The Project Gutenberg eBook of Home education, by Charlotte M. Mason
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
using this eBook.
Title: Home education
Home Education Series (Vol. 1 of 6)
Author: Charlotte M. Mason
Release Date: July 2, 2023 [eBook #71087]
Language: English
Credits: Carol Brown, Tim Lindell, Turgut Dincer and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive).
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOME EDUCATION ***
Home Education
=‘Home Education’ Series=
By CHARLOTTE M. MASON
_Each Volume_ =3=_s._ =6=_d._ _net_
I. HOME EDUCATION.
II. PARENTS AND CHILDREN.
III. SCHOOL EDUCATION.
IV. “OURSELVES, OUR SOULS AND BODIES.”
This volume is also published in two parts,
=2s.= net each part.
V. SOME STUDIES IN THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER.
-----
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, & CO., LTD.
DRYDEN HOUSE
43 GERRARD STREET, LONDON, W.
=‘Home Education’ Series=
VOLUME I.
Home Education
By
Charlotte M. Mason
_FIFTH EDITION_ (_Revised and Enlarged_)
(_Eighth and Ninth Thousand_)
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER, & CO., LTD.
DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.
1906
_The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved_
The Education of Children under
Nine Years of Age
[Illustration: colophon]
“O maraviglia! ché qual egli scelse
l’umile pianta, cotal si rinacque
Subitamente là onde la svelse.”
We read in the _Purgatorio_, Canto I., how Virgil was directed to
prepare Dante for his difficult ascent:
“Va dunque, e fa che tu costui ricinghe
d’un giunco schietto, e che gli lavi il viso
sì che ogni sucidume quindi stinghe:
* * * * *
Questa isoletta intorno ad imo ad imo,
laggiù, colà dove la batte l’onda,
porta de’ giunchi sopra il molle limo.
Null’altra pianta, che facesse fronda
o indurasse, vi puote aver vita,
però che alle percosse non seconda.
* * * * *
Venimmo poi in sul lito diserto,
* * * * *
Quivi mi cinse sì come altrui piacque:
o maraviglia! ché qual egli scelse
l’umile pianta, cotal si rinacque
Subitamente là onde la svelse.”
“Go, then, and see thou gird this one about
With a smooth rush, and that thou wash his face,
So that thou cleanse away all stain therefrom.
* * * * *
This little island round about its base,
Below there, yonder where the billow beats it,
Doth rushes bear upon its washy ooze;
No other plant that putteth forth the leaf,
Or that doth indurate, can there have life,
Because it yieldeth not unto the shocks.
* * * * *
Then came we down upon the desert shore.
* * * * *
There he begirt me as the other pleased;
O marvellous! for even as he culled
The humble plant, such it sprang up again
Suddenly there where he uprooted it.”
(LONGFELLOW’S TRANSLATION.)
Preface to the ‘Home Education’
Series
The educational outlook is rather misty and depressing both at home and
abroad. That science should be a staple of education, that the teaching
of Latin, of modern languages, of mathematics, must be reformed, that
nature and handicrafts should be pressed into service for the training
of the eye and hand, that boys and girls must learn to write English
and therefore must know something of history and literature; and,
on the other hand, that education must be made more technical and
utilitarian--these, and such as these, are the cries of expedience
with which we take the field. But we have no unifying principle, no
definite aim; in fact, no philosophy of education. As a stream can rise
no higher than its source, so it is probable that no educational effort
can rise above the whole scheme of thought which gives it birth; and
perhaps this is the reason of all the ‘fallings from us, vanishings,’
failures, and disappointments which mark our educational records.
Those of us, who have spent many years in pursuing the benign and
elusive vision of Education, perceive that her approaches are
regulated by a law, and that this law has yet to be evoked. We can
discern its outlines, but no more. We know that it is pervasive;
there is no part of a child’s home-life or school-work which the law
does not penetrate. It is illuminating, too, showing the value, or
lack of value, of a thousand systems and expedients. It is not only
a light, but a measure, providing a standard whereby all things,
small and great, belonging to educational work must be tested. The
law is liberal, taking in whatsoever things are true, honest, and
of good report, and offering no limitation or hindrance save where
excess should injure. And the path indicated by the law is continuous
and progressive, with no transition stage from the cradle to the
grave, except that maturity takes up the regular self-direction to
which immaturity has been trained. We shall doubtless find, when
we apprehend the law, that certain German thinkers--Kant, Herbart,
Lotze, Froebel--are justified; that, as they say, it is ‘necessary’ to
believe in God; that, therefore, the knowledge of God is the principal
knowledge, and the chief end of education. By one more character shall
we be able to recognise this perfect law of educational liberty when it
shall be made evident. It has been said that ‘The best idea which we
can form of absolute truth is that it is able to meet every condition
by which it can be tested.’ This we shall expect of our law--that
it shall meet every test of experiment and every test of rational
investigation.
Not having received the tables of our law, we fall back upon Froebel
or upon Herbart; or, if we belong to another School, upon Locke or
Spencer; but we are not satisfied. A discontent, is it a divine
discontent? is upon us; and assuredly we should hail a workable,
effectual philosophy of education as a deliverance from much
perplexity. Before this great deliverance comes to us it is probable
that many tentative efforts will be put forth, having more or less of
the characters of a philosophy; notably, having a central idea, a body
of thought with various members working in vital harmony.
Such a theory of education, which need not be careful to call itself
a system of psychology, must be in harmony with the thought movements
of the age; must regard education, not as a shut-off compartment, but
as being as much a part of life as birth or growth, marriage or work;
and it must leave the pupil attached to the world at many points of
contact. It is true that educationalists are already eager to establish
such contact in several directions, but their efforts rest upon an
axiom here and an idea there, and there is no broad unifying basis of
thought to support the whole.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread; and the hope that there may
be many tentative efforts towards a philosophy of education, and that
all of them will bring us nearer to the _magnum opus_, encourages
me to launch one such attempt. The central thought, or rather body
of thought, upon which I found, is the somewhat obvious fact that
the child is a _person_ with all the possibilities and powers
included in personality. Some of the members which develop from this
nucleus have been exploited from time to time by educational thinkers,
and exist vaguely in the general common sense, a notion here, another
there. One thesis, which is, perhaps, new, that _Education is the
Science of Relations_, appears to me to solve the question of a
curriculum, as showing that the object of education is to put a child
in living touch with as much as may be of the life of Nature and
of thought. Add to this one or two keys to self-knowledge, and the
educated youth goes forth with some idea of self-management, with some
pursuits, and many vital interests. My excuse for venturing to offer a
solution, however tentative and passing, to the problem of education
is twofold. For between thirty and forty years I have laboured without
pause to establish a working and philosophic theory of education; and
in the next place, each article of the educational faith I offer has
been arrived at by inductive processes; and has, I think, been verified
by a long and wide series of experiments. It is, however, with sincere
diffidence that I venture to offer the results of this long labour;
because I know that in this field there are many labourers far more
able and expert than I--the ‘angels’ who fear to tread, so precarious
is the footing!
But, if only _pour encourager les autres_, I append a short
synopsis of the educational theory advanced in the volumes of the
‘Home Education Series.’ The treatment is not methodic, but incidental;
here a little, there a little, as seemed to me most likely to meet the
occasions of parents and teachers. I should add that in the course of
a number of years the various essays have been prepared for the use
of the Parents’ Educational Union in the hope that that Society might
witness for a more or less coherent body of educational thought.
“The consequence of truth is great; therefore the judgment
of it must not be negligent.”
WHICHCOTE.
1. Children are born _persons_.
2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for
good and evil.
3. The principles of authority on the one hand and obedience on the
other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but--
4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality
of children, which must not be encroached upon, whether by fear or
love, suggestion or influence, or undue play upon any one natural
desire.
5. Therefore we are limited to three educational instruments--the
atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the
presentation of living ideas.
6. By the saying, EDUCATION IS AN ATMOSPHERE, it is not meant that a
child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child environment,’
especially adapted and prepared; but that we should take into account
the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards
persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper
conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the
‘child’s’ level.
7. By EDUCATION IS A DISCIPLINE, is meant the discipline of habits
formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body.
Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structure to habitual
lines of thought--_i.e._, to our habits.
8. In the saying that EDUCATION IS A LIFE, the need of intellectual
and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds
on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.
9. But the mind is not a receptacle into which ideas must be dropped,
each idea adding to an ‘apperception mass’ of its like, the theory
upon which the Herbartian doctrine of interest rests.
10. On the contrary, a child’s mind is no mere _sac_ to hold ideas;
but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual _organism_,
with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with
which it is prepared to deal, and which it can digest and assimilate
as the body does foodstuffs.
11. This difference is not a verbal quibble. The Herbartian doctrine
lays the stress of education--the preparation of knowledge in enticing
morsels, presented in due order--upon the teacher. Children taught
upon this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching with
little knowledge; and the teacher’s axiom is, ‘What a child learns
matters less than how he learns it.’
12. But, believing that the normal child has powers of mind that fit
him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, we must give him a full
and generous curriculum; taking care, only, that the knowledge offered
to him is vital--that is, that facts are not presented without their
informing ideas. Out of this conception comes the principle that,--
13. EDUCATION IS THE SCIENCE OF RELATIONS; that is, that a child has
natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we
must train him upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science
and art, and upon _many living_ books; for we know that our business
is, not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid
as many as may be of--
‘Those first-born affinities
That fit our new existence to existing things.’
14. There are also two secrets of moral and intellectual
self-management which should be offered to children; these we may call
the Way of the Will and the Way of the Reason.
15. _The Way of the Will._--Children should be taught--
(_a_) To distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’
(_b_) That the way to will effectively is to turn our
thoughts from that which we desire but do not will.
(_c_) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think
of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or
interesting.
(_d_) That, after a little rest in this way, the will
returns to its work with new vigour.
(This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as _diversion_,
whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort,
that we may ‘will’ again with added power. The use of
suggestion--even self-suggestion--as an aid to the will,
is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype
character. It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of
development, and that human nature needs the discipline of
failure as well as of success.)
16. _The Way of the Reason._--We should teach children, too, not to
‘lean’ (too confidently) ‘unto their own understanding,’ because the
function of reason is, to give logical demonstration (_a_) of
mathematical truth; and (_b_) of an initial idea, accepted by the
will. In the former case reason is, perhaps, an infallible guide, but
in the second it is not always a safe one; for whether that initial
idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.
17. Therefore children should be taught, as they become mature enough
to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests
on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of initial ideas. To
help them in this choice we should give them principles of conduct and
a wide range of the knowledge fitted for them.
These three principles (15, 16 and 17) should save children from some
of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to
live at a lower level than we need.
18. We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual
and ‘spiritual’ life of children; but should teach them that the
divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their
continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.
* * * * *
_The ‘Home Education’ Series is so called from the title of the
first volume, and not as dealing, wholly or principally, with ‘Home’
as opposed to ‘School’ education._
Preface to the Fourth Edition
My attempt in the following volume is to suggest to parents and
teachers _a method of education resting upon a basis of natural
law_; and to touch, in this connection, upon a mother’s duties to
her children. In venturing to speak on this latter subject, I do so
with the sincerest deference to mothers, believing that, in the words
of a wise teacher of men, “the woman receives from the Spirit of God
Himself the intuitions into the child’s character, the capacity of
appreciating its strength and its weakness, the faculty of calling
forth the one and sustaining the other, in which lies the mystery of
education, apart from which all its rules and measures are utterly
vain and ineffectual.”[1] But just in proportion as a mother has this
peculiar insight as regards her own children, she will, I think,
feel her need of a knowledge of the general principles of education,
founded upon the nature and the needs of all children. And this
knowledge of the _science of education_, not the best of mothers
will get from above, seeing that we do not often receive as a gift
that which we have the means of getting by our own efforts.
I venture to hope that teachers of young children, also, may find
this volume of use. The period of a child’s life between his sixth and
his ninth year should be used to lay the basis of a liberal education,
and of the _habit_ of reading for instruction. During these years
the child should enter upon the domain of knowledge, in a good many
directions, in a reposeful, _consecutive_ way, which is not to be
attained through the somewhat exciting medium of oral lessons. I hope
that teachers may find the approach (from a new standpoint), to the
hackneyed “subjects of instruction” proper for little children at any
rate interesting and stimulating; and possibly the methods which this
fresh standpoint indicates may prove suggestive and helpful.
The particular object of this volume, as a member of the ‘Home
Education’ Series, is to show the bearing of the physiology of habit
upon education; why certain physical, intellectual, and moral habits
are a valuable asset to a child, and what may be done towards the
formation of such habits. I beg to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr
Carpenter’s _Mental Physiology_ for valuable teaching on the
subject of habits contained in some two or three chapters of that
work. Also, I would renew my grateful thanks to those medical friends
who have given careful and able revision to such parts of the work as
rest on a physiological basis.
I should add that some twenty years ago (1885) the greater part of
this volume was delivered as ‘Lectures to Ladies,’ in which form
the papers were originally published (1886) under the title which
is still retained. Lectures VII. and VIII. and the Appendix of the
original volume have been transferred from this to other volumes of
the Series. The whole has been very carefully revised, and much new
matter introduced, especially in Part V., ‘Lessons as Instruments of
Education,’ which now offers a fairly complete introduction to methods
of teaching subjects fit for children between the ages of six and nine.
The rest of the volume attempts to deal with the whole of education
from infancy until the ninth year of life.
C. M. MASON.
SCALE HOW, AMBLESIDE,
1905.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Rev. F. D. Maurice.
Contents
PART I
SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
PAGE
Children are public trusts--Mothers owe ‘a thinking love’
to their children--The training of children ‘dreadfully
defective’--How parents usually proceed 1
I. A METHOD OF EDUCATION
Traditional methods of education--Method a way to an end--A
system easier than a method 6
II. THE CHILD’S ESTATE
The child in the midst--Code of education in the Gospels 11
III. OFFENDING THE CHILDREN
Children are born law-abiding--They must perceive that their
governors are law-compelled--Parents may offend their
children by disregarding the laws of health--And of the
intellectual life--And of the moral life 13
IV. DESPISING THE CHILDREN
Children should have the best of their mothers--Nurse--
Children’s faults are serious 17
V. HINDERING THE CHILDREN
A child’s relationship with Almighty God--Nursery theology 19
VI. CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY BRAIN-ACTIVITY
All mind-labour means wear of brain--Exercise--Rest--Rest
after meals--Change of occupation--Nourishment--Certain
causes affect the quality of the blood--Concerning meals--Talk
at meals--Variety in meals--Air as important as
food--‘The children walk every day’--Oxygen has its
limitations--Unchanged air--‘I feed Alice on beef tea’--
Wordsworth’s _Lucy_--Indoor airings--Ventilation--Night
air wholesome--Sunshine--Free perspiration--Insensible
perspiration--Daily bath and porous garments 20
VII. ‘THE REIGN OF LAW’ IN EDUCATION
Common sense and good intentions--Law-abiding lives often
more blameless than pious lives--‘Mind’ and ‘matter’
equally governed by law--Antagonism to law shown by
some religious persons--Parents must acquaint themselves
with the principles of physiology and moral science 37
PART II
OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE FOR THE CHILDREN
I. GROWING TIME
Meals out of doors--For dwellers in towns and suburbs--
Possibilities of a day in the open--No story-books 42
II. ‘SIGHT-SEEING’
How to see--Educational uses of ‘sight-seeing’--Discriminating
observation 45
III. ‘PICTURE-PAINTING’
Method of--Strain on the attention--Seeing _fully and in detail_
--A means of after solace and refreshment 48
IV. FLOWERS AND TREES
Children should know field crops--Field flowers and the life-
history of common plants--The study of trees--The seasons
should be followed--Leigh Hunt on flowers--Calendars--Nature
diaries 51
V. ‘LIVING CREATURES’
A field of interest and delight--Children should be encouraged
to _watch_--The force of public opinion in the home--What
town children can do--Nature knowledge the most important
knowledge for young children--Mental training of
a child naturalist--Nature work especially valuable for girls 56
VI. FIELD-LORE AND NATURALISTS’ BOOKS
Reverence for life--Rough classification at first hand--Uses of
‘Naturalists’ books--Mothers and teachers should know
about Nature 62
VII. THE CHILD GETS KNOWLEDGE BY MEANS OF HIS SENSES
Nature’s teaching--Over-pressure--Object-lessons--A child learns
from _things_--The sense of beauty comes from early contact
with Nature--Most grown men lose the habit of observation 65
VIII. THE CHILD SHOULD BE MADE FAMILIAR WITH NATURAL OBJECTS
An ‘observant child’ should be put in the way of things worth
observing--Every natural object a member of a series--Power
will pass more and more into the hands of scientific
men--Intimacy with Nature makes for personal well-being 69
IX. OUT-OF-DOOR GEOGRAPHY
Small things may teach great--Pictorial geography--The
position of the sun--Clouds, rain, snow, and hail--Distance--
Direction--East and west--Practice in finding direction--
Compass drill--Boundaries--Plans--Local geography 72
X. THE CHILD AND MOTHER NATURE
The mother must refrain from too much talk--Making a new
acquaintance--Two things permissible to the mother 78
XI. OUT-OF-DOOR GAMES
The French lesson--Noisy games--_Rondes_--Skipping-rope and
shuttlecock--Climbing--Clothing 80
XII. WALKS IN BAD WEATHER
Winter walks as necessary as summer walks--Pleasures connected
with frost and snow--Winter observations--Habit of
attention--Wet weather tramps--Outer garments for--
Precautions 85
XIII. ‘RED INDIAN’ LIFE
Scouting--‘Bird-stalking’ 88
XIV. THE CHILDREN REQUIRE COUNTRY AIR
The essential proportion of oxygen--Excess of carbonic acid
gas--Unvitiated, unimpoverished air--Solar light--A physical
ideal for a child 92
PART III
‘HABIT IS TEN NATURES’
I. EDUCATION BASED UPON NATURAL LAW
A healthy brain--Out-of-door life--Habit, the instrument by
which parents work 96
II. CHILDREN HAVE NO SELF-COMPELLING POWER
An educational _cul-de-sac_--Love, law, and religion as
educational forces--Why children are incapable of steady
effort--Young children should be saved the labour of decision 98
III. WHAT IS ‘NATURE’?
All persons born with the same primary desires--And affections--
Content of the most elemental notion of human nature--Nature
_plus_ heredity--_plus_ physical conditions--Human
nature the sum of certain attributes--The child must not be
left to his human nature--Problem before the educator--Divine
grace works on the lines of human effort--The trust
of parents must not be supine 100
IV. HABIT MAY SUPPLANT ‘NATURE’
Habit runs on the lines of Nature--But habit may be a lever--A
mother forms her children’s habits involuntarily--Habit
forces Nature into new channels--Parents and teachers
must lay down lines of habit 105
V. THE LAYING DOWN OF LINES OF HABIT
‘Begin it, and the thing will be completed’--Direction of lines
of habit--We think as we are accustomed to think--Habit
and free-will--Habit rules ninety-nine in a hundred of our
thoughts and acts--Habit powerful even where the will
decides 107
VI. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HABIT
Growing tissues form themselves to modes of action--Therefore
children should learn dancing, swimming, etc., at an early
age--Moral and mental habits make their mark upon
physical tissues--Persistent trains of thought--Incessant
regeneration of brain tissue--Artificial reflex actions may
be acquired--Intellectual and moral education--Character
affected by modification of brain tissue--Outside influence 111
VII. THE FORMING OF A HABIT--‘SHUT THE DOOR AFTER YOU’
‘Do ye next thinge’--Habit a delight in itself--Tact,
watchfulness, and persistence--Stages in the formation of
a habit--The dangerous stage 119
VIII. INFANT ‘HABITS’
Some branches of infant education--A sensitive nose--The baby
is ubiquitous--Personal cleanliness as an early habit--Modesty
and purity--The habit of obedience and the sense of honour--
Order essential--The child of two should put away his
playthings--Neatness akin to order--Regularity--Habits
of time and place 124
IX. PHYSICAL EXERCISES
Importance of daily--Drill in good manners--Training of the
ear and voice--The habit of music--Let children alone 132
PART IV
SOME HABITS OF MIND--SOME MORAL HABITS
A science of education--Education in habit favours an easy
life--Training in habits becomes a habit--Habits inspired by
the home atmosphere 135
I. THE HABIT OF ATTENTION
A mind at the mercy of associations--Wandering attention--The
habit of attention to be cultivated in the infant--Attention
to _things_, words a weariness--Lessons attractive--Time-table,
definite work in a given time--A natural reward--Emulation--
Affection as a motive--Attractiveness of knowledge--What is
attention?--Self-compelled attention--The secret of over-
pressure--The schoolboy’s home-work--Wholesome home treatment
for ‘mooning’--Rewards and punishments should be relative
consequences of conduct--Natural and educative consequences 137
II. THE HABITS OF APPLICATION, ETC.
Rapid mental effort--Zeal must be stimulated 149
III. THE HABIT OF THINKING
‘A lion’--Operations included in thinking 150
IV. THE HABIT OF IMAGINING
The sense of the incongruous--Commonplace tales; tales of
imagination--Imagination and great conceptions--Imagination
grows--Thinking comes by practice 151
V. THE HABIT OF REMEMBERING
Remembering and recollecting--A ‘spurious’ memory--Memory,
a record in the brain substance--Made under what conditions--
Recollection and the law of association--Every lesson must
recall the last--No limit to the recording power of the
brain--But links of association a condition of recollection 154
VI. THE HABIT OF PERFECT EXECUTION
The habit of turning out imperfect work--A child should
execute perfectly 159
VII. SOME MORAL HABITS
Obedience--The whole duty of a child--Obedience no accidental
duty--Children must have the desire to obey--Expect
obedience--Law ensures liberty 160
VIII. TRUTHFULNESS, ETC.
Three causes of lying--All vicious--Only one kind visited on
children--Accuracy of statement--Exaggeration and ludicrous
embellishments--Reverence--Temper born in a child--Not
temper but tendency--Parents must correct tendency
by new habit of temper--Change the child’s thoughts 164
PART V
LESSONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION
I. THE MATTER AND METHOD OF LESSONS
Parents must reflect on the subject-matter of instruction--Home
the best growing ground for young children--Three
questions for the mother--Children learn, to grow--Doctoring
of the material of knowledge--Children learn, to get ideas--
Ideas grow and produce after their kind--Scott and Stephenson
worked with ideas--Value of dominant ideas--Lessons must
furnish ideas--Children learn, to get knowledge--Diluted
knowledge--Dr Arnold’s knowledge as a child--Literature proper
for children--Four tests which should be applied to children’s
lessons--_Résumé_ of six points just considered 169
II. THE KINDERGARTEN AS A PLACE OF EDUCATION
The mother the best _Kindergärtnerin_--The nursery need not
therefore be a kindergarten--Field of knowledge too
circumscribed--Training of a just eye and faithful hand--
‘Sweetness and light’ in the kindergarten 178
III. FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF THE KINDERGARTEN
The childhood of Tolstoi--_The Story of a Child_--What we owe
to Froebel--Requirements of a person--Nature as an educator--
Danger of undervaluing children’s intelligence--We all like
to be humoured--Teachers mediate too much--Danger of personal
magnetism--‘Kindergarten’ a false analogy--‘Mother-games’
too strenuous for a child--The society of his equals too
stimulating for a child--Danger of supplanting Nature--
Importance of personal initiative--Parents and teachers must
sow opportunities--‘Only’ children--The child should be
allowed some ordering of his life--_Helen Keller_--Miss
Sullivan on systems of education--The kindergarten in the
United States--Mr Thistleton Mark on the kindergarten--
Dr Stanley Hall on the kindergarten 182
IV. READING
Time of teaching to read--Mrs Wesley’s plan--The alphabet--
Word-making--Word-making with long vowels, etc.--Early
spelling--Reading at sight--The reading of prose--Careful
pronunciation--A year’s work--Ordinary method 199
V. THE FIRST READING LESSON
(Two mothers confer) 207
VI. READING BY SIGHT AND BY SOUND
Learning to read is hard work--Knowledge of arbitrary
symbols--These symbols should be interesting--Tommy’s
first lesson--Steps--Reading sentences--Tommy’s second
lesson--Unknown words--Like combinations have different
sounds--Moral training in reading lessons 214
VII. RECITATION
‘The children’s art’--Memorising 222
VIII. READING FOR OLDER CHILDREN
The habit of reading--Reading aloud--Limitation--Reading
to children--Questions on the subject-matter--Lesson-books--
Slipshod habits; Inattention--Careless enunciation 226
IX. THE ART OF NARRATING
Children narrate by nature--This power should be used in
their education--Method of lesson 231
X. WRITING
Perfect accomplishment--Printing--Steps in teaching--Text-
hand--_A New Handwriting_--How to use 233
XI. TRANSCRIPTION
Value of transcription--Children should transcribe favourite
passages--Small text-hand--Double-ruled lines--Position
in writing--Desks--Children’s table 238
XII. SPELLING AND DICTATION
A fertile cause of bad spelling--The _rationale_ of spelling--
Steps of a dictation lesson 240
XIII. COMPOSITION
George Osborne’s essay--An educational futility--Lessons in
composition--Teaching that is a public danger--‘Composition’
comes by nature 243
XIV. BIBLE LESSONS
Children enjoy the Bible--Should know the Bible text--Essential
and accidental truth--Method of Bible lessons--Picture
illustrations--Bible recitations 247
XV. ARITHMETIC
Educative value of--Problems within the child’s grasp--
Demonstrate--Problems--Notation--Weighing and measuring--
Arithmetic as a means of training--The _A B C Arithmetic_--
Preparation for mathematics 253
XVI. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
A basis of facts--Eyes and no eyes--Principles--To be
comprehended by children--As taught in a village school 264
XVII. GEOGRAPHY
Educational value of--As commonly taught--Geography should
be interesting--How to begin--What next--Maps--What general
knowledge a child of nine should have--Particular knowledge--
Definitions--Fundamental ideas--Meaning of a map 271
XVIII. HISTORY
A storehouse of ideas--‘Outlines’ mischievous--So are most
history books written for children--Early history of a nation
best fitted for children--Some old Chronicles--Age of myths--
_Plutarch’s Lives_--History books--Dates--Illustrations by
the children--‘Playing at’ history 279
XIX. GRAMMAR
Grammar a difficult study--Latin grammar--English grammar a
logical study--Two grammar lessons 295
XX. FRENCH.
M. Gouin’s method--The ‘Series’--How does the child learn? 300
XXI. PICTORIAL ART, ETC.
Study of pictures--Should be regular--A picture talk--Drawing
lessons--Children have ‘Art’ in them--Clay modelling--The
piano and singing--Handicrafts and drills 307
PART VI
THE WILL--THE CONSCIENCE--THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE CHILD
I. THE WILL
Government of Mansoul--Executive power vested in the will--What
is the will?--Persons may go through life without a deliberate
act of will--Character the result of conduct regulated by will--
Three functions of the will--A limitation of the will
disregarded by some novelists--Parents fall into this
metaphysical blunder--Wilfulness indicates want of will-power--
What is wilfulness?--The will has superior and inferior
functions--The will not a moral faculty--A disciplined will
necessary to heroic Christian character--The sole practical
faculty of man--How the will operates--The way of the will;
Incentives--Diversion--Change of thought--The way of the will
should be taught to children--Power of will implies power of
attention--Habit may frustrate the will--Reasonable use of so
effective an instrument--How to strengthen the will--Habit of
self-management--Education of the will more important than of
the intellect 317
II. THE CONSCIENCE
Conscience is judge and law-giver--I am, I ought, I can, I
will--Inertness of parents not supplemented by Divine grace--
Conscience not an infallible guide--But a real power--That
spiritual sense whereby we know good and evil--A child’s
conscience an undeveloped capability rather than a supreme
authority--The uninstructed conscience--The processes implied
in a ‘conscientious’ decision--The _instructed_ conscience
nearly always right--The good conscience of a child--Children
play with moral questions--The Bible the chief source of moral
ideas--Tales fix attention upon conduct--Ignorance of a child’s
conscience--Instructing the conscience--Kindness--The
conscience made effective by discipline 329
III. THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE CHILD
The ‘very pulse of the machine’--Parents have some power to
enthrone the King--The functions and life of the soul--What
is the life of the soul?--The parent must present the idea of
God to the soul of the child--Must not make blundering
efforts--God presented to the children as an exactor and
punisher--Parents must select inspiring ideas--We must
teach only what we know--Fitting and vital ideas--The
knowledge of God distinct from morality--The times and
the manner of religious instruction--The reading of the
Bible--Father and Giver--The essence of Christianity is
loyalty to a Person 341
APPENDICES
A. LIST OF BOOKS 353
B. QUESTIONS FOR THE USE OF STUDENTS 357
C. THE EXAMINATION OF A CHILD OF SEVEN UPON A TERM’S WORK
ON THE LINES INDICATED IN THIS VOLUME 387
D. THE EXAMINATION OF A CHILD OF NINE UPON A TERM’S WORK 398
INDEX 420
Home Education
PART I
SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
Not the least sign of the higher _status_ they have gained, is
the growing desire for work that obtains amongst educated women.
The world wants the work of such women; and presently, as education
becomes more general, we shall see all women with the capacity to work
falling into the ranks of working women, with definite tasks, fixed
hours, and for wages, the pleasure and honour of doing useful work if
they are under no necessity to earn money.
=Children are a Public Trust.=--Now, that work which is of most
importance to society is the bringing-up and instruction of the
children--in the school, certainly, but far more in the home, because
it is more than anything else the home influences brought to bear upon
the child that determine the character and career of the future man
or woman. It is a great thing to be a parent: there is no promotion,
no dignity, to compare with it. The parents of but one child may
be cherishing what shall prove a blessing to the world. But then,
entrusted with such a charge, they are not free to say, “I may do
as I will with mine own.” The children are, in truth, to be regarded
less as personal property than as public trusts, put into the hands
of parents that they may make the very most of them for the good of
society. And this responsibility is not equally divided between the
parents: it is upon the mothers of the present that the future of the
world depends, in even a greater degree than upon the fathers, because
it is the mothers who have the sole direction of the children’s early,
most impressible years. This is why we hear so frequently of great
men who have had good mothers--that is, mothers who brought up their
children themselves, and did not make over their gravest duty to
indifferent persons.
=Mothers owe ‘a thinking love’ to their Children.=--“The mother is
qualified,” says Pestalozzi, “and qualified by the Creator Himself, to
become the principal agent in the development of her child; ... and
what is demanded of her is--_a thinking love_.... God has given
to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point
remains undecided--how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be
employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the
answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life
so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education.”
We are waking up to our duties, and in proportion as mothers become
more highly educated and efficient, they will doubtless feel the more
strongly that the education of their children during the first six
years of life is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands
but their own. And they will take it up as their profession--that is,
with the diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on
their professional labours.
That the mother may know what she is about, may come thoroughly
furnished to her work, she should have something more than a hearsay
acquaintance with the theory of education, and with those conditions
of the child’s nature upon which such theory rests.
=The Training of Children ‘dreadfully defective.’=--“The training
of children,” says Mr Herbert Spencer--“physical, moral, and
intellectual--is dreadfully defective. And in great measure it is so,
because parents are devoid of that knowledge by which this training
can alone be rightly guided. What is to be expected when one of the
most intricate of problems is undertaken by those who have given
scarcely a thought to the principle on which its solution depends? For
shoemaking or house-building, for the management of a ship or of a
locomotive engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. Is it, then, that
the unfolding of a human being in body and mind is so comparatively
simple a process that any one may superintend and regulate it with no
preparation whatever? If not--if the process is, with one exception,
more complex than any in Nature, and the task of ministering to it
one of surpassing difficulty--is it not madness to make no provision
for such a task? Better sacrifice accomplishments than omit this
all-essential instruction.... Some acquaintance with the first
principles of physiology and the elementary truths of psychology is
indispensable for the right bringing-up of children.... Here are the
indisputable facts: that the development of children in mind and body
follows certain laws; that unless these laws are in some degree
conformed to by parents, death is inevitable; that unless they are in
a great degree conformed to, there must result serious physical and
mental defects; and that only when they are completely conformed to,
can a perfect maturity be reached. Judge, then, whether all who may
one day be parents should not strive with some anxiety to learn what
these laws are.”[2]
=How Parents usually proceed.=--The parent begins instinctively by
regarding his child as an unwritten tablet, and is filled with great
resolves as to what he shall write thereon. By-and-by, traits of
disposition appear, the child has little ways of his own; and, at
first, every new display of personality is a delightful surprise.
That the infant should show pleasure at the sight of his father, that
his face should cloud in sympathy with his mother, must always be
wonderful to us. But the wonder stales; his parents are used to the
fact by the time the child shows himself a complete human being like
themselves, with affections, desires, powers; taking to his book,
perhaps, as a duck to the water; or to the games which shall make a
man of him. The notion of doing _all_ for the child with which
the parents began gradually recedes. So soon as he shows that he has
a way of his own he is encouraged to take it. Father and mother have
no greater delight than to watch the individuality of their child
unfold as a flower unfolds. But Othello loses his occupation. The more
the child shapes his own course, the less do the parents find to do,
beyond feeding him with food convenient, whether of love, or thought,
or of bodily meat and drink. And here, we may notice, the parents
need only supply; the child knows well enough how to appropriate. The
parents’ chief care is, that that which they supply shall be wholesome
and nourishing, whether in the way of picture-books, lessons,
playmates, bread and milk, or mother’s love. This is education as
most parents understand it, with more of meat, more of love, more of
culture, according to their kind and degree. They let their children
alone, allowing human nature to develop on its own lines, modified by
facts of environment and descent.
