[4] This needs explanation. In Germany, even by strangers, children are
universally addressed in the second person singular, which carries with
it a certain caressing sentiment. Grown persons would be addressed
(except by members of their own family, or intimate friends) in the
third person plural. Thus, if one met a child in the street, one might
say, _Willst Du mit mir kommen_? (Wilt thou come with me?); whereas to
a grown person the proper form would be, _Wollen Sie mit mir kommen_?
(Will THEY--meaning, will YOU--come with me?). The mode of speech of
which Froebel speaks here is now almost obsolete, and even in his day
was only used to a person of markedly inferior position. Our sentence
would run in this case, _Will Er mit mir kommen_? (Will HE--meaning,
will YOU, John or Thomas--come with me?), and carries with it a sort of
contemptuous superciliousness, as if the person spoken to were beneath
the dignity of a direct address. It is evident, therefore, that to a
sensitive, self-torturing child like Froebel, being addressed in this
manner would cause the keenest pain; since, as he justly says, it has
the effect, by the mere form of speech, of _isolating_ the person
addressed.
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