North Carolina Society for Ethical Culture

What I Learned from Mister Dog: The Philosophy of Margaret Wise Brown
(Author of Goodnight Moon and 125 Other Childrens Books)

I chose this song because for me it evokes the optimism of childhood, a time of unlimited potential and promise. This sets the mood for our encounter with MISTER DOG.

I am going to start off by reading MISTER DOG The Dog Who Belonged to Himself by Margaret Wise Brown.

I remember my mother reading MISTER DOG to me when I was little. Later, I remember reading the book to myself. But MISTER DOG was lost to me for many years. He lingered on in the back recesses of my mind, but I didnt know he was there.

I became re-acquainted with MISTER DOG in the summer of 1998 when I found him in the Library during the American Ethical Unions Lay Leadership Summer School, held at a camp called The Mountain, in the southwestern corner of North Carolina.

When I noticed the silver spines of a row of Little Golden Books in the library, I remembered MISTER DOG. I flipped through the books hoping to find this long lost book. I found him. Memories flooded through me. I rushed upstairs, sat some of my friends down, and read them MISTER DOG. For the most part, they were patient and put up with listening to me read, but some of them looked at me kind of funny. I didnt care. I had re-discovered MISTER DOG and I was happy. I thought about taking the book home with me, or begging the camp to let me keep it, but I decided neither of these courses of action would be right. This book belonged to the camp. I would need to find my own copy.

I looked and I looked in used bookstores for a copy of MISTER DOG. Couldnt find one. I even tried used book locators on the internet. No luck there either. Then one day last March, I was in St. Louis for Adjunct Leader Training, and I found MISTER DOG in a bookcase at my parents house. My parents were out of town. The bookcase was in my sisters old room. I was excited. I had finally tracked down MISTER DOG. It was even the old dog-eared copy from my childhood. I opened the book, and written on the inside front cover, under where it says This Little Golden Book Belongs to, was my sisters name in my Fathers handwriting. What was I going to do? Again I thought about just taking it. No one would notice that it was gone. But I couldnt do it. It just wouldnt be right. So that night I confronted my big sister. I wasnt sure how this would work out.

I tried to bring it up casually. I said, Jai, my sisters name is Jaina, I was looking through a bookcase at Mom and Dads and found one of our old childrens books that I would like to take home with me, but it had your name in it, so I thought that Id better ask… Which one, she said. Uh, MISTER DOG ? Not MISTER DOG. Well, it seemed that I wasnt the only one that had fond memories of MISTER DOG. She told me that MISTER DOG was by the same author as Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown. I hadnt known that. After some negotiations, we agreed that I could borrow MISTER DOG until I could find my own copy.

Now, I would like to share MISTER DOG with all of you.

MISTER DOG: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself

Once upon a time there was a funny dog named Crispins Crispian.
He was named Crispins Crispian because he belonged to himself
In the mornings he woke himself up and he went to the icebox and gave himself some bread and milk. He was a funny old dog. He liked strawberries.

Then he took himself for a walk. And he went wherever he wanted to go.
But one morning he didnt know where he wanted to go.
Just walk and sooner or later youll get somewhere, he said to himself.
Soon he came to a country where there were lots of dogs.
They barked at him and he barked back. Then they all played together.

But he still wanted to go somewhere so he walked on until he came to a country where there were lots of cats and rabbits. The cats and rabbits jumped in the air and ran.
So Crispian jumped in the air and ran after them.
He didnt catch them because he ran bang into a little boy.

Who are you and who do you belong to? asked the little boy.
I am Crispins Crispian and I belong to myself, said Crispian. Who and what are you?
I am a boy, said the boy, and I belong to myself.
I am so glad, said Crispins Crispian. Come and live with me.

So the boy walked on with Crispian and threw him sticks to chase, all through the shining, sun-drenched morning.

Im hungry, said Crispins Crispian. Im hungry too, said the boys little boy.
So they went to a butcher shop-to get his poor dog a bone, Crispian said.
Now since Crispins Crispian belonged to himself, he gave himself the bone and trotted home with it. And the boy bought a big lamb chop and a bright green vegetable and trotted home with Crispins Crispian.

Crispins Crispian lived in a two-story doghouse in a garden. And in his two-story doghouse he had a little fur living room with a warm fire that crackled all winter and went out in the summer.
His house was always warm. His house had a chimney for the smoke to go out.
And there was plenty of room in his house for the boy to live there with him.
And he had windows to look out of and a garden to run around in any time he felt like running around in it. The garden was blooming with dogwood and dogtooth violets.

