The American Child by Elizabeth McCracken
page 27 of 136 (19%)
page 27 of 136 (19%)
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Nation cannot concur in any of these accusations. Unhappily, there are
children in America, as there are children in every land, who _are_ pert, and lacking in reverence, and sophisticated; but they are in the small minority, and they are not the children to whom foreigners refer when they make their sweeping arraignments. The most gently reared, the most carefully nurtured, of our children are those usually seen by distinguished foreign visitors; for such foreigners are apt to be guests of the families to which these children belong. The spirit of frank _camaraderie_ displayed by the children they mistake for "pertness"; the trustful freedom of their attitude toward their elders they interpret as "lack of reverence"; and their eager interest in subjects ostensibly beyond their years they misread as "sophistication." It must be admitted that American small boys have not the quaint courtliness of French small boys; that American little girls are without the pretty shyness of English little girls. We are compelled to grant that in America between the nursery and the drawing-room there is no great gulf fixed. This condition of things has its real disadvantages and trials; but has it not also its ideal advantages and blessings? Coöperative living together, in spite of individual differences, is one of these advantages; tender intimacy between persons of varying ages is one of these blessings. A German woman on her first visit to America said to me, as we talked about children, that, with our National habit of treating them as what we Americans call "chums," she wondered how parents kept any authority over them, and especially maintained any government _of_ them, and _for_ them, without letting it lapse into a government _by_ them. |
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