Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1877 — The Unhappiness of Childhood. [ARTICLE]

The Unhappiness of Childhood.

There Is a common way of talking of the period of childhood as if it were one of perpetual happiness. Grown-up people are so far removed from their early days, that, in many cases, they seem to forget what they endured as children. They think of themselves as having been happy, strong, free from care, lighthearted—at least, in contrast with the various conditions oi life and thought in which they now find themselves, it seems as if they had been so; and they speak of happy childhood as if entire happiness were the normal condition of human beings in the early stages of their existence. It is probable that there are some persons who can look back upon an uninterruptedly happy childhood, ana, wnen that is the case, they have memories to be stqxgd up which are, indeed, priceless in value. But it is true, in far more cases than the popular reckoning allows, that childhood is a period in which there is very little of positive happiness, and very much of actual suffering and unhappiness. Not only are there the small griefs incident to the discipline necessary for childhood—the petty disappointments which seem so keen, the small selfdenials which appear so great, the restraints as to the exercise of will which the necessary rule of home or school imposes—but there are far keener sufferings than these. There are the * cases ot children whose whole life is one of suffering, of actual or impending illness, who may, perhaps, by constant care, grow up to be men and women in tolerable health, but who never can look back on a time when, in their childhood, they were strong and well.

People are apt to think that such children as these have their compensations in extra care and love given to them; but let any one who has had experience of such a childhood look back to it, and say if the unhappiness of illness did not render life very sad. There is, above all, the unhappiness of mismanaged and misunderstood children. There are children of peculiar temperaments, whose whole lives are rendered a burden to them by the fact that the persons set over them—either parents, guardians or teachers—have been destitute of sympathy for them, and have not thought it worth while to try what a change in the plan of managing them would do. Harriet Martineau and the young Brontes seem to have been children misunderstood; and though their strong natures struggled through into brighter lives, yet there are hundreds, nay, thousannds, of children, set down as sullen, dogged, obstinate, and treated with harshness, who live lives of dull wretchedness because they do not know what is wrong with them, and no one takes pains enough to try to set things straight for them and make them happier. Again, there are clever children weighed down by utterly unintellectual surroundings, forbidden to read because reading is “ a waste of time,” kept to more mechanical work, and never allowed to indulge fully their love of study. At one period of herchildho<id Mrs. Somerville seems to have suffered a good deal from this. Of course, nothing could be more unwise than to allow all the wnims and fancies of children to have their way unrepressed. Such a course of action would merely add the misery of undisciplined will to the others which children sutler. But that childhood is often a time of great, eyen of morbid, unhappiness, is a statement that no reflecting persons, especially those who have had much to do with children, can deny. We have been led to the consideration of this subject by the recent sad occurrence of the suicide of a young boy—one of the pupils of a great public school. He complained of having been badly treated by a boy older than himself; he ran away twice from school; he had been punished and flogged for hi^misbehavior, and the poor child found refuge from what seemed to him an unavoidable accumulation of miseries in death by hanging. He was said to have been obstinate; it was also declared that no terrorism could have been exercised over hjm without the knowledge of the superior authorities of the school. But the fact remains, that to the poor lad life had become so miserable that he could endure it no longer. The jury gave a verdict of “ temporary insanity,” but what a revelation of unhappy childhood does this bring before us! Cases of the commission of suicide by children are, after all, not very uncommon. How sad must have been the condition of these poor sufferers! Childhood to them was all unhappiness. The lessons for parents, and for all who have to do with children, are obvious. Children are as different in their natures and temperaments as grown-up people are, and they are infinitely more sensitive, making them easier both to manage and to mismanage. Children cannot be governed by any stern, unvarying rule; they must be treated according to the differences in their characters. Above all, children who appear morose, obstinate, unhappy, should not be made more so by punishment—they are wretched enough already. To alleviate, not to increase, the unhappiness of chijdhood should be the aim of all who have the welfare of children at heart.— London Queen.