And he had a little kitchen upstairs in his little two-story doghouse where he fixed himself a good dinner three times a day because he liked to eat. He liked steaks and chops and roast beef and chopped meat and raw eggs.

This evening he made a bone soup with lots of meat in it. He gave some to the boy and the boy liked it. The boy didnt give Crispian his chop bone but he put some of his bright green vegetables in the soup.

And what did Crispian do with his dinner? Did he put it in his stomach? Yes indeed.
He chewed it up and swallowed it into his little fat stomach.
And what did the little boy do with his dinner? Did he put it in his stomach? Yes indeed.
He chewed it up and swallowed it into his little fat stomach.

Crispins Crispian was a conservative. He liked everything at the right time-
dinner at dinnertime,
lunch at lunchtime,
breakfast in time for breakfast,
and sunrise at sunrise,
and sunset at sunset,
And at bedtime-
At bedtime he liked everything in its own place-
the cup in the saucer,
the chair under the table,
the stars in the heavens,
the noon in the sky,
and himself in his own little bed.

And then what did he do?
Then he curled up in a warm little heap and went to sleep. And he dreamed his own dreams.
That is what the dog who belonged to himself did.

And then what did the boy who belonged to himself do?
The boy who belonged to himself curled up in a warm little heap and went to sleep. And he dreamed his own dreams.
That is what the boy who belonged to himself did.

GOOD NIGHT AND SWEET DREAMS

What I recall most about MISTER DOG, other than wondering just what that bright green vegetable is that the boy buys, is that in the end, we all belong to ourselves. It is only after we belong to ourselves, that we can find others, who also belong to themselves, to become our friends.

I have remembered this and I have always felt that, like Mister Dog and the Boy, I have always belonged to myself.

I would like to thank the children from the Ethics School for listening to my story this morning. It is now time for you to go to your classes. I hope that you enjoyed the story and that you may come to see yourselves as belonging to yourselves too.

[children leave]

Having obtained my copy of MISTER DOG, I shared it with my family on my return to North Carolina. My four children humored me by letting me read it to them. They enjoyed it but they didnt connect to it the way that I did. Perhaps it wasnt so much that MISTER DOG was special, but that the book was special to me. My wife, Sarah, mentioned that we also had Runaway Bunny, another book by Margaret Wise Brown.

This made me curious about the author of these books. Who was Margaret Wise Brown? I was familiar with Goodnight Moon, and the almost narcotic sleep inducing effect that it had when I read it to our children. I found Runaway Bunny among our Childrens books and read it. In Runaway Bunny, a young bunny tells his mother various fantasy scenarios about how he will run away by turning into various animals, such as a fish or a fox. After each transformation the mother bunny tells what she will turn into so that she can catch the little bunny and continue to look after him and keep him safe. By the end of the book the little bunny is secure and content in his mothers arms.

Just who was Margaret Wise Brown? I decided to find out by reading about her and reading as many of her books as I could find. So far, I have found and read 47 of her books.

The only adult biography about Margaret Wise Brown is Awakened by the Moon by Leonard Marcus, first published in 1992. Its a wonderful book. I also read two childrens biographies of Margaret Wise Brown. They presented the dates of her life but glossed over her substance.

Margaret Wise Brown was born in Greenpoint Brooklyn in 1910. She was a middle child with an older brother and younger sister. Her father was an executive with the American Manufacturing Company, which made rope, cordage and bagging. In 1915 the family moved to their newly constructed house in Beechurst, Long Island. Margarets father was financially successful and they lived comfortably. Not surprisingly, given her later stories, Margaret and her brother and sister grew up with pet dogs, cats and rabbits. Margaret enjoyed the natural environment that surrounded her home. When Margaret was thirteen, in 1923, her parents deposited her and her eleven-year-old sister Roberta at a boarding school in Switzerland. Robert and Maude Brown continued on to India for a year where Robert would look after his companys hemp growing and rope manufacturing interests.

Upon returning to Long Island, the Browns settled in Great Neck. Margaret and Roberta were sent to Dana Academy in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Later Margaret attended Hollins College, a womens college in Virginia. After graduating, Margaret broke her engagement and returned to Long Island where she spent the next two years somewhat adrift. She attended her Hollins College classmates weddings and dabbled in the Long Island socialite scene. She took up Running to Hounds with a Long Island crowd called the Buckram Beagles. In Running to Hounds runners keep pace with the beagle pack as it runs down a rabbit. Although this pastime seems at odds with Margarets childhood pets and future childrens book characters, she continued this pastime for several years.

