This is a famous line by Wordsworth, which is often interpreted in a way different from the great poet’s original intention. The poet has glorified childhood in his famous “Immortality Ode”.
According to him, a child knows the truth about his heavenly origin. Heaven lies around an infant. As he grows up, he gets entangled in the cares and worries of this world. A grown up man enjoys the pleasures of life, but he forgets all about his divine origin.
He can make his past life a guide and become great. He can realize divinity if he takes lessons from his childhood. He can understand that Heaven is his permanent abode and his soul in immortal. Thus the child is the father of man. But the line can be interpreted in another way. Childhood is a formative period. The seeds of our future life are sown in our childhood.
As morning shows the day, so childhood shows the man. The childhood habits shape the character of the future man. Coming events cast their shadows before. Most of the great men of the world showed signs of greatness in their childhood. Shivaji, Jesus Christ, Florence Nightingale, Guru Nanak and Mahatma Gandhi, all showed in their childhood what they were to become as grown up persons. Thus man’s adulthood is the child of his childhood.