which it occasions, to indicate the position of the child in the march
of civilization among the various races of men, and to estimate the
influence which the child-idea and its accompaniments have had upon
sociology, mythology, religion, language; for the touch of the child is
upon them all, and the debt of humanity to the little children has not
yet been told. They have figured in the world's history and its
folk-lore as _magi_ and "medicine-men," as priests and
oracle-keepers, as physicians and healers, as teachers and judges, as
saints, heroes, discoverers, and inventors, as musicians and poets,
actors and labourers in many fields of human activity, have been
compared to the foolish and to the most wise, have been looked upon as
fetiches and as gods, as the fit sacrifice to offended Heaven, and as
the saviours and regenerators of mankind. The history of the child in
human society and of the human ideas and institutions which have sprung
from its consideration can have here only a beginning. This book is
written in full sympathy with the thought expressed in the words of the
Latin poet Juvenal: _Maxima debetur pueris reverentia_, and in the
declaration of Jean Paul: "I love God and every little child."




CHAPTER II.


THE CHILD'S TRIBUTE TO THE MOTHER.

A good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.--_English Proverb_.

The first poet, the first priest, was the first mother.