Margaret drifted to Manhattan and eventually to the Bank Street School in 1935, where the 25-year-old Margaret began to study at the Cooperative School for Student Teachers under the schools director, Lucy Sprague Mitchell. Mitchell, a protégé of John Dewey, brought the Bank Street School to the forefront of progressive educational ideas. In addition to Dewey, Mitchell was also strongly influenced by the psychological theories of Edward Thorndike and Sigmund Freud.

The central idea of the Bank Street educational philosophy was that to teach children effectively, one had to first understand how children experienced reality at every stage of their natural development. The goal of the school was to provide children with learning situations in which to develop as fully as possible in accordance with their individual potentials.

To encourage its student teachers to experience the world as children do; the student teachers attended classes in painting, dance, pantomime and music along with the children enrolled in the school.

Margaret was extremely good at thinking like a child. But rather than pursuing a teaching career, Mitchell identified Margarets talent for writing and channeled her development in that direction.

In addition to its theories of teaching, the Bank Street School had also produced a philosophy of childrens books dubbed the Here and Now School after Lucy Sprague Mitchells popular Here and Now Storybook written in 1929. The Here and Now School emphasized childhood experience instead of fantasy and magic. Stories were about children and their encounters with the word, their senses and actions.

The philosophy contained in Lucy Sprague Mitchells Here and Now Schools works was staunchly opposed by another powerful woman, Anna Caroll Moore, the head of the New York Public Librarys Childrens Section. She referred to the Here and Now Schools works as the Crunch, Crunch, Bang, Bang books and refused to list any of these books on her annual recommended holiday childrens book gift list. At this time, not being listed by the New York Public Library often led to lack of orders and literary obscurity. This exclusion would ultimately effect Margaret as Anna Caroll Moore refused to recommend any of Margarets books and gave them generally negative reviews in her Horn Book magazine column.

However, once Margaret was launched on her writing career there was no stopping her. She cranked out books at a tremendous rate. Ultimately, she published 125 books, one third of which were published posthumously under the direction of her sister, Roberta Brown Rauch.

Margaret Wise Browns body of work shows tremendous variation: from the early orthodox Here and Now style of The Noisy Book, which invited readers to imitate as loudly as they wished the sounds heard by a dog whose eyes are bandaged after getting cinders in them to the alternative garden of Eden style creation myth found in The First Story.

Many of her works are simple stories with little philosophical content. Her stories in the Here and Now vein are experiential. She wrote several books oriented to younger children, which contrasted descriptive concepts and opposites such as little and big. Only after writing for several years and gaining confidence did Margaret feel comfortable enough to depart from the Here and Now style and write books which included fantasy and imagination. Many of her characters were animals. Rabbits, dogs and in some cases, amorphous furry creatures which cannot be classified. Today, by far her most popular work is Goodnight Moon, a bedtime story to a bunny lulling him to sleep by naming familiar objects. A truly great book but one without much philosophical content.

Margaret was prolific. From what I have read, there is enough philosophical content in her work to found a small religion or a respectably sized cult at the very least. Her stories have an impact because they are well written, superbly illustrated and when they venture into philosophy, speak directly from the heart of the author.

I would like to present some of Margaret Wise Browns writing to you now.

From The Little Island published under the pseudonym Golden McDonald. This book won the Caldecott Medal in 1946.

What a little land, said the Kitten.

This little island is as big as big. So are you, said the Island.

Maybe I am a little island too, said the kitten a little fur island in the air. And he left the ground and jumped into the air.

Thats just what you are, said the little Island.

But I am part of this big world, said the Kitten. My feet are on it.

So am I, said the little Island.

No, youre not, said the Kitten. Water is all around you and cuts you off from the land.

Ask any fish, said the Island.

So the Kitten caught a fish.

Answer me this or Ill eat you up, said the Kitten. How is an island a part of the land?

Come with me, said the fish, Down into the dark secret places of the sea and I will show you.

I cant swim, said the Cat, Show me another way or Ill eat you up.

Then you must take it on Faith what I tell you, said the fish.

Whats that? said the Cat Faith.

To believe what I tell you about what you dont know, said the fish.

And the fish told the Kitten how all the land is one land under the sea. The Cats eyes were shining with the secret of it. And because he loved secrets he believed. And he let the fish go.

Nights and days came and passed
And the summer and winter and the sun and the wind and the rain.
And it was good to be a little Island.
A part of the world and a world of its own all surrounded by the bright blue sea.

