CURIOSITY

The little child is at first in a world of total mystery. Sights,
sounds, sensations from contact come to him and all are unintelligible.
As they are carried to his brain, somewhere, somehow, they awaken a
desire to know their meaning, and as the tiny fingers are extended
toward objects the soul is reaching also. This soul reaching is
curiosity, one of God's most gracious and wonderful provisions for the
life, but so often its significance is misunderstood. If there were no
curiosity, there would never be any eager attempt to explore the field
of knowledge. The disciplined spirit of inquiry that makes for the
world's progress, is only a fuller development of the untutored and
disastrous effort of the child to find out about things. We forget that
before there can be a flower there must be a bud. Before there can be a
scientist who shall pick the rock to pieces to learn its secret, there
must be a child who picks a doll to pieces to see what is inside. The
pathos of childhood is its bowed head and mute lips under the blow and
the stinging word, because judgment is passed, not on motives, as the
parent demands for himself, but on the external appearance of the act.
We look into our Heavenly Father's face, out of the wreckage and
mistakes of a day, and say, "I meant to do it aright, but I am so
ignorant," and we are comforted that He looks at the heart and
understands. Can we be less pitifully tender toward His little ones?

There are three marked manifestations of curiosity during this period of
childhood.

(1) Questions.