lady passing in the street, though he must bow on seeing her at a window; then he must refrain from speaking with her, lest he draw the attention of the passersby.

If you offer a friend a passing greeting first, that is counted a moral flaw; but if such a greeting is offered to you first, return it with a better one, that your hearer may follow your example.

Men are forbidden to enter the ladies' private rooms at parties and balls. Travel, too, has its special rules: those with weak eyes must refrain from reading on the train, and those with ailing lungs must keep silent. To observe the moral custom in hotels, a lady should not appear alone in the hotel's halls or before a window; and when she crosses the street from one sidewalk to another she must lift her dress a little above the heel with her right hand — but if she uses both hands, she is deemed ignorant of the moral custom, and is excused only if her way lies through a muddy road, lest the trailing skirts of her gown be soiled. Naturally the practical lady of our age needs no such advice, nor to follow such a law, for customs and fashions follow the demands of the period and its judgments.

Before the old fashions, or the old customs, you stand, Madam, in wonder and astonishment, and perhaps you ask the reason for the change. It is the way of man, the way of development: nothing stays as it is, and everything in the universe moves within laws and limits, seeking an end, and everything searches for a goal. — The drop of water travels toward the sea — its farthest goal; smoke rises to the heights; and man sweeps through the universe in perpetual motion, to reach the aim of his existence and his being!..

And who knows how the lady of the future will stand before what we write and what we do? Who knows what she will say?..