From Little Frightened Tiger published in 1953

Once there was a little tiger who was absolutely scared to death.

His mother and father, who were tigers, were very, very brave tigers, as all tigers are brave brave as a lion, fierce as a tiger, fierce as a lion, brave as a tiger. That was the way it was. But at any rate, this little tiger was a frightened tiger. And so one day his mother said: Little tiger, stop shaking or you will shake your little stripes off. But the little tiger said, But I am frightened and I am afraid. And she said, Well, dont be afraid, little tiger because everybody is afraid of something, but tigers never show it.

In the next part of the book, the little tiger goes on a tour of the jungle and his parents explain what each animal is afraid of… The story concludes with the little tiger reciting this verse:

I am a brave little tiger, ho-ho, ho-ho.
I am not frightened wherever I go go go.
My mother and father walk by my side
And I am a little tiger, inside.





From The Dream Book: First Comes the Dream published in 1952

For everyone the world is a wish
For the Child and the Rabbit and the fish
Call it a wish or call it a dream
Of a world that could be as it can seem
Towards such a world first comes the dream

For everyone in dream will stray
Hours of the night and some of the day
Think of the world as it can seem
Towards such a world first comes the dream

Dreaming child what you shall see
Deep in sleep
Might some day be

From The First Story published in 1947

There was a time in the world before anyone knew anyone else.

The rabbits did not know the squirrels and the girls did not know the boys and the bears did not know the wolf. People did not know other people and animals did not know people or other animals. They all knew themselves but they did not know each other. When they wanted to talk they had to talk to themselves.

Then came a feeling to a few of the animals born every once in a while… that there was something more. This was not all.

On spring evenings and in the fall there was a feeling that there was something more. There was something more than spring and fall and snow and leaves and the sun above their heads.

And there was a little girl. She was tired of talking and thinking to herself. She was tired of nothing but sleeping and eating and day and night and night and day. She wanted something more. And she wanted it enough to go look for it. It was as though she remembered something she could not remember. It was as though she remembered someone who was like herself and yet not like herself. She remembered. But she could not remember what she remembered.

So she went away to find out. And she wandered far away.

In The First Story Margarets girl goes on a quest. She finds that she can talk the animals language. She tries living with several different animals but always concludes that she is too different from them. Finally she encounters a little boy who playfully pushes her into a river. The girl concludes that, We are more like each other than we are like the others.

The boy agrees that they belong together.
A Childs Good Morning published in 1952

The children get up and put on their socks
Wake up, children!
This is your day.
What will you think? What will you play?

Wake up everyone!
This is your day.

From The Dead Bird published posthumously in 1958

In this story, Children find a recently dead bird and bury it with reverence. They sing this song:

Oh bird youre dead
Youll never fly again
Way up high
With other birds in the sky
We sing to you
Because youre dead
Feather bird
And we buried you
In the ground
With ferns and flowers
Because you will never fly
Again in the sky
Way up high
Little dead bird

Then they cried because their singing was so beautiful and the ferns smelled so sweetly and the bird was dead.

On the stone they wrote: Here lies a bird that is dead.

And every day, until they forgot, they went and sang to their little dead bird and put fresh flowers on his grave.

In her biography, Awakened by the Moon, Leonard Marcus linked much of the style and content of Margaret Wise Browns books to what was happening in her personal life. Her struggles with publishers, her subordination in her intimate relationship with an older woman, Michael Strange, an actor and flamboyant personality. Settings and characters for Margarets books were also sometimes taken from her life. The island in The Little Island was one that Margaret could see from her summerhouse on Vinalhaven Island in Maine. Crispian in Mister Dog was her Kerry Blue Terrier and his house is modeled after Cobble Court, Margarets early 19th century Manhattan farm cottage which was left standing behind the row-house block at York Avenue between 71st and 72nd streets.

Margaret Wise Brown died at the age of 42 in 1952. She was such a prominent childrens' writer that I was curious about why her biography was not written until 1992. Perhaps it was her relationship with another woman that caused it to be such a long time before her story could be told.

I learned a lot from reading Margaret Wise Browns books. I learned that Tigers have dignity and that frogs go Jug-a-rum, Jug-a-rum. I learned how she understood the anxieties and insecurity that children experience and sought to address these fears in some of her writing.

Why are stories important? Especially why are the stories that we read to our children important?

Pragmatism, the philosophical perspective that influenced Lucy Sprague Mitchell and her student Margaret Wise Brown, holds that our minds, our personalities, are not inherent, but are emergent out of our social interactions. Of primary importance are the special relationships in our families, particularly our relationships with our children. These family relationships are the main social relationships that influence who our children will become.

