====== The Inner Life ====== == THE HERALD OF THE NEW AGE | OCTOBER 1935 == ---- if they would try. Richard loves to build, and dislikes books. Robert wants to play cowboy or shoot his air rifle. I started reading good stories and books to them when they were tiny, and they still love to listen. But if they read to themselves, they want for the still love to listen. But if they read to themselves, they want for the Wild West, Big Little Books. “One reads of training in the pre-school child, but I haven’t found anything that helped me. I thought I knew, but their actions do not show that they have been taught anything worthwhile. “I have been going to write of this little incident with Robert when he was two and a half years old. Many times he would sit quietly, completely lost to his surroundings, and from his expression I knew he was seeing things I could not see. One day he was in his high-chair eating his lunch, and I was sitting beside him. He sat that way for what seemed minutes. Then he gave a little shrug, and asked, ‘When are we going home, mother?’ We were at home, but I asked, ‘Where, Robert?’ ‘Oh, to the big white house.’ Again I asked, ‘Where do you mean, Robert?’ And he answered, ‘Oh down in the noil (oil) country.’ “By that time he was interested in his food again, so he did not say any more. He had a little red jockey-cap that he always called his ‘noil’ cap, and if it was missing, he kept calling for it until it was found. Then he would haul oil, on his little trucks. He never heard of oil mentioned here, unless as something to burn or to oil things with. “At times he would talk in what seemed to be a foreign language—not like baby-talk or chatter, at all, but sentences spoken clearly, although I could not understand a word of it. Many times when he was small he would come running in from play and say, ‘Mother, I want to kiss you.’ And then he would look at me awhile and say, ‘You are the nicest mother I ever had.’ I asked him about his other mothers, but he couldn’t put anything into words, unless sometimes he would say, ‘My other mother wouldn’t let me do that.’ But after he started to school he has always been too busy to keep quiet, and I did not hear any more of such things.” OUR REPLY follows: Regarding the problem with which you are confronted, in your two boys being so different and having that seeming tendency {{ :3510-21.jpg |}} ---- //⥳ [[remarkable_children_oct35_2|previous page]] // | // [[remarkable_children_oct35_4|next page]] ⥴ //