Nothing could be better for the child than this ‘masterly inactivity,’
so far as it goes. It is well he should be let grow and helped to grow
according to his nature; and so long as the parents do not step in to
spoil him, much good and no very evident harm comes of letting him
alone. But this philosophy of ‘let him be,’ while it covers a part,
does not cover the serious part of the parents’ calling; does not
touch the strenuous incessant efforts upon lines of law which go to
the producing of a human being at his best.
Nothing is trivial that concerns a child; his foolish-seeming words
and ways are pregnant with meaning for the wise. It is in the
infinitely little we must study the infinitely great; and the vast
possibilities, and the right direction of education, are indicated in
the open book of the little child’s thoughts.
A generation ago, a great teacher amongst us never wearied of
reiterating that in the Divine plan “the _family_ is the unit of
the nation”: not the individual, but the family. There is a great deal
of teaching in the phrase, but this lies on the surface; the whole is
greater than the part, the whole contains the part, owns the part,
orders the part; and this being so, the children are the property of
the nation, to be brought up for the nation as is best for the nation,
and not according to the whim of individual parents. The law is for
the punishment of evil-doers, for the praise of them that do well; so,
practically, parents have very free play; but it is as well we should
remember that the children are a national trust whose bringing-up is
the concern of all--even of those unmarried and childless persons
whose part in the game is the rather dreary one of ‘looking on.’
I.--A METHOD OF EDUCATION
=Traditional Methods of Education.=--Never was it more necessary for
parents to face for themselves this question of education in all its
bearings. Hitherto, children have been brought up upon traditional
methods mainly. The experience of our ancestors, floating in a vast
number of educational maxims, is handed on from lip to lip; and few or
many of these maxims form the educational code of every household.
But we hardly take in how complete a revolution advancing science is
effecting in the theory of education. The traditions of the elders
have been tried and found wanting; it will be long before the axioms
of the new school pass into common currency; and, in the meantime,
parents are thrown upon their own resources, and absolutely must weigh
principles, and adopt a method, of education for themselves.
For instance, according to the former code, a mother might use her
slipper now and then, to good effect and without blame; but now, the
person of the child is, whether rightly or wrongly, held sacred,
and the infliction of pain for moral purposes is pretty generally
disallowed.
Again, the old rule for the children’s table was, ‘the plainer the
better, and let hunger bring sauce’; now, the children’s diet must
be at least as nourishing and as varied as that of their elders; and
appetite, the craving for certain kinds of food, hitherto a vicious
tendency to be repressed, is now within certain limitations the
parents’ most trustworthy guide in arranging a dietary for their
children.
That children should be trained to endure hardness, was a principle of
the old régime. “I shall never make a sailor if I can’t face the wind
and rain,” said a little fellow of five who was taken out on a bitter
night to see a torchlight procession; and, though shaking with cold,
he declined the shelter of a shed. Nowadays, the shed is everything;
the children must not be permitted to suffer from fatigue or exposure.
That children should do as they are bid, mind their books, and take
pleasure as it offers when nothing stands in the way, sums up the old
theory; now, the pleasures of children are apt to be made of more
account than their duties.
Formerly, they were brought up in subjection; now, the elders give
place, and the world is made for the children.
English people rarely go so far as the parents of that story in
_French Home Life_, who arrived an hour late at a dinner-party,
because they had been desired by their girl of three to undress and
go to bed when she did, and were able to steal away only when the
child was asleep. We do not go so far, but that is the direction in
which we are moving; and how far the new theories of education are
wise and humane, the outcome of more widely spread physiological
and psychological knowledge, and how far they just pander to the
child-worship to which we are all succumbing, is not a question to be
decided off-hand.
At any rate, it is not too much to say that a parent who does
not follow reasonably a method of education, fully thought out,
fails--now, more than ever before--to fulfil the claims his children
have upon him.
=Method a Way to an End.=--Method implies two things--a way to an
end, and step-by-step progress in that way. Further, the following
of a method implies an idea, a mental image, of the end or object
to be arrived at. What do you propose that education shall effect
in and for your child? Again, method is natural; easy, yielding,
unobtrusive, simple as the ways of Nature herself; yet, watchful,
careful, all-pervading, all-compelling. Method, with the _end_ of
education in view, presses the most unlikely matters into service to
bring about that end; but with no more tiresome mechanism than the sun
employs when it makes the winds to blow and the waters to flow only by
shining. The parent who _sees his way_--that is, the exact force
of method--to educate his child, will make use of every circumstance
of the child’s life almost without intention on his own part, so easy
and spontaneous is a method of education based upon Natural Law. Does
the child eat or drink, does he come, or go, or play--all the time
he is being educated, though he is as little aware of it as he is of
the act of breathing. There is always the danger that a method, a
_bonâ fide_ method, should degenerate into a mere system. The
_Kindergarten Method_, for instance, deserves the name, as
having been conceived and perfected by large-hearted educators to aid
the many-sided evolution of the living, growing, most complex human
being; but what a miserable wooden _system_ does it become in the
hands of ignorant practitioners!
=A System easier than a Method.=--A ‘_system_ of education’ is
an alluring fancy; more so, on some counts, than a _method_,
because it is pledged to more definite calculable results. By means
of a system certain developments may be brought about through
the observance of given rules. Shorthand, dancing, how to pass
examinations, how to become a good accountant, or a woman of society,
may all be learned upon systems.
System--the observing of rules until the habit of doing certain
things, of behaving in certain ways, is confirmed, and, therefore, the
art is acquired--is so successful in achieving precise results, that
it is no wonder there should be endless attempts to straiten the whole
field of education to the limits of a system.
If a human being were a machine, education could do no more for him
than to set him in action in prescribed ways, and the work of the
educator would be simply to adopt a good working system or set of
systems.
But the educator has to deal with a self-acting, self-developing
being, and his business is to guide, and assist in, the production of
the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil,
the preparation of the child to take his place in the world _at his
best_, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a
power.
Though system is highly useful as an instrument of education, a
‘system of education’ is mischievous, as producing only mechanical
action instead of the vital growth and movement of a living being.
It is worth while to point out the differing characters of a system
and a method, because parents let themselves be run away with often
enough by some plausible ‘system,’ the object of which is to produce
development in one direction--of the muscles, of the memory, of the
reasoning faculty--and to rest content, as if that single development
were a complete all-round education. This easy satisfaction arises
from the sluggishness of human nature, to which any definite scheme is
more agreeable than the constant watchfulness, the unforeseen action,
called for when the whole of a child’s existence is to be used as
the means of his education. But who is sufficient for an education
so comprehensive, so incessant? A parent may be willing to undergo
any definite labours for his child’s sake; but to be always catering
for his behoof, always contriving that circumstances shall play upon
him for his good, is the part of a god and not of a man! A reasonable
objection enough, if one looks upon education as an endless series of
independent efforts, each to be thought out and acted out on the spur
of the moment; but the fact is, that a few broad essential principles
cover the whole field, and these once fully laid hold of, it is as
easy and natural to act upon them as it is to act upon our knowledge
of such facts as that fire burns and water flows. My endeavour in
this and the following chapters will be to put these few fundamental
principles before you in their practical bearing. Meantime, let us
consider one or two preliminary questions.
II.--THE CHILD’S ESTATE
=The Child in the Midst.=--And first, let us consider where and what
the little being is who is entrusted to the care of human parents. A
tablet to be written upon? A twig to be bent? Wax to be moulded? Very
likely; but he is much more--a being belonging to an altogether higher
estate than ours; as it were, a prince committed to the fostering care
of peasants. Hear Wordsworth’s estimate of the child’s estate:--
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul’s immensity;
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage; thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind--
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find;
Thou, over whom thy immortality
Broods like the day, a master o’er a slave,
A presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom, on thy being’s height”--
and so on, through the whole of that great ode, which, next after
the Bible, shows the deepest insight into what is peculiar to the
children in their nature and estate. “Of such is the kingdom of
heaven.” “Except _ye_ become as little children ye shall in
no case enter the kingdom of heaven.” “Who is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven?” “And He called a little child, and set him in
the midst.” Here is the Divine estimate of the child’s estate. It is
worth while for parents to ponder every utterance in the Gospels about
the children, divesting themselves of the notion that these sayings
belong, in the _first place_, to the grown-up people who have
become as little children. What these profound sayings are, and how
much they may mean, it is beyond us to discuss here; only they appear
to cover far more than Wordsworth claims for the children in his
sublimest reach--
“Trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.”
=Code of Education in the Gospels.=--It may surprise parents who
have not given much attention to the subject to discover also a
code of education in the Gospels, expressly laid down by Christ. It
is summed up in three commandments, and all three have a negative
character, as if the chief thing required of grown-up people is that
they should do no sort of injury to the children: _Take heed that ye_
OFFEND _not_--DESPISE _not_--HINDER _not_--_one of these little ones_.
So run the three educational laws of the New Testament, which, when
separately examined, appear to me to cover all the help we can give
the children and all the harm we can save them from--that is, whatever
is included in training up a child in the way he should go. Let us
look upon these three great laws as prohibitive, in order to clear
the ground for the consideration of a method of education; for if we
once settle with ourselves what we may _not_ do, we are greatly
helped to see what we _may_ do, and must do. But, as a matter of
fact, the positive is included in the negative, what we are bound to
do for the child in what we are forbidden to do to his hurt.
III.--OFFENDING THE CHILDREN
=Offences.=--The first and second of the Divine edicts appear to
include our sins of commission and of omission against the children:
we offend them, when we do by them that which we ought not to have
done; we despise them, when we leave undone those things which, for
their sakes, we ought to have done. An offence, we know, is literally
a stumbling-block, that which trips up the walker and causes him to
fall. Mothers know what it is to clear the floor of every obstacle
when a baby takes his unsteady little runs from chair to chair, from
one pair of loving arms to another. The table-leg, the child’s toy on
the floor, which has caused a fall and a pitiful cry, is a thing to be
deplored; why did not somebody put it out of the way, so that the baby
should not stumble? But the little child is going out into the world
with uncertain tottering steps in many directions. There are causes of
stumbling not so easy to remove as an offending footstool; and woe to
him who causes the child to fall!
=Children are born Law-abiding.=--‘Naughty baby!’ says the mother; and
the child’s eyes droop, and a flush rises over neck and brow. It is
very wonderful; very ‘funny,’ some people think, and say, ‘Naughty
baby!’ when the baby is sweetly good, to amuse themselves with the
sight of the infant soul rising visibly before their eyes. But what
does it mean, this display of feeling, conscience, in the child,
before any human teaching can have reached him? No less than this,
that he is born a law-abiding being, with a sense of _may_, and
_must not_, of right and wrong. That is how the children are sent
into the world with the warning, “Take heed that ye offend not one of
these little ones.” And--this being so--who has not met big girls and
boys, the children of right-minded parents, who yet do not know what
_must_ means, who are not moved by _ought_, whose hearts
feel no stir at the solemn name of _Duty_, who know no higher
rule of life than ‘I want,’ and ‘I don’t want,’ ‘I like,’ and ‘I don’t
like’? Heaven help parents and children when it has come to that!
But how has it been brought about that the babe, with an acute sense
of right and wrong even when it can understand little of human speech,
should grow into the boy or girl already proving ‘the curse of lawless
heart’? By slow degrees, here a little and there a little, as all
that is good or bad in character comes to pass. ‘Naughty!’ says the
mother, again, when a little hand is thrust into the sugar-bowl; and
a pair of roguish eyes seeks hers furtively, to measure, as they do
unerringly, how far the little pilferer may go. It is very amusing;
the mother ‘cannot help laughing’; and the little trespass is allowed
to pass: and, what the poor mother has not thought of, an offence, a
cause of stumbling, has been cast into the path of her two-year-old
child. He has learned already that that which is ‘naughty’ may yet be
done with impunity, and he goes on improving his knowledge. It is
needless to continue; everybody knows the steps by which the mother’s
‘no’ comes to be disregarded, her refusal teased into consent. The
child has learned to believe that he has nothing to overcome but his
mother’s disinclination; if she _choose_ to let him do this and
that, there is no reason why she should not; he can make her choose
to let him do the thing forbidden, and then he may do it. The next
step in the argument is not too great for childish wits: if his mother
does what she chooses, of course he will do what he chooses, _if he
can_; and henceforward the child’s life becomes an endless struggle
to get his own way; a struggle in which a parent is pretty sure to
be worsted, having many things to think of, while the child sticks
persistently to the thing which has his fancy for the moment.
=They must perceive that their Governors are Law-compelled.=--Where
is the beginning of this tangle, spoiling the lives of parent and
child alike? In this: that the mother began with no sufficient sense
of duty; she thought herself free to allow and disallow, to say and
unsay, at pleasure, as if the child were hers to do what she liked
with. The child has never discovered a background of _must_
behind his mother’s decisions; he does not know that she _must
not_ let him break his sister’s playthings, gorge himself with
cake, spoil the pleasure of other people, because these things
are not _right_. Let the child perceive that his parents are
law-compelled as well as he, that they simply cannot allow him to do
the things which have been forbidden, and he submits with the sweet
meekness which belongs to his age. To give reasons to a child is
usually out of place, and is a sacrifice of parental dignity; but he
is quick enough to read the ‘must’ and ‘ought’ which rule her, in his
mother’s face and manner, and in the fact that she is not to be moved
from a resolution on any question of right and wrong.
=Parents may Offend their Children by Disregarding the Laws of
Health.=--This, of allowing him in what is wrong, is only one of
many ways in which the loving mother may offend her child. Through
ignorance, or wilfulness, which is worse, she may not only allow wrong
in him, but do wrong by him. She may cast a stumbling-block in the way
of his physical life by giving him unwholesome food, letting him sleep
and live in ill-ventilated rooms, by disregarding any or every of the
simple laws of health, ignorance of which is hardly to be excused in
the face of the pains taken by scientific men to bring this necessary
knowledge within the reach of every one.
=And of the Intellectual Life.=--Almost as bad is the way the child’s
intellectual life may be wrecked at its outset by a round of dreary,
dawdling lessons in which definite progress is the last thing made or
expected, and which, so far from educating in any true sense, stultify
his wits in a way he never gets over. Many a little girl, especially,
leaves the home schoolroom with a distaste for all manner of learning,
an aversion to mental effort, which lasts her her lifetime, and that
is why she grows up to read little but trashy novels, and to talk all
day about her clothes.
=And of the Moral Life.=--And her affections--the movements of the
outgoing tender child-heart--how are they treated? There are few
mothers who do not take pains to cherish the family affections; but
when the child comes to have dealings with outsiders, do no worldly
maxims and motives ever nip the buds of childish love? Far worse than
this happens when the child’s love finds no natural outlets within
her home: when she is the plain or the dull child of the family, and
is left out in the cold, while the parents’ affection is lavished on
the rest. Of course she does not love her brothers and sisters, who
monopolise what should have been hers too. And how is she to love
her parents? Nobody knows the real anguish which many a child in the
nursery suffers from this cause, nor how many lives are embittered
and spoiled through the suppression of these childish affections. “My
childhood was made miserable,” a lady said to me a while ago, “by my
mother’s doting fondness for my little brother; there was not a day
when she did not make me wretched by coming into the nursery to fondle
and play with him, and all the time she had not a word nor a look nor
a smile for me, any more than if I had not been in the room. I have
never got over it; she is very kind to me now, but I never feel quite
natural with her. And how can we two, brother and sister, feel for
each other as we should if we had grown up together in love in the
nursery?”
IV.--DESPISING THE CHILDREN
=Children should have the best of their Mothers.=--Suppose that a
mother _may_ offend her child, how is it possible that she should
despise him? “Despise: to have a low opinion of, to undervalue”--thus
the dictionary; and, as a matter of fact, however much we may delight
in them, we grown-up people have far too low an opinion of children.
If the mother did not undervalue her child, would she leave him to
the society of an ignorant nursemaid during the early years when his
whole nature is, like the photographer’s sensitive plate, receiving
momently indelible impressions? Not but that his nurse is good for
the child. Very likely it would not answer for educated people to
have their children always about them. The constant society of his
parents might be too stimulating for the child; and frequent change
of thought, and the society of other people, make the mother all the
fresher for her children. But they should have the _best_ of
their mother, her freshest, brightest hours; while, at the same time,
she is careful to choose her nurses wisely, train them carefully, and
keep a vigilant eye upon all that goes on in the nursery.
‘=Nurse.=’--Mere coarseness and rudeness in his nurse does the
tender child lasting harm. Many a child leaves the nursery with his
moral sense blunted, and with an alienation from his heavenly Father
set up which may last his lifetime. For the child’s moral sense is
exceedingly quick; he is all eyes and ears for the slightest act
or word of unfairness, deception, shiftiness. His nurse says, “If
you’ll be a good boy, I won’t tell”; and the child learns that things
_may_ be concealed from his mother, who should be to him as God,
knowing all his good and evil. And it is not as if the child noted the
slips of his elders with aversion. He _knows_ better, it is true,
but then he does not trust his own intuitions; he shapes his life on
any pattern set before him, and with the fatal taint of human nature
upon him he is more ready to imitate a bad pattern than a good. Give
him a nurse who is coarse, violent, and tricky, and before the child
is able to speak plainly he will have caught these dispositions.
=Children’s Faults are Serious.=--One of many ways in which parents
are apt to have too low an opinion of their children is in the matter
of their faults. A little child shows some ugly trait--he is greedy,
and gobbles up his sister’s share of goodies as well as his own; he
is vindictive, ready to bite or fight the hand that offends him; he
tells a lie;--no, he did not touch the sugar-bowl or the jam-pot. The
mother puts off the evil day: she knows she must sometime reckon with
the child for those offences, but in the meantime she says, “Oh, it
does not matter this time; he is very little, and will know better
by-and-by.” To put the thing on no higher grounds, what happy days
for herself and her children would the mother secure if she would
keep watch at the place of the letting out of waters! If the mother
settle it in her own mind that the child never does wrong without
being aware of his wrong-doing, she will see that he is not too young
to have his fault corrected or prevented. Deal with a child on his
_first_ offence, and a grieved look is enough to convict the
little transgressor; but let him go on until a habit of wrong-doing
is formed, and the cure is a slow one; then the mother has no chance
until she has formed in him a contrary habit of well-doing. To laugh
at ugly tempers and let them pass because the child is small, is to
sow the wind.
V.--HINDERING THE CHILDREN
=A Child’s Relationship with Almighty God.=--The most fatal way of
despising the child falls under the third educational law of the
Gospels; it is to overlook and make light of his natural relationship
with Almighty God. “Suffer the little children to come unto Me,” says
the Saviour, as if that were the natural thing for the children to
do, the thing they do when they are not hindered by their elders. And
perhaps it is not too beautiful a thing to believe in this redeemed
world, that, as the babe turns to his mother though he has no power
to say her name, as the flowers turn to the sun, so the hearts of the
children turn to their Saviour and God with unconscious delight and
trust.
=Nursery Theology.=--Now listen to what goes on in many a
nursery:--‘God does not love you, you naughty, wicked boy!’ ‘He will
send you to the bad, wicked place,’ and so on; and this is all the
practical teaching about the ways of his ‘almighty Lover’ that the
child gets!--never a word of how God does love and cherish the little
children all day long, and fill their hours with delight. Add to
this, listless perfunctory prayers, idle discussions of Divine things
in their presence, light use of holy words, few signs whereby the
child can read that the things of God are more to his parents than
any things of the world, and the child is hindered, tacitly forbidden
to “come unto Me,”--and this, often, by parents who in the depths of
their hearts desire nothing in comparison with God. The mischief lies
in that same foolish undervaluing of the children, in the notion that
the child can have no spiritual life until it please his elders to
kindle the flame.
VI.--CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY BRAIN-ACTIVITY
Having just glanced at the wide region of forbidden ground, we are
prepared to consider what it is, definitely and positively, that the
mother owes to her child under the name of Education.
=All Mind Labour means Wear of Brain.=--And first of all, the more
educable powers of the child--his intelligence, his will, his moral
feelings--have their seat in the brain; that is to say, as the eye is
the organ of sight, so is the brain, or some part of it, the organ
of thought and will, of love and worship. Authorities differ as to
how far it is possible to localise the functions of the brain; but
this at least seems pretty clear--that none of the functions of mind
are performed without real activity in the mass of grey and white
nervous matter named ‘the brain.’ Now, this is not a matter for the
physiologist alone, but for every mother and father of a family;
because that wonderful brain, by means of which we do our thinking, if
it is to act healthily and in harmony with the healthful action of the
members, should act only under such conditions of exercise, rest, and
nutrition as secure health in every other part of the body.
=Exercise.=--Most of us have met with a few eccentric and a good many
silly persons, concerning whom the question forces itself, Were these
people born with less brain power than others? Probably not; but if
they were allowed to grow up without the daily habit of appropriate
moral and mental _work_, if they were allowed to dawdle through
youth without regular and sustained efforts of thought or will,
the result would be the same, and the brain which should have been
invigorated by daily exercise has become flabby and feeble as a
healthy arm would be after being carried for years in a sling. The
large active brain is not content with entire idleness; it strikes
out lines for itself and works fitfully, and the man or woman becomes
eccentric, because wholesome mental effort, like moral, must be
carried on under the discipline of rules. A shrewd writer suggests
that mental indolence may have been in some measure the cause of those
pitiable attacks of derangement and depression from which poor Cowper
suffered; the making of graceful verses when the ‘maggot bit’ did
not afford him the amount of mental _labour_ necessary for his
well-being.
The outcome of which is--Do not let the children pass a day without
distinct _efforts_, intellectual, moral, volitional; let them
brace themselves to understand; let them compel themselves to do and
to bear; and let them do right at the sacrifice of ease and pleasure:
and this for many higher reasons, but, in the first and lowest place,
that the mere physical organ of mind and will may grow vigorous with
work.
=Rest.=--Just as important is it that the brain should have due rest;
that is, should rest and work alternately. And here two considerations
come into play. In the first place, when the brain is actively at
work it is treated as is every other organ of the body in the same
circumstances; that is to say, a large additional supply of blood
is attracted to the head for the nourishment of the organ which is
spending its substance in hard work. Now, there is not an indefinite
quantity of what we will for the moment call surplus blood in the
vessels. The supply is regulated on the principle that only one set of
organs shall be excessively active at one time--now the limbs, now the
digestive organs, now the brain; and all the blood in the body that
can be spared goes to the support of those organs which, for the time
being, are in a state of labour.
=Rest after Meals.=--The child has just had his dinner, the meal of
the day which most severely taxes his digestive organs; for as much
as two or three hours after, much labour is going on in these organs,
and the blood that can be spared from elsewhere is present to assist.
Now, send the child out for a long walk _immediately_ after
dinner--the blood goes to the labouring extremities, and the food is
left half digested; give the child a regular course of such dinners
and walks, and he will grow up a dyspeptic. Set him to his books after
a heavy meal, and the case is as bad; the blood which should have been
assisting in the digestion of the meal goes to the labouring brain.
It follows that the hours for lessons should be carefully chosen,
after periods of mental rest--sleep or play, for instance--and when
there is no excessive activity in any other part of the system. Thus,
the morning, after breakfast (the digestion of which lighter meal is
not a severe tax), is much the best time for lessons and every sort of
mental work; if the whole afternoon cannot be spared for out-of-door
recreation, that is the time for mechanical tasks such as needlework,
drawing, practising; the children’s wits are bright enough in the
evening, but the drawback to evening work is, that the brain, once
excited, is inclined to carry on its labours beyond bed-time, and
dreams, wakefulness, and uneasy sleep attend the poor child who has
been at work until the last minute. If the elder children _must_
work in the evening, they should have at least one or two pleasant
social hours before they go to bed; but, indeed, we owe it to the
children to abolish evening ‘preparation.’
=Change of Occupation.=--“There is,” says Huxley, “no satisfactory
proof at present, that the manifestation of any particular kind of
mental faculty is especially allotted to, or connected with, the
activity of any particular region of the cerebral hemispheres,”
a dictum against the phrenologists, but coming to us on too high
authority to be disputed. It is not possible to localise the
‘faculties’--to say you are cautious with this fraction of your
brain, and music-loving with another; but this much is certain, and
is very important to the educator: the brain, or some portion of the
brain, becomes exhausted when any given function has been exercised
too long. The child has been doing sums for some time, and is getting
unaccountably stupid: take away his slate and let him read history,
and you find his wits fresh again. Imagination, which has had no part
in the sums, is called into play by the history lesson, and the child
brings a lively unexhausted power to his new work. School time-tables
are usually drawn up with a view to give the brain of the child
variety of work; but the secret of the weariness children often show
in the home schoolroom is, that no such judicious change of lessons is
contrived.
=Nourishment.=--Again, the brain cannot do its work well unless it be
abundantly and suitably nourished; somebody has made a calculation of
how many ounces of brain went to the production of such a work--say
_Paradise Lost_--how many to such another, and so on. Without
going into mental arithmetic of this nature, we may say with safety
that every sort of intellectual activity wastes the tissues of the
brain; a network of vessels supplies an enormous quantity of blood
to the organ, to make up for this waste of material; and the vigour
and health of the brain depend upon the quality and quantity of this
blood-supply.
=Certain Causes affect the Quality of the Blood.=--Now, the quality
of the blood is affected by three or four causes. In the first place,
the blood is elaborated from the food; the more nutritious and easy
of digestion the food, the more _vital_ will be the properties
of the blood. The food must be varied, too, a mixed diet, because
various ingredients are required to make up for the various waste in
the tissues. The children are shocking spendthrifts; their endless
goings and comings, their restlessness, their energy, the very wagging
of their tongues, all mean expenditure of substance: the loss is
not appreciable, but they lose something by every sudden sally, out
of doors or within. No doubt the gain of power which results from
exercise is more than compensation for the loss of substance; but,
all the same, this loss must be promptly made good. And not only is
the body of the child more active, proportionably, than that of the
man: the child’s brain as compared with the man’s is in a perpetual
flutter of endeavour. It is calculated that though the brain of a
man weighs no more than a fortieth part of his body, yet a fifth
or a sixth of his whole complement of blood goes to nourish this
delicate and intensely active organ; but, in the child’s case, a
considerably larger proportion of the blood that is in him is spent on
the sustenance of his brain. And all the time, with these excessive
demands upon him, the child has to grow! not merely to make up for
waste, but to produce new substance in brain and body.
=Concerning Meals.=--What is the obvious conclusion? That the
child must be well fed. Half the people of low vitality we come
across are the victims of low-feeding during their childhood; and
that more often because their parents were not alive to their
duty in this respect, than because they were not in a position to
afford their children the diet necessary to their full physical
and mental development. Regular meals at, usually, _unbroken_
intervals--dinner, never more than five hours after breakfast;
luncheon, unnecessary; animal food, once certainly, in some lighter
form, twice a day--are the suggestions of common sense followed out
in most well-regulated households. But it is not the food which is
_eaten_, but the food which is _digested_, that nourishes
body and brain. And here so many considerations press, that we can
only glance at two or three of the most obvious. Everybody knows that
children should not eat pastry, or pork, or fried meats, or cheese, or
rich, highly-flavoured food of any description; that pepper, mustard,
and vinegar, sauces and spices, should be forbidden, with new bread,
rich cakes, and jams, like plum or gooseberry, in which the leathery
coat of the fruit is preserved; that milk, or milk and water, and that
not too warm, or cocoa, is the best drink for children, and that they
should be trained not to drink until they have finished eating; that
fresh fruit at breakfast is invaluable; that, as serving the same
end, oatmeal porridge and treacle, and the fat of toasted bacon, are
valuable breakfast foods; and that a glass of water, also, taken the
last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, is useful in
promoting those regular habits on which much of the comfort of life
depends.
=Talk at Meals.=--All this and much of the same kind it is needless
to urge; but again let me say, it is _digested_ food that
nourishes the system, and people are apt to forget how far mental and
moral conditions affect the processes of digestion. The fact is,
that the gastric juices which act as solvents to the viands are only
secreted freely when the mind is in a cheerful and contented frame.
If the child dislike his dinner, he swallows it, but the digestion
of that distasteful meal is a laborious, much-impeded process: if
the meal be eaten in silence, unrelieved by pleasant chat, the child
loses much of the ‘good’ of his dinner. Hence it is not a matter of
pampering them at all, but a matter of health, of due nutrition, that
the children should enjoy their food, and that their meals should be
eaten in gladness; though, by the way, joyful _excitement_ is as
mischievous as its opposite in destroying that even, cheerful tenor
of mind favourable to the processes of digestion. No pains should
be spared to make the hours of meeting round the family table the
brightest hours of the day. This is supposing that the children are
allowed to sit at the same table with their parents; and, if it is
possible to let them do so at every meal excepting a late dinner, the
advantage to the little people is incalculable. Here is the parents’
opportunity to train them in manners and in morals, to cement family
love, and to accustom the children to habits, such as that of thorough
mastication, for instance, as important on the score of health as on
that of propriety.
=Variety in Meals.=--But, given pleasant surroundings and excellent
food, and even then the requirements of these exacting little people
are not fully met: plain as their food should be, they must have
variety. A leg of mutton every Tuesday, the same cold on Wednesday,
and hashed on Thursday, may be very good food; but the child who has
this diet week after week is inadequately nourished, simply because
he is tired of it. The mother should contrive a rotation for her
children that will last at least a fortnight without the same dinner
recurring twice. Fish, especially if the children dine off it without
meat to follow, is excellent as a change, the more so as it is rich
in phosphorus--a valuable brain food. The children’s puddings deserve
a good deal of consideration, because they do not commonly care for
fatty foods, but prefer to derive the warmth of their bodies from
the starch and sugar of their puddings. But give them variety; do
not let it be ‘everlasting tapioca.’ Even for tea and breakfast the
wise mother does not say, ‘I always give my children’ so and so. They
should not have anything ‘always’; every meal should have some little
surprise. But is this the way, to make them think overmuch of what
they shall eat and drink? On the contrary, it is the underfed children
who are greedy, and unfit to be trusted with any unusual delicacy.
=Air as important as Food.=--The quality of the blood depends almost
as much on the air we breathe as on the food we eat; in the course of
every two or three minutes, all the blood in the body passes through
the endless ramifications of the lungs, for no other purpose than
that, during the instant of its passage, it should be acted upon by
the oxygen contained in the air which is drawn into the lungs in the
act of breathing. But what can happen to the blood in the course of
an exposure of so short duration? Just this--the whole character, the
very colour, of the blood is changed: it enters the lungs spoiled, no
longer capable of sustaining life; it leaves them, a pure and vital
fluid. Now, observe, the blood is only fully oxygenated when the air
contains its full proportion of oxygen, and every breathing and every
burning object withdraws some oxygen from the atmosphere. Hence the
importance of giving the children daily airings and abundant exercise
of limb and lung in unvitiated, unimpoverished air.
=The Children Walk every Day.=--‘The children walk every day; they
are never out less than an hour when the weather is suitable.’ That
is better than nothing; so is this:--An East London school-mistress
notices the pale looks of one of her best girls. “Have you had any
dinner, Nellie?” “Ye-es” (with hesitation). “What have you had?”
“Mother gave Jessie and me a halfpenny to buy our dinners, and we
bought a haporth of aniseed drops--they go further than bread”--with
an appeal in her eyes against possible censure for extravagance.
Children do not develop at their best upon aniseed drops for dinner,
nor upon an hour’s ‘constitutional’ daily. Possibly science will
bring home to us more and more the fact that animal life, pent under
cover, is supported under artificial conditions, just as is plant life
in a glass house. Here is where most Continental nations have the
advantage over us; they keep up the habit of out-of-door life; and as
a consequence, the average Frenchman, German, Italian, Bulgarian, is
more joyous, more simple, and more hardy than the average Englishman.
Climate? Did not Charles II.--and he knew--declare for the climate
of England because you could be abroad “more hours in the day and
more days in the year” in England than “in any other country”? We
lose sight of the fact that we are _not_ like that historical
personage who “lived upon nothing but victuals and drink.” “You can’t
live upon air!” we say to the invalid who can’t eat. No; we cannot
live upon air; but, if we must choose among the three sustainers
of life, air will support us the longest. We know all about it; we
are deadly weary of the subject; let but the tail of your eye catch
‘oxygenation’ on a page, and the well-trained organ skips that
paragraph of its own accord. No need to tell Macaulay’s schoolboy,
or anybody else, how the blood of the body is brought to the lungs
and there spread about in a huge extent of innumerable ‘pipes’ that
it may be exposed momentarily to the oxygen in the air; how the air
is made to blow upon the blood, so spread out in readiness, by the
bellows-like action of breathing; how the air penetrates the very
thin walls of the pipes; and then, behold, a magical (or chemical)
transmutation; the worthless sewage of the system becomes on the
instant the rich vivifying fluid whose function it is to build up the
tissues of muscle and nerve. And the Prospero that wears the cloak?
Oxygen, his name; and the marvel that he effects within us some
fifteen times in the course of a minute is possibly without parallel
in the whole array of marvels which we ‘tot up’ with easy familiarity,
setting down ‘life,’ and carrying--a cypher!
=Oxygen has its Limitations.=--We know all about it; what we forget,
perhaps, is, that even oxygen has its limitation: nothing can act
but where it is, and, waste attends work, hold true for this vital
gas as for other matters. Fire and lamp and breathing beings are all
consumers of the oxygen which sustains them. What follows? Why, that
this element, which is present in the ratio of twenty-three parts to
the hundred in pure air, is subject to an enormous drain within the
four walls of a house, where the air is more or less stationary. I am
not speaking just now of the vitiation of the air--only of the drain
upon its life-sustaining element. Think, again, of the heavy drain
upon the oxygen which must support the multitudinous fires and many
breathing beings congregated in a large town! ‘What follows?’ is a
strictly vital question. Man can enjoy the full measure of vigorous
joyous existence possible to him only when his blood is fully aërated;
and this takes place when the air he inhales contains its full
complement of oxygen. Is it too much to say that vitality is reduced,
other things being equal, in proportion as persons are house-dwellers
rather than open-air dwellers? The impoverished air sustains life at a
low and feeble level; wherefore, in the great towns, stature dwindles,
the chest contracts, men hardly live to see their children’s children.