In this way family relationships form the foundation of our moral character. Moral development grows out of these basic family relationships and extends into our larger society.

Why do we choose to support and nurture infants and children to the point at which they are capable of being independent? We raise the next generation because we want to. It is from this notion of choice, and how this decision is supported in society, that moral character gains its force, and its power.

Our societys morality is a collective product of how we conceptualize and raise each next generation. This theory is the property of ourselves and the decisions that we make as parents. It is owned by ordinary people going about their lives, not by philosophers. It is shaped by our collective culture, not by our sages. For these reasons it is crucial that we are actively involved in the cultural education of our children. We must live examined lives, conscious of the choices that we make and taking responsibility for our decisions and the consequences of our choices.

Stories are important. And the stories that we read to our children can be very important.

Stories present a parade of images and ideas. The ideas which underlie the stories, which inform them, can become personally meaningful and real. Texts which carry meaning are capable of transcending the limits of the mere words. They remove us from ourselves, particularly when they are read out loud. Listening to the story, watching the reader, held on their laps, hearing the flow of words… ideas enter our thoughts… they ring, and ring… and gradually, sometimes they ring true.

When internalized, these ideas are incorporated into our worldviews, the models of reality by which we interpret our experience. Our sense of truth is filled with ideas to which we are heirs. They lurk within our concepts of ourselves.

Mister Dog was such a story for me. It evokes memories and feelings that transcend the text. I have internalized the idea that I belong to myself.

In my exploring Margaret Wise Browns other books, I encountered many powerful ideas that spoke to me as illustrating human values and the depth of human experience.

From The Little Island the idea that we are part of nature and connected to the land.

From The Frightened Tiger and the Runaway Bunny that we can be unafraid because we are protected by our parents and can feel secure because we carry them with us.

From A Childs Good Morning that each day belongs to us.

The idea from The Dream Book that whatever we can dream might some day come to be.

The reverence for life expressed in the Dead Birds burial ritual.

The First Storys ideas that we are alike and yet not alike, but that we can still find each other.


I look back at the feelings that Mister Dog elicits in me and realize that I have lived a life of privileged security. My emergent self was nurtured in an environment of physical comfort and emotional security. My parents actions to nurture and support me have contributed greatly to making me who I am today. Unfortunately, there are too many among us who cannot look back on their childhood with warm feelings.

As followers of Ethical Culture, we must do what we can to help others and create an environment where children can flourish. Felix Adler, who founded the Ethical Culture movement in 1876, identified the existence of the overwhelming amount of suffering in the world as one of the three main causes of existential human anxiety. Why is there so much suffering? How can anything that I can do possibly make any difference. Adlers response was simple. We must do what we can.

What can we do to help children flourish? Some of us help children by teaching. Others by working or volunteering at agencies that help children. Still others may provide financial donations to these organizations. All of us can help by how we treat our children, our grandchildren and those children who touch our lives.

To close my talk today, I will read

The Important Book written and published by Margaret Wise Brown in 1948.

The important thing about an apple is that it is round.
It is red.
You bite it and it is white inside, and the juice splashes on your face, and it tastes like an apple, and it falls off a tree. But,
The important thing about an apple is that it is round.

The important thing about the sky is that it is always there.
It is true that it is blue, and high, and full of clouds, and made of air. But,
The important thing about the sky is that it is always there.

The important thing about you is that you are you.
It is true that you were a baby, and you grew, and now you are a child, and you will grow into a man, or a woman, but,
The important thing about you is that you are you.


Thank you.































"i used to think" by Andy Kuncl

i used to think that
i would never grow old
and i used to think that
at the end of a rainbow
lay a pot of gold
i used to think that martians
on mars were for real
and i used to think that
yellow lines in the road were
for motorcycle wheels

i used to think life was a breeze
and everything would come to me
but each day as i grow i find
theres so much more i need to say

i used to think that i could fly
reach out like mr. superman
and touch the sky
i used to think that television
it was for real
for a million dollars just dial
1-800-lets-make-a-deal

i used to think life was a breeze
and everything would come to me
but each day as i grow i find
theres so much more i need to say

i used to think that love was forever
i used to think that people got married
and then they stayed together
i used to think that tricks were for kids
and i used to think that
dreams come true
and hey, i still do, yeah

i used to think life was a breeze
and everything would come to me
but each day as i grow i find
theres so much more i need to say