‘Have no fear of going beyond the
childish understanding, even in whole sentences. Your expression and the tone
of your voice, aided by the child's intuitive eagerness to understand, will light
up half the meaning, and with it in course of time the other half. It is with
children as with the Chinese and people of refinement; the tone is half the
language. Remember, the child learns to understand his own language before ever
he learns to speak it, just as we do with Greek or any other foreign language.
Trust to time and the connections of things to unravel the meaning. A child of
five understands the words “yet,” “even,” “of course,” “just”; but now try to
give an explanation of them — not to the child, but to his father! In the one
word “of course” there lurks a little philosopher! If the eight-year-old child,
with his developed speech, is understood by the child of three, why do you want
to narrow down your language to the little one's childish prattle? Always speak
to the child some years ahead — do not the men of genius speak to us centuries
ahead in books? Talk to the one-year-old as if he were two, to the two-year-old
as if he were six, for the difference in development diminishes in inverse
ratio with the age. We are far too prone to credit the teachers with everything
the children learn. We should remember that the child we have to educate bears
half his world within him all there and ready taught, namely the spiritual
half, including, for example, the moral and metaphysical ideas. For this very
reason language, equipped as it is with material images alone, cannot give the
spiritual archetypes; all it can do is to illumine them. The very brightness
and decision of children should give us brightness and decision when we speak
to them. We can learn from their speech as well as teach them through our own.
Their word-building is bold, yet remarkably accurate! For instance, I have
heard the following expressions used by three- or four-year-old children: —
“the barreler” (for the maker of barrels) — “the sky-mouse” (for the bat) — “I
am the seeing-through man” (standing behind the telescope) — “I'd like to be a
ginger-bread-eater” — “he joked me down from the chair” — “See how one o'clock
it is!” ...’
Jean Paul
