Promising Blunders

— I have heard a young man maintain that the amusing speeches of children, though commonly called “ bright,” really indicate stupidity. Any grown person who said such things would be considered a fool, and he could not see why they should win children a reputation for brilliancy. Of course he was wrong. Quite unconsciously, he was employing the very process through which intelligent children obtain such grotesque notions as never enter the brains of dull ones. He was reasoning from imperfect premises. No mental deficiency is implied in a child’s ignorance of things which education and experience make plain.

Sometimes, indeed, the falsity of the child’s conclusion is due to an illogical mode of thought. A small cousin of mine, on being told by her playmates that there was no real Santa Claus, “it was only your father and mother,” argued that it could not be, because your father and mother could n’t come down the chimney. But very often the syllogism is perfect in construction, and the fatal flaw lies where the young reasoner has no means of detecting it. From his imperfect knowledge a bright child draws absurd inferences, yet is therein evidently superior to those who escape absurdity by drawing no inferences at all, but taking all their ideas ready made.

A certain little boy expressed a wish that his widowed father would marry the father of a favorite playmate, and defended the feasibility of the arrangement by citing the priest all shaven and shorn, who married the man all tattered and torn. That boy did not understand what he was reasoning about, but he understood how to reason. (N. B. He is now a successful lawyer.) His precedent in this case was fallacious, but he showed the power of very literally putting two and two together. Had he lacked this power, his ignorance would not have come to light.

So, egregious errors are often the first signs of intellectual strength in one who is passing out of childhood. Hitherto he has received without question whatever he was taught. Now he begins to think for himself, and finds that some long-established beliefs do not commend themselves to his unripe judgment. He turns and combats them vigorously,— probably not without contempt, in the arrogance of his newly discovered faculties.

It is just possible he may be a genius, who discerns the truth to which former generations were blind; but it is more likely that time will bring him back to the approved opinions. He will grow to a comprehension of the reasons which have satisfied the world. He will understand that people do not say these things just because they have got into the habit of it. Meanwhile, his incredulity is a good sign. Even the child who holds that the earth cannot turn round, because if it did everything would fall off, is in advance of him who never thinks to ask how things can stay on while it is upside down.