The Infant Mind Receives Some Early Impressions

“For one day only'’, I read aloud, '' Great Air Display. Capt. Barnard

fresh from his latest record flight. Auto-Giro! Parachutes! ‘Thrills!” I putt

down the paper. and announced:

“I shall go and take David."

"Isn't he rather young?" suggested my husband doubtfully.

"That", I replied, " Is where the Average Parent makes a great Mistake. It

is the Early impressions that count. The Infant Mind is unconsciously affected by

all it sees and hears. It must see only the beautiful, the heroic".

“Truby King?”

“No, It is called ‘Tho Infant Mind." I got it out of the library, To a

child like David, doomed to the narrow Limits of e village a sight like this may

be the first awakening to a wider world, a world of great deeds –"

“huh!” said my husband, and retired behind his paper.

David I found more responsive, He was pleasantly excited at the prospect of seeing “Lotsa planes”, and we got ready in a high glee. Unfortunately he hates to go out unaccompanied, and insisted that a stuffed animal, known as Big Dog, should

come too. An argument followed, to which his only contribution was "But Big Dog

wants to see planes”, repeated in shriller and shriller tones till I gave in, and we set- out as a party of three.

All the villages for miles round had turned out for the show and we found the

- field so packed it seemed wiser to climb to a slight rise beyond where eddied the

crowd who could not, or would not, pay for admissions. The machines were already

in the air, and their daring acrobatics at once engrossed me, to the exclusion of

all else. It was only as my eyes followed a parachute to earth that I became

conscious that David was no longer by my side. Hurriedly I scanned the crowd but there seemed no sign of him anywhere. What could he be doing? Just as I began to be ‘really worried, my eye caught a familiar splash of blue under a clump of trees in the distance. There sat David, thoroughly happy, in the midst of a group of the grimiest and most disreputable “children I have ever seen - not gipsies, but “potters”, as we call them, the caraven people whom the real gipsies despise.

“What are you doing, David?" I gasped. .

“Playing with lotsa boys,” he replied calmly, and “Big Dog. Boys like Big Dog.”

A diminutive and filthy infant, who was nursing Big Dog, grunted agreement. An attempt to lure david back to the display was met by the calm statement:

“Mummy can see planes. David will play with boys. So he was allowed to remain until it was over , and was then dragged away, protesting to the last.

As I tucked him into bed, the precepts of my text -book came back to me, and I tentatively probed for impressions.

“Did you enjoy going out with Mother , David? What did you see?”

“Saw lotsa boys,” came the sleepy answer, in tones of bliss, “played with David - - and Big Dog.”