With Every Spoonful of Medicine... a Kiss!

The psychologists say... that hundreds of juveniles in the world have developed psychological complexes because the affection the little one longs for was missing at home... or because the mother in particular did not show enough love for the little one... whether because he was less intelligent than his brothers or less handsome...

And it has become certain that dozens of delinquent juveniles — those who formed gangs that lay stones on the railway lines... or those who stole and killed and were hunted by the officers of the law, learned every kind of trickery, and escaped again and again from the juvenile reformatories until those responsible despaired of reforming them... — that some families tried adopting some of these little criminals and lavished on those they adopted an affection which they mocked at first, then found happiness in, and strove to reform themselves so as to remain worthy of it; and they succeeded, and became some of the best of men.

Before these agreed facts, one wonders at the power of love, the depth of its influence, and the extent of our longing for it...

And then there comes before you a physician who is among the greatest specialists in the United States, Dr. Holt. He does not talk much, but on the prescription he gives for a child he writes the following: "To be given with every spoonful of medicine — a kiss."

And you wonder: have the doctors come to believe that psychological treatment must go hand in hand with medical drugs? And have they met the psychologists at one important point — namely, that a person's soul, from childhood on, cannot do without love...?

People used to think, before now, that the individual of either sex begins to search for affection only in adolescence and then in youth... But the fact is the reverse of that. Man is made up of two psychological elements that are created with him: reason and emotion... But reason does not begin its work until after a certain period of growth... while emotion begins its work from the first months... For the baby who cries, and is picked up and held and falls quiet, understands in an unconscious way that he is on a tender breast.

And love grows and works its work in our lives until its power surpasses even the power of the blood that rules in our veins... For between father and son, brother and brother, the bond of blood may die and hatred and rancor take its place; while love can join two strangers with no trace of blood kinship between them and make of them two loving brothers.

And we go on longing for love... We long for it as husbands and wives, in middle age and in old age... an innocent affection, nearest of all to friendship... and furthest of all from the relations of sex.

And we long for it in family and kin... and if it is lost, the shock to our souls is great, and we repeat bitterly with the poet:

The wrong of kinsmen, when they transgress, is harder upon the soul
than the stroke of a well-honed Indian sword

We long for it in friends... indeed, it is perhaps at the very foundation of friendship. And so you see how one may grasp the power of this thing that penetrates our being to the deepest possible depth.

But for it, there would be no miracle of motherhood in its immortality... nor the depth of mysticism in its sacrifices.

It is the patience of the sculptor who labors at his carving, stroke by stroke, to make his beloved statue.

And the soul of the artist, which he melts away drop by drop to shape his wondrous melody.

★

The lawgivers understood its power and its effect on the soundness of society, and they set it down as a law in every religion... And the great Lawgiver, whom millions of people in the lands of the earth celebrate, cried out, "Love!" And when they asked him, and whom shall we love...? he answered: you shall love your enemy, you shall love your neighbor, you shall love everyone... They said:

Explain it to us. And then he told them the story of the compassionate Samaritan...

And the truth is that however far science may rise... and however deeply matter may engulf us... we shall still have souls in which, as scientists and prophets alike agree, love works its effect... and these souls will remain athirst for love and for the peace that flows from it...

And it seems to me that our world today especially — filled as it is with anxiety... with delinquent juveniles and so many other problems... — needs a spoonful of medicine made not of compounded drugs alone but of something else, written on the medicine bottle: "With every spoonful, a kiss..."