SNAP SHOTS
Middleton, George
Snap Shots By GEORGE MIDDLETON BERTHA KUNZ BAKER has made an enviable place for herself in America as its foremost dramatic interpreter on the lecture platform. She avoids the usual dramatic...
...The mere mechanical details of 'spring's awakening' are outlined so that the parent may with wisdom and tenderness enlighten the child as to their meaning...
...An example of this distinct contribution is her fearless reading of the powerful play which has made Wedekind famous all over the world...
...Baker's rare courage there can only be words of praise since she chooses to avoid the rut of sentimentalism, with its lacry-mosal and sugar coated appeal, for the more difficult and far-reaching themes of life...
...With great beauty and poetry she handles the main motives of this heartrending play and vividly presents the dire results which are bound to follow where children have not had parents who will teach them the fundamental facts of this bitter period...
...We have here a volume by one of the greatest authorities in Germany on this subject...
...Many people, too timid and perhaps too sensitive to hear a mere statement of facts, can only be reached through the art form—and that is Mrs...
...the book is not meant for the child but for the parent, and while no doubt some of it may be considered too technical, the entire matter is treated with a broad scientific outlook touched throughout with sympathy and understanding...
...To others, who prefer the scientific statement, the appearance of Albert Moll's book, The Sexual Life of the Child (Macmillan) in an English translation should be cordially welcomed...
...For Mrs...
...As Professor Thorndike points out in his introduction, there is peculiar need for this book...
...Fruehlings-erwachen (Spring's-A wakening) deals with the tragedy of adolescence and the results of ignorance in the sexual life of children...
...Clergymen, social workers and parents know only too well the vast amount of suffering which can ensue to the child in this period when life is beginning to awaken...
...Sex is with us: we must reckon it as one of the greatest forces of life: we cannot dismiss it by refusing to recognize it...
...One must not expect to find a nicely veiled allegory with which so many of the older generation were treated in the literature of the subject...
...Baker's contribution in this connection...
...The entire pathology of the child's problems is discussed and suggestions as to the best means by which the child may be enlightened...
...That she should steadily be reaching out to what is newest might be natural, but that she should strive to make of her work a con-tribution is more to her credit...
...Moll points out that sex often awakens before its manifestations are visible and shows how from the very start the child should be an object of tender care and solicitude...
...The personal temperament of the individual child must be considered...
...For here most of the education must begin if we are to achieve better types of men and women in the marriage relation...
...All enlightenment, however, should be purely individual and not given in groups...
...This matter is discussed in detail and it cannot be too strongly urged that as a child is directed by those who love him so may the entire health and purity of the subsequent sex life be expressed...
...they know, also, how false words or lack of understanding at the wrong moment may lose the child's confidence and possibly wreck his life...
...She avoids the usual dramatic reading and instead offers what amounts to a spiritual interpretation of a drama since she relates the art of the dramatist and his aim with the movements of a similar kind in the different art forms...
...He believes that the objective processes of sex should be told at an earlier age than the subjective processes: the child may early understand about flowers and life in general but he cannot grasp the dangers, for example, till he has actually experienced sexual feelings...
...Peculiar tendencies in certain children are noted and helpful suggestions are offered, which, if followed by the parent, will do much to steer the adolescent body into a normal life...
...Realizing the broadness of the horizons of sex he has wisely chosen to specialize upon its manifestations as expressed in the life of the young...
...We live in a world of men and women...
...Better face it beautifully: and without knowledge there can be only seraphic insipidity...
...For fear and ignorance will so often turn beautiful facts into nightmares to haunt the groping child in the wilderness of new emotions— which is shown in the Wedekind drama...
Vol. 4 • December 1912 • No. 49
