The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought - Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child Among - Primitive Peoples, Their Analogues and Survivals in the - Civilization of To-Day by Alexander F. Chamberlain
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page 13 of 747 (01%)
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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. |
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