True, we must needs have houses for shelter from the weather by day
and for rest at night; but in proportion as we cease to make our
houses ‘comfortable,’ as we regard them merely as necessary shelters
when we cannot be out of doors, shall we enjoy to the full the
vigorous vitality possible to us.
=Unchanged Air.=--Parents of pale-faced town children, think of these
things! The gutter children who feed on the pickings of the streets
are better off (and healthier looking) in this one respect than your
cherished darlings, because they have more of the first essential
of life--air. There is some circulation of air even in the slums of
the city, and the child who spends its days in the streets is better
supplied with oxygen than he who spends most of his hours in the
unchanged air of a spacious apartment. But it is not the air of the
streets the children want. It is the delicious life-giving air of the
country. The outlay of the children in living is enormously in excess
of the outlay of the adult. The endless activity of the child, while
it develops muscle, is kept up at the expense of very great waste of
tissue. It is the blood which carries material for the reparation of
this loss. The child must _grow_, every part of him, and it is
the blood which brings material for the building up of new tissues.
Again, we know that the brain is, out of all proportion to its size,
the great consumer of the blood supply, but the brain of the child,
what with its eager activity, what with its twofold growth, is
insatiable in its demands!
‘=I feed Alice on beef tea.=’--‘I feed Alice on beef tea, cod-liver
oil, and all sorts of nourishing things; but it’s very disheartening,
the child doesn’t gain flesh!’ It is probable that Alice breathes
for twenty-two of the twenty-four hours the impoverished and more or
less vitiated air pent within the four walls of a house. The child is
practically starving; for the food she eats is very imperfectly and
inadequately converted into the aërated blood that feeds the tissues
of the body.
And if she is suffering from bodily inanition, what about the eager,
active, curious, hungering mind of the little girl? ‘Oh, she has her
lessons regularly every day.’ Probably: but lessons which deal with
words, only the _signs_ of things, are not what the child wants.
There is no knowledge so appropriate to the early years of a child
as that of the name and look and behaviour _in situ_ of every
natural object he can get at. “He hath so done His marvellous works
that they ought to be had in remembrance.”
“Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown:
This child I to myself will take:
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.
* * * * *
“‘She shall be sportive as the fawn,
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute, insensate things.
* * * * *
“‘The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.’”
=Indoor Airings.=--About out-of-door airings we shall have occasion to
speak more fully; but _indoor_ airings are truly as important,
because, if the tissues be nourished upon impure blood for all
the hours the child spends in the house, the mischief will not be
mended in the shorter intervals spent out of doors. Put two or three
breathing bodies, as well as fire and gas, into a room, and it is
incredible how soon the air becomes vitiated unless it be constantly
renewed; that is, unless the room be well ventilated. We know what
it is to come in out of the fresh air and complain that a room feels
stuffy; but sit in the room a few minutes, and you get accustomed to
its stuffiness; the senses are no longer a safe guide.
=Ventilation.=--Therefore, regular provision must be made for the
ventilation of rooms regardless of the feelings of their inmates:
_at least_ an inch of window open at the top, day and night,
renders a room tolerably safe, because it allows of the escape of the
vitiated air, which, being light, ascends, leaving room for the influx
of colder, fresher air by cracks and crannies in doors and floors. An
open chimney is a useful, though not a sufficient, ventilator; it is
needless to say that the stopping-up of chimneys in sleeping-rooms is
suicidal. It is particularly important to accustom children to sleep
with an inch or two, or more, of open window all through the year--as
much more as you like in the summer.
=Night Air Wholesome.=--There is a popular notion that night air is
unwholesome; but if you reflect that wholesome air is that which
contains its full complement of oxygen, and no more than its very
small complement of carbonic acid gas, and that all _burning_
objects--fire, furnace, gas-lamp--give forth carbonic acid gas
and consume oxygen, you will see that night air is, in ordinary
circumstances, more wholesome than day air, simply because there is a
less exhaustive drain upon its vital gas. When the children are out of
a room which they commonly occupy, day nursery or breakfast-room, then
is the opportunity to air it thoroughly by throwing windows and doors
wide open and producing a thorough draught.
=Sunshine.=--But it is not only air, and pure air, the children
must have if their blood is to be of the ‘finest quality,’ as the
advertisements have it. Quite healthy blood is exceedingly rich in
minute, red disc-like bodies, known as red corpuscles, which in
favourable circumstances are produced freely in the blood itself. Now,
it is observed that people who live much in the sunshine are of a
ruddy countenance--that is, a great many of these red corpuscles are
present in their blood; while the poor souls who live in cellars and
sunless alleys have skins the colour of whity-brown paper. Therefore,
it is concluded that light and sunshine are favourable to the
production of red corpuscles in the blood; and, _therefore_--to
this next ‘therefore’ is but a step for the mother--the children’s
rooms should be on the sunny side of the house, with a south aspect
if possible. Indeed, the whole house should be kept light and bright
for their sakes; trees and outbuildings that obstruct the sunshine and
make the children’s rooms dull should be removed without hesitation.
=Free Perspiration.=--Another point must be attended to, in order
to secure that the brain be nourished by healthy blood. The blood
receives and gets rid of the waste of the tissues, and one of the
most important agents by means of which it does this necessary
scavenger’s work is the skin. Millions of invisible pores perforate
the skin, each the mouth of a minute many-folded tube, and each such
pore is employed without a moment’s cessation, while the body is in
health, in discharging _perspiration_--that is, the waste of the
tissues--upon the skin.
=Insensible Perspiration.=--When the discharge is excessive, we
are aware of moisture upon the skin; but, aware of it or not, the
discharge is always going on; and, what is more, if it be checked, or
if a considerable portion of the skin be glazed, so that it becomes
impervious, death will result. This is why people die in consequence
of scalds or burns which injure a large surface of the skin, although
they do not touch any vital organ; multitudes of minute tubes which
should carry off injurious matters from the blood are closed, and,
though the remaining surface of the skin and the other excretory
organs take extra work upon them, it is impossible to make good the
loss of what may be called efficient drainage over a considerable
area. Therefore, if the brain is to be duly nourished, it is important
to keep the whole surface of the skin in a condition to throw off
freely the excretions of the blood.
=Daily Bath and Porous Garments.=--Two considerations follow: of the
first, the necessity for the daily bath, followed by vigorous rubbing
of the skin, it is needless to say a word here. But possibly it is
not so well understood that children should be clothed throughout
in porous garments which admit of the instant passing off of the
exhalations of the skin. Why did delicate women faint, or, at any
rate, ‘feel faint,’ when it was the custom to go to church in sealskin
coats? Why do people who sleep under down, or even under silk or
cotton quilts, frequently rise unrefreshed? From the one cause: their
coverings have impeded the passage of the insensible perspiration,
and so have hindered the skin in its function of relieving the blood
of impurities. It is surprising what a constant loss of vitality many
people experience from no other cause than the unsuitable character of
their clothing. The children cannot be better dressed throughout than
in loosely woven woollen garments, flannels and serges, of varying
thicknesses for summer and winter wear. Woollens have other advantages
over cotton and linen materials besides that of being porous. Wool is
a bad conductor, and therefore does not allow of the too free escape
of the animal heat; and it is absorbent, and therefore relieves the
skin of the clammy sensations which follow sensible perspiration. We
should be the better for it if we could make up our minds to sleep
in wool, discarding linen or cotton in favour of sheets made of some
lightly woven woollen material.
We might say much on this one question, the due nutrition of the
brain, upon which the very possibility of healthy education depends.
But something will have been effected if the reason why of only two or
three practical rules of health is made so plain that they cannot be
evaded without a sense of law-breaking.
I fear the reader may be inclined to think that I am inviting his
attention for the most part to a few physiological matters--the
lowest round of the educational ladder. The lowest round it may be,
but yet it _is_ the lowest round, the necessary step to all the
rest. For it is not too much to say that, in our present state of
being, intellectual, moral, even spiritual life and progress depend
greatly upon physical conditions. That is to say, not that he who has
a fine physique is necessarily a good and clever man; but that the
good and clever man requires much animal substance to make up for the
expenditure of tissue brought about in the exercise of his virtue
and his intellect. For example, is it easier to be amiable, kindly,
candid, with or without a headache or an attack of neuralgia?
VII.--‘THE REIGN OF LAW’ IN EDUCATION
=Common Sense and Good Intentions.=--Besides, though this physical
culture of the brain may be only the groundwork of education, the
method of it indicates what should be the method of all education;
that is, orderly, regulated progress under the guidance of Law. The
reason why education effects so much less than it should effect is
just this--that in nine cases out of ten, sensible good parents trust
too much to their common sense and their good intentions, forgetting
that common sense must be at the pains to instruct itself in the
nature of the case, and that well-intended efforts come to little if
they are not carried on in obedience to divine laws, to be read in
many cases, not in the Bible, but in the facts of life.
=Law-abiding Lives often more blameless than Pious Lives.=--It is a
shame to believing people that many whose highest profession is that
they do not know, and therefore do _not_ believe, should produce
more blameless lives, freer from flaws of temper, from the vice of
selfishness, than do many sincerely religious people. It is a fact
that will confront the children by-and-by, and one of which they will
require an explanation; and what is more, it is a fact that will have
more weight, should it confront them in the person of a character
which they cannot but esteem and love, than all the doctrinal teaching
they have had in their lives. This appears to me the threatening
danger to that confessed dependence upon and allegiance to Almighty
God which we recognise as religion--not the wickedness, but the
_goodness_ of a school which refuses to admit any such dependence
and allegiance.
My sense of this danger is my reason for offering the little I have to
say upon the subject of education,--my sense of the danger, and the
assurance I feel that it is no such great danger after all, but one
that parents of the cultivated class are competent to deal with, and
are precisely the only persons who _can_ deal with it.
=‘Mind’ and ‘Matter’ equally governed by Law.=--As for this superior
morality of some non-believers, supposing we grant it, what does it
amount to? Just to this, that the universe of mind, as the universe of
matter, is governed by unwritten laws of God; that the child cannot
blow soap-bubbles or think his flitting thoughts otherwise than in
obedience to divine laws; that all safety, progress, and success
in life come of obedience to law, to the laws of mental, moral,
or physical science, or of that spiritual science which the Bible
unfolds; that it is possible to ascertain laws and keep laws without
recognising the Lawgiver, and that those who do ascertain and keep
_any_ divine law inherit the blessing due to obedience, whatever
be their attitude towards the Lawgiver; just as the man who goes out
into blazing sunshine is warmed, though he may shut his eyes and
decline to see the sun. Conversely, that they who take no pains to
study the principles which govern human action and human thought miss
the blessings of obedience to certain laws, though they may inherit
the better blessings which come of acknowledged relationship with the
Lawgiver.
=Antagonism to Law shown by some Religious Persons.=--These last
blessings are so unspeakably satisfying, that often enough the
believer who enjoys them wants no more. He opens his mouth and draws
in his breath for the delight he has in the law, it is true; but it
is the law of the spiritual life only. Towards the other laws of
God which govern the universe he sometimes takes up an attitude of
antagonism, almost of resistance, worthy of an infidel. It is nothing
to him that he is fearfully and wonderfully made; he does not care
to know how the brain works, nor how the more subtle essence we call
mind evolves and develops in obedience to laws. There are pious minds
to which a desire to look into these things savours of unbelief, as
if it were to dishonour the Almighty to perceive that He carries
on His glorious works by means of glorious laws. They will have to
do with no laws excepting the laws of the kingdom of grace. In the
meantime, the non-believer, who looks for no supernatural aids, lays
himself out to discover and conform to all the laws which regulate
natural life--physical, mental, moral; all the laws of God, in fact,
excepting those of the spiritual life which the believer appropriates
as his peculiar inheritance. But these laws which are left to Esau are
laws of God also, and the observance of them is attended with such
blessings, that the children of the believers say, “Look, how is it
that these who do not acknowledge the Law as of God are better than we
who do?”
=Parents must acquaint themselves with the Principles of Physiology
and Moral Science.=--Now, believing parents have no right to lay up
this crucial difficulty for their children. They have no right, for
instance, to pray that their children may be made truthful, diligent,
upright, and at the same time neglect to acquaint themselves with
those principles of moral science the observance of which will guide
into truthfulness, diligence, and uprightness of character. For this,
also, is the law of God. Observe, not into the knowledge of God, the
thing best worth living for: no mental science, and no moral science,
is pledged to reveal that. What I contend for is, that these sciences
have their part to play in the education of the human race, and that
the parent may not disregard them with impunity. My endeavour in this
and the following volumes of the series will be to sketch out roughly
a method of education which, as resting upon a basis of natural
law, may look, without presumption, to inherit the Divine blessing.
Any sketch I can offer in this short compass must be very imperfect
and very incomplete; but a hint here and there may be enough to put
intelligent parents on profitable lines of thinking with regard to the
education of their children.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Herbert Spencer, _Education_. Some particulars of the books
referred to in this volume will be found in Appendix A.
PART II
OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE FOR THE CHILDREN
I.--A GROWING TIME
=Meals out of Doors.=--People who live in the country know the value
of fresh air very well, and their children live out of doors, with
intervals within for sleeping and eating. As to the latter, even
country people do not make full use of their opportunities. On fine
days when it is warm enough to sit out with wraps, why should not tea
and breakfast, everything but a hot dinner, be served out of doors?
For we are an overwrought generation, running to nerves as a cabbage
runs to seed; and every hour spent in the open is a clear gain,
tending to the increase of brain power and bodily vigour, and to the
lengthening of life itself. They who know what it is to have fevered
skin and throbbing brain deliciously soothed by the cool touch of the
air are inclined to make a new rule of life, “Never be within doors
when you can _rightly_ be without.”
Besides the gain of an hour or two in the open air, there is this to
be considered: meals taken _al fresco_ are usually joyous, and
there is nothing like gladness for converting meat and drink into
healthy blood and tissue. All the time, too, the children are storing
up memories of a happy childhood. Fifty years hence they will see the
shadows of the boughs making patterns on the white tablecloth; and
sunshine, children’s laughter, hum of bees, and scent of flowers are
being bottled up for after refreshment.
=For Dwellers in Towns and Suburbs.=--But it is only the people who
live, so to speak, in their own gardens who can make a practice of
giving their children tea out of doors. For the rest of us, and
the most of us, who live in towns or the suburbs of towns, that is
included in the larger question--How much time daily in the open air
should the children have? and how is it possible to secure this for
them? In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social,
perhaps a mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them
a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life,
the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air.
And this, not for the gain in bodily health alone--body and soul,
heart and mind, are nourished with food convenient for them when the
children are let alone, let to live without friction and without
stimulus amongst happy influences which incline them to be good.
=Possibilities of a Day in the Open.=--‘I make a point,’ says a
judicious mother, ‘of sending my children out, weather permitting,
for an hour in the winter, and two hours a day in the summer months.’
That is well; but it is not enough. In the first place, do not send
them; if it is anyway possible, take them; for, although the children
should be left much to themselves, there is a great deal to be done
and a great deal to be prevented during these long hours in the open
air. And long hours they should be; not two, but four, five, or six
hours they should have on every tolerably fine day, from April till
October. ‘Impossible!’ says an over-wrought mother who sees her way
to no more for her children than a daily hour or so on the pavements
of the neighbouring London squares. Let me repeat, that I venture to
suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to
me _absolutely best for the children_; and that, in the faith
that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are
demanded of them. A journey of twenty minutes by rail or omnibus, and
a luncheon basket, will make a day in the country possible to most
town-dwellers; and if one day, why not many, even every suitable day?
Supposing we have got them, what is to be done with these golden
hours, so that every one shall be delightful? They must be spent with
some method, or the mother will be taxed and the children bored.
There is a great deal to be accomplished in this large fraction of
the children’s day. They must be kept in a joyous temper all the time,
or they will miss some of the strengthening and refreshing held in
charge for them by the blessed air. They must be let alone, left to
themselves a great deal, to take in what they can of the beauty of
earth and heavens; for of the evils of modern education few are worse
than this--that the perpetual cackle of his elders leaves the poor
child not a moment of time, nor an inch of space, wherein to
wonder--and grow. At the same time, here is the mother’s opportunity
to train the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and to drop seeds of truth
into the open soul of the child, which shall germinate, blossom, and
bear fruit, without further help or knowledge of hers. Then, there is
much to be got by perching in a tree or nestling in heather, but
muscular development comes of more active ways, and an hour or two
should be spent in vigorous play; and last, and truly least, a lesson
or two must be got in.
=No Story-Books.=--Let us suppose mother and children arrived at
some breezy open “wherein it seemeth always afternoon.” In the first
place, it is _not_ her business to entertain the little people:
there should be no story-books, no telling of tales, as little talk
as possible, and that to some purpose. Who thinks to amuse children
with tale or talk at a circus or a pantomime? And here, is there not
infinitely more displayed for their delectation? Our wise mother,
arrived, first sends the children to let off their spirits in a wild
scamper, with cry, halloo, and hullaballoo, and any extravagance that
comes into their young heads. There is no distinction between big and
little; the latter love to follow in the wake of their elders, and, in
lessons or play, to pick up and do according to their little might. As
for the baby, he is in bliss: divested of his garments, he kicks and
crawls, and clutches the grass, laughs soft baby laughter, and takes
in his little knowledge of shapes and properties in his own wonderful
fashion--clothed in a woollen gown, long and loose, which is none the
worse for the worst usage it may get.
II.--‘SIGHT-SEEING’
By-and-by the others come back to their mother, and, while wits
are fresh and eyes keen, she sends them off on an exploring
expedition--Who can see the most, and tell the most, about yonder
hillock or brook, hedge or copse. This is an exercise that delights
children, and may be endlessly varied, carried on in the spirit of a
game, and yet with the exactness and carefulness of a lesson.
=How to See.=--‘Find out all you can about that cottage at the foot
of the hill; but do not pry about too much.’ Soon they are back, and
there is a crowd of excited faces, and a hubbub of tongues, and random
observations are shot breathlessly into the mother’s ear. ‘There are
bee-hives.’ ‘We saw a lot of bees going into one.’ ‘There is a long
garden.’ ‘Yes, and there are sunflowers in it.’ ‘And hen-and-chicken
daisies and pansies.’ ‘And there’s a great deal of a pretty blue
flower with rough leaves, mother; what do you suppose it is?’ ‘Borage
for the bees, most likely; they are very fond of it.’ ‘Oh, and there
are apple and pear and plum trees on one side; there’s a little path
up the middle, you know.’ ‘On which hand side are the fruit trees?’
‘The right--no, the left; let me see, which is my thimble-hand? Yes,
it is the right-hand side.’ ‘And there are potatoes and cabbages,
and mint and things on the other side.’ ‘Where are the flowers,
then?’ ‘Oh, they are just the borders, running down each side of the
path.’ ‘But we have not told mother about the wonderful apple tree;
I should think there are a million apples on it, all ripe and rosy!’
‘A _million_, Fanny?’ ‘Well, a great many, mother; I don’t know
how many.’ And so on, indefinitely; the mother getting by degrees a
complete description of the cottage and its garden.
=Educational Uses of ‘Sight-seeing.’=--This is all play to the
children, but the mother is doing invaluable work; she is training
their powers of observation and expression, increasing their
vocabulary and their range of ideas by giving them the name and the
uses of an object at the right moment,--when they ask, ‘What is it?’
and ‘What is it for?’ And she is training her children in truthful
habits, by making them careful to see the fact and to state it
exactly, without omission or exaggeration. The child who describes, ‘A
tall tree, going up into a point, with rather roundish leaves; not a
pleasant tree for shade, because the branches all go up,’ deserves to
learn the name of the tree, and anything her mother has to tell her
about it. But the little bungler, who fails to make it clear whether
he is describing an elm or a beech, should get no encouragement; not
a foot should his mother move to see his tree, no coaxing should draw
her into talk about it, until, in despair, he goes off, and comes back
with some more certain note--rough or smooth bark, rough or smooth
leaves,--then the mother considers, pronounces, and, full of glee, he
carries her off to see for herself.
=Discriminating Observation.=--By degrees the children will learn
_discriminatingly_ every feature of the landscapes with which
they are familiar; and think what a delightful possession for old age
and middle life is a series of pictures imaged, feature by feature,
in the sunny glow of a child’s mind! The miserable thing about the
childish recollections of most persons is that they are blurred,
distorted, incomplete, no more pleasant to look upon than a fractured
cup or a torn garment; and the reason is, not that the old scenes are
forgotten, but that they were never fully _seen_. At the time,
there was no more than a hazy impression that such and such objects
were present, and naturally, after a lapse of years, those features
can rarely be recalled of which the child was not _cognisant_
when he saw them before him.
III.--‘PICTURE-PAINTING’
=Method of.=--So exceedingly delightful is this faculty of taking
mental photographs, exact images, of the ‘beauties of Nature’ we go
about the world for the refreshment of seeing, that it is worth while
to exercise children in another way towards this end, bearing in mind,
however, that they see the near and the minute, but can only be made
with an effort to look at the wide and the distant. Get the children
to look well at some patch of landscape, and then to shut their eyes
and call up the picture before them; if any bit of it is blurred, they
had better look again. When they have a perfect image before their
eyes, let them say what they see. Thus: ‘I see a pond; it is shallow
on this side, but deep on the other; trees come to the water’s edge on
that side, and you can see their green leaves and branches so plainly
in the water that you would think there was a wood underneath. Almost
touching the trees in the water is a bit of blue sky with a soft white
cloud; and when you look up you see that same little cloud, but with
a great deal of sky instead of a patch, because there are no trees
up there. There are lovely yellow water-lilies round the far edge of
the pond, and two or three of the big round leaves are turned up like
sails. Near where I am standing three cows have come to drink, and one
has got far into the water, nearly up to her neck,’ etc.
=Strain on the Attention.=--This, too, is an exercise children
delight in, but, as it involves some strain on the attention, it is
fatiguing, and should only be employed now and then. It is, however,
well worth while to give children the habit of getting a bit of
landscape by heart in this way, because it is the effort of recalling
and reproducing that is fatiguing; while the altogether pleasurable
act of seeing, _fully and in detail_, is likely to be repeated
unconsciously until it becomes a habit by the child who is required
now and then to reproduce what he sees.
=Seeing Fully and in Detail.=--At first the children will want a
little help in the art of seeing. The mother will say, ‘Look at the
reflection of the trees! There might be a wood under the water.
What do those standing-up leaves remind you of?’ and so on, until
the children have noticed the salient points of the scene. She will
even herself learn off two or three scenes, and describe them with
closed eyes for the children’s amusement; and such little mimics are
they, and at the same time so sympathetic, that any graceful fanciful
touch which she throws into her descriptions will be reproduced with
variations in theirs.
The children will delight in this game of ‘picture-painting’ all
the more if the mother introduce it by describing some great
picture-gallery she has seen--pictures of mountains, of moors, of
stormy seas, of ploughed fields, of little children at play, of an old
woman knitting,--and goes on to say, that though she does not paint
her pictures on canvas and have them put in frames, she carries about
with her just such a picture-gallery; for whenever she sees anything
lovely or interesting, she looks at it until she has the picture in
her ‘mind’s eye’; and then she carries it away with her, her own for
ever, a picture ‘on view’ just when she wants it.
=A Means of After-Solace and Refreshment.=--It would be difficult to
overrate this habit of seeing and storing as a means of after-solace
and refreshment. The busiest of us have holidays when we slip our
necks out of the yoke and come face to face with Nature, to be healed
and blessed by--
“The breathing balm,
The silence and the calm
Of mute, insensate things.”
This immediate refreshment is open to everybody according to his
measure; but it is a mistake to suppose that everybody is able to
carry away a refreshing image of that which gives him delight. Only a
few can say with Wordsworth, of scenes they have visited--
“Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye;
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration.”
And yet this is no high poetic gift which the rest of us must be
content to admire, but a common reward for taking pains in the act of
seeing which parents may do a great deal to confer upon their children.
The mother must beware how she spoils the simplicity, the
_objective_ character of the child’s enjoyment, by treating his
little descriptions as feats of cleverness to be repeated to his
father or to visitors; she had better make a vow to suppress herself,
‘to say nothing to nobody,’ in his presence at any rate, though the
child should show himself a born poet.
IV.--FLOWERS AND TREES
=Children should know Field-crops.=--In the course of this
‘sight-seeing’ and ‘picture-painting,’ opportunities will occur
to make the children familiar with rural objects and employments.
If there are farm-lands within reach, they should know meadow and
pasture, clover, turnip, and corn field, under every aspect, from the
ploughing of the land to the getting in of the crops.
=Field Flowers and the Life-History of Plants.=--Milkwort, eyebright,
rest-harrow, lady’s-bedstraw, willow-herb, every wild flower that
grows in their neighbourhood, they should know quite well; should be
able to describe the leaf--its shape, size, growing from the root or
from the stem; the manner of flowering--a head of flowers, a single
flower, a spike, etc. And, having made the acquaintance of a wild
flower, so that they can never forget it or mistake it, they should
examine the spot where they find it, so that they will know for the
future in what sort of ground to look for such and such a flower. ‘We
should find wild thyme here!’ ‘Oh, this is the very spot for marsh
marigolds; we must come here in the spring.’ If the mother is no
great botanist, she will find Miss Ann Pratt’s _Wild Flowers_[3]
very useful, with its coloured plates, like enough to identify the
flowers by, common English names, and pleasant facts and fancies that
the children delight in. To make collections of wild flowers for
the several months, press them, and mount them neatly on squares of
cartridge paper, with the English name, habitat, and date of finding
of each, affords much happy occupation and, at the same time, much
useful training: better still is it to accustom children to make
careful brush drawings of the flowers that interest them, of the whole
plant where possible.
=The Study of Trees.=--Children should be made early intimate with
the trees, too; should pick out half a dozen trees, oak, elm, ash,
beech, in their winter nakedness, and take these to be their yearlong
friends. In the winter, they will observe the light tresses of the
birch, the knotted arms of the oak, the sturdy growth of the sycamore.
They may wait to learn the names of the trees until the leaves come.
By-and-by, as the spring advances, behold a general stiffening and
look of life in the still bare branches; life stirs in the beautiful
mystery of the leaf-buds, a nest of delicate baby-leaves lying in
downy warmth within many waterproof wrappings; oak and elm, beech
and birch, each has its own way of folding and packing its leaflets;
observe the ‘ruby-budded lime’ and the ash, with its pretty stag’s
foot of a bud, not green but black--
“More black than ash-buds in the front of March.”
=The Seasons should be followed.=--But it is hard to keep pace with
the wonders that unfold themselves in ‘the bountiful season, bland.’
There are the dangling catkins and the little ruby-red pistillate
flowers of the hazel--clusters of flowers, both of them, two sorts
on a single tree; and the downy staminate catkins of the willow; and
the festive breaking out of all the trees into lovely leafage; the
learning the patterns of the leaves as they come out, and the naming
of the trees from this and other signs. Then the flowers come, each
shut up tight in the dainty casket we call a bud, as cunningly wrapped
as the leaves in their buds, but less carefully guarded, for these
‘sweet nurslings’ delay their coming for the most part until earth has
a warm bed to offer, and the sun a kindly welcome.
=Leigh Hunt on Flowers.=--“Suppose,” says Leigh Hunt, “suppose flowers
themselves were new! Suppose they had just come into the world, a
sweet reward for some new goodness.... Imagine what we should feel
when we saw the first lateral stem bearing off from the main one, and
putting forth a leaf. How we should watch the leaf gradually unfolding
its little graceful hand; then another, then another; then the main
stalk rising and producing more; then one of them giving indications
of the astonishing novelty--a bud! then this mysterious bud gradually
unfolding like the leaf, amazing us, enchanting us, almost alarming us
with delight, as if we knew not what enchantment were to ensue, till
at length, in all its fairy beauty, and odorous voluptuousness, and
mysterious elaboration of tender and living sculpture, shines forth
the blushing flower.” The _flowers_, it is true, are not new;
but the _children_ are; and it is the fault of their elders if
every new flower they come upon is not to them a _Picciola_, a
mystery of beauty to be watched from day to day with unspeakable awe
and delight.
Meanwhile, we have lost sight of those half-dozen forest-trees which
the children have taken into a sort of comradeship for the year.
Presently they have the delight of discovering that the great trees
have flowers, too, flowers very often of the same hue as their leaves,
and that some trees put off having their leaves until their flowers
have come and gone. By-and-by there is the fruit, and the discovery
that every tree--with exceptions which they need not learn yet--and
every plant bears fruit, ‘fruit and seed after his kind.’ All this
is stale knowledge to older people, but one of the secrets of the
educator is to present nothing as stale knowledge, but to put himself
in the position of the child, and wonder and admire with him; for
every common miracle which the child sees with his own eyes makes of
him for the moment another Newton.
=Calendars.=--It is a capital plan for children to keep a
calendar--the first oak-leaf, the first tadpole, the first cowslip,
the first catkin, the first ripe blackberries, where seen, and when.
The next year they will know when and where to look out for their
favourites, and will, every year, be in a condition to add new
observations. Think of the zest and interest, the _object_, which
such a practice will give to daily walks and little excursions. There
is hardly a day when some friend may not be expected to hold a first
‘At Home.’
=Nature-Diaries.=--As soon as he is able to keep it himself, a
nature-diary is a source of delight to a child. Every day’s walk
gives him something to enter: three squirrels in a larch tree, a jay
flying across such a field, a caterpillar climbing up a nettle, a
snail eating a cabbage leaf, a spider dropping suddenly to the ground,
where he found ground ivy, how it was growing and what plants were
growing with it, how bindweed or ivy manages to climb. Innumerable
matters to record occur to the intelligent child. While he is quite
young (five or six), he should begin to illustrate his notes freely
with brush-drawings; he should have a little help at first in mixing
colours, in the way of principles, not directions. He should not be
told to use now this and now that, but, ‘we get purple by mixing so
and so,’ and then he should be left to himself to get the right tint.
As for drawing, instruction has no doubt its time and place; but his
nature-diary should be left to his own initiative. A child of six will
produce a dandelion, poppy, daisy, iris with its leaves, impelled
by the desire to represent what he sees, with surprising vigour and
correctness.
An exercise book[4] with stiff covers serves for a nature-diary, but
care is necessary in choosing paper that answers both for writing and
brush-drawing.
‘=I can’t stop thinking.=’--‘But I can’t stop thinking; I can’t make
my mind sit down!’ Poor little girl! All children owe you thanks for
giving voice to their dumb woes. And we grown-up people have so little
imagination, that we send a little boy with an over-active brain to
play by himself in the garden in order to escape the fag of lessons.
Little we know how the brain-people swarm in and out and rush about!
“The human (brain) is like a millstone, turning ever round and round;
If it have nothing else to grind, it must itself be ground.”
Set the child to definite work by all means, and give him something to
grind. But, pray, let him work with things and not with signs--the
things of Nature in their own places, meadow and hedgerow, woods and
shore.
V.--‘LIVING CREATURES’
=A Field of Interest and Delight.=--Then, as for the ‘living
creatures,’ here is a field of unbounded interest and delight. The
domesticated animals are soon taken into kindly fellowship by the
little people. Perhaps they live too far from the ‘real country’
for squirrels and wild rabbits to be more to them than a dream of
possible delights. But surely there is a pond within reach--by road
or rail--where tadpoles may be caught, and carried home in a bottle,
fed, and watched through all their changes--fins disappearing, tails
getting shorter and shorter, until at last there is no tail at all,
and a pretty pert little frog looks you in the face. Turn up any
chance stone, and you may come upon a colony of ants. We have always
known that it becomes us to consider their ways and be wise; but now,
think of all Lord Avebury has told us to make that twelve-year-old ant
of his acquaintance quite a personage. Then, there are the bees. Some
of us may have heard the late Dean Farrar describe that lesson he was
present at, on ‘How doth the little busy bee’--the teacher bright, but
the children not responsive; they took no interest at all in little
busy bees. He suspected the reason, and questioning the class, found
that not one of them had ever seen a bee. ‘Had never seen a bee! Think
for a moment,’ said he, ‘of how much that implies’; and then we were
moved by an eloquent picture of the sad child-life from which bees
and birds and flowers are all shut out. But how many children are
there who do not live in the slums of London, and yet are unable to
distinguish a bee from a wasp, or even a ‘humble’ from a honey-bee!
=Children should be encouraged to Watch.=--Children should be
encouraged to _watch_, patiently and quietly, until they learn
something of the habits and history of bee, ant, wasp, spider, hairy
caterpillar, dragon-fly, and whatever of larger growth comes in
their way. ‘The creatures never have any habits while I am looking!’
a little girl in some story-book is made to complain: but that was
her fault; the bright keen eyes with which children are blest were
made to see, and see into, the doings of creatures too small for
the unaided observation of older people. Ants may be brought under
home observation in the following way:--Get two pieces of glass 1
foot square, three strips of glass 11½ inches long, and one strip
11 inches long, these all ¼ inch wide. The glass must be carefully
cut so as to fit exactly. Place the four strips of glass upon one
of the sheets of glass and fix in an exact square, leaving a ½ inch
opening, with seccotine or any good fixer. Get from an ant-hill about
twelve ants (the yellow ants are best, as the red are inclined to be
quarrelsome), a few eggs, and one queen. The queen will be quite twice
as large as an ordinary ant, and so can be easily seen. Take some
of the earth of the ant-hill. Put the earth with your ants and eggs
upon the sheet of glass and fix the other sheet above, leaving only
the small hole in one corner, made by the shorter strip, which should
be stopped with a bit of cotton-wool. The ants will be restless for
perhaps forty-eight hours, but will then begin to settle and arrange
the earth. Remove the wool plug once a week, and replace it after
putting two or three drops of honey on it. Once in three weeks remove
the plug to drop in with a syringe about ten drops of water. This will
not be necessary in the winter while the ants are asleep. This ‘nest’
will last for years.
