The children mentioned in this case were, perhaps, abnormal and
unusual monstrosities. But they serve to illustrate the fact
that infancy and childhood duplicate, in the individual, the
primitive animal life on earth.
Many children are brutally punished and ruined for life because
ignorant parents imagine that childhood is naturally pure and
innocent and good, and that a child which misbehaves must be
abnormally wicked.
If parents knew more about the physical and mental development of
their children, they would be better fitted to have charge of
them. ----
It is a fact taught by embryology that the human body before its
birth passes through numerous stages of development which
correspond exactly with the lower forms of animal life.
After birth the child develops MENTALLY in the same way, passing
through inferior mental stages and reaching a state of
benevolence, honesty, truthfulness and self-restraint only as a
result of long education and wise control.
A perfectly truthful child probably never existed. All childish
races of savages are incessant liars and thieves. All children
passing through the primitive stages of mental development are
naturally given to deception, and even to theft, especially when
they are frightened by the consequences of truth, and when things
which they desire are denied them.
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