With regard to the horror which some children show of beetle, spider,
worm, that is usually a trick picked up from grown-up people.
Kingsley’s children would run after their ‘daddy’ with a ‘delicious
worm,’ a ‘lovely toad,’ a ‘sweet beetle’ carried tenderly in both
hands. There are real antipathies not to be overcome, such as
Kingsley’s own horror of a spider; but children who are accustomed to
hold and admire caterpillars and beetles from their babyhood will not
give way to affected horrors. The child who spends an hour in watching
the ways of some new ‘grub’ he has come upon will be a man of mark
yet. Let all he finds out about it be entered in his diary--by his
mother, if writing be a labour to him,--where he finds it, what it is
doing, or seems to him to be doing; its colour, shape, legs: some day
he will come across the name of the creature, and will recognise the
description of an old friend.
=The Force of Public Opinion in the Home.=--Some children are born
naturalists, with a bent inherited, perhaps, from an unknown ancestor;
but every child has a natural interest in the living things about him
which it is the business of his parents to encourage; for, but few
children are equal to holding their own in the face of public opinion;
and if they see that the things which interest them are indifferent
or disgusting to you, their pleasure in them vanishes, and that
chapter in the book of Nature is closed to them. It is likely that
the _Natural History of Selborne_ would never have been written
had it not been that the naturalist’s father used to take his boys on
daily foraging expeditions, when not a moving or growing thing, not
a pebble nor a boulder within miles of Selborne, escaped their eager
examination. Audubon, the American ornithologist, is another instance
of the effect of this kind of early training. “When I had hardly
learned to walk,” he says, “and to articulate those first words always
so endearing to parents, the productions of Nature that lay spread
all around were constantly pointed out to me.... My father generally
accompanied my steps, procured birds and flowers for me, and pointed
out the elegant movements of the former, the beauty and softness of
their plumage, the manifestations of their pleasure, or their sense
of danger, and the always perfect forms and splendid attire of the
latter. He would speak of the departure and return of the birds with
the season, describe their haunts, and, more wonderful than all, their
change of livery, thus exciting me to study them, and to raise my mind
towards their great Creator.”
=What Town Children can Do.=--Town children may get a great deal of
pleasure in watching the ways of sparrows--knowing little birds, and
easily tamed by a dole of crumbs,--and their days out will bring them
in the way of new acquaintances. But much may be done with sparrows. A
friend writes:--“Have you seen the man in the gardens of the Tuileries
feeding and talking to dozens of them? They sit on his hat, his hands,
and feed from his fingers. When he raises his arms they all flutter up
and then settle again on him and round him. I have watched him call a
sparrow from a distance by name and refuse food to all others till
‘_petit chou_,’ a pretty pied sparrow, came for his destined
bit. Others had their names and came at call, but I could not see
any distinguishing feature; and the crowd of sparrows on the walk,
benches and railing, formed a most attentive audience to the bright
French talk which kept them in constant motion as they were, here one
and there another, invited to come for a tempting morsel. Truly a St
Francis and the birds!”
The child who does not know the portly form and spotted breast of the
thrush, the graceful flight of the swallow, the yellow bill of the
blackbird, the gush of song which the skylark pours from above, is
nearly as much to be pitied as those London children who ‘had never
seen a bee.’ A pleasant acquaintance, easy to pick up, is the hairy
caterpillar. The moment to seize him is when he is seen shuffling
along the ground in a great hurry; he is on the lookout for quiet
quarters in which to lie up: put him in a box, then, and cover the
box with net, through which you may watch his operations. Food does
not matter--he has other things to attend to. By-and-by he spins a
sort of white tent or hammock, into which he retires; you may see
through it and watch him, perhaps at the very moment when his skin
splits asunder, leaving him, for months to come, an egg-shaped mass
without any sign of life. At last the living thing within breaks out
of this bundle, and there it is, the handsome tiger-moth, fluttering
feeble wings against the net. Most children of six have had this
taste of a naturalist’s experience, and it is worth speaking of
only because, instead of being merely a harmless amusement, it is a
valuable piece of education, of more use to the child than the reading
of a whole book of natural history, or much geography and Latin. For
the evil is, that children get their knowledge of natural history,
like all their knowledge, at second hand. They are so sated with
wonders, that nothing surprises them; and they are so little used to
see for themselves, that nothing interests them. The cure for this
_blasé_ condition is, to let them alone for a bit, and then begin
on new lines. Poor children, it is no fault of theirs if they are not
as they were meant to be--curious eager little souls, all agog to
explore so much of this wonderful world as they can get at, as quite
their first business in life.
“He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
=Nature Knowledge the most important for Young Children.=--It would
be well if all we persons in authority, parents and all who act for
parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge
to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which
they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get
in touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of
delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his
degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the
marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.
=Mental Training of a Child Naturalist.=--Consider, too, what an
unequalled mental training the child-naturalist is getting for
any study or calling under the sun--the powers of attention, of
discrimination, of patient pursuit, growing with his growth, what will
they not fit him for? Besides, life is so interesting to him, that he
has no time for the faults of temper which generally have their source
in _ennui_; there is no reason why he should be peevish or sulky
or obstinate when he is always kept well amused.
=Nature Work especially valuable for Girls.=--I say ‘he’ from force
of habit, as speaking of the representative sex, but truly that
_she_ should be thus conversant with Nature is a matter of
infinitely more importance to the little girl: she it is who is most
tempted to indulge in ugly tempers (as child and woman) because time
hangs heavy on her hands; she, whose idler, more desultory habits of
mind want the spur and the bridle of an earnest absorbing pursuit;
whose feebler health demands to be braced by an out-of-door life full
of healthy excitement. Moreover, it is to the girls, little and big, a
most true kindness to lift them out of themselves and out of the round
of petty personal interests and emulations which too often hem in
their lives; and then, with whom but the girls must it rest to mould
the generations yet to be born?
VI.--FIELD-LORE AND NATURALISTS’ BOOKS
=Reverence for Life.=--Is it advisable, then, to teach the children
the elements of natural science, of biology, botany, zoology? On the
whole, no: the dissection even of a flower is painful to a sensitive
child, and, during the first six or eight years of life, I would not
teach them any botany which should necessitate the pulling of flowers
to bits; much less should they be permitted to injure or destroy any
(not noxious) form of animal life. Reverence for _life_, as a
wonderful and awful gift, which a ruthless child may destroy but never
can restore, is a lesson of first importance to the child:--
“Let knowledge grow from more to more;
But more of _reverence_ in us dwell.”
The child who sees his mother with reverent touch lift an early
snowdrop to her lips, learns a higher lesson than the ‘print-books’
can teach. Years hence, when the children are old enough to understand
that science itself is in a sense sacred and demands some sacrifices,
all the ‘common information’ they have been gathering until then, and
the habits of observation they have acquired, will form a capital
groundwork for a scientific education. In the meantime, let them
_consider_ the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air.
=Rough Classification at First Hand.=--For convenience in describing
they should be able to name and distinguish petals, sepals, and so
on; and they should be encouraged to make such rough classifications
as they can with their slight knowledge of both animal and vegetable
forms. Plants with heart-shaped or spoon-shaped leaves, with whole or
divided leaves; leaves with criss-cross veins and leaves with straight
veins; bell-shaped flowers and cross-shaped flowers; flowers with
three petals, with four, with five; trees which keep their leaves
all the year, and trees which lose them in the autumn; creatures
with a backbone and creatures without; creatures that eat grass and
creatures that eat flesh, and so on. To make collections of leaves and
flowers, pressed and mounted, and arranged according to their form,
affords much pleasure, and, what is better, valuable training in the
noticing of differences and resemblances. Patterns for this sort of
classification of leaves and flowers will be found in every little
book of elementary botany.
The power to classify, discriminate, distinguish between things that
differ, is amongst the highest faculties of the human intellect,
and no opportunity to cultivate it should be let slip; but a
classification got out of books, that the child does not make for
himself and is not able to verify for himself, cultivates no power but
that of verbal memory, and a phrase or two of ‘Tamil’ or other unknown
tongue, learnt off, would serve that purpose just as well.
=Uses of ‘Naturalists’ Books.=--The real use of naturalists’ books
at this stage is to give the child delightful glimpses into the
world of wonders he lives in, to reveal the sort of things to be
seen by curious eyes, and fill him with desire to make discoveries
for himself. There are many[5] to be had, all pleasant reading, many
of them written by scientific men, and yet requiring little or no
scientific knowledge for their enjoyment.
=Mothers and Teachers should know about Nature.=--The mother cannot
devote herself too much to this kind of reading, not only that she may
read tit-bits to her children about matters they have come across,
but that she may be able to answer their queries and direct their
observation. And not only the mother, but any woman, who is likely
ever to spend an hour or two in the society of children, should make
herself mistress of this sort of information; the children will adore
her for knowing what they want to know, and who knows but she may give
its bent for life to some young mind destined to do great things for
the world.
VII.--THE CHILD GETS KNOWLEDGE BY MEANS
OF HIS SENSES
=Nature’s Teaching.=--Watch a child standing at gaze at some sight
new to him--a plough at work, for instance--and you will see he is
as naturally occupied as is a babe at the breast; he is, in fact,
taking in the _intellectual_ food which the working faculty of
his brain at this period requires. In his early years the child is all
eyes; he observes, or, more truly, he perceives, calling sight, touch,
taste, smell, and hearing to his aid, that he may learn all that is
discoverable by him about every new thing that comes under his notice.
Everybody knows how a baby fumbles over with soft little fingers, and
carries to his mouth, and bangs that it may produce what sound there
is in it, the spoon or doll which supercilious grown-up people give
him to ‘keep him quiet.’ The child is at his lessons, and is learning
all about it at a rate utterly surprising to the physiologist, who
considers how much is implied in the act of ‘seeing,’ for instance:
that to the infant, as to the blind adult restored to sight, there is
at first no difference between a flat picture and a solid body,--that
the ideas of form and solidity are not obtained by sight at all, but
are the judgments of experience. Then, think of the vague passes in
the air the little fist makes before it lays hold of the object of
desire, and you see how he learns the whereabouts of things, having as
yet no idea of direction. And why does he cry for the moon? Why does
he crave equally, a horse or a house-fly as an appropriate plaything?
Because far and near, large and small, are ideas he has yet to grasp.
The child has truly a great deal to do before he is in a condition to
‘believe his own eyes’; but Nature teaches so gently, so gradually, so
persistently, that he is never overdone, but goes on gathering little
stores of knowledge about whatever comes before him.
And this is the process the child should continue for the first few
years of his life. Now is the storing time which should be spent
in laying up images of things familiar. By-and-by he will have to
_conceive_ of things he has never seen: how can he do it except
by comparison with things he has seen and knows? By-and-by he will
be called upon to reflect, understand, reason; what material will he
have, unless he has a magazine of facts to go upon? The child who has
been made to observe how high in the heavens the sun is at noon on
a summer’s day, how low at noon on a day in mid-winter, is able to
_conceive_ of the great heat of the tropics under a vertical sun,
and to _understand_ that the climate of a place depends greatly
upon the mean height the sun reaches above the horizon.
=Overpressure.=--A great deal has been said lately about the danger of
overpressure, of requiring too much mental work from a child of tender
years. The danger exists; but lies, not in giving the child too much,
but in giving him the wrong thing to do, the sort of work for which
the present state of his mental development does not fit him. Who
expects a boy in petticoats to lift half a hundredweight? But give the
child work that Nature intended for him, and the quantity he can get
through with ease is practically unlimited. Whoever saw a child tired
of seeing, of examining in his own way, unfamiliar things? This is the
sort of mental nourishment for which he has an unbounded appetite,
because it is that food of the mind on which, for the present, he is
meant to grow.
=Object Lessons.=--Now, how far is this craving for natural sustenance
met? In infant and kindergarten schools, by the object lesson, which
is good so far as it goes, but is sometimes like that bean a day on
which the Frenchman fed his horse. The child at home has more new
things brought under his notice, if with less method. Neither at home
nor at school is much effort made to set before the child the abundant
‘feast of eyes’ which his needs demand.
=A Child learns from ‘Things.’=--We older people, partly because of
our maturer intellect, partly because of our defective education,
get most of our knowledge through the medium of words. We set the
child to learn in the same way, and find him dull and slow. Why?
Because it is only with a few words in common use that he associates
a definite meaning; all the rest are no more to him than the vocables
of a foreign tongue. But set him face to face with a _thing_,
and he is twenty times as quick as you are in knowing all about it;
knowledge of things flies to the mind of a child as steel filings to
a magnet. And, _pari passu_ with his knowledge of things, his
vocabulary grows; for it is a law of the mind that what we know, we
struggle to express. This fact accounts for many of the apparently
aimless questions of children; they are in quest, not of knowledge,
but of _words_ to express the knowledge they have. Now, consider
what a culpable waste of intellectual energy it is to shut up a child,
blessed with this inordinate capacity for seeing and knowing, within
the four walls of a house, or the dreary streets of a town. Or suppose
that he is let run loose in the country where there is plenty to see,
it is nearly as bad to let this great faculty of the child’s dissipate
itself in random observations for want of method and direction.
=The Sense of Beauty comes from Early Contact with Nature.=--There is
no end to the store of common information, got in such a way that it
will never be forgotten, with which an intelligent child may furnish
himself before he begins his school career. The boy who can tell you
off-hand where to find each of the half-dozen most graceful birches,
the three or four finest ash trees in the neighbourhood of his home,
has chances in life a dozen to one compared with the lower, slower
intelligence that does not know an elm from an oak--not merely chances
of success, but chances of a larger, happier life, for it is curious
how certain _feelings_ are linked with the mere observation
of Nature and natural objects. “The _æsthetic_ sense of the
beautiful,” says Dr Carpenter, “of the sublime, of the harmonious,
seems in its most elementary form to connect itself immediately with
the Perceptions which arise out of the contact of our minds with
external Nature”; while he quotes Dr Morell, who says still more
forcibly that “All those who have shown a remarkable appreciation of
form and beauty date their first impressions from a period lying far
behind the existence of definite ideas or verbal instruction.”
=Most Grown Men lose the Habit of Observation.=--Thus, we owe
something to Mr Evans for taking his little daughter Mary Anne with
him on his long business drives among the pleasant Warwickshire lanes;
the little girl stood up between her father’s knees, seeing much and
saying little; and the outcome was the scenes of rural life in _Adam
Bede_ and _The Mill on the Floss_. Wordsworth, reared amongst
the mountains, becomes a very prophet of Nature; while Tennyson draws
endless imagery from the levels of the eastern counties where he was
brought up. Little David Copperfield was “a very observant child,
though,” says he, “I think the memory of most of us can go farther
back into such times than many of us suppose; just as I believe the
power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite
wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. Indeed, I think that
most grown men who are remarkable in this respect may with greater
propriety be said not to have lost the faculty, than to have acquired
it; the rather, as I generally observe such men to retain a certain
freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are
also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood”;--in
which remark Dickens makes his hero talk sound philosophy as well as
kindly sense.
VIII.--THE CHILD SHOULD BE MADE FAMILIAR
WITH NATURAL OBJECTS
=An Observant Child should be put in the way of Things worth
Observing.=--But what is the use of being ‘a very observant child,’
if you are not put in the way of things worth observing? And here is
the difference between the streets of a town and the sights and sounds
of the country. There is plenty to be seen in a town, and children
accustomed to the ways of the streets become nimble-witted enough.
But the scraps of information to be picked up in a town are isolated
fragments; they do not hang on to anything else, nor come to anything
more; the information may be convenient, but no one is the wiser for
knowing on which side of the street is Smith’s, and which turning
leads to Thompson’s shop.
=Every Natural Object a Member of a Series.=--Now take up a natural
object, it does not matter what, and you are studying one of a group,
a member of a series; whatever knowledge you get about it is so much
towards the _science_ which includes all of its kind. Break
off an elder twig in the spring; you notice a ring of wood round
a centre of pith, and there you have at a glance a distinguishing
character of a great division of the vegetable world. You pick up a
pebble. Its edges are perfectly smooth and rounded: why? you ask.
It is water-worn, weather-worn. And that little pebble brings you
face to face with _disintegration_, the force to which, more
than to any other, we owe the aspects of the world which we call
_picturesque_--glen, ravine, valley, hill. It is not necessary
that the child should be told anything about disintegration or
dicotyledon, only that he should _observe_ the wood and pith
in the hazel twig, the pleasant roundness of the pebble; by-and-by
he will learn the bearing of the facts with which he is already
familiar--a very different thing from learning the reason why of facts
which have never come under his notice.
=Power will pass, more and more, into the hands of Scientific
Men.=--It is infinitely well worth the mother’s while to take some
pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children
spend hours daily amongst rural and natural objects; and, in the
second place, to infuse into them, or rather, to cherish in them,
the love of investigation. “I say it deliberately,” says Kingsley,
“as a student of society and of history: power will pass more and
more into the hands of scientific men. They will rule, and they will
act--cautiously, we may hope, and modestly, and charitably--because
in learning true knowledge they will have learnt also their own
ignorance, and the vastness, the complexity, the mystery of Nature.
But they will be able to rule, they will be able to act, because they
have taken the trouble to learn the facts and the laws of Nature.”
=Intimacy with Nature makes for Personal Well-being.=--But to enable
them to swim with the stream is the least of the benefits this early
training should confer on the children; a love of Nature, implanted
so early that it will seem to them hereafter to have been born
in them, will enrich their lives with pure interests, absorbing
pursuits, health, and good humour. “I have seen,” says the same
writer, “the young man of fierce passions and uncontrollable daring
expend healthily that energy which threatened daily to plunge him
into recklessness, if not into sin, upon hunting out and collecting,
through rock and bog, snow and tempest, every bird and egg of the
neighbouring forest.... I have seen the young London beauty, amid all
the excitement and temptation of luxury and flattery, with her heart
pure, and her mind occupied in a boudoir full of shells and fossils,
flowers and seaweeds, keeping herself unspotted from the world, by
considering the lilies of the field, how they grow.”
IX.--OUT-OF-DOOR GEOGRAPHY
=Small Things may teach Great.=--After this long digression, intended
to impress upon mothers the supreme importance of stirring up in their
children a love of Nature and of natural objects--a deep-seated spring
to send up pure waters into the driest places of after-life--we must
return to the mother whom we have left out of doors all this time,
waiting to know what she is to do next. This pleasant earth of ours
is not to be overlooked in the out-of-door education of the children.
‘How do you get time for so much?’ ‘Oh, I leave out subjects of no
educational value; I do not teach geography, for instance,’ said an
advanced young theorist with all sorts of certificates.
=Pictorial Geography.=--But the mother, who knows better, will find a
hundred opportunities to teach geography by the way: a duck-pond is
a lake or an inland sea; any brooklet will serve to illustrate the
great rivers of the world; a hillock grows into a mountain--an Alpine
system; a hazel-copse suggests the mighty forests of the Amazon;
a reedy swamp, the rice-fields of China; a meadow, the boundless
prairies of the West; the pretty purple flowers of the common mallow
is a text whereon to hang the cottonfields of the Southern States:
indeed, the whole field of pictorial geography--maps may wait until
by-and-by--may be covered in this way.
=The Position of the Sun.=--And not only this: the children should be
taught to observe the position of the sun in the heavens from hour to
hour, and by his position, to tell the time of day. Of course they
will want to know why the sun is such an indefatigable traveller, and
thereby hangs a wonderful tale, which they may as well learn in the
‘age of faith,’ of the relative sizes of sun and earth, and of the
nature and movements of the latter.
=Clouds, Rain, Snow, and Hail.=--“Clouds and rain, snow and hail,
winds and vapours, fulfilling His word”--are all everyday mysteries
that the mother will be called upon to explain faithfully, however
simply. There are certain ideas which children must get from within
a walking radius of their own home if ever they are to have a real
understanding of maps and of geographical terms.
=Distance= is one of these, and the first idea of distance is to be
attained by what children find a delightful operation. A child walks
at his usual pace; somebody measures and tells him the length of his
pace, and he measures the paces of his brothers and sisters. Then such
a walk, such a distance, here and there, is solemnly paced, and a
little sum follows--so many inches or feet covered by each pace equals
so many yards in the whole distance. Various short distances about
the child’s home should be measured in this way; and when the idea of
covering distance is fully established, the idea of time as a means
of measurement should be introduced. The time taken to pace a hundred
yards should be noted down. Having found out that it takes two minutes
to pace a hundred yards, children will be able for the next step--that
if they have walked for thirty minutes, the walk should measure
fifteen hundred yards; in thirty-five minutes they would have walked a
mile, or rather seventeen hundred and fifty yards, and then they could
add the ten yards more which would make a mile. The longer the legs
the longer the pace, and most grown people can walk a mile in twenty
minutes.
=Direction.=--By the time they have got somewhat familiar with the
idea of distance, that of _direction_ should be introduced.
The first step is to make children observant of the progress of the
sun. The child who observes the sun for a year and notes down for
himself, or dictates, the times of his rising and setting for the
greater part of the year, and the points of his rising and setting,
will have secured a basis for a good deal of definite knowledge. Such
observation should take in the reflection of the sun’s light, the
evening light reflected by east windows, the morning light by west
windows; the varying length and intensity of shadows, the cause of
shadows, to be learned by the shadow cast by a figure between the
blind and a candle. He should associate, too, the hot hours of the
day with the sun high overhead, and the cool hours of the morning and
evening with a low sun; and should be reminded, that if he stands
straight before the fire, he feels the heat more than if he were in a
corner of the room. When he is prepared by a little observation of the
course of the sun, he is ready to take in the idea of direction, which
depends entirely upon the sun.
=East and West.=--Of course the two first ideas are that the sun rises
in the east and sets in the west; from this fact he will be able to
tell the direction in which the places near his own home, or the
streets of his own town, lie. Bid him stand so that his right hand is
towards the east where the sun rises, and his left towards the west
where the sun sets. Then he is looking towards the north and his back
is towards the south. All the houses, streets and towns on his right
hand are to the east of him, those on the left are to the west. The
places he must walk straight forward to reach are north of him, and
the places behind him are to the south. If he is in a place new to him
where he has never seen the sun rise or set and wants to know in what
direction a certain road runs, he must notice in what direction his
own shadow falls at twelve o’clock, because at noon the shadows of all
objects fall towards the north. Then if he face the north, he has, as
before, the south behind him, the east on his right hand, the west on
his left; or if he face the sun at noon, he faces south.
=Practice in finding Direction.=--This will throw an interesting light
for him on the names of our great railways. A child may become ready
in noticing the directions of places by a little practice. Let him
notice how each of the windows of his schoolroom faces, or the windows
of each of the rooms in his home; the rows of houses he passes in his
walks, and which are the north, south, east and west sides of the
churches he knows. He will soon be prepared to notice the direction
of the wind by noticing the smoke from the chimneys, the movement of
branches, corn, grass, etc. If the wind blow from the north--‘The
north wind doth blow and we shall have snow.’ If it blow from the
west, a west wind, we expect rain. Care must be taken at this point to
make it clear to the child that the wind is named after the quarter it
comes from, and not from the point it blows towards--just as he is
English because he was born in England, and not French because he goes
to France. The ideas of distance and direction may now be combined.
Such a building is two hundred yards to the east of the gate, such
a village two miles to the west. He will soon come across the
difficulty, that a place is not exactly east or west, north or south.
It is well to let him give, in a roundabout way, the direction of
places as--‘more to the east than the west,’ ‘very near the east but
not quite,’ ‘half-way between east and west.’ He will value the exact
means of expression all the more for having felt the need of them.
Later, he should be introduced to the wonders of the mariner’s
compass, should have a little pocket compass of his own, and should
observe the four cardinal and all the other points. These will afford
him the names for directions that he has found it difficult to
describe.
=Compass Drill.=--Then he should do certain compass drill in this
way: Bid him hold the N of the compass towards the north. “Then, with
the compass in your hand, turn towards the east, and you will see a
remarkable thing. The little needle moves, too, but moves quite by
itself in just the other direction. Turn to the west, and again the
needle moves in the opposite direction to that in which you move.
However little you turn, a little quiver of the needle follows your
movement. And you look at it, wondering how the little thing could
perceive you had moved, when you hardly knew it yourself. Walk
straight on in any direction, and the needle is fairly steady; only
fairly steady, because you are sure, without intending it, to move a
little to the right or left. Turn round very slowly, a little bit at a
time, beginning at the north and turning towards the east, and you may
make the needle also move round in a circle. It moves in the opposite
direction to yourself, for it is trying to get back to the north from
which you are turning.”
=Boundaries.=--The children having got the idea of direction, it
will be quite easy to introduce that of boundaries--such and such a
turnip field, for instance, is bounded by the highroad on the south,
by a wheat crop on the south-east, a hedge on the north-east, and
so on; the children getting by degrees the idea that the boundaries
of a given space are simply whatever touches it on every side. Thus
one crop may touch another without any dividing line, and therefore
one crop bounds the other. It is well that children should get clear
notions on this subject, or, later, they will be vague when they learn
that such a county is ‘bounded’ by so and so. In connection with
bounded spaces, whether they be villages, towns, ponds, fields, or
what not, children should be led to notice the various crops raised
in the district, why pasturelands and why cornfields, what manner of
rocks appear, and how many sorts of trees grow in the neighbourhood.
For every field or other space that is examined, they should draw a
rude plan in the sand, giving the shape roughly and lettering the
directions as N, S, W, etc.
=Plans.=--By-and-by, when they have learned to draw plans indoors,
they will occasionally pace the length of a field and draw their plan
according to scale, allowing an inch for five or for ten yards. The
ground-plans of garden, stables, house, etc., might follow.
=Local Geography.=--It is probable that a child’s own neighbourhood
will give him opportunities to learn the meaning of hill and dale,
pool and brook, watershed, the current, bed, banks, tributaries of
a brook, the relative positions of villages and towns; and all this
local geography he must be able to figure roughly on a plan done with
chalk on a rock, or with walking-stick in the gravel, perceiving the
relative distances and situations of the places he marks.
X.--THE CHILD AND MOTHER-NATURE
=The Mother must refrain from too much Talk.=--Does so wide a
programme alarm the mother? Does she with dismay see herself talking
through the whole of those five or six hours, and, even at that, not
getting through a tithe of the teaching laid out for her? On the
contrary, the less she says the better; and as for the quantity of
educational work to be got through, it is the fable of the anxious
pendulum over again: it is true there are countless ‘ticks’ to be
ticked, but there will always be a second of time to tick in, and no
more than a single tick is to be delivered in any given second.
=Making a New Acquaintance.=--The rapid little people will have
played their play, whether of ‘sight-seeing’ or ‘picture-painting,’
in a quarter of an hour or so; for the study of natural objects, an
occasional ‘Look!’ an attentive examination of the object on the
mother’s own part, a name given, a remark--a dozen words long--made at
the right moment, and the children have begun a new acquaintance which
they will prosecute for themselves; and not more than one or two such
presentations should occur in a single day.
Now, see how much leisure there is left! The mother’s real difficulty
will be to keep herself from much talk with the children, and to
hinder them from occupying themselves with her. There are few things
sweeter and more precious to the child than playful prattle with her
mother; but one thing is better--the communing with the larger Mother,
in order to which the child and she should be left to themselves. This
is, truly, a delightful thing to watch: the mother reads her book or
knits her sock, checking all attempts to make talk; the child stares
up into a tree, or down into a flower--doing nothing, thinking of
nothing; or leads a bird’s life among the branches, or capers about in
aimless ecstasy;--quite foolish, irrational doings, but, all the time,
a _fashioning_ is going on: Nature is doing _her_ part, with
the vow--
“This child I to myself will take:
She shall be mine, and I will make
A lady of my own.”[6]
=Two Things permissible to the Mother.=--There is one thing the mother
will allow herself to do as interpreter between Nature and the child,
but that not oftener than once a week or once a month, and with look
and gesture of delight rather than with flow of improving words--she
will point out to the child some touch of especial loveliness in
colouring or grouping in the landscape or in the heavens. One other
thing she will do, but very rarely, and with tender filial reverence
(most likely she will say her prayers, and speak out of her prayer,
for to touch on this ground with _hard_ words is to wound the
soul of the child): she will point to some lovely flower or gracious
tree, not only as a beautiful work, but a beautiful _thought_ of
God, in which we may believe He finds continual pleasure, and which
He is pleased to see his human children rejoice in. Such a seed of
sympathy with the Divine thought sown in the heart of the child is
worth many of the sermons the man may listen to hereafter, much of the
‘divinity’ he may read.
XI.--OUT-OF-DOOR GAMES, ETC.
The bright hours fly by; and there is still at least one lesson
on the programme, to say nothing of an hour or two for games in
the afternoon. The thought of a _lesson_ is uninviting after
the discussion of much that is more interesting, and, truly, more
important; but it need only be a little lesson, ten minutes long, and
the slight break and the effort of attention will give the greater
zest to the pleasure and leisure to follow.
=The French Lesson.=--The daily French lesson is that which should
not be omitted. That children should learn French _orally_, by
listening to and repeating French words and phrases; that they should
begin so young that the difference of accent does not strike them, but
they repeat the new French word all the same as if it were English and
use it as freely; that they should learn a few--two or three, five
or six--new French words daily, and that, at the same time, the old
words should be kept in use--are points to be considered more fully
hereafter: in the meantime, it is so important to keep tongue and ear
familiar with French vocables, that not a lesson should be omitted.
The French lesson may, however, be made to fit in with the spirit of
the other out-of-door occupations; the half-dozen words may be the
parts--leaves, branches, bark, trunk of a tree, or the colours of the
flowers, or the movements of bird, cloud, lamb, child; in fact, the
new French words should be but another form of expression for the
ideas that for the time fill the child’s mind.
=Noisy Games.=--The afternoon’s games, after luncheon, are an
important part of the day’s doings for the elder children, though
the younger have probably worn themselves out by this time with the
ceaseless restlessness by means of which Nature provides for the due
development of muscular tissue in them; let them sleep in the sweet
air, and awake refreshed. Meanwhile, the elders play; the more they
run, and shout, and toss their arms, the more healthful is the play.
And this is one reason why mothers should carry their children off to
lonely places, where they may use their lungs to their hearts’ content
without risk of annoying anybody. The _muscular_ structure of the
organs of voice is not enough considered; children love to indulge
in cries and shouts and view-halloos, and this ‘rude’ and ‘noisy’
play, with which their elders have not much patience, is no more than
Nature’s way of providing for the due exercise of organs, upon whose
working power the health and happiness of the child’s future largely
depend. People talk of ‘weak lungs,’ ‘weak chest,’ ‘weak throat,’
but perhaps it does not occur to everybody that strong lungs and
strong throat are commonly to be had on the same terms as a strong
arm or wrist--by exercise, training, _use_, work. Still, if the
children can ‘give voice’ musically, and move rhythmically to the
sound of their own voices, so much the better. In this respect French
children are better off than English; they dance and sing through a
hundred roundelays--just such games, no doubt, mimic marryings and
buryings, as the children played at long ago in the market-place of
Jerusalem.
‘=Rondes.=’--Before Puritan innovations made us a staid and
circumspect people, English lads and lasses of all ages danced out
little dramas on the village green, accompanying themselves with the
words and airs of just such _rondes_ as the French children sing
to-day. We have a few of them left still--to be heard at Sunday-school
treats and other gatherings of the children,--and they are well worth
preserving: ‘There came three dukes a-riding, a-riding, a-riding’;
‘Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s’; ‘Here we come
gathering nuts in May’; ‘What has my poor prisoner done?’ and many
more, all set to delightful sing-song airs that little feet trip to
merrily, the more so for the pleasant titillation of the words--dukes,
nuts, oranges,--who could not go to the tune of such ideas?
The promoters of the kindergarten system have done much to introduce
games of this, or rather of a more educational kind; but is it not a
fact that the singing games of the kindergarten are apt to be somewhat
inane? Also, it is doubtful how far the prettiest plays, learnt at
school and from a teacher, will take hold of the children as do the
games which have been passed on from hand to hand through an endless
chain of children, and are not to be found in the print-books at all.
=Skipping-rope and Shuttlecock.=--Cricket, tennis, and rounders are
_the_ games _par excellence_ if the children are old enough
to play them, both as giving free harmonious play to the muscles,
and also as serving the highest moral purpose of games in bringing
the children under the discipline of rules; but the little family we
have in view, all of them under nine, will hardly be up to scientific
games. Races and chases, ‘tig,’ ‘follow my leader,’ and any romping
game they may invent, will be more to their minds: still better are
the hoop, the ball, the shuttlecock, and the invaluable skipping-rope.
For the rope, the very best use is for each child to skip with her
own, throwing it _backwards_ rather than forwards, so that the
tendency of the movement is to expand the chest. Shuttlecock is a
fine game, affording scope for ambition and emulation. Her biographer
thinks it worth telling that Miss Austen could keep up in ‘cup and
ball’ over a hundred times, to the admiration of nephews and nieces;
in like manner, any feat in keeping up the shuttlecock might be
noted down as a family event, so that the children may be fired with
ambition to excel in a game which affords most graceful and vigorous
play to almost every muscle of the upper part of the body, and has
this great recommendation, that it can be as well played within doors
as without. Quite the best play is to keep up the shuttlecock with
a battledore in each hand, so that the muscles on either side are
brought equally into play. But to ‘ordain’ about children’s games
is an idle waste of words, for here fashion is as supreme and as
arbitrary as in questions of bonnet or crinoline.
=Climbing.=--Climbing is an amusement not much in favour with mothers;
torn garments, bleeding knees, and boot-toes rubbed into holes,
to say nothing of more serious risks, make a strong case against
this form of delight. But, truly, the exercise is so admirable--the
body being thrown into endless graceful postures which bring every
muscle into play,--and the training in pluck, daring, and resource so
invaluable, that it is a pity trees and cliffs and walls should be
forbidden even to little girls. The mother may do a good deal to avert
serious mishaps by accustoming the younger children to small feats of
leaping and climbing, so that they learn, at the same time, courage
and caution from their own experiences, and are less likely to follow
the lead of too-daring playmates. Later, the mother had best make up
her mind to share the feelings of the hen that hatched a brood of
ducklings, remembering that a little scream, a sharp and sudden ‘Come
down instantly!’ ‘Tommy, you’ll break your neck!’ gives the child a
nervous shock, and is likely to cause the fall it was meant to hinder
by startling Tommy out of all presence of mind. Even boating and
swimming are not without the reach of town-bred children, in days when
everybody goes for a summer outing to the neighbourhood of the sea or
of inland waters; and then, there are swimming-baths in most towns. It
would be well if most children of seven were taught to swim, not only
for the possible usefulness of the art, but as giving them an added
means of motion, and, therefore, of delight.
=Clothing.=--The havoc of clothes need not be great if the children
are dressed for their little excursions, as they should be, in
plainly made garments of some loosely woven woollen material, serge
or flannel. Woollen has many advantages over cotton, and more over
linen, as a clothing material; chiefly, that it is a bad conductor;
that is to say, it does not allow the heat of the body too free an
exit, nor the heat of the sun too free an entrance. Therefore the
child in woollen, who has become heated in play, does not suffer a
chill from the sudden loss of this heat, as does the child in linen
garments; also, he is cooler in the sunshine, and warmer in the shade.
XII.--WALKS IN BAD WEATHER
=Winter Walks as necessary as Summer Walks.=--All we have said
hitherto applies to the summer weather, which is, alas for us! a very
limited and uncertain quantity in our part of the world. The question
of out-of-door exercise in winter and in wet weather is really more
important; for who that could would not be abroad in the summer time?
If the children are to have what is quite the best thing for them,
they should be two or three hours every day in the open air all
through the winter, say an hour and a half in the morning and as long
in the afternoon.
=Pleasures connected with Frost and Snow.=--When frost and snow are
on the ground children have very festive times, what with sliding,
snow-balling, and snow-building. But even on the frequent days when it
is dirty under foot and dull over head they should be kept interested
and alert, so that the heart may do its work cheerfully, and a
grateful glow be kept up throughout the body in spite of clouds and
cold weather.
=Winter Observations.=--All that has been said about ‘sight-seeing’
and ‘picture-painting,’ the little French talk, and observations to
be noted in the family diary, belongs just as much to winter weather
as to summer; and there is no end to the things to be seen and noted.
The party come across a big tree which they judge, from its build, to
be an oak--down it goes in the diary; and when the leaves are out, the
children come again to see if they are right. Many birds come into
view the more freely in the cold weather that they are driven forth in
search of food.
“The cattle mourn in corners where the fence screens them.”
“The sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires the horizon.”
“Every herb and every spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field.”
“The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves.”
“The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppress’d;
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where’er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice
That tinkle in the wither’d leaves below.”
There is no reason why the child’s winter walk should not be as
fertile in observations as the poet’s; indeed, in one way, it is
possible to see the more in winter, because the things to be seen do
not crowd each other out.
=Habit of Attention.=--Winter walks, too, whether in town or country,
give great opportunities for cultivating the habit of attention. The
famous conjurer, Robert Houdin, relates in his autobiography, that
he and his son would pass rapidly before a shop window, that of a
toy-shop, for instance, and each cast an attentive glance upon it.
A few steps further on each drew paper and pencil from his pocket,
and tried which could enumerate the greater number of the objects
momentarily seen in passing. The boy surpassed his father in quickness
of apprehension, being often able to write down forty objects, whilst
his father could scarcely reach thirty; yet on their returning to
verify his statement, the son was rarely found to have made a mistake.
Here is a hint for a highly educational amusement for many a winter’s
walk.
=Wet Weather Tramps.=--But what about the wet days? The fact is, that
rain, unless of the heaviest, does the children no harm at all if they
are suitably clothed. But every sort of waterproof garment should be
tabooed, because the texture which will not admit rain will not allow
of the escape of the insensible perspiration, and one secret of health
for people who have no organic disease is the prompt carrying off of
the decayed and harmful matters discharged by the skin.
=Outer Garments for.=--Children should have woollen rain-garments--made
of coarse serge, for instance,--to be changed the moment they return
from a walk, and then there is no risk of catching cold. This is the
common-sense of the matter. Wet cloths are put upon the head of a
fever patient; by-and-by the cloths dry, and are dipped again: what
has become of the water? It has evaporated, and, in evaporating, has
carried off much heat from the fevered head. Now, that which eases the
hot skin of fever is just the one thing to be avoided in ordinary
circumstances. To be wet to the skin may do a child no more harm than
a bath would do him, if the wet clothes do not dry upon him--that is,
if the water does not evaporate, carrying off much heat from his body
in the process. It is the loss of animal heat which is followed by
‘colds,’ and not the ‘wetting,’ which mothers are ready to deplore.
Keep a child active and happy in the rain, and he gets nothing but
good from his walk. The case is altered if the child has a cold
already; then active exercise might increase any inflammation already
set up.
I do not know whether it is more than a pretty fancy of Richter’s,
that a spring shower is a sort of electric bath, and a very potent
means of health; certainly rain clears the atmosphere--a fact of
considerable importance in and about large towns. But it is enough for
our purpose to prove that the rain need do no harm; for abundant daily
exercise in the fresh air is of such vital importance to the children,
that really nothing but sickness should keep them within doors. A mere
time and distance tramp is sufficiently joyous for a wet day, for,
taken good-humouredly, the beating rain itself is exhilarating. The
‘long run’ of the schoolboy, that is, a steady trot, breaking now and
then into a run, is capital exercise; but regard must be had to the
powers of the children, who must not be overdone.
=Precautions.=--At the same time, children should never be allowed to
sit or stand about in damp clothes; and here is the use of waterproof
rain-wraps--to keep them dry on short journeys to church, or school,
or neighbour’s house, where they cannot very well change their
garments.
XIII.--‘RED INDIAN’ LIFE
=Scouting.=--Baden Powell’s little book about _Scouting_ set us
upon a new track. Hundreds of families make joyous expeditions, far
more educative than they dream, wherein scouting is the order of the
day. For example, one party of four or more lies in ambush,--the best
ambush to be had, which is pitched upon after much consideration. The
enemy scouts; first he finds the ambush, and then his skill is shown
in getting within touch of the alert foe without being discovered. But
every family should possess _Scouting_ in default of the chance
of going on the war-path with a Red Indian. The evil of the ready-made
life we lead is that we do not discern the signs of the times. An
alert intelligence towards what goes on in the open-air world is a
great possession, and, strongly as we sympathise with the effort made
to put down bird’s-nesting, we shall lose, if we are not careful, one
of the few bits of what we may call ‘Red Indian’ training still within
our reach.
=Bird-stalking.=--But bird ‘stalking,’ to adapt a name, is a great
deal more exciting and delightful than bird’s-nesting, and we get our
joy at no cost of pain to other living things. All the skill of a good
scout comes into play. Think, how exciting to creep noiselessly as
shadows behind river-side bushes on hands and knees without disturbing
a twig or a pebble till you get within a yard of a pair of sandpipers,
and then, lying low, to watch their dainty little runs, pretty tricks
of head and tail, and to hear the music of their call. And here comes
in the real joy of bird-stalking. If in the winter months the children
have become fairly familiar with the notes of our resident birds,
they will be able in the early summer to ‘stalk’ to some purpose. The
notes and songs in June are bewildering, but the plan is to single out
those you are quite sure of, and then follow up the others. The key
to a knowledge of birds is knowledge of their notes, and the only way
to get this is to follow any note of which you are not sure. The joy
of tracking a song or note to its source is the joy of a ‘find,’ a
possession for life.
But bird-stalking is only to be done upon certain conditions. You must
not only be ‘most mousy-quiet,’ but you must not even let a thought
whisper, for if you let yourself think about anything else, the
entirely delightful play of bird-life passes by you unobserved; nay,
the very bird notes are unheard.
Here are two bird walks communicated by a bird-lover:--
“We heard a note something like a chaffinch’s, only slower, and we
looked up in the boughs of the ash to try and track the bird by the
sudden quiver of one twig here, another, there. We found a steep,
rocky path which brought us almost level with the tree tops, and then
we had a good view of the shy little willow wren busily seeking food.
A note from the next tree like a bubbling of song drew us further on,
and then we found the wood wren and watched him as with upturned head
and bubbling throat he uttered his trill.
“A joyous burst of song came from a bush near by, and we crept on, to
find a blackcap warbler with upraised crest turning excitedly round
and round in the ecstasy of song. We waited, and traced him to his
next station by his light touch on the branches. A hoarse screech
from another tree announced a greenfinch, and we had a long chase to
get a glimpse of him; but he came to an outstanding twig, and then we
heard his pretty song, which I should never have guessed to be his
had we not seen him at it. A little squeaky note made us watch the
tree trunks, and, sure enough, there was a tree-creeper running up and
round and round an ash, uttering his note all the time.
“Another day we got behind a wall from which we could examine a field
that lay beside the lake. There was the green plover with his jaunty
crest, running and pecking, and, as he pecked, we caught sight of
the rosy flash under his tail. We waited, hoping for more, for the
plovers stand so still that they are lost in their surroundings. But
someone coughed, and up went the plovers, a dozen of them, with their
weary taunt, ‘Why don’t you let us alone?’ Their distress roused other
birds, and we saw a snipe rise from the water edge, a marshy place,
with hasty zigzag flight; it made a long round and settled not much
further than where it rose. The sandpipers rose, two flying close to
the water’s edge, whistling all the time. By the side of a little
gully we watched a wagtail, and presently a turn in the sunshine
showed us the yellow breast of the yellow wagtail. A loud ‘tis-sic’
near us drew our eyes to the wall, and there stood a pied wagtail
with full beak, waiting to get rid of us before visiting his nest in
the wall. We crept away and sheltered behind a tree, and after a few
minutes’ waiting we saw him go into his hole. An angry chatter near by
(like a broom on Venetian blinds!) directed our eyes to a little brown
wren on the wall with cocked-up tail, but in a minute he disappeared
like a mouse over the side.”
This is from another bird-lover:--
“Now, they (the children) are beginning to care more for the birds
than the eggs, and their first question, instead of being, ‘What is
the egg like?’ is usually ‘What is the bird like?’ We have great
searching through Morris’s _British Birds_[7] to identify birds
we have seen and to make quite sure of doubtful points.
“But now for the birds. _Stonechats_ abound on the heaths. I
pricked myself up to my knees standing in a gorse-patch watching and
listening to the first I saw, but I was quite rewarded, and saw at
least four pairs at one time. Do you know the birds? The cock birds
are such handsome little fellows, black head and mask, white collar,
rufous breast and dark grey or brown back. They have a pretty little
song, rather longer than a chaffinch’s, besides the chit-chat cry when
they are disturbed. They do not make a long flight, and will hover
in the air like a flycatcher. The sandmartins have numbers of holes
in the cliffs. We tried to see how deep they burrowed to build their
nests, but though I put my arm in up to the elbows in several deserted
holes, I could not reach the end. I think my favourites are the
reed-warblers. I know of at least four pairs, and when I could induce
the children to _both_ stop talking for a few minutes, we were
able to watch them boldly hopping up and down the reeds and singing in
full view of us.”
This is the sort of thing bird-stalkers come upon--and what a loss
have those children who are not brought up to the gentle art wherein
the eye is satisfied with seeing, and there is no greed of collecting,
no play of the hunter’s instinct to kill, and yet a lifelong joy of
possession.
XIV.--THE CHILDREN REQUIRE COUNTRY AIR
=The Essential Proportion of Oxygen.=--Every one knows that the
breathing of air which has lost little of its due proportion of oxygen
is _the_ essential condition of vigorous life and of a fine
physique; also, that whatever produces heat, whether it be animal
heat, or the heat of fire, candle, gas-lamp, produces that heat at the
expense of the oxygen contained in the atmosphere--a bank which is
drawn upon by every breathing and burning object; that in situations
where much breathing and burning are going on, there is a terrible
drain upon this vital gas; that the drain may be so excessive that
there is no longer sufficient oxygen in the air to support animal
life, and death results; that where the drain is less excessive but
still great, animal life may be supported, and people live a flaccid,
feeble life in a state of low vitality.
=Excess of Carbonic Acid Gas.=--Also we know that every breathing
and every burning object expels a hurtful gas--carbonic acid. A very
small proportion of this gas is present in the purest atmospheric
air, and in that small proportion is healthful; but increase that
quantity by the action of furnaces, fires, living beings, gas-lamps,
and the air is rendered unwholesome, just in proportion to the
quantity of superfluous carbonic-acid gas it contains. If the quantity
be excessive--as when many people are huddled together in a small
unventilated room--speedy death by suffocation is the result.
=Unvitiated, Unimpoverished Air.=--For these reasons, it is not
possible to enjoy fulness of life in a town. For grown-up people,
the stimulus of town life does something to make up for the impurity
of town air; as, on the other hand, country people too often forfeit
their advantages through the habit of mental sluggishness they let
themselves fall into: but, for the children--who not only breathe, but
grow; who require, proportionably, more oxygen than adults need for
their vital processes--it is absolutely cruel not to give them very
frequent, if not daily, copious draughts of unvitiated, unimpoverished
air, the sort of air that can be had only remote from towns.
=Solar Light.=--But this is only one of the reasons why, for health’s
sake alone, it is of the first importance to give children long days
in the open country. They want light, solar light, as well as air.
Country people are ruddier than town folk; miners are sallow, so
are the dwellers in cellars and in sunless valleys. The reason is,
that, to secure the ruddy glow of perfect health, certain changes
must take place in the blood--the nature of which it would take too
long to explain here--and that these changes in the blood, marked
by the free production of red corpuscles, appear to take place most
favourably under the influence of abundant solar light. What is more,
men of science are beginning to suspect that not only the coloured
_light_ rays of the solar spectrum, but the dark _heat_ rays, and the
chemical rays, minister to vitality in ways not yet fully understood.
=A Physical Ideal for a Child.=--There was a charming picture
in _Punch_ some time ago, of two little boys airing their
English-French on their mother’s new maid; two noble little fellows,
each straight as a dart, with no superfluous flesh, eyes well opened,
head erect, chest expanded, the whole body full of spring even in
repose. It was worth looking at, if only as suggesting the sort of
physique we delight to see in a child. No doubt the child inherits
the most that he is in this respect as in all others; but _this_
is what bringing-up may, with some limitations, effect:--The child
is born with certain natural tendencies, and, according to his
bringing-up, each such tendency may run into a blemish of person or
character, or into a cognate grace. Therefore, it is worth while to
have even a _physical_ ideal for one’s child; not, for instance,
to be run away with by the notion that a fat child is necessarily a
fine child. The fat child can easily be produced: but the bright eye,
the open regard, the springing step; the tones, clear as a bell; the
agile, graceful movements that characterise the well-brought-up child,
are the result, not of bodily well-being only, but of ‘mind and soul
according well,’ of a quick, trained intelligence, and of a moral
nature habituated to ‘the joy of self-control.’
FOOTNOTES:
[3] See Appendix A.
[4] Nature note-books may be had at the P.N.E.U. Office, 26 Victoria
Street. See Appendix A.
[5] Kingsley’s _Water Babies_ and _Madam How and Lady Why_.
All Mrs Brightwen’s books. Miss Buckley’s (Mrs Fisher) ‘Eyes and no
Eyes’ Series. _Life and her Children_, etc. All Seton-Thompson’s
books. Long’s _The School of the Woods_, _The Little Brother of
the Bear_. Kearton’s _Wild Nature’s Ways_. _Living Animals
of the World._
[6] Wordsworth.
[7] John’s _British Birds_, which costs as many shillings as
Morris’s does guineas, is better for beginners.
PART III
‘HABIT IS TEN NATURES’
I.--EDUCATION BASED UPON NATURAL LAW
=A Healthy Brain.=--What I desire to set before the reader is a method
of education based upon natural law. In the first place, we have
considered some of the conditions to be observed with a view to keep
the brain in healthy working order; for it is upon the possession
of an active, duly nourished brain that the possibility of a sound
education depends.
=Out-of-Door Life.=--The consideration of _out-of-door life_, in
developing a method of education, comes second in order; because my
object is to show that the chief function of the child--his business
in the world during the first six or seven years of his life--is to
find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means
of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge
got in this way; and that, therefore, the endeavour of his parents
should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with
Nature and natural objects; that, in fact, the intellectual education
of the young child should lie in the free exercise of perceptive
power, because the first stages of mental effort are marked by the
extreme activity of this power; and the wisdom of the educator is to
follow the lead of Nature in the evolution of the complete human being.
The next subject for consideration--a rather dry psycho-physiological
one--seems to me, all the same, to be very well worthy of attention as
striking the keynote of a reasonable method of education.
=Habit the Instrument by which Parents Work.=--‘Habit is TEN
natures!’ If I could but make others see with my eyes how much this
saying should mean to the educator! How habit, in the hands of the
mother, is as his wheel to the potter, his knife to the carver--the
instrument by means of which she turns out the design she has already
conceived in her brain. Observe, the material is there to begin with;
his wheel will not enable the potter to produce a porcelain cup cut
of coarse clay; but the instrument is as necessary as the material or
the design. It is unpleasant to speak of one’s self, but if the reader
will allow me, I should like to run over the steps by which I have
been brought to look upon habit as the means whereby the parent may
make almost anything he chooses of his child. That which has become
the dominant idea of one person’s life, if it be launched suddenly
at another, conveys no very great depth or weight of meaning to the
second person--he wants to get at it by degrees, to see the steps by
which the other has travelled. Therefore, I shall venture to show
how I arrived at my present position, which is, from _one_ of
the three possible points of view--The formation of habits _is_
education, and _Education is the formation of habits_.
II.--THE CHILDREN HAVE NO SELF-COMPELLING POWER
=An Educational Cul-de-sac.=--Some years ago I was accustomed to hear,
‘Habit is TEN natures’ delivered from the pulpit on at least
one Sunday out of four. I had at the time just begun to teach, and was
young and enthusiastic in my work. It was to my mind a great thing to
be a teacher; it was impossible but that the teacher should leave his
stamp on the children. His own was the fault if anything went wrong,
if any child did badly in school or out of it. There was no degree
of responsibility to which youthful ardour was not equal. But, all
this zeal notwithstanding, the disappointing thing was, that nothing
extraordinary happened. The children were good on the whole, because
they were the children of parents who had themselves been brought up
with some care; but it was plain that they behaved very much as ‘’twas
their nature to.’ The faults they had, they kept; the virtues they
had were exercised just as fitfully as before. The good, meek little
girl still told fibs. The bright, generous child was incurably idle.
In lessons it was the same thing; the dawdling child went on dawdling,
the dull child became no brighter. It was very disappointing. The
children, no doubt, ‘got on’--a little; but each one of them had the
makings in her of a noble character, of a fine mind, and where was the
lever to lift each of these little worlds? Such a lever there must be.
This horse-in-a-mill round of geography and French, history and sums,
was no more than playing at education; for who remembers the scraps of
knowledge he laboured over as a child? and would not the application
of a few hours in later life effect more than a year’s drudgery at any
one subject in childhood? If education is to secure the step-by-step
progress of the individual and the race, it must mean something over
and above the daily plodding at small tasks which goes by the name.
=Love, Law, and Religion as Educational Forces.=--Looking for guidance
to the literature of education, I learned much from various sources,
though I failed to find what seemed to me an authoritative guide, that
is, one whose thought embraced the possibilities contained in the
human nature of a child, and, at the same time, measured the scope
of education. I saw how religious teaching helped the children, gave
them power and motives for continuous effort, and raised their desires
towards the best things. I saw in how far law restrained from evil,
and love impelled towards good. But with these great aids from without
and from above, there was still the depressing sense of labouring
at education in the dark; the advance made by the young people in
moral, and even in intellectual, power was like that of a door on its
hinges--a swing forward to-day and back again to-morrow, with little
sensible progress from year to year beyond that of being able to do
harder sums and read harder books.
=Why Children are incapable of Steady Effort.=--Consideration made the
reason of the failure plain: there was a warm glow of goodness at the
heart of every one of the children, but they were all incapable of
steady effort, because they had no strength of will, no power to make
themselves do that which they knew they ought to do. Here, no doubt,
come in the functions of parents and teachers; they should be able to
make the child do that which he lacks the power to compel himself to.
But it were poor training that should keep the child dependent upon
personal influence. It is the business of education to find some way
of supplementing that weakness of will which is the bane of most of us
as well as of the children.
=Children should be saved the Effort of Decision.=--That the effort
of decision is the most exhausting effort of life, has been well said
from the pulpit; and if that remain true about ourselves, even when
the decision is about trifling matters of going or coming, buying or
not buying, it surely is not just to leave the children all the labour
of an effort of will whenever they have to choose between the right
and the wrong.
III.--WHAT IS ‘NATURE’?
‘Habit is TEN natures,’ went on being proclaimed in my ears;
and at last it came home to me as a weighty saying, which might
contain the educational ‘Open, sesame!’ I was in quest of. In the
first place, what is Nature, and what, precisely, is Habit?
It _is_ an astonishing thing, when we consider, what the child
is, irrespective of race, country, or kindred, simply in right of his
birth as a human being.
=All Persons born with the same Primary Desires.=--That we all have
the same instincts and appetites, we are prepared to allow, but that
the principles of action which govern all men everywhere are primarily
the same, is a little startling; that, for instance, the same desires
stir in the breasts of savage and of sage alike; that the desire of
knowledge, which shows itself in the child’s curiosity about things
and his eager use of his eyes, is equally active everywhere; that the
desire of society, which you may see in two babies presented to one
another and all agog with glee and friendliness, is the cause, alike,
of village communities amongst savage tribes and of the philosophical
meetings of the learned; that everywhere is felt the desire of
esteem--a wonderful power in the hands of the educator, making a word
of praise or blame more powerful as a motive than any fear or hope of
punishment or reward.
=And Affections.=--And it is not only the same desires; all people,
everywhere, have the same affections and passions which act in
the same way under similar provocation: joy and grief, love and
resentment, benevolence, sympathy, fear, and much else, are common to
all of us. So, too, of conscience, the sense of duty.
=Content of the most Elemental Notion of Human Nature.=--Dr
Livingstone mentions that the only addition he felt called upon to
make to the moral code of certain of the Zambesi tribes (however
little they observed their own law) was, that a man should not have
more than one wife. “Evil speaking, lying, hatred, disobedience
to parents, neglect of them,” were all known to be sin by these
dark peoples whom civilised or Christian teaching had never before
reached. Not only is a sense of duty common to mankind, but the deeper
consciousness of God, however vague such consciousness may be. And all
this and much more goes to make up the most elemental notion of human
nature.
=Nature plus Heredity.=--Then, _heredity_ comes in, and here, if
you please, _is_ ten natures: who is to deal with the child who
is resentful, or stubborn, or reckless, because it is born in him,
his mother’s nature or his grandfather’s? Think of the trick of the
eye, the action of the hand, repeated from father to son; the peculiar
character of the handwriting, traceable, as Miss Power Cobbe tells us
is the case in her family, for instance, through five generations;
the artistic temperament, the taste for music or drawing, running
in families: here you get Nature with a twist, confirmed, sealed,
riveted, utterly proof, you would say, against any attempt to alter or
modify it.
=Plus Physical Conditions.=--And, once more, physical conditions come
into force. The puny, feeble child and the sturdy urchin who never
ails must necessarily differ from one another in the strength of their
desires and emotions.
=Human Nature the Sum of certain Attributes.=--What, then, with the
natural desires, affections, and emotions common to the whole race,
what with the tendencies which each family derives by descent, and
those peculiarities which the individual owes to his own constitution
of body and brain,--human nature, the sum of all these, makes out for
itself a strong case; so much so, that we are inclined to think the
best that can be done is to let it alone, to let every child develop
unhindered according to the elements of character and disposition that
are in him.
=The Child must not be left to his Human Nature.=--This is precisely
what half the parents in the world, and three-fourths of the teachers,
are content to do; and what is the consequence? That the world
_is_ making advances, but the progress is, for the most part,
amongst the few whose parents have taken their education seriously in
hand; while the rest, who have been allowed to _stay where they
were_, be no more, or no better than Nature made them, act as a
heavy drag: for, indeed, the fact is, that they do not stay where
they were; it is unchangeably true that the child who is not being
constantly raised to a higher and a higher platform will sink to a
lower and a lower. Wherefore, it is as much the parent’s duty to
educate his child into moral strength and purpose and intellectual
activity as it is to feed him and clothe him; and that _in spite
of his nature_, if it must be so. It is true that here and there
circumstances step in and ‘make a man’ of the boy whose parents have
failed to bring him under discipline; but this is a fortuitous aid
which the educator is no way warranted to count upon.
I was beginning to see my way--not yet out of the psychological
difficulty, which, so far as I was concerned, blocked the way to any
real education; but now I could put my finger on the place, and that
was something. Thus:--
The will of the child is pitifully feeble, weaker in the children of
the weak, stronger in the children of the strong, but hardly ever to
be counted upon as a _power_ in education.
The nature of the child--his human nature--being the sum of what he
is as a human being, and what he is in right of the stock he comes
of, and what he is as the result of his own physical and mental
constitution--this nature is incalculably strong.
=Problem before the Educator.=--The problem before the educator is
to give the child control over his own nature, to enable him to hold
himself in hand as much in regard to the traits we call good, as to
those we call evil:--many a man makes shipwreck on the rock of what he
grew up to think his characteristic virtue--his open-handedness, for
instance.
=Divine Grace works on the Lines of Human Effort.=--In looking for a
solution of this problem, I do not undervalue the Divine grace--far
otherwise; but we do not always make enough of the fact that Divine
grace is exerted on the lines of enlightened human effort; that the
parent, for instance, who takes the trouble to understand what he is
about in educating his child, deserves, and assuredly gets, support
from above; and that Rebecca, let us say, had no right to bring up her
son to be “thou worm, Jacob,” in the trust that Divine grace would,
speaking reverently, pull him through. Being a pious man, the son of
pious parents, he was pulled through, but his days, he complains at
the end, were “few and evil.”
=The Trust of Parents must not be Supine.=--And indeed this is what
too many Christian parents expect: they let a child grow free as the
wild bramble, putting forth unchecked whatever is in him--thorn,
coarse flower, insipid fruit,--trusting, they will tell you, that
the grace of God will prune and dig and prop the wayward branches
lying prone. And their trust is not always misplaced; but the poor
_man_ endures anguish, is torn asunder in the process of recovery
which his parents might have spared him had they trained the early
shoots which should develop by-and-by into the character of their
_child_.
Nature then, strong as she is, is not invincible; and, at her best,
Nature is not to be permitted to ride rampant. Bit and bridle, hand
and voice, will get the utmost of endeavour out of her if her training
be taken in hand in time; but let Nature run wild, like the forest
ponies, and not spur nor whip will break her in.
IV.--HABIT MAY SUPPLANT ‘NATURE’
‘Habit is _ten_ natures.’ If that be true, strong as nature is,
habit is not only as strong, but _tenfold_ as strong. Here, then,
have we a stronger than he, able to overcome this strong man armed.
=Habit runs on the Lines of Nature.=--But habit runs on the lines of
nature: the cowardly child _habitually_ lies that he may escape
blame; the loving child has a hundred endearing _habits_; the
good-natured child has a _habit_ of giving; the selfish child, a
_habit_ of keeping. Habit, working thus according to nature, is
simply nature in action, growing strong by exercise.
=But Habit may be a Lever.=--But habit, to be the lever to lift the
child, must work contrary to nature, or at any rate, independently of
her.
Directly we begin to look out for the working of habit on these lines,
examples crowd upon us: there are the children trained in careful
habits, who never soil their clothes; those trained in reticent
habits, who never speak of what is done at home, and answer indiscreet
questions with ‘I don’t know’; there are the children brought up in
courteous habits, who make way for their elders with gentle grace,
and more readily for the poor woman with the basket than for the
well-dressed lady; and there are children trained in grudging habits,
who never offer to yield, or go, or do.
=A Mother forms her Children’s Habits involuntarily.=--Such habits as
these, good, bad, or indifferent, are they natural to the children?
No, but they are what their mothers have brought them up to; and as a
matter of fact, there is _nothing_ which a mother cannot bring
her child up to, and there is hardly a mother anywhere who has not
some two or three--crotchets sometimes, principles sometimes--which
her children never violate. So that it comes to this--given, a mother
with liberal views on the subject of education, and she simply cannot
help working her own views into her children’s habits; given, on the
other hand, a mother whose final question is, ‘What will people say?
what will people think? how will it look?’ and the children grow up
with habits of seeming, and not of being; they are content to appear
well-dressed, well-mannered, and well-intentioned to outsiders, with
very little effort after beauty, order, and goodness at home, and in
each other’s eyes.
=Habit forces Nature into New Channels.=--The extraordinary power
of habit in forcing nature into new channels hardly requires
illustration; we have only to see a small boy at a circus riding two
barebacked ponies with a foot on the back of each, or a pantomime
fairy dancing on air, or a clown behaving like an indiarubber ball,
or any of the thousand feats of skill and dexterity which we pay our
shillings to see--mental feats as well as bodily, though, happily,
these are the rarer--to be convinced that exactly anything may be
accomplished by training, that is, the cultivation of persistent
habits. And the power of habit is not seen in human beings alone. The
cat goes in search of her dinner always at the same time and to the
same place--that is, if it is usual to feed her in one spot. Indeed,
the habit of place is so much to the cat, that she will often rather
die of famine than forsake the house to which she is accustomed. As
for the dog, he is still more a ‘bundle of habits’ than his master.
Scatter the crumbs for the sparrows at nine o’clock every morning,
and at nine o’clock they will come for their breakfast, crumbs or no
crumbs. Darwin inclines to think that the terror and avoidance shown
towards man by the wild birds and lesser animals is simply a matter
of _transmitted_ habit; he tells us how he landed upon certain
of the Pacific islands where the birds had never seen man before, and
they lighted upon him and flew about him with utter fearlessness. To
come nearer home, what evidence of the mastery of habit is more sad
and more overwhelming than the habits of the drunkard, for instance,
persisted in, in spite of reason, conscience, purpose, religion, every
motive which should influence a thinking being?
=Parents and Teachers must lay down Lines of Habit.=--All this is
nothing new; we have always known that ‘use is second nature,’ and
that ‘man is a bundle of habits.’ It was not the fact, but the
application of the fact, and the physiology of habit, that were new
and exceedingly valuable ideas to me, and I hope they may be of some
use to the reader. It was new to me, for instance, to perceive that
it rests with parents and teachers to lay down lines of habit on
which the life of the child may run henceforth with little jolting or
miscarriage, and may advance in the right direction with the minimum
of effort.
V.--THE LAYING DOWN OF LINES OF HABIT
‘=Begin it, and the thing will be completed!=’ is infallibly true
of every mental and moral habitude: completed, not on the lines you
foresee and intend, but on the lines appropriate and necessary to
that particular habitude. In the phrase ‘unconscious cerebration’
we are brought face to face with the fact that, whatever seed of
thought or feeling you implant in a child--whether through inheritance
or by early training--grows, completes itself, and begets after
its kind, even as does a corporeal organism. It is a marvellous
and beautiful thing to perceive an idea--when the idea itself is a
fine one--developing within you of its own accord, to find your pen
writing down sentences whose logical sequence delights you, and yet
in the conception of which you have had no conscious part. When the
experienced writer ‘reels off’ in this fashion, he knows that so far
as the run of the words, the ordering of the ideas, go, his work
will need no revision. So fine a thing is this, that the lingering
fallacy of the infallible reason established itself thereupon. The
philosopher, who takes pleasure in observing the ways of his own
mind, is a thinker of high thoughts, and he is apt to forget that
the thought which defiles a man behaves in precisely the same way as
that which purifies: the one, as the other, develops, matures, and
increases after its kind.
=We Think, as we are accustomed to Think.=--How does this bear on the
practical work of bringing up children? In this way: We think, _as
we are accustomed to think_; ideas come and go and carry on a
ceaseless traffic in the rut--let us call it--you have made for them
in the very nerve substance of the brain. You do not deliberately
intend to think these thoughts; you may, indeed, object strongly to
the line they are taking (two ‘trains’ of thought going on at one and
the same time!), and objecting, you may be able to barricade the way,
to put up ‘No Road’ in big letters, and to compel the busy populace
of the brain-world to take another route. But who is able for these
things? Not the child, immature of will, feeble in moral power,
unused to the weapons of the spiritual warfare. He depends upon his
parents; it rests with them to initiate the thoughts he shall think,
the desires he shall cherish, the feelings he shall allow. Only to
initiate; no more is permitted to them; but from this initiation will
result the habits of thought and feeling which govern the man--his
_character_, that is to say. But is not this assuming too much,
seeing that, to sum up roughly all we understand by heredity, a child
is born with his future in his hands? The child is born, doubtless,
with the tendencies which should shape his future; but every tendency
has its branch roads, its good or evil outcome; and to put the child
on the right track for the fulfilment of the possibilities inherent in
_him_, is the vocation of the parent.
=Direction of Lines of Habit.=--This relation of habit to human
life--as the rails on which it runs to a locomotive--is perhaps the
most suggestive and helpful to the educator; for just as it is on the
whole easier for the locomotive to pursue its way on the rails than
to take a disastrous run off them, so it is easier for the child to
follow lines of habit carefully laid down than to run off these lines
at his peril. It follows that this business of laying down lines
towards the unexplored country of the child’s future is a very serious
and responsible one for the parent. It rests with him to consider
well the tracks over which the child should travel with profit and
pleasure; and, along these tracks, to lay down lines so invitingly
smooth and easy that the little traveller is going upon them at full
speed without stopping to consider whether or no he chooses to go that
way.
=Habit and Free-will.=--But,--supposing that the doing of a
certain action a score or two of times in unbroken sequence forms
a habit which it is as easy to follow as not; that, persist still
further in the habit _without lapses_, and it becomes second
nature, quite difficult to shake off; continue it further, through
a course of years, and the habit has the strength of _ten_
natures, you cannot break through it without doing real violence to
yourself;--grant all this, and also that it is possible to form in
the child _the habit_ of doing and saying, even of thinking
and feeling, all that it is desirable he should do or say, think or
feel,--and do you not take away the child’s free-will, make a mere
automaton of him by this excessive culture?
=Habit rules ninety-nine in a hundred of our Thoughts and Acts.=--In
the first place, whether you choose or no to take any trouble about
the formation of his _habits_, it is habit, all the same, which
will govern ninety-nine one-hundredths of the child’s life: he
_is_ the mere automaton you describe. As for the child’s becoming
the creature of habit, that is not left with the parent to determine.
We are all mere creatures of habit. We think our accustomed thoughts,
make our usual small talk, go through the trivial round, the common
task, without any self-determining effort of will at all. If it were
not so--if we had to think, to deliberate, about each operation of the
bath or the table--life would not be worth having; the perpetually
repeated effort of decision would wear us out. But, let us be
thankful, life is not thus laborious. For a hundred times we act or
think, it is not necessary to choose, to will, say, more than once.
And the little emergencies, which compel an act of will, will fall in
the children’s lives just about as frequently as in our own. These
we cannot save them from, nor is it desirable that we should. What we
can do for them is to secure that they have habits which shall lead
them in ways of order, propriety, and virtue, instead of leaving their
wheel of life to make ugly ruts in miry places.
=Habit powerful even where the Will decides.=--And then, even in
emergencies, in every sudden difficulty and temptation that requires
an act of will, why, conduct is still apt to run on the lines of
the familiar habit. The boy who has been accustomed to find both
profit and pleasure in his books does not fall easily into idle ways
because he is attracted by an idle schoolfellow. The girl who has been
carefully trained to speak the exact truth simply does not think of a
lie as a ready means of getting out of a scrape, coward as she may be.
But this doctrine of habit, is it, after all, any more than an
empirical treatment of the child’s symptoms? Why should the doing of
an act or the thinking of a thought, say, a score of times in unbroken
succession, have any tendency to make the doing of that act or the
thinking of that thought a part of the child’s nature? We may accept
the doctrine as an act of faith resting on experience; but if we could
discover the _raison d’être_ of this enormous force of habit it
would be possible to go to work on the laying down of habits with real
purpose and method.
VI.--THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HABIT
A work of Dr Carpenter’s was perhaps the first which gave me the
clue I was in search of. In his _Mental Physiology_--a most
interesting book, by the way--he works out the analogy between mental
and physical activity, and shows that the correspondence in effect is
due to a correspondence in cause.
=Growing Tissues form themselves to Modes of Action.=--To state
roughly the doctrine of the school Dr Carpenter represents--the
tissues, as muscular tissue, for instance, undergo constant waste and
as constant reparation. Even those modes of muscular action which we
regard as natural to us, as walking and standing erect, are in reality
the results of a laborious education; quite as much so as many modes
of action which we consciously acquire, as writing or dancing; but
the acquired modes become perfectly easy and natural. Why? Because
it is the law of the constantly growing tissues that they should
form themselves according to the modes of action required of them.
In a case where the brain is repeatedly sending down to the muscles,
under nervous control as they are, the message to have a certain
action done, that action becomes automatic in the lower centre, and
the faintest suggestion from outside comes to produce it without
the intervention of the brain. Thus, the joints and muscles of the
child’s hand very soon accommodate themselves to the mode of action
required of them in holding and guiding the pen. Observe, it is not
that the child learns with his mind how to use his pen, in spite of
his muscles; but that the newly growing muscles themselves take form
according to the action required of them. And here is the explanation
of all the mountebank feats which appear simply impossible to the
untrained looker-on. They are impossible to him, because his joints
and muscles have not the same powers which have been produced in the
mountebank by a process of early training.
=Therefore Children should learn Dancing, Swimming, etc., at an Early
Age.=--So much for mere bodily activities. And here we have the reason
why children should learn dancing, riding, swimming, calisthenics,
every form of activity which requires a training of the muscles, at
an early age: the fact being, that muscles and joints have not merely
to conform themselves to new uses, but to grow to a modified pattern;
and this growth and adaptation take place with the greatest facility
in early youth. Of course, the man whose muscles have kept the habit
of adaptation picks up new games, new muscular exercises, without very
great labour. But teach a ploughman to write, and you see the enormous
physical difficulty which unaccustomed muscles have in growing to any
new sort of effort. Here we see how important it is to keep watch
over the habits of enunciation, carriage of the head, and so on,
which the child is forming hour by hour. The poke, the stoop, the
indistinct utterance, is not a mere trick to be left off at pleasure
‘when he is older and knows better,’ but is all the time growing into
him becoming a part of himself, because it is registered in the very
substance of his spinal cord. The part of his nervous system where
consciousness resides (the brain) has long ago given a standing order,
and such are the complications of the administration, that to recall
the order would mean the absolute re-making of the parts concerned.
And to correct bad habits of speaking, for instance, it will not be
enough for the child to intend to speak plainly and to try to speak
plainly; he will not be able to do so habitually until some degree of
new growth has taken place in the organs of voice whilst he is making
efforts to form the new habit.
=Moral and Mental Habits make their Mark upon Physical Tissues.=--But,
practically, everybody knows that the body, and every part of the
body, accommodates itself very readily to the uses it is put to: we
know that if a child accustom herself to stand on one foot, thus
pushing up one shoulder, the habit will probably end in curvature
of the spine; that to permit drooping shoulders, and, consequently,
contracted chest, is to prepare the way for lung disease. The physical
consequences of bad habits of this sort are so evident, that we cannot
blind ourselves to the relation of cause and effect. What we are
less prepared to admit is, that habits which do not appear to be in
any sense physical--a flippant habit, a truthful habit, an orderly
habit--should also _make their mark upon a physical tissue_, and
that it is to this physical effect the enormous strength of habit is
probably due. Yet when we consider that the brain, the physical brain,
is the exceedingly delicate organ by means of which we think and feel
and desire, love and hate and worship, it is not surprising that that
organ should be modified by the work it has to do; to put the matter
picturesquely, it is as if every familiar train of thought made a rut
in the nervous substance of the brain into which the thoughts run
lightly of their own accord, and out of which they can only be got by
an effort of will.
=Persistent Trains of Thought.=--Thus, the mistress of the house
knows that when her thoughts are free to take their own course, they
run to cares of the house or the larder, to to-morrow’s dinner or
the winter’s clothing; that is, thought runs into the rut which has
been, so to speak, worn for it by constant repetition. The mother’s
thoughts run on her children, the painter’s on pictures, the poet’s on
poems; those of the anxious head of the house on money cares, it may
be, until in times of unusual pressure the thoughts beat, beat, beat
in that well-worn rut of ways and means, and decline to run in any
other channel, till the poor man loses his reason, simply because he
cannot get his thoughts out of that one channel made in the substance
of his brain. And, indeed, “that way madness lies” for every one of
us, in the persistent preying of any one train of thought upon the
brain tissue. Pride, resentment, jealousy, an invention that a man has
laboured over, an opinion he has conceived, any line of thought which
he has no longer the power to divert, will endanger a man’s sanity.
=Incessant Regeneration of Brain Tissue.=--If we love, hate, think,
feel, worship, at the expense of actual physical effort on the part of
the brain, and consequent waste of tissue, how enormous must be the
labour of that organ with which we, in fact, _do_ everything,
even many of those acts whose final execution falls to the hands
or feet! It is true: and to repair this excessive waste, the brain
consumes the lion’s share of the nourishment provided for the body.
As we have already seen, fully a sixth or a fifth of all the blood in
the body goes to repair the waste in the king’s house; in other words,
_new brain tissue_ is being constantly formed at a startlingly
rapid rate: one wonders at what age the child has no longer any part
left of that brain with which he was born.
The new tissue repeats the old, but not quite exactly. Just as a
new muscular growth adapts itself to any new exercise required of
it, so the new brain tissue is supposed to ‘grow to’ any habit of
thought in force during the time of growth--‘thought’ here including,
of course, every exercise of mind and soul. “The cerebrum of man
grows to the modes of thought in which it is habitually exercised,”
says an able physiologist; or, in the words of Dr Carpenter, “Any
sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated, tends to
perpetuate itself; so that we find ourselves automatically prompted
to _think_, _feel_, or _do_ what we have been before accustomed to
think, feel, or do, under like circumstances, without any consciously
formed _purpose_ or anticipation of results. For there is no reason to
regard the cerebrum as an exception to the general principle, that
whilst each part of the organism tends to _form itself_ in accordance
with the mode in which it is habitually exercised, this tendency will
be specially strong in the nervous apparatus, in virtue of that
_incessant regeneration_ which is the very condition of its functional
activity. It scarcely, indeed, admits of a doubt, that every state of
ideational consciousness which is either _very strong_ or is
_habitually repeated_, leaves an organic impression on the cerebrum,
in virtue of which the same state may be reproduced at any future time
in correspondence to a suggestion fitted to excite it.”
=Artificial Reflex Actions may be Acquired.=--Or, to take Huxley’s way
of putting the case:--
“By the help of the brain we may acquire an infinity of
_artificial_ reflex actions; that is to say, an action may
require all our attention and all our volition for its
first, second, or third performance, but by frequent
repetition it becomes, in a manner, part of our
organisation, and is performed without volition or even
consciousness.
“As every one knows, it takes a soldier a long time to learn
his drill--for instance, to put himself into the attitude of
‘attention’ at the instant the word of command is heard. But
after a time the sound of the word gives rise to the act,
whether the soldier be thinking of it or not. There is a
story, which is credible enough, though it may not be true,
of a practical joker who, seeing a discharged veteran
carrying home his dinner, suddenly called out ‘Attention!’
whereupon the man instantly brought his hands down, and lost
his mutton and potatoes in the gutter. The drill had been
thorough, and its effects had become embodied in the man’s
nervous structure.
“The possibility of all education (of which military drill
is only one particular form) is based upon the existence of
this power which the nervous system possesses, of organising
conscious actions into more or less unconscious, or reflex,
operations. It may be down laid as a rule, that if any two
mental states be called up together, or in succession, with
due frequency and vividness, the subsequent production of
the one of them will suffice to call up the other, and that
whether we desire it or not.”
=Intellectual and Moral Education.=--“The object of intellectual
education is to create such indissoluble associations of our ideas of
things, in the order and relation in which they occur in nature; that
of a moral education is to unite as fixedly, the ideas of evil deeds
with those of pain and degradation, and of good actions with those of
pleasure and nobleness.”
But it is the intimate interlocking of mind and matter which is
more directly important to the educator--the idea which we have put
broadly under the (by no means scientifically accurate) figure of
a _rut_. Given, that the constant direction of the thoughts
produces a certain set in the tissues of the brain, this set is the
first trace of the rut or path, a line of least resistance, along
which the same impression, made another time, will find it easier to
travel than to take another path. So arises a right-of-way for any
given habit of action or thought.
=Character affected by Acquired Modification of Brain Tissue.=--What
follows? Why, that the actual conformation of the child’s brain
depends upon the habits which the parents permit or encourage; and
that the habits of the child produce the character of the man, because
certain mental habitudes once set up, their nature is to go on for
ever unless they should be displaced by other habits. Here is an end
to the easy philosophy of, ‘It doesn’t matter,’ ‘Oh, he’ll grow out
of it,’ ‘He’ll know better by-and-by,’ ‘He’s so young, what can we
expect?’ and so on. Every day, every hour, the parents are either
passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon
which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct
depend.
=Outside Influence.=--And here comes in the consideration of outside
influence. Nine times out of ten we begin to do a thing because we see
some one else do it; we go on doing it, and--there is the habit! If it
is so easy for ourselves to take up a new habit, it is tenfold as easy
for the children; and this is the real difficulty in the matter of the
education of habit. It is necessary that the mother be always on the
alert to nip in the bud the bad habit her children may be in the act
of picking up from servants or from other children.
VII.--THE FORMING OF A HABIT--‘SHUT THE DOOR
AFTER YOU’
“Do ye next thinge.”
“Lose this day loitering, and ’twill be the same story
To-morrow; and the next, more dilatory:
The indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost, lamenting o’er lost days,”
says Marlowe, who, like many of us, knew the misery of the
intellectual indolence which cannot brace itself to “Do ye next
thinge.” No question concerning the bringing up of children can,
conceivably, be trivial, but this, of dilatoriness, is very important.
The effort of decision, we have seen, is the greatest effort of life;
not the doing of the thing, but the making up of one’s mind as to
which thing to do first. It is commonly this sort of mental indolence,
born of indecision, which leads to dawdling habits. How is the
dilatory child to be cured? Time? She will know better as she grows
older? Not a bit of it: “And the next, _more_ dilatory” will be
the story of her days, except for occasional spurts. Punishments?
No; your dilatory person is a fatalist. ‘What can’t be cured must
be endured,’ he says, but he will endure without any effort to cure.
Rewards? No; to him a reward is a punishment presented under another
aspect: the possible reward he realises as actual; there it is, within
his grasp, so to say; in foregoing the reward he is punished; and he
bears the punishment. What remains to be tried when neither time,
reward, nor punishment is effectual? That panacea of the educationist:
‘One custom overcometh another.’ This inveterate dawdling is a habit
to be supplanted only by the contrary habit, and the mother must
devote herself for a few weeks to this cure as steadily and untiringly
as she would to the nursing of her child through measles. Having in
a few--the fewer the better--earnest words pointed out the miseries
that must arise from this fault, and the duty of overcoming it, and
having so got the (sadly feeble) will of the child on the side of
right-doing, she simply sees that for weeks together the fault does
not recur. The child goes to dress for a walk; she dreams over the
lacing of her boots--the tag in her fingers poised in mid air--but her
conscience is awake; she is constrained to look up, and her mother’s
eye is upon her, _hopeful_ and _expectant_. She answers to the rein
and goes on; midway, in the lacing of the second boot, there is
another pause, shorter this time; again she looks up, and again she
goes on. The pauses become fewer day by day, the efforts steadier, the
immature young will is being strengthened, the habit of prompt action
acquired. After that first talk, the mother would do well to
refrain from one more word on the subject; the eye (expectant, not
reproachful), and, where the child is far gone in a dream, the
lightest possible touch, are the only effectual instruments.
By-and-by, ‘Do you think you can get ready in five minutes to-day
without me?’ ‘Oh yes, mother.’ ‘Do not say “yes” unless you are quite
sure.’ ‘I _will_ try.’ And she tries, and succeeds. Now, the mother
will be tempted to relax her efforts--to overlook a little dawdling
because the dear child has been trying so hard. This is absolutely
fatal. The fact is, that the dawdling habit has made an appreciable
record in the very substance of the child’s brain. During the weeks of
cure new growth has been obliterating the old track, and the track of
a new habit is being formed. To permit any reversion to the old bad
habit is to let go all this gain. To form a good habit is the work of
a few weeks; to guard it is a work of incessant, but by no means
anxious care. One word more,--prompt action on the child’s part should
have the reward of absolute leisure, time in which to do exactly as
she pleases, not granted as a favour, but accruing (without any words)
as a right.
=Habit a Delight in itself.=--Except for this one drawback, the
forming of habits in the children is no laborious task, for the
reward goes hand in hand with the labour; so much so, that it is
like the laying out of a penny with the certainty of the immediate
return of a pound. For a habit is a delight in itself; poor human
nature is conscious of the ease that it is to repeat the doing of
anything without effort; and, therefore, the formation of a habit, the
gradually lessening sense of effort in a given act, is pleasurable.
This is one of the rocks that mothers sometimes split upon: they lose
sight of the fact that a habit, _even_ a good habit, becomes a
real pleasure; and when the child has really formed the habit of doing
a certain thing, his mother imagines that the effort is as great to
him as at first, that it is virtue in him to go on making this effort,
and that he deserves, by way of reward, a little relaxation--she will
let him break through the new habit a few times, and then go on again.
But it is not going on; it is beginning again, and beginning in the
face of obstacles. The ‘little relaxation’ she allowed her child meant
the forming of another contrary habit, which must be overcome before
the child gets back to where he was before.
As a matter of fact, this misguided sympathy on the part of mothers is
the one thing that makes it a laborious undertaking to train a child
in good habits; for it is the nature of the child to take to habits as
kindly as the infant takes to his mother’s milk.
=Tact, Watchfulness, and Persistence.=--For example, and to choose
a habit of no great consequence except as a matter of consideration
for others: the mother wishes her child to acquire the habit of
shutting the door after him when he enters or leaves a room. Tact,
watchfulness, and persistence are the qualities she must cultivate in
herself; and, with these, she will be astonished at the readiness with
which the child picks up the new habit.
=Stages in the Formation of a Habit.=--‘Johnny,’ she says, in a
bright, friendly voice, ‘I want you to remember something with all
your might: never go into or out of a room in which anybody is sitting
without shutting the door.’
‘But if I forget, mother?’
‘I will try to remind you.’
‘But perhaps I shall be in a _great_ hurry.’
‘You must always make time to do that.’
‘But why, mother?’
‘Because it is not polite to the people in the room to make them
uncomfortable.’
‘But if I am going out again that _very_ minute?’
‘Still, shut the door, when you come in; you can open it again to go
out. Do you think you can remember?’
‘I’ll try, mother.’
‘Very well; I shall watch to see how few “forgets” you make.’
For two or three times Johnny remembers; and then, he is off like a
shot and half-way downstairs before his mother has time to call him
back. She does not cry out, ‘Johnny, come back and shut the door!’
because she knows that a summons of that kind is exasperating to big
or little. She goes to the door, and calls pleasantly, ‘Johnny!’
Johnny has forgotten all about the door; he wonders what his mother
wants, and, stirred by curiosity, comes back, to find her seated and
employed as before. She looks up, glances at the door, and says, ‘I
said I should try to remind you.’ ‘Oh, I forgot’ says Johnny, put upon
his honour; and he shuts the door that time, and the next, and the
next.
But the little fellow has really not much power to recollect, and the
mother will have to adopt various little devices to remind him; but
of two things she will be careful--that he never slips off without
shutting the door, and that she never lets the matter be a cause
of friction between herself and the child, taking the line of his
friendly ally to help him against that bad memory of his. By and by,
after, say, twenty shuttings of the door with never an omission,
the habit begins to be formed; Johnny shuts the door as a matter of
course, and his mother watches him with delight come into a room, shut
the door, take something off the table, and go out, again shutting the
door.
=The Dangerous Stage.=--Now that Johnny always shuts the door, his
mother’s joy and triumph begin to be mixed with unreasonable pity.
‘Poor child,’ she says to herself, ‘it is very good of him to take so
much pains about a little thing, just because he is bid!’ She thinks
that, all the time, the child is making an effort for her sake; losing
sight of the fact that the _habit_ has become easy and natural,
that, in fact, Johnny shuts the door without knowing that he does so.
Now comes the critical moment. Some day Johnny is so taken up with
a new delight that the habit, not yet fully formed, loses its hold,
and he is half-way downstairs before he thinks of the door. Then he
does think of it, with a little prick of conscience, strong enough,
not to send him back, but to make him pause a moment to see if his
mother will call him back. She has noticed the omission, and is saying
to herself, ‘Poor little fellow, he has been very good about it this
long time; I’ll let him off this once.’ He, outside, fails to hear
his mother’s call, says, to himself--fatal sentence!--‘Oh, it doesn’t
matter,’ and trots off.
Next time he leaves the door open, but it is not a ‘forget.’ His
mother calls him back in a rather feeble way. His quick ear catches
the weakness of her tone, and, without coming back, he cries, ‘Oh,
mother, I’m in _such_ a hurry,’ and she says no more, but lets
him off. Again he rushes in, leaving the door wide open. ‘Johnny!’--in
a warning voice. ‘I’m going out again just in a minute, mother,’ and
after ten minutes’ rummaging he does go out, and forgets to shut the
door. The mother’s mis-timed easiness has lost for her every foot of
the ground she had gained.
VIII.--INFANT ‘HABITS’
The whole group of habitudes, half physical and half moral, on which
the propriety and comfort of everyday life depend, are received
passively by the child; that is, he does very little to form these
habits himself, but his brain receives impressions from what he sees
about him; and these impressions take form as his own very strongest
and most lasting habits.
=Some Branches of Infant Education.=--Cleanliness, order, neatness,
regularity, punctuality, are all ‘branches’ of _infant_ education.
They should be about the child like the air he breathes, and he will
take them in as unconsciously. It is hardly necessary to say a word
about the necessity for delicate cleanliness in the nursery. The
babies get their share of tubbing, and unlimited washing is done on
their behalf; but, indeed, scrupulous as mothers of the cultured class
are, a great deal rests with the nurses, and it needs much
watchfulness to secure that there shall not be the faintest odour
about the infant or anything belonging to him, and that the nurseries
be kept sweet and thoroughly aired. One great difficulty is, that
there are still some nurses who belong to a class to which an open
window is an abomination; and another is, they do not all know the
meaning of odours: they cannot see ‘a smell,’ and, therefore, it is
not easy to persuade them that a smell is _matter_, microscopic
particles which the child takes into him with every breath he draws.
=A Sensitive Nose.=--By the way, a very important bit of physical
education for a child is to train in him a sensitive nose--nostrils
which sniff out the least ‘stuffiness’ in a room, or the faintest
odour attached to clothes or furniture. The sense of smell appears to
have been given us not only as an avenue of pleasure, but as a sort
of danger-signal to warn us of the presence of noxious matters: yet
many people appear to go through the world without a nose at all;
and the fact tends to show that a quick sense of smell is a matter
of education and habit. The habit is easily formed. Encourage the
children to notice whether the room they enter ‘smells’ quite fresh
when they come in out of the open air, to observe the difference
between the air of the town and the fresher air beyond; and train them
to perceive the faintest trace of pleasant or harmless odours.
=The Baby is Ubiquitous.=--To return to the nursery. It would be a
great thing if the nurse could be impressed with the notion that the
baby is ubiquitous, and that he not only sees and knows everything,
but will keep, for all his life, the mark of all he sees:--
“If there’s a hole in a’ your coats,
I pray ye, tent it;
A chiel’s amang ye takin’ notes,
And, faith, he’ll prent it”:--
‘_prent_ it’ on his own active brain, as a type for his future
habits. Such a notion on the nurse’s part might do something to secure
cleanliness that goes beyond that of clean aprons. One or two little
bits of tidiness that nurses affect are not to be commended on the
score of cleanliness:--the making up of the nursery beds early in the
morning, and the folding up of the children’s garments when they take
them off at night. It is well to stretch a line across the day nursery
at night, and hang the little garments out for an airing, to get rid
of the insensible perspiration with which they have been laden during
the day. For the same reason, the beds and bedclothes should be turned
down to air for a couple of hours before they are made up.
=Personal Cleanliness as an Early Habit.=--The nursery table, if
there be one, should be kept as scrupulously _nice_ as that of
the dining-room. The child who sits down to a crumpled or spotted
tablecloth, or uses a discoloured metal spoon, is degraded--by so
much. The children, too, should be encouraged to nice cleanliness in
their own persons. We have all seen the dainty baby-hand stretched
out to be washed; it has got a smudge, and the child does not like
it. May they be as particular when they are big enough to wash their
own hands! Not that they should be always clean and presentable;
children love to ‘mess about,’ and should have big pinafores for the
purpose. They are all like that little French prince who scorned
his birthday gifts, and entreated to be allowed to make dear little
mud-pies with the boy in the gutter. Let them make their mud-pies
freely; but that over, they should be impatient to remove every trace
of soil, and should do it _themselves_. Young children may be
taught to take care of their finger-nails, and to cleanse the corners
of eyes and ears. As for sitting down to table with unwashed hands and
unbrushed hair, that, of course, no decent child is allowed to do.
Children should be early provided with their own washing materials,
and accustomed to find real pleasure in the bath, and in attending to
themselves. There is no reason why a child of five or six should not
make himself thoroughly clean without all that torture of soap in the
eyes and general pulling about and poking which children hate, and
no wonder. Besides, the child is not getting the _habit_ of the
daily bath until he can take it for himself, and it is important that
this habit should be formed before the reckless era of school-life
begins.
=Modesty and Purity.=--The operations of the bath afford the mother
opportunities to give necessary teaching and training in habits of
decency, and a sense of modesty. To let her young child live and grow
in Eden-like simplicity is, perhaps, the most tempting and natural
course to the mother. But alas! we do not live in the Garden, and it
may be well that the child should be trained from the first to the
conditions under which he is to live. To the youngest child, as to
our first parents, there is that which is forbidden. In the age of
unquestioning obedience, let him know that not all of his body does
Almighty God allow him to speak of, think of, display, handle, except
for purposes of cleanliness. This will be the easier to the mother if
she speak of heart, lungs, etc., which, also, we are not allowed to
look at or handle, but which have been so enclosed in walls of flesh
and bone that we cannot get at them. That which is left open to us is
so left, like that tree in the Garden of Eden, as a test of obedience;
and in the one case, as in the other, disobedience is attended with
certain loss and ruin.
=The Habit of Obedience and the Sense of Honour.=--The sense of
prohibition, of _sin_ in disobedience, will be a wonderful
safeguard against knowledge of evil to the child brought up in habits
of obedience; and still more effective will be the sense of honour,
of a charge to keep--the motive of the apostolic injunctions on this
subject. Let the mother renew this charge with earnestness on the eve,
say, of each birthday, giving the child to feel that by obedience in
this matter he may glorify God _with his body_; let her keep
watch against every approach of evil; and let her pray daily that each
one of her children may be kept in purity for that day. To ignore the
_possibilities_ of evil in this kind is to expose the child to
frightful risks. At the same time, be it remembered that words which
were meant to hinder may themselves be the cause of evil, and that a
life full of healthy interests and activities is amongst the surest
preventives of secret vice.
=Order Essential.=--What has been said about cleanliness applies as
much to order--order in the nursery, and orderly habits in the nurse.
One thing under this head: the nursery should not be made the hospital
for the disabled or worn-out furniture of the house; cracked cups,
chipped plates, jugs and teapots with fractured spouts, should be
banished. The children should be brought up to think that when once
an article is made unsightly by soil or fracture it is spoiled, and
must be replaced; and this rule will prove really economical, for
when children and servants find that things no longer ‘do,’ after
some careless injury, they learn to be careful. But, in any case, it
is a real detriment to the children to grow up using imperfect and
unsightly makeshifts.
The pleasure grown-up people take in waiting on children is really
a fruitful source of mischief;--for instance, in this matter of
orderly habits. Who does not know the litter the children leave to be
cleared up after them a dozen times a day, in the nursery, garden,
drawing-room, wherever their restless little feet carry them? We are a
bit sentimental about scattered toys and faded nosegays, and all the
tokens of the children’s presence; but the fact is, that the lawless
habit of scattering should not be allowed to grow upon children.
Everybody condemns the mother of a family whose drawers are chaotic,
whose possessions are flung about heedlessly; but at least some of
the blame should be carried back to _her_ mother. It is not as
a woman that she has picked up a miserable habit which destroys the
comfort, if not the happiness, of her home; the habit of disorder was
allowed to grow upon her as a child, and her share of the blame is,
that she has failed to cure herself.
=The Child of Two should put away his Playthings.=--The child of two
should be taught to get and to replace his playthings. Begin early.
Let it be a pleasure to him, part of his play, to open his cupboard,
and put back the doll or the horse each in its own place. Let him
_always_ put away his things as a matter of course, and it is
surprising how soon a habit of order is formed, which will make it
pleasant to the child to put away his toys, and irritating to him to
see things in the wrong place. If parents would only see the morality
of order, that order in the nursery becomes scrupulousness in after
life, and that the training necessary to form the habit is no more,
comparatively, than the occasional winding of a clock, which ticks
away then of its own accord and without trouble to itself, more pains
would be taken to cultivate this important habit.
=Neatness Akin to Order.=--Neatness is akin to order, but is not
quite the same thing: it implies not only ‘a place for everything,
and everything in its place,’ but everything in a suitable place,
so as to produce a good effect; in fact, _taste_ comes into
play. The little girl must not only put her flowers in water, but
arrange them prettily, and must not be put off with some rude kitchen
mug or jug for them, or some hideous pink vase, but must have jar
or vase graceful in form and harmonious in hue, though it be but
a cheap trifle. In the same way, everything in the nursery should
be ‘neat’--that is, pleasing and suitable; and children should be
encouraged to make neat and effective arrangements of their own little
properties. Nothing vulgar in the way of print, picture-book, or toy
should be admitted--nothing to vitiate a child’s taste or introduce
a strain of commonness into his nature. On the other hand, it would
be hard to estimate the refining, elevating influence of one or two
well-chosen works of art, in however cheap a reproduction.
=Regularity.=--The importance of _Regularity_ in infant education
is beginning to be pretty generally acknowledged. The young mother
knows that she must put her baby to bed at a proper time, regardless
of his cries, even if she leave him to cry two or three times, in
order that, for the rest of his baby life, he may put himself sweetly
to sleep in the dark without protest. But a good deal of nonsense is
talked about the reason of the child’s cries: he is supposed to want
his mother, or his nurse, or his bottle, or the light, and to be ‘a
knowing little fellow,’ according to his nurse, quite up to the fact
that if he cries for these things he will get them.
=Habits of Time and Place.=--The fact is, the child has already formed
a habit of wakefulness or of feeding at improper times, and he is as
uneasy at his habits being broken in upon as the cat is at a change
of habitation; when he submits happily to the new regulation, it is
because the new habit is formed, and is, in its turn, the source of
satisfaction. According to Dr Carpenter, “_Regularity_ should
begin even with infant life, as to times of feeding, repose, etc.
The _bodily_ habit thus formed greatly helps to shape the
_mental_ habit at a later period. On the other hand, nothing
tends more to generate a habit of self-indulgence than to feed a
child, or to allow it to remain out of bed, at unseasonable times,
merely because it cries. It is wonderful how soon the actions of a
young infant (like those of a young dog or horse) come into harmony
with systematic ‘training’ judiciously exercised.” The habit of
regularity is as attractive to older children as to the infant. The
days when the usual programme falls through are, we know, the days
when the children are apt to be naughty.
IX.--PHYSICAL EXERCISES
=Importance of Daily.=--The subject of the natural training of eye and
muscles was taken up pretty fully in treating of ‘Out-of-door Life.’
I will only add, that to give the child pleasure in light and easy
motion--the sort of delight in the management of his own body that a
good rider finds in managing his horse--dancing, drill, calisthenics,
some sort of judicious physical exercise, should make part of every
day’s routine. Swedish drill is especially valuable, and many of the
exercises are quite suitable for the nursery. Certain moral qualities
come into play in alert movements, eye-to-eye attention, prompt and
intelligent replies; but it often happens that good children fail in
these points for want of physical training.
=Drill of Good Manners.=--Just let them go through the drill of good
manners: let them rehearse little scenes in play,--Mary, the lady
asking the way to the market; Harry, the boy who directs her, and so
on. Let them go through a position drill--eyes right, hands still,
heads up. They will invent a hundred situations, and the behaviour
proper to each, and will treasure hints thrown in for their guidance;
but this sort of drill should be attempted while children are young,
before the tyranny of _mauvaise honte_ sets in. Encourage them to
admire and take pride in light springing movements, and to eschew a
heavy gait and clownish action of the limbs.
=Training of the Ear and Voice.=--The training of the ear and
voice is an exceedingly important part of physical culture. Drill
the children in pure vowel sounds, in the enunciation of final
consonants; do not let them speak of ‘walkin’’ and ‘talkin’,’ of a
‘fi-ine da-ay,’ ‘ni-ice boy-oys.’ Drill them in pronouncing difficult
words--‘imperturbability,’ ‘ipecacuanha,’ ‘Antananarivo,’--with sharp
precision after a single hearing; in producing the several sounds of
each vowel; and the sounds of the consonants _without_ attendant
vowels. French, taught orally, is exceedingly valuable as affording
training for both ear and voice.
=The Habit of Music.=--As for a musical training, it would be hard to
say how much that passes for inherited musical taste and ability is
the result of the constant hearing and producing of musical sounds,
the _habit_ of music, that the child of musical people grows
up with. Mr Hullah maintained that the art of singing is entirely
a trained habit--that every child may be, and should be, trained
to sing. Of course, _transmitted_ habit must be taken into
account. It is a pity that the musical training most children get
is of a random character; that they are not trained, for instance,
by carefully graduated ear and voice exercises, to produce and
distinguish musical tones and intervals.
=Let Children Alone.=--In conclusion, let me say that the education
of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to _let
her children alone_, not teasing them with perpetual commands and
directions--a running fire of _Do_ and _Don’t_; but letting
them go their own way and _grow_, having first secured that they
will go the right way, and grow to fruitful purpose. The gardener, it
is true, ‘digs about and dungs,’ prunes and trains, his peach tree;
but that occupies a small fraction of the tree’s life: all the rest
of the time the sweet airs and sunshine, the rains and dews, play
about it and breathe upon it, get into its substance, and the result
is--peaches. But let the gardener neglect _his_ part, and the
peaches will be no better than sloes.
PART IV
SOME HABITS OF MIND--SOME MORAL HABITS
=A Science of Education.=--Allow me to say once more, that I venture
to write upon subjects bearing on home education with the greatest
deference to mothers; believing, that in virtue of their peculiar
insight into the dispositions of their own children, they are blest
with both knowledge and power in the management of them which
lookers-on can only admire from afar. At the same time, there is
such a thing as a _science_ of education, that does not come by
intuition, in the knowledge of which it is possible to bring up a
child entirely according to natural law, which is also Divine law, in
the keeping of which there is great reward.
=Education in Habit favours an Easy Life.=--We have seen why Habit,
for instance, is such a marvellous force in human life. I find this
view of habit very encouraging, as giving a scientific reasonableness
to the conclusions already reached by common experience. It is
pleasant to know that, even in mature life, it is possible by a little
persistent effort to acquire a desirable habit. It is good, if not
pleasant, to know, also, with what fatal ease we can slip into bad
habits. But the most comfortable thing in this view of habit is,
that it falls in with our natural love of an easy life. We are not
unwilling to make efforts in the beginning with the assurance that
by-and-by things will go smoothly; and this is just what habit is, in
an extraordinary degree, pledged to effect. The mother who takes pains
to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and
easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has
a weary life of endless friction with the children. All day she is
crying out, ‘Do this!’ and they do it not; ‘Do that!’ and they do the
other. ‘But,’ you say, ‘if habit is so powerful, whether to hinder or
to help the child, it is fatiguing to think of all the habits the poor
mother must attend to. Is she never to be at ease with her children?’
=Training in Habits becomes a Habit.=--Here, again, is an illustration
of that fable of the anxious pendulum, overwhelmed with the thought of
the number of ticks it must tick. But the ticks are to be delivered
tick by tick, and there will always be a second of time to tick in.
The mother devotes herself to the formation of one habit at a time,
doing no more than keep watch over those already formed. If she be
appalled by the thought of overmuch labour, let her limit the number
of good habits she will lay herself out to form. The child who starts
in life with, say, twenty good habits, begins with a certain capital
which he will lay out to endless profit as the years go on. The
mother who is distrustful of her own power of steady effort may well
take comfort in two facts. In the first place, she herself acquires
the _habit_ of training her children in a given habit, so that
by-and-by it becomes, not only no trouble, but a pleasure to her. In
the second place, the child’s most fixed and dominant habits are
those which the mother takes no pains about, but which the child picks
up for himself through his close observation of all that is said and
done, felt and thought, in his home.
=Habits inspired in the Home Atmosphere.=--We have already considered
a group of half-physical habits--order, regularity, neatness--which
the child imbibes, so to speak, in this way. But this is not all:
habits of gentleness, courtesy, kindness, candour, respect for other
people, or--habits quite other than these, are inspired by the child
as the very atmosphere of his home, the air he lives in and must grow
by.
I.--THE HABIT OF ATTENTION
Let us pass on, now, to the consideration of a group of mental habits
which are affected by direct training rather than by example.
First, we put the _habit of Attention_, because the highest
intellectual gifts depend for their value upon the measure in which
their owner has cultivated the habit of attention. To explain why this
habit is of such supreme importance, we must consider the operation of
one or two of the laws of thought. But just recall, in the meantime,
the fixity of attention with which the trained professional man--the
lawyer, the doctor, the man of letters--listens to a roundabout
story, throws out the padding, seizes the facts, sees the bearing of
every circumstance, and puts the case with new clearness and method;
and contrast this with the wandering eye and random replies of the
uneducated;--and you see that to differentiate people according to
their power of attention is to employ a legitimate test.
=A Mind at the Mercy of Associations.=--We will consider, then, the
nature and the functions of attention. The mind--with the possible
exception of the state of coma--is never idle; ideas are for ever
passing through the brain, by day and by night, sleeping or waking,
mad or sane. We take a great deal too much upon ourselves when we
suppose that _we_ are the authors and intenders of the thoughts
we think. The most we can do is to give direction to these trains of
thought in the comparatively few moments when we _are_ regulating
the thoughts of our hearts. We see in dreams--the rapid dance of ideas
through the brain during lighter sleep--how ideas follow one another
in a general way. In the wanderings of delirium, in the fancies of the
mad, the inconsequent prattle of the child, and the babble of the old
man, we see the same thing, _i.e._ the law according to which
ideas course through the mind when they are left to themselves. You
talk to a child about glass--you wish to provoke a proper curiosity
as to how glass is made, and what are its uses. Not a bit of it; he
wanders off to Cinderella’s glass slipper; then he tells you about
_his_ godmother who gave him a boat; then about the ship in which
Uncle Harry went to America; then he wonders why you do not wear
spectacles, leaving you to guess that Uncle Harry does so. But the
child’s ramblings are not whimsical; they follow a law, the law of
association of ideas, by which any idea presented to the mind recalls
some other idea which has been at any time associated with it--as
glass, and Cinderella’s slipper; and that, again some idea associated
with it. Now this law of association of ideas is a good servant and a
bad master. To have this aid in recalling the events of the past, the
engagements of the present, is an infinite boon; but to be at the
mercy of associations, to have no power to think of what we choose
when we choose, but only as something ‘puts it in our head,’ is to be
no better than an imbecile.
=Wandering Attention.=--A vigorous effort of will should enable us
at any time to fix our thoughts. Yes; but a vigorous self-compelling
will is the flower of a developed character; and while the child has
no character to speak of, but only natural disposition, who is to
keep humming-tops out of a geography lesson, or a doll’s sofa out
of a French verb? Here is the secret of the weariness of the home
schoolroom--the children are thinking all the time about something
else than their lessons; or, rather, they are at the mercy of the
thousand fancies that flit through their brains, each in the train
of the last. “Oh, Miss Smith,” said a little girl to her governess,
“there are so _many_ things more interesting than lessons to
think about!”
Where is the harm? In this: not merely that the children are wasting
time, though that is a pity; but that they are forming a desultory
habit of mind, and reducing their own capacity for mental effort.
=The Habit of Attention to be Cultivated in the Infant.=--The
help, then, is not in the will of the child but in the _habit of
attention_, a habit to be cultivated even in the infant. A baby,
notwithstanding his wonderful powers of observation, has no power of
attention; in a minute, the coveted plaything drops from listless
little fingers, and the wandering glance lights upon some new joy.
But even at this stage the habit of attention may be trained: the
discarded plaything is picked up, and, with ‘Pretty!’ and dumb
show, the mother keeps the infant’s eyes fixed for fully a couple of
minutes--and this is his first lesson in attention. Later, as we have
seen, the child is eager to see and handle every object that comes in
his way. But watch him at his investigations: he flits from thing to
thing with less purpose than a butterfly amongst the flowers, staying
at nothing long enough to get the good out of it. It is the mother’s
part to supplement the child’s quick observing faculty with the habit
of attention. She must see to it that he does not flit from this to
that, but looks long enough at one thing to get a real acquaintance
with it.
Is little Margaret fixing round eyes on a daisy she has plucked? In
a second, the daisy will be thrown away, and a pebble or a buttercup
will charm the little maid. But the mother seizes the happy moment.
She makes Margaret see that the daisy is a bright yellow eye with
_white_ eyelashes round it; that all the day long it lies there
in the grass and looks up at the great sun, never blinking as Margaret
would do, but keeping its eye wide open. And that is why it is called
daisy, ‘day’s eye,’ because its eye is always looking at the sun which
makes the day. And what does Margaret think it does at night, when
there is no sun? It does what little boys and girls do; it just shuts
up its eye with its white lashes tipped with pink, and goes to sleep
till the sun comes again in the morning. By this time the daisy has
become interesting to Margaret; she looks at it with big eyes after
her mother has finished speaking, and then, very likely, cuddles it
up to her breast or gives it a soft little kiss. Thus the mother
will contrive ways to invest every object in the child’s world with
interest and delight.
=Attention to ‘Things’; Words a Weariness.=--But the tug-of-war begins
with the lessons of the schoolroom. Even the child who has gained the
habit of attention to _things_, finds _words_ a weariness.
This is a turning-point in the child’s life, and the moment for the
mother’s tact and vigilance. In the first place, never let the child
_dawdle_ over copybook or sum, sit dreaming with his book before
him. When a child grows stupid over a lesson, it is time to put it
away. Let him do another lesson as unlike the last as possible, and
then go back with freshened wits to his unfinished task. If mother
or governess have been unwary enough to let the child ‘moon’ over a
lesson, she must just exert her wits to pull him through; the lesson
must be done, of course, but must be made bright and pleasant to the
child.
=Lessons Attractive.=--The teacher should have some knowledge of the
principles of education; should know what subjects are best fitted
for the child considering his age, and how to make these subjects
attractive; should know, too, how to vary the lessons, so that each
power of the child’s mind should rest after effort, and some other
power be called into play. She should know how to incite the child to
effort through his desire of approbation, of excelling, of advancing,
his desire of knowledge, his love of his parents, his sense of duty,
in such a way that no one set of motives be called unduly into play
to the injury of the child’s character. But the danger she must be
especially alive to, is the substitution of any other natural desire
for that of knowledge, which is equally natural, and is adequate for
all the purposes of education.
=Time-table; Definite Work in a Given Time.=--I shall have
opportunities to enter into some of these points later; meantime,
let us look in at a home schoolroom managed upon sound principles.
In the first place, there is a time-table, written out fairly, so
that the child knows what he has to do and how long each lesson is to
last. This idea of definite work to be finished in a given time is
valuable to the child, not only as training him in habits of order,
but in diligence; he learns that one time is _not_ ‘as good as
another’; that there is no right time left for what is not done in its
own time; and this knowledge alone does a great deal to secure the
child’s _attention_ to his work. Again, the lessons are short,
seldom more than twenty minutes in length for children under eight;
and this, for two or three reasons. The sense that there is not much
time for his sums or his reading, keeps the child’s wits on the alert
and helps to fix his attention; he has time to learn just so much of
any one subject as it is good for him to take in at once: and if the
lessons be judiciously alternated--sums first, say, while the brain is
quite fresh; then writing, or reading--some more or less mechanical
exercise, by way of a rest; and so on, the programme varying a little
from day to day, but the same principle throughout--a ‘thinking’
lesson first, and a ‘painstaking’ lesson to follow,--the child gets
through his morning lessons without any sign of weariness.
Even with regular lessons and short lessons, a further stimulus may
be occasionally necessary to secure the attention of the child.
His desire of approbation may ask the stimulus, not only of a word
of praise, but of something in the shape of a reward to secure his
utmost efforts. Now, rewards should be dealt out to the child upon
principle: they should be the _natural consequences_ of his good
conduct.
=A Natural Reward.=--What is the natural consequence of work well and
quickly done? Is it not the enjoyment of ampler leisure? The boy is
expected to do two right sums in twenty minutes: he does them in ten
minutes; the remaining ten minutes are his own, fairly earned, in
which he should be free for a scamper in the garden, or any delight
he chooses. His writing task is to produce six perfect _m_’s: he
writes six lines with only one good _m_ in each line; the time
for the writing lesson is over and he has none for himself; or, he
is able to point out six good _m_’s in his first line, and he
has the rest of the time to draw steamboats and railway trains. This
possibility of letting the children occupy themselves variously in the
few minutes they may gain at the end of each lesson, is compensation
which the home schoolroom offers for the zest which the sympathy of
numbers, and emulation, are supposed to give to school work.
=Emulation.=--As for emulation, a very potent means of exciting and
holding the attention of children, it is often objected that a desire
to excel, to do better than others, implies an unloving temper, which
the educator should rather repress than cultivate. Good marks of some
kind are usually the rewards of those who do best, and it is urged
that these good marks are often the cause of ungenerous rivalry. Now,
the fact is, the children are being trained to live in the world, and
in the world we all _do_ get good marks of one kind or another,
prize, or praise, or both, according as we excel others, whether in
football or tennis, or in picture-painting or poem-making. There
are envyings and heart-burnings amongst those who come in second
best; so it has been from the beginning, and doubtless will be to the
end. If the child is to go out into an emulous world, why, it may
possibly be well that he should be brought up in an emulous school.
But here is where the mother’s work comes in. She can teach her
child to be first without vanity, and to be last without bitterness;
that is, she can bring him up in such a hearty outgoing of love
and sympathy that joy in his brother’s success takes the sting out
of his own failure, and regret for his brother’s failure leaves no
room for self-glorification. Again, if a system of marks be used as
a stimulus to attention and effort, the good marks should be given
for _conduct_ rather than for _cleverness_--that is, they
should be within everybody’s reach: every child may get his mark for
punctuality, order, attention, diligence, obedience, gentleness;
and therefore, marks of this kind may be given without danger of
leaving a rankling sense of injustice in the breast of the child who
fails. Emulation becomes suicidal when it is used as the incentive
to intellectual effort, because the desire for knowledge subsides
in proportion as the desire to excel becomes active. As a matter of
fact, marks of any sort, even for conduct, distract the attention of
children from their proper work, which is in itself interesting enough
to secure good behaviour as well as attention.
=Affection as a Motive.=--That he ought to work hard to please his
parents who do so much for him, is a proper motive to bring before the
child from time to time, but not too often: if the mother trade on
her child’s feelings, if, ‘Do this or that to please mother,’ ‘Do not
grieve poor mother,’ etc., be brought too frequently before the child
as the reason for right doing, a sentimental relation is set up which
both parent and child will find embarrassing, the true motives of
action will be obscured, and the child, unwilling to appear unloving,
will end in being untrue.
=Attractiveness of Knowledge.=--Of course, the most obvious means
of quickening and holding the attention of children lies in the
attractiveness of knowledge itself, and in the real appetite for
knowledge with which they are endowed. But how successful faulty
teachers are in curing children of any desire to know, is to be seen
in many a schoolroom. I shall later, however, have an opportunity for
a few words on this subject.
=What is Attention?=--It is evident that _attention_ is no
‘faculty’ of the mind; indeed, it is _very_ doubtful how far the
various operations of the mind should be described as ‘faculties’ at
all. _Attention_ is hardly even an operation of the mind, but
is simply the act by which the whole mental force is applied to the
subject in hand. This act, of bringing the whole mind to bear, may
be trained into a _habit_ at the will of the parent or teacher,
who attracts and holds the child’s attention by means of a sufficient
motive.
=Self-Compelled.=--As the child gets older, he is taught to bring
_his own will_ to bear; _to make himself_ attend in spite
of the most inviting suggestions from without. He should be taught
to feel a certain triumph in compelling himself to fix his thoughts.
Let him know what the real difficulty is, how it is the nature of his
mind to be incessantly thinking, but how the thoughts, if left to
themselves, will always run off from one thing to another, and that
the struggle and the victory required of him is to fix his thoughts
upon the task in hand. ‘You have done your _duty_,’ with a look
of sympathy from his mother, is a reward for the child who has made
this effort in the strength of his growing will. But it cannot be too
much borne in mind that attention is, to a great extent, the product
of the educated mind; that is, one can only attend in proportion as
one has the intellectual power of developing the topic.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of this habit of
attention. It is, to quote words of weight, “within the reach of every
one, and should be made the primary object of all mental discipline”;
for whatever the natural gifts of the child, it is only in so far as
the habit of attention is cultivated in him that he is able to make
use of them.
=The Secret of Overpressure.=--If it were only as it saves wear
and tear, a perpetual tussle between duty and inclination, it is
worth while for the mother to lay herself out to secure that her
child never does a lesson into which he does not put his heart. And
that is no difficult undertaking; the thing is, to be on the watch
from the beginning against the formation of the contrary habit
of _in_attention. A great deal has been said lately about
overpressure, and we have glanced at one or two of the causes whose
effects go by this name. But truly, one of the most fertile causes of
an overdone brain is a failure in the habit of attention. I suppose
we are all ready to admit that it is not the things we _do_, but
the things we _fail to do_, which fatigue us, with the sense of
omission, with the worry of hurry in overtaking our tasks. And this is
almost the only cause of failure in work in the case of the healthy
schoolboy or schoolgirl: wandering wits hinder a lesson from being
fully taken in at the right moment; that lesson becomes a bugbear,
continually wanted henceforth and never there; and the sense of loss
tries the young scholar more than would the attentive reception of a
dozen such lessons.
=The Schoolboy’s Home Work.=--In the matter of home work, the parents
may still be of great use to their boys and girls after they begin to
go to day-school; not in helping them, that should not be necessary;
but let us suppose a case:--‘Poor Annie does not finish her lessons
till half-past nine, she really has so much to do’; ‘Poor Tom is at
his books till ten o’clock; we never see anything of the children in
the evening,’ say the distressed parents; and they let their children
go on in a course which is absolutely ruinous both to bodily health
and brain power.
=Wholesome Home Treatment for Mooning.=--Now, the fault is very
seldom in the lessons, but in the children; they _moon_ over
their books, and a little wholesome home treatment should cure them
of that ailment. Allow them, at the utmost, an hour and a half for
their home-work; treat them tacitly as defaulters if they do not
appear at the end of that time; do not be betrayed into word or look
of sympathy; and the moment the time for lessons is over, let some
delightful game or story-book be begun in the drawing-room. By-and-by
they will find that it _is_ possible to finish lessons in time to
secure a pleasant evening afterwards, and the lessons will be much the
better done for the fact that concentrated attention has been bestowed
on them. At the same time the custom of giving home-work, at any rate
to children under fourteen, is greatly to be deprecated. The gain of
a combination of home and school life is lost to the children; and a
very full scheme of school work may be carried through in the morning
hours.
=Rewards and Punishments should be relative Consequences of
Conduct.=--In considering the means of securing attention, it has been
necessary to refer to discipline--the dealing out of rewards and
punishments,--a subject which every tyro of a nursemaid or nursery
governess feels herself very competent to handle. But this, too, has
its scientific aspect: there is a _law_ by which all rewards and
punishments should be regulated: they should be the _natural_, or, at
any rate, the _relative consequences_ of conduct; should imitate, as
nearly as may be without injury to the child, the treatment which such
and such conduct deserves and receives in after life. Miss Edgeworth,
in her story of _Rosamond and the Purple Jar_, hits the right
principle, though the incident is rather extravagant. Little girls do
not often pine for purple jars in chemists’ windows; but that we
should suffer for our wilfulness in getting what is unnecessary by
doing without what is necessary, is precisely one of the lessons of
life we all have to learn, and therefore is the right sort of lesson
to teach a child.
=Natural and Educative Consequences.=--It is evident that to
administer rewards and punishments on this principle requires patient
consideration and steady determination on the mother’s part. She
must consider with herself what fault of disposition the child’s
misbehaviour springs from; she must aim her punishment at that fault,
and must brace herself to see her child suffer present loss for
his lasting gain. Indeed, exceedingly little actual punishment is
necessary where children are brought up with care. But this happens
continually--the child who has done well gains some natural reward
(like that ten minutes in the garden), which the child forfeits who
has done less well; and the mother must brace herself and her child to
bear this loss; if she equalise the two children she commits a serious
wrong, not against the child who has done well, but against the
defaulter, whom she deliberately encourages to repeat his shortcoming.
In placing her child under the discipline of consequences, the mother
must use much tact and discretion. In many cases, the _natural
consequence_ of the child’s fault is precisely that which it is her
business to avert, while, at the same time, she looks about for some
consequence related to the fault which shall have an _educative_
bearing on the child: for instance, if a boy neglect his studies, the
_natural_ consequence is that he remains ignorant; but to allow
him to do so would be criminal neglect on the part of the parent.
II.--THE HABITS OF APPLICATION, ETC.
=Rapid Mental Effort.=--The habits of mental activity and of
application are trained by the very means employed to cultivate that
of attention. The child may _plod_ diligently through his work
who might be trained to _rapid_ mental effort. The teacher
herself must be alert, must expect instant answers, quick thought,
rapid work. The tortoise will _lag_ behind the hare, but the
tortoise must be trained to move, every day, a trifle quicker. Aim
steadily at securing quickness of apprehension and execution, and that
goes far towards getting it.
=Zeal must be stimulated.=--So of application. The child must not be
allowed to get into the mood in which he says, ‘Oh, I am so tired of
sums,’ or ‘of history.’ His zeal must be stimulated; there must always
be a pleasing vista before him; and steady, untiring application to
work should be held up as honourable, while fitful, flagging attention
and effort are scouted.
III.--THE HABIT OF THINKING
=‘A Lion’ Operations included in Thinking.=--The actual labour of
the brain is known to psychologists under various names, and divided
into various operations: let us call it _thinking_, which, for
educational purposes, is sufficiently exact; but, by ‘thinking,’
let us mean a real conscious effort of mind, and not the fancies
that flit without effort through the brain. This sort of thing, for
instance, an example quoted by Archbishop Thompson in his _Laws
of Thought_[8]:--“When Captain Head was travelling across the
pampas of South America, his guide one day suddenly stopped him, and
pointing high into the air, cried out ‘A lion!’ Surprised at such an
exclamation, accompanied with such an act, he turned up his eyes, and
with difficulty perceived, at an immeasurable height, a flight of
condors, soaring in circles in a particular spot. Beneath this spot,
far out of sight of himself or guide, lay the carcass of a horse, and
over that carcass stood, as the guide well knew, a lion, whom the
condors were eyeing with envy from their airy height. The signal of
the birds was to him what the sight of the lion alone would have been
to the traveller--a full assurance of its existence. Here was an act
of thought which cost the thinker no trouble, which was as easy to
him as to cast his eyes upward, yet which from us, unaccustomed to
the subject, would require many steps and some labour. The sight of
the condors convinced him that there was some carcass or other; but
as they kept wheeling far above it, instead of swooping down to their
feast, he guessed that some beast had anticipated them. Was it a dog,
or a jackal? No; the condors would not fear to drive away, or share
with, either: it must be some large beast, and as there were lions
in the neighbourhood, he concluded that one was here.” And all these
steps of thought are summed up in the words ‘A lion.’
This is the sort of thing that the children should go through, more
or less, in every lesson--a tracing of effect from cause, or of cause
from effect; a comparing of things to find out wherein they are alike,
and wherein they differ; a conclusion as to causes or consequences
from certain premises.
IV.--THE HABIT OF IMAGINING
=The Sense of the Incongruous.=--All their lessons will afford scope
for some slight exercise of the children’s thinking power, some more
and some less, and the lessons must be judiciously alternated, so that
the more mechanical efforts succeed the more strictly intellectual,
and that the pleasing exercise of the imagination, again, succeed
efforts of reason. By the way, it is a pity when the sense of the
ludicrous is cultivated in children’s books at the expense of
better things. _Alice in Wonderland_ is a delicious feast of
absurdities, which none of us, old or young, could afford to spare;
but it is doubtful whether the child who reads it has the delightful
imaginings, the realising of the unknown, with which he reads _The
Swiss Family Robinson_.
This point is worth considering in connection with Christmas books for
the little people. Books of ‘comicalities’ cultivate no power but the
sense of the incongruous; and though life is the more amusing for the
possession of such a sense, when cultivated to excess it is apt to
show itself in a flippant habit. _Diogenes and the Naughty Boys of
Troy_ is irresistible, but it is not the sort of thing the children
will live over and over, and ‘play at’ by the hour, as we have all
played at Robinson Crusoe finding the footprints. They must have
‘funny books,’ but do not give the children too much nonsense-reading.
=Commonplace Tales; Tales of Imagination.=--Stories, again, of the
Christmas holidays, of George and Lucy, of the amusements, foibles,
and virtues of children in their own condition of life, leave nothing
to the imagination. The children know all about everything so well
that it never occurs to them to play at the situations in any one of
these tales, or even to read it twice over. But let them have tales of
the imagination, scenes laid in other lands and other times, heroic
adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales in which they
are never roughly pulled up by the impossible--even where all is
impossible, and they know it, and yet believe.
=Imagination and Great Conceptions.=--And this, not for the children’s
amusement merely: it is not impossible that posterity may write us
down a generation blest with little imagination, and, by so far, the
less capable of great conceptions and heroic efforts, for it is only
as we have it in us to let a person or a cause fill the whole stage of
the mind, to the exclusion of self-occupation, that we are capable of
large-hearted action on behalf of that person or cause. Our novelists
say there is nothing left to imagine; and that, therefore, a realistic
description of things as they are is all that is open to them. But
imagination is nothing if not creative, unless it see, not only what
is apparent, but what is conceivable, and what is poetically fit in
given circumstances.
=Imagination Grows.=--Now imagination does not descend, full-grown, to
take possession of an empty house; like every other power of the mind,
it is the merest germ of a power to begin with, and grows by what it
gets; and childhood, the age of faith, is the time for its nourishing.
The children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other
persons, in other times--a delightful double existence; and this
joy they will find, for the most part, in their story-books. Their
lessons, too, history and geography, should cultivate their conceptive
powers. If the child do not live in the times of his history lesson,
be not at home in the climes his geography book describes, why, these
lessons will fail of their purpose. But let lessons do their best, and
the picture-gallery of the imagination is poorly hung if the child
have not found his way into the realms of fancy.
=Thinking comes by Practice.=--How the children’s various lessons
should be handled so as to induce habits of thinking, we shall
consider later; but this for the present: _thinking_, like
writing or skating, comes by practice. The child who never has
thought, never does think, and probably never will think; for
are there not people enough who go through the world without any
deliberate exercise of their own wits? The child must think, get at
the reason-why of things for himself, every day of his life, and more
each day than the day before. Children and parents both are given to
invert this educational process. The child asks ‘Why?’ and the parent
answers, rather proud of this evidence of thought in his child. There
is some slight show of speculation even in wondering ‘Why?’ but it is
the slightest and most superficial effort the thinking brain produces.
Let the parent ask ‘Why?’ and the child produce the answer, if he
can. After he has turned the matter over and over in his mind, there
is no harm in telling him--and he will remember it--the reason why.
Every walk should offer some knotty problem for the children to think
out--“Why does that leaf float on the water, and this pebble sink?”
and so on.
V.--THE HABIT OF REMEMBERING
=Remembering and Recollecting.=--Memory is the storehouse of whatever
knowledge we possess; and it is upon the fact of the stores lodged
in the memory that we take rank as intelligent beings. The children
learn in order that they may remember. Much of what we have learned
and experienced in childhood, and later, we cannot reproduce, and yet
it has formed the groundwork of after-knowledge; later notions and
opinions have grown out of what we once learned and knew. That is our
sunk capital, of which we enjoy the interest though we are unable to
realise. Again, much that we have learned and experienced is not only
retained in the storehouse of memory, but is our available capital,
we can reproduce, _recollect_ upon demand. This memory which
may be drawn upon by the act of recollection is our most valuable
endowment.
=A ‘Spurious’ Memory.=--There is a third kind of (spurious)
memory--facts and ideas floating in the brain which yet make no part
of it, and are exuded at a single effort; as when a barrister produces
all his knowledge of a case in his brief, and then forgets all about
it; or when the schoolboy ‘crams’ for an examination, writes down what
he has thus learned, and behold, it is gone from his gaze for ever: as
Ruskin puts it, “They cram to pass, and not to know; they _do_
pass, and they _don’t_ know.” That the barrister, the physician,
should be able thus to dismiss the case on which he has ceased to be
occupied, the publisher the book he has rejected, is well for him,
and this art of forgetting is not without its uses: but what of the
schoolboy who has little left after a year’s work but his place in a
class-list?
=Memory a Record in the Brain Substance.=--To say anything adequate
on the subject of memory is impossible here; but let us try to answer
two or three queries which present themselves on the surface. How do
we come to ‘remember’ at all? How do we gain the power to utilise
remembered facts--that is, to _recollect_? And under what
conditions is knowledge acquired that neither goes to the growth of
brain and mind, nor is available on demand, but is lightly lodged in
the brain for some short period, and is then evacuated at a single
throw? We are interested in a wonderful invention--an instrument
which records spoken words, and will deliver, say a century hence,
speech or lecture in the very words and in the very tones of the
speaker. Such an instrument is that function of the brain called
memory, whereby the impressions received by the brain are recorded
_mechanically_--at least, such is the theory pretty generally
received now by physiologists. That is, the mind takes cognisance of
certain facts, and the nerve substance of the brain _records_
that cognisance.
=Made under what Conditions.=--Now, the questions arise, Under
what conditions is such an imprint of fact or event made upon the
substance of the brain? Is the record permanent? And is the brain
capable of receiving an indefinite number of such impressions? It
appears, both from common experience and from an infinite number of
examples quoted by psychologists, that any object or idea which is
regarded with _attention_ makes the sort of impression on the
brain which is said to fix it in the memory. In other words, give an
instant’s undivided attention to anything whatsoever, and that thing
will be remembered. In describing this effect, the common expression
is accurate beyond its intention. We say, “Such and such a sight or
sound, or sensation, made a strong _impression_ on me.” And that
is precisely what has happened: arrest the attention upon any fact or
incident, and that fact or incident is remembered; it is impressed,
imprinted upon the brain substance. The inference is plain. You want
the child to remember? Then secure his whole _attention_, the
fixed gaze of his mind, as it were, upon the fact to be remembered;
then he will have it: by a sort of photographic (!) process, that fact
or idea is ‘taken’ by his brain, and when he is an old man, perhaps,
the memory of it will flash across him.
=Recollection and the Law of Association.=--But it is not enough to
have a recollection flash across one incidentally; we want to have the
power of recalling at will: and for this, something more is necessary
than an occasional act of attention producing a solitary impression.
Supposing, for instance, that by good teaching you secure the child’s
attention to the verb _avoir_, he will remember it; that is to
say, some infinitely slight growth of brain tissue will record and
retain that one French verb. But one verb is nothing; you want the
child to learn _French_, and for this you must not only fix his
attention upon each new lesson, but each must be so linked into the
last that it is impossible for him to recall one without the other
following in its train. The physical effect of such a method appears
to be that each new growth of brain tissue is, so to speak, laid
upon the last; that is, to put it figuratively, a certain tract of
the brain may be conceived of as being overlaid with French. This
is to make a practical use of that law of association of ideas of
which one would not willingly become the sport; and it is the neglect
of this law which invalidates much good teaching. The teacher is
content to produce a solitary impression which is only recalled as
it is acted upon by a chance suggestion; whereas he should forge the
links of a chain to draw his bucket out of the well. Probably the
reader may have heard, or heard of, a Dr Pick, who grounded a really
philosophical system of mnemonics on these two principles of attention
and association. Whatever we may think of his application of it, the
principle he asserted is the right one.
=Every Lesson must recall the Last.=--Let every lesson gain the
child’s entire attention, and let each new lesson be so interlaced
with the last that the one _must_ recall the other; that, again,
recalls the one before it, and so on to the beginning.
=No Limit to the Recording Power of the Brain.=--But the ‘lightly
come, lightly go’ of a mere verbal memory follows no such rules. The
child gets his exercise ‘by heart,’ says it off like a parrot, and
behold, it is gone; there is no record of it upon the brain at all. To
secure such a record, there must be time; time for that full gaze of
the mind we call _attention_, and _for the growth of the brain
tissue to the new idea_. Given these conditions, there appears to
be no limit of quantity to the recording power of the brain. Except in
this way: a girl learns French, and speaks it fairly well; by the time
she is a grandmother she has forgotten it entirely, has not a word
left. When this is the case, her French has been disused; she has not
been in the habit of reading, hearing, or speaking French from youth
to age. Whereby it is evident that, to secure right-of-way to that
record of French imprinted on her brain, the path should have been
kept open by frequent goings and comings.
=But Links of Association a Condition of Recollection.=--To acquire
any knowledge or power whatsoever, and then to leave it to grow
rusty in a neglected corner of the brain, is practically useless.
Where there is no chain of association to draw the bucket out of
the well, it is all the same as if there were no water there. As
to how to form these links, every subject will suggest a suitable
method. The child has a lesson about Switzerland to-day, and one
about Holland to-morrow, and the one is linked to the other by the
very fact that the two countries have hardly anything in common; what
the one has, the other has not. Again, the association will be of
_similarity_, and not of _contrast_. In our own experience
we find that colours, places, sounds, odours recall persons or events;
but links of this sensuous order can hardly be employed in education.
The link between any two things must be found in the nature of the
things associated.
VI.--THE HABIT OF PERFECT EXECUTION
=The Habit of turning out Imperfect Work.=--‘Throw perfection into all
you do’ is a counsel upon which a family may be brought up with great
advantage. We English, as a nation, think too much of persons, and too
little of _things_, _work_, _execution_. Our children are allowed to
make their figures, or their letters, their stitches, their dolls’
clothes, their small carpentry, anyhow, with the notion that they will
do better by-and-by. Other nations--the Germans and the French, for
instance--look at the question philosophically, and know that if the
children get the _habit_ of turning out imperfect work, the men and
women will undoubtedly keep that habit up. I remember being delighted
with the work of a class of about forty children, of six and seven, in
an elementary school at Heidelberg. They were doing a writing lesson,
accompanied by a good deal of oral teaching from a master, who wrote
each word on the blackboard. By-and-by the slates were shown, and I
did not observe _one faulty or irregular letter_ on the whole forty
slates. The same principle of ‘perfection’ was to be discerned in a
recent exhibition of school-work held throughout France. No faulty work
was shown, to be excused on the plea that it was the work of children.
=A Child should Execute Perfectly.=--No work should be given to a
child that he cannot execute _perfectly_, and then perfection
should be required of him as a matter of course. For instance, he is
set to do a copy of strokes, and is allowed to show a slateful at
all sorts of slopes and all sorts of intervals; his moral sense is
vitiated, his _eye_ is injured. Set him six strokes to copy;
let him, not bring a slateful, but six perfect strokes, at regular
distances and at regular slopes. If he produces a faulty pair, get
_him_ to point out the fault, and persevere until he has produced
his task; if he does not do it to-day, let him go on to-morrow
and the next day, and when the six perfect strokes appear, let it
be an occasion of triumph. So with the little tasks of painting,
drawing, or construction he sets himself--let everything he does
_be well done_. An unsteady house of cards is a thing to be
ashamed of. Closely connected with this habit of ‘perfect work’ is
that of finishing whatever is taken in hand. The child should rarely
be allowed to set his hand to a new undertaking until the last is
finished.
VII.--SOME MORAL HABITS--OBEDIENCE
It is disappointing that, in order to cover the ground at all, we must
treat those moral habits, which the mother owes it to her children to
cultivate in them, in a slight and inadequate way; but the point to
be borne in mind is, that all that has been already said about the
cultivation of _habit_ applies with the greatest possible force
to each of these _habits_.
=The Whole Duty of a Child.=--First, and infinitely the most
important, is the habit of _obedience_. Indeed, obedience is the
whole duty of the child, and for this reason--every other duty of the
child is fulfilled as a matter of obedience to his parents. Not only
so: obedience is the whole duty of man; obedience to conscience, to
law, to Divine direction.
It has been well observed that each of the three recorded temptations
of our Lord in the wilderness is a suggestion, not of an act of overt
sin, but of an act of _wilfulness_, that state directly opposed
to obedience, and out of which springs all that foolishness which is
bound up in the heart of a child.
=Obedience no Accidental Duty.=--Now, if the parent realise that
obedience is no mere accidental duty, the fulfilling of which is a
matter that lies between himself and the child, but that he is the
appointed agent to train the child up to the intelligent obedience
of the self-compelling, law-abiding human being, he will see that he
has no right to _forego_ the obedience of his child, and that
every act of disobedience in the child is a direct condemnation of the
parent. Also, he will see that the motive to the child’s obedience
is not the arbitrary one of, ‘Do this, or that, because I have said
so,’ but the motive of the apostolic injunction, “Children, obey your
parents in the Lord, _for this is right_.”
=Children must have the Desire to Obey.=--It is only in proportion as
the will of the child is in the act of obedience, and he obeys because
his sense of _right_ makes him _desire_ to obey in spite of
temptations to disobedience--not of constraint, but willingly--that
the habit has been formed which will, hereafter, enable the child to
use the strength of his will against his inclinations when these
prompt him to lawless courses. It is said that the children of parents
who are most strict in exacting obedience often turn out ill; and
that orphans and other poor waifs brought up under strict discipline
only wait their opportunity to break out into license. Exactly so;
because, in these cases, there is no gradual training of the child in
the _habit_ of obedience; no gradual enlisting of his _will_
on the side of sweet service and a free-will offering of submission to
the highest law: the poor children are simply bullied into submission
to the _will_, that is, the _wilfulness_, of another; not at
all, ‘for it is _right_’; only because it is convenient.
=Expect Obedience.=--The mother has no more sacred duty than that of
training her infant to instant obedience. To do so is no difficult
task; the child is still “trailing clouds of glory ... from God,
who is his home”; the principle of obedience is within him, waiting
to be called into exercise. There is no need to rate the child, or
threaten him, or use any manner of violence, because the parent is
_invested_ with authority which the child intuitively recognises.
It is enough to say, ‘Do this,’ in a quiet, authoritative tone, and
_expect it to be done_. The mother often enough loses her hold
over her children because they detect in the tone of her voice that
she does not expect them to obey her behests; she does not think
enough of her position; has not sufficient confidence in her own
authority. The mother’s great stronghold is in the _habit_ of
obedience. If she begin by requiring that her children always obey
her, why, they will always do so as a matter of course; but let them
once get the thin end of the wedge in, let them discover that they can
do otherwise than obey, and a woful struggle begins, which commonly
ends in the children doing that which is right in their own eyes.
This is the sort of thing which is fatal: The children are in the
drawing-room, and a caller is announced. ‘You must go upstairs now.’
‘Oh, mother dear, _do_ let us stay in the window-corner; we will
be as quiet as mice!’ The mother is rather proud of her children’s
pretty manners, and they stay. They are _not_ quiet, of course;
but that is the least of the evils; they have succeeded in doing as
they chose and not as they were bid, and they will not put their necks
under the yoke again without a struggle. It is in little matters that
the mother is worsted. ‘Bedtime, Willie!’ ‘Oh, mamma, _just_ let
me finish this’; and the mother yields, forgetting that the case in
point is of no consequence; the thing that matters is that the child
should be daily confirming a _habit_ of obedience by the unbroken
repetition of acts of obedience. It is astonishing how clever the
child is in finding ways of evading the spirit while he observes the
letter. ‘Mary, come in.’ ‘Yes, mother’; but her mother calls four
times before Mary comes. ‘Put away your bricks’; and the bricks are
put away with slow, reluctant fingers. ‘You must _always_ wash
your hands when you hear the first bell.’ The child obeys for that
once, and no more.
To avoid these displays of wilfulness, the mother will insist from the
first on an obedience which is prompt, cheerful, and lasting--save for
lapses of memory on the child’s part. Tardy, unwilling, occasional
obedience is hardly worth the having; and it is greatly easier to give
the child the _habit_ of perfect obedience by never allowing him
in anything else, than it is to obtain this mere formal obedience by
a constant exercise of authority. By-and-by, when he is old enough,
take the child into confidence; let him know what a noble thing it is
to be able to make himself do, in a minute, and brightly, the very
thing he would rather not do. To secure this habit of obedience, the
mother must exercise great self-restraint; she must never give a
command which she does not intend to see carried out to the full. And
she must not lay upon her children burdens, grievous to be borne, of
command heaped upon command.
=Law ensures Liberty.=--The children who are trained to perfect
obedience may be trusted with a good deal of liberty: they receive
a few directions which they know they must not disobey; and for the
rest, they are left to learn how to direct their own actions, even at
the cost of some small mishaps; and are not pestered with a perpetual
fire of ‘Do this,’ and ‘Don’t do that!’
VIII.--TRUTHFULNESS
It is unnecessary to say a word of the duty of Truthfulness; but the
training of the child in the habit of strict veracity is another
matter, and one which requires delicate care and scrupulosity on the
part of the mother.
=Three Causes of Lying--all Vicious.=--The vice of lying arises
from three causes: carelessness in _ascertaining_ the truth,
carelessness in _stating_ the truth, and a deliberate intention
to deceive. That all three are vicious, is evident from the fact that
a man’s character may be ruined by what is no more than a careless
mis-statement on the part of another: the speaker repeats a damaging
remark without taking the trouble to sift it; or he repeats what he
has heard or seen with so little care to deliver the truth that his
statement becomes no better than a lie.
=Only One Kind visited on Children.=--Now, of the three kinds of
lying, it is only, as a matter of fact, the third which is severely
visited upon the child; the first and the second he is allowed in.
He tells you he has seen ‘lots’ of spotted dogs in the town--he
has really seen two; that ‘all the boys’ are collecting crests--he
knows of three who are doing so; that ‘everybody’ says Jones is a
‘sneak’--the fact is he has heard Brown say so. These departures
from strict veracity are on matters of such slight importance that
the mother is apt to let them pass as the ‘children’s chatter’; but,
indeed, every such lapse is damaging to the child’s sense of truth--a
blade which easily loses its keenness of edge.
=Accuracy of Statement.=--The mother who trains her child to strict
accuracy of statement about things small and great fortifies him
against temptations to the grosser forms of lying; he will not readily
colour a tale to his own advantage, suppress facts, equivocate, when
the statement of the simple fact has become a binding habit, and when
he has not been allowed to form the contrary vicious habit of playing
fast and loose with words.
=Exaggeration and Ludicrous Embellishments.=--Two forms of
prevarication, very tempting to the child, will require great
vigilance on the mother’s part--that of exaggeration and that of
clothing a story with ludicrous embellishments. However funny a
circumstance may be as described by the child, the ruthless mother
must strip the tale of everything over and above the naked truth: for,
indeed, a reputation for facetiousness is dearly purchased by the
loss of that dignity of character, in child or man, which accompanies
the habit of strict veracity; it is possible, happily, to be humorous
without any sacrifice of truth.
=Reverence, etc.=--As for _reverence_, _consideration for others_,
_respect for persons and property_, I can only urge the importance of
a sedulous cultivation of these moral qualities--the distinguishing
marks of a refined nature--until they become the daily _habits_ of the
child’s life; and the more, because a self-assertive, aggressive,
self-seeking temper is but too characteristic of the times we live in.
=Temper--Born in a Child.=--I am anxious, however, to say a few words
on the _habit_ of sweet temper. It is very customary to regard
temper as constitutional, that which is born in you and is neither
to be helped nor hindered. ‘Oh, she is a good-tempered little soul;
nothing puts her out!’ ‘Oh, he has his father’s temper; the least
thing that goes contrary makes him fly into a passion,’ are the sorts
of remarks we hear constantly.
=Not Temper, but Tendency.=--It is no doubt true that the children
inherit a certain tendency to irascibility or to amiability, to
fretfulness, discontentment, peevishness, sullenness, murmuring, and
impatience; or to cheerfulness, trustfulness, good-humour, patience,
and humility. It is also true that upon the preponderance of any
of these qualities--upon _temper_, that is--the happiness or
wretchedness of child and man depends, as well as the comfort or
misery of the people who live with him. We all know people possessed
of integrity and of many excellent virtues who make themselves
intolerable to their belongings. The root of the evil is, not that
these people were _born_ sullen, or peevish, or envious--that
might have been mended; but that they were permitted to grow up
in these dispositions. Here, if anywhere, the power of habit is
invaluable: it rests with the parents to correct the original twist,
all the more so if it is from them the child gets it, and to send
their child into the world blest with an even, happy temper, inclined
to make the best of things, to look on the bright side, to impute the
best and kindest motives to others, and to make no extravagant claims
on his own account--fertile source of ugly tempers. And this, because
the child is born with no more than certain _tendencies_.
=Parents must correct Tendency by New Habit of Temper.=--It is by
force of habit that a tendency becomes a temper; and it rests with the
mother to hinder the formation of ill tempers, to force that of good
tempers. Nor is it difficult to do this while the child’s countenance
is as an open book to his mother, and she reads the thoughts of his
heart before he is aware of them himself. Remembering that every
envious, murmuring, discontented thought leaves a track in the very
substance of the child’s brain for such thoughts to run in again and
again--that this track, this _rut_, so to speak, is ever widening
and deepening with the traffic in ugly thoughts--the mother’s care is
to hinder at the outset the formation of any such track. She sees into
her child’s soul--sees the evil temper in the act of rising: now is
her opportunity.
=Change the Child’s Thoughts.=--Let her _change the child’s
thoughts_ before ever the bad temper has had time to develop into
conscious feeling, much less act: take him out of doors, send him
to fetch or carry, tell him or show him something of interest,--in a
word, give him something else to think about; but all in a natural
way, and without letting the child perceive that he is being treated.
As every fit of sullenness leaves place in the child’s mind for
another fit of sullenness to succeed it, so every such fit averted by
the mother’s tact tends to obliterate the evil traces of former sullen
tempers. At the same time, the mother is careful to lay down a highway
for the free course of all sweet and genial thoughts and feelings.
I have been offering suggestions, not for a course of intellectual and
moral training, but only for the formation of certain _habits_
which should be, as it were, the outworks of character. Even with
this limited programme, I have left unnoticed many matters fully as
important as those touched upon. In the presence of an embarrassment
of riches, it has been necessary to adopt some principle of selection;
and I have thought it well to dwell upon considerations which do not
appear to me to have their full weight with educated parents, rather
than upon those of which every thoughtful person recognises the force.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] This example, offered by so able a psychologist, is so admirable
that I venture to quote it more than once.
PART V
LESSONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION
I.--THE MATTER AND METHOD OF LESSONS
It seems to me that we live in an age of pedagogy; that we of the
teaching profession are inclined to take too much upon ourselves, and
that parents are ready to yield the responsibility of direction, as
well as of actual instruction, more than is wholesome for the children.
=Parents must reflect on the Subject-matter of Instruction.=--I
am about to invite your attention to a subject that parents are
accustomed to leave very much in the hands of schoolmaster or
governess when they do not instruct their children themselves--I mean
the choice of subjects of instruction, and the ways of handling those
subjects. Teachers are the people who have, more than others, given
themselves to the consideration of what a child should learn and how
he should learn it; but the parent, also, should have thought out this
subject, and even when he does not profess to teach his children,
should have his own carefully formed opinions as to the subject-matter
and the method of their intellectual education: and this for the sake
of the teacher as well as for that of the children. Nothing does
more to give vitality and purpose to the work of the teacher than the
certainty that the parents of his pupils go with him.
Even when children go to schools taught by qualified persons, some
insight on the part of fathers and mothers is useful as hindering the
teacher from dropping into professional grooves, valuing proficiency
in this or that subject for its own sake, and not as it affects
the children. But in the early days of the home schoolroom, it is
iniquitous to leave the young governess, with little qualification
beyond her native French or German, or scanty English, to chalk out a
course for herself and her charges. That the children waste their time
is the least of the evils that accrue: they are forming habits dead
against intellectual effort; and by-and-by, when they go to school,
the lessons go over their heads, the work slips through their fingers,
and their powers of passive resistance baffle the most strenuous
teachers.
=Home the best Growing-ground for Young Children.=--All the same,
whatever be the advantages of _Kindergarten_ or other schools
for little children, the home schoolroom ought to be the best
growing-ground for them. And doubtless it would be so, were the mother
at liberty to devote herself to the instruction of her children;
but this she is seldom free to do. If she live in a town, she can
send them to school when they are six; if in the country, she must
have a governess; and the difficulty is to get a woman who is not
only acquainted with the subjects she undertakes to teach, but who
understands in some measure the nature of the child and the art
and objects of education; a woman capable of making the very most
of the children without waste of power or of time. Such a _rara
avis_ does not present herself in answer to every advertisement;
and in default of a trained teacher, the mother must undertake to
_train_ her governess--that is, she may supplement with her own
insight the scanty knowledge and experience of the young teacher.
‘I wish the children to be taught to _read_, thus and thus,
because----’: or, ‘to learn _history_ in such a way that the
lessons may have such and such effects.’ Half an hour’s talk of this
kind with a sensible governess will secure a whole month’s work for
the children, so well directed that much is done in little time, and
the widest possible margin secured for play and open-air exercise.
=Three Questions for the Mother.=--But if the mother is to inoculate
the governess with her views as to the teaching of writing, French,
geography, she must, herself, have definite views. She must ask
herself seriously, _Why_ must the children learn at all?
_What_ should they learn? And, _How_ should they learn it?
If she take the trouble to find a definite and thoughtful answer to
each of these three queries, she will be in a position to direct her
children’s studies; and will, at the same time, be surprised to find
that three-fourths of the time and labour ordinarily spent by the
child at his lessons is lost time and wasted energy.
=Children learn, to Grow.=--Why must the child learn? Why do we
eat? Is it not in order that the body may live and grow and be able
to fulfil its functions? Precisely so must the mind be sustained
and developed by means of the food convenient for it, the mental
_pabulum_ of assimilated knowledge. Again, the body is developed
not only by means of proper sustenance, but by the appropriate
exercise of each of its members. A young mother remarked to me the
other day, that before her marriage she had such slender arms she
never liked to exhibit them; but a strong five-months-old baby had
cured her of that; she could toss and lift him with ease, and could
now show well-rounded arms with anybody: and just as the limbs grow
strong with exercise, so does intellectual effort with a given power
of the mind make that power effective. People are apt to overlook the
fact that _mind_ must have its aliment--we learn that we may
_know_, not that we may _grow_; hence the parrot-like saying
of lessons, the cramming of ill-digested facts for examinations, all
the ways of taking in knowledge which the mind does not assimilate.
=Doctoring of the Material of Knowledge.=--Specialists, on the other
hand, are apt to attach too much importance to the several exercises
of the mental ‘faculties.’ We come across books on teaching, with
lessons elaborately drawn up, in which certain work is assigned to
the perceptive faculties, certain work to the imagination, to the
judgment, and so on. Now this doctrine of the faculties, which rests
on a false analogy between the mind and the body, is on its way to the
limbo where the phrenologist’s ‘bumps’ now rest in peace. The mind
would appear to be one and indivisible, and endowed with manifold
powers; and this sort of doctoring of the material of knowledge
is unnecessary for the healthy child, whose mind is capable of
self-direction, and of applying itself to its proper work upon the
parcel of knowledge delivered to it. Almost any subject which common
sense points out as suitable for the instruction of children will
afford exercise for all their powers, if properly presented.
=Children learn, to get Ideas.=--The child must learn, in the second
place, in order that _ideas_ may be freely sown in the fruitful
soil of his mind. ‘_Idea_, the image or picture formed by the
mind of anything external, whether sensible or spiritual,’--so, the
dictionary; therefore, if the business of teaching be to furnish the
child with ideas, any teaching which does not leave him possessed of a
new mental image has, by so far, missed its mark. Now, just think of
the listless way in which the children too often drag through reading
and tables, geography and sums, and you will see that it is a rare
thing for any part of any lesson to flash upon them with the vividness
which leaves a mental picture behind. It is not too much to say that
a morning in which a child receives no new idea is a morning wasted,
however closely the little student has been kept at his books.
=Ideas Grow and Produce after their Kind.=--For the dictionary appears
to me to fall short of the truth in its definition of the term
‘_idea_.’ An idea is more than an image or a picture; it is, so
to speak, a spiritual germ endowed with vital force--with power, that
is, to grow, and to produce after its kind. It is the very nature of
an idea to grow: as the vegetable germ secretes that it lives by, so,
fairly implant an _idea_ in the child’s mind, and it will secrete
its own food, grow, and bear fruit in the form of a succession of
kindred ideas. We know from our own experience that, let our attention
be forcibly drawn to some public character, some startling theory,
and for days after we are continually hearing or reading matter which
bears on this one subject, just as if all the world were thinking
about what occupies our thoughts: the fact being, that the new idea
we have received is in the act of growth, and is reaching out after
its appropriate food. This process of _feeding_ goes on with
peculiar avidity in childhood, and the growth of an idea in the child
is proportionately rapid.
=Scott and Stephenson worked with Ideas.=--Scott got an idea, a whole
group of ideas, out of the Border tales and ballads, the folklore of
the countryside, on which his boyhood was nourished: his ideas grew
and brought forth, and the Waverley Novels are the fruit they bore.
George Stephenson made little clay engines with his playmate, Thomas
Tholoway; by-and-by, when he was an engineman, he was always watching
his engine, cleaning it, studying it; an engine was his dominant idea,
and it developed into no less a thing than the locomotive.
=Value of Dominant Ideas.=--But how does this theory of the vital and
fruitful character of ideas bear upon the education of the child? In
this way: give your child a single valuable _idea_, and you have
done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the
burden of bushels of information; for the child who grows up with a
few dominant ideas has his self-education provided for, his career
marked out.
=Lessons must furnish Ideas.=--In order for the reception of an idea,
the mind must be in an attitude of eager attention, and how to secure
that state we have considered elsewhere. One thing more: a single
idea may be a possession so precious in itself, so fruitful, that
the parent cannot fitly allow the child’s selection of ideas to be
a matter of chance: his _lessons_ should furnish him with such
ideas as shall make for his further education.
=Children learn to get Knowledge.=--But it is not only to secure due
intellectual growth and the furnishing of his mind with ideas, that
the child must learn: the common notion, that he learns for the sake
of getting knowledge, is also a true one so much so, that no knowledge
should be so precious as that gained in childhood, no later knowledge
should be so clearly chronicled on the brain, nor so useful as the
foundation of that to follow. At the same time, the child’s capacity
for knowledge is very limited; his mind is, in this respect at least,
but a little phial with a narrow neck; and, therefore, it behoves
parent or teacher to pour in only of the best.
=Diluted Knowledge.=--But, poor children, they are too often badly
used by their best friends in the matter of the sort of knowledge
offered them. Grown-up people who are not mothers talk and think far
more childishly than the child does in their efforts to approach his
mind. If a child talk twaddle, it is because his elders are in the
habit of talking twaddle to him; leave him to himself, and his remarks
are wise and sensible so far as his small experience guides him.
Mothers seldom talk down to their children; they are too intimate with
the little people, and have, therefore, too much respect for them: but
professional teachers, whether the writers of books or the givers of
lessons, are too apt to present a single grain of pure knowledge in a
whole gallon of talk, imposing upon the child the labour of discerning
the grain and of extracting it from the worthless flood.
=Dr Arnold’s Knowledge as a Child.=--On the whole, the children who
grow up amongst their elders and are not provided with what are called
children’s books at all, fare the better on what they are able to
glean for themselves from the literature of grown-up people. Thus it
is told of Dr Arnold that when he was three years old he received
a present from his father of Smollett’s _History of England_
as a reward for the accuracy with which he went through the stories
connected with the portraits and pictures of the successive reigns--an
amusement which probably laid the foundation of the great love for
history which distinguished him in after life. When occupying the
professorial chair at Oxford, he made quotations, we are told, from Dr
Priestley’s _Lectures on History_,--verbally accurate quotations,
we may believe, for such was the habit of his mind; besides, a child
has little skill in recasting his matter--and that, though he had not
had the book in his hands since he was a child of eight. No doubt
he was an exceptional child; and all I maintain is, that had his
reading been the sort of diluted twaddle which is commonly thrust
upon children, it would have been _impossible_ for him to cite
passages a week, much less some two score years, after the reading.
=Literature Proper for Children.=--This sort of weak literature
for the children, both in story and lesson books, is the result of
a reactionary process. Not so long ago the current impression was
that the children had little understanding, but prodigious memory
for facts; dates, numbers, rules, catechisms of knowledge, much
information in small parcels, was supposed to be the fitting material
for a child’s education. We have changed all that, and put into the
children’s hands lesson-books with pretty pictures and easy talk,
almost as good as story-books; but we do not see that, after all, we
are but giving the same little pills of knowledge in the form of a
weak and copious diluent. Teachers, and even parents, who are careful
enough about their children’s diet, are so reckless as to the sort
of mental aliment offered to them, that I am exceedingly anxious to
secure consideration for this question, of the lessons and literature
proper for the little people.
=Four Tests which should be applied to Children’s Lessons.=--We
see, then, that the children’s lessons should provide material for
their mental growth, should exercise the several powers of their
minds, should furnish them with fruitful ideas, and should afford
them knowledge, really valuable for its own sake, accurate, and
interesting, of the kind that the child may recall as a man with
profit and pleasure. Before applying these tests to the various
subjects in which children are commonly instructed, may I remind you
of two or three points which I have endeavoured to establish in the
preceding pages:--
=Résumé of Six Points already considered.=--
(_a_) That the knowledge most valuable to the child is that which
he gets with his own eyes and ears and fingers (under direction) in
the open air.
(_b_) That the claims of the schoolroom should not be allowed to
encroach on the child’s right to long hours daily for exercise and
investigation.
(_c_) That the child should be taken daily, if possible, to
scenes--moor or meadow, park, common, or shore--where he may find new
things to examine, and so add to his store of _real_ knowledge.
That the child’s observation should be directed to flower or boulder,
bird or tree; that, in fact, he should be employed in gathering the
common information which is the basis of scientific knowledge.
(_d_) That play, vigorous healthful play, is, in its turn,
fully as important as lessons, as regards both bodily health and
brain-power.
(_e_) That the child, though under supervision, should be left
much to himself--both that he may go to work in his own way on the
ideas he receives, and also that he may be the more open to natural
influences.
(_f_) That the happiness of the child is the condition of his
progress; that his lessons should be joyous, and that occasions of
friction in the schoolroom are greatly to be deprecated.
Premising so much, let us now consider--What the children should
learn, and how they should be taught.
II.--THE KINDERGARTEN AS A PLACE OF EDUCATION
=The Mother the best Kindergärtnerin.=--It is hardly necessary, here,
to discuss the merits of the Kindergarten School. The success of
such a school demands rare qualities in the teacher--high culture,
some knowledge of psychology and of the art of education; intense
sympathy with the children, much tact, much common sense, much common
information, much ‘joyousness of nature’ and much governing power;--in
a word, the Kindergarten method is nicely contrived to bring the child
_en rapport_ with a superior intelligence. Given, such a superior
being to conduct it, and the Kindergarten is beautiful--‘’tis like a
little heaven below’; but put a commonplace woman in charge of such
a school, and the charmingly devised gifts and games and occupations
become so many instruments of _wooden_ teaching. If the very
essence of the Kindergarten method is personal influence, a sort of
spiritual mesmerism, it follows that the mother is naturally the best
_Kindergärtnerin_; for who so likely as she to have the needful
tact, sympathy, common sense, culture?
=The Nursery need not therefore be a Kindergarten.=--Though every
mother should be a _Kindergärtnerin_, in the sense in which
Froebel would employ the term, it does not follow that every nursery
should be a regularly organised Kindergarten. Indeed, the machinery
of the Kindergarten is no more than a device to ensure the carrying
out of certain educational _principles_, and some of these it is
the mother’s business to get at, and work out according to Froebel’s
method--or her own. For instance, in the Kindergarten the child’s
_senses_ are carefully and progressively trained: he looks,
listens, learns by touch; gets ideas of size, colour, form, number; is
taught to copy faithfully, express exactly. And in this training of
the senses, the child is made to pursue the method the infant shapes
for himself in his early studies of ring or ball.
=Field of Knowledge too circumscribed.=--But it is possible that the
child’s marvellous power of obtaining knowledge by means of his senses
may be undervalued; that the field may be too circumscribed; and that,
during the first six or seven years in which he might have become
intimately acquainted with the properties and history of every natural
object within his reach, he has obtained, _exact_ ideas, it is
true--can distinguish a rhomboid from a pentagon, a primary from a
secondary colour, has learned to _see_ so truly that he can copy
what he sees in folded paper or woven straw,--but this at the expense
of much of that _real knowledge_ of the external world which at
no time of his life will he be so fitted to acquire. Therefore, while
the _exact_ nicely graduated training of the Kindergarten may be
of value, the mother will endeavour to give it by the way, and will
by no means let it stand for that wider training of the senses, to
secure which for her children is a primary duty.
Again, the child in the Kindergarten is set to such tasks only as
he is competent to perform, and then, whatever he has to do, he is
expected to do _perfectly_. I have seen a four-years-old child
blush and look as self-condemned, because he had folded a slip of
paper irregularly, as if found out in a falsehood. But mother or nurse
is quite able to secure that the child’s small offices are perfectly
executed; and, here is an important point, without that slight strain
of distressful anxiety which may be observed in children labouring to
please that smiling goddess, their ‘_Kindergärtnerin_.’
=Training of a Just Eye and Faithful Hand.=--The Kindergarten
‘Occupations’ afford opportunities for training in this kind of
faithfulness; but in the home a thousand such opportunities occur;
if only in such trifles as the straightening of a tablecloth or of
a picture, the hanging of a towel, the packing of a parcel--every
thoughtful mother invents a thousand ways of training in her child a
just eye and a faithful hand. Nevertheless, as a means of methodical
training, as well as of happy employment, the introduction of some of
the games and occupations of the Kindergarten into the nursery may
be allowed; provided that the mother does not depend upon these, but
makes _all_ the child’s occupations subserve the purposes of his
education.
=‘Sweetness and Light’ in the Kindergarten.=--The child breathes an
atmosphere of ‘sweetness and light’ in the Kindergarten. You see the
sturdy urchin of five stiffen his back and decline to be a jumping
frog, and the _Kindergärtnerin_ comes with unruffled gentleness,
takes him by the hand, and leads him out of the circle,--he is not
treated as an offender, only he does not choose to do as others do,
therefore he is not wanted there: the next time, he is quite content
to be a frog. Here we have the principle for the discipline of the
nursery. Do not treat the child’s small contumacy too seriously; do
not assume that he is being naughty: just leave him out when he is not
prepared to act in harmony with the rest. Avoid friction; and above
all, do not let him disturb the moral atmosphere; in all gentleness
and serenity, remove him from the company of the others, when he is
being what nurses call ‘tiresome.’
Once more, the Kindergarten professes to take account of the
joyousness of the child’s nature: to allow him full and free
expression for the glee that is in him, without the ‘rampaging’
which follows if he is left to himself to find an outlet for his
exuberant life. This union of joy and gentleness is the very temper
to be cultivated in the nursery. The boisterous behaviour sometimes
allowed in children is unnecessary--within doors, at any rate; but
even a momentary absence of sunshine on the faces of her children
will be a graver cause of uneasiness to the mother. On the whole,
we may say that some of the _principles_ which should govern
Kindergarten training are precisely those in which every thoughtful
mother endeavours to bring up her family; while the _practices_
of the Kindergarten, being only ways, amongst others, of carrying out
these principles, and being apt to become stereotyped and wooden, are
unnecessary, but may be adopted so far as they fit in conveniently
with the mother’s general scheme for the education of her family.
III.--FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN
=The Childhood of Tolstoi.=--There is possibly no known field of
research in which so little available work has been done as in that
covered by the word ‘children.’ The ‘fair lande’ lies under our very
eyes, but whoso would map it out must write ‘Unexplored’ across vast
tracts. Thoughtful persons begin to suspect that the mistakes we make
through this ignorance are grievous and injurious. For example, are
not all our schemes of education founded on the presumption that a
child’s mind--his ‘thinking, feeling man’--begins ‘very small’ and
grows great with the growth of his body? We cannot tell if this is
indeed the case. The children keep themselves to themselves in a
general way, their winning ways and frank confidences notwithstanding;
but if one of us do, by chance, get a child revealed to him, he is
startled to find that the child has by far the keener intelligence,
the wiser thoughts, the larger soul of the two. When genius is able
to lift the veil and show us a child, it does a service which, in
our present state of thought, we are hardly able to appraise; and
when genius or simplicity, or both, shall have given us enough such
studies to generalise upon, we shall doubtless reconsider the whole
subject, and shall be dismayed at the slights we have been putting
upon children in the name of education. Count Tolstoi gives us, in
_Childhood, Boyhood, Youth_,[9] unmistakable child-portraiture, a
miniature in which a mother may see her child and recognise what and
how much there is in him:--
“Like our own dear mother,”
the little fellow writes, in the verses he makes for his grandmothers
birthday; and then, when the verses come to be read, ah! the
humiliation of soul he goes through, and how surely he expects
father and grandmother to find him out for a hypocrite. “Why did I
write it? She’s not here, and it was not necessary to mention her;
I love grandma, it’s true; I reverence her, but still she is not
the same. Why did I write it? Why have I lied?” This is the sort of
thing there is in children. We recognise it as we read, and remember
the dim, childish days when we, too, had an ‘organ of truth’ just
so exquisitely delicate; and the recollection should quicken our
reverence for the tender consciences of children.
“=The Story of a Child.=”--I should like while speaking of this
subject to mention another book which contains the self-revelation of
a child,--a child that once was summoned, to give evidence, out of
the dark abysm of time. This is the sort of study of a child that is
really precious, because it is to be had on no other terms than by
harking back to our own childhood, vivifying it, reproducing it, by
mere force of imaginative power. This is absolutely the only way to
get into sympathy with a child, for children, with all their frank
confidences and ready chatter, are quite inscrutable little persons,
who never tell anyone the sort of things that we read in this ‘Story.’
There is no need to tell each other, for other children know, and,
as for telling the grown-ups, children are fully persuaded that no
grown-up, not even mother, could understand; Ponto might, perhaps,
and confidences will be poured into the ear of a dog which the loving
mother lays herself out for in vain.
“Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe
Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart,
Our eyes see all around in gloom or glow--
Hues of their own, fresh borrow’d from the heart.”
And this is even more notably the case with children than with
ourselves. It is a law of our nature with which it is absolutely
useless to contend, and our only means of true intimacy with a child
is the power of recovering our own childhood--a power which we are
apt to let slip as of no vital importance. This, Miss Margaret Deland
helps us to do: we recognise our old selves, with a difference, in
Ellen. Just so irrational, inconsequent, loving and heroic, and
generally tiresome to the grown-up world were our own impulses in
that long ago, on which we look back with tenderness, but seldom
with complacency. If we rise, after reading _The Story of a
Child_,[10] a little more humble, a little more diffident, ready to
believe more than we see, why, it will do us no harm, and should bless
and help the children. From one word of the author’s we should like to
differ. Miss Deland thinks that it may be wholesome for the elders to
understand children better, but for the children, why, she thinks that
most of us grow up wonderfully well in spite of this and all other
difficulties. In a sense this is true, but, in another sense, one of
the saddest things in life is the issue of splendid child-material
into commonplace, uninteresting maturity, of a kind that the world
seems to be neither the better nor the worse for.
Tolstoi’s childhood and that of Miss Deland’s little heroine would
appear to be a far cry from ‘the Kindergarten’; but as a matter of
fact these two revelations of what children are bring our contention
to a point.
We are told that, “but yesterday, in the University of Edinburgh, the
greatest figure in the Faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer
of chloroform. The other day his successor and nephew, Professor
Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the University to go to the
library and pick out the books on his subject that were no longer
needed. And his reply to the librarian was this: ‘Take every text-book
that is more than ten years old, and put it down in the cellar.’” So
far as education is a science, the truth of even ten--much more, a
hundred--years ago is not the whole truth of to-day.
“Thoughts beyond their thought to those high seers were given”;
and, in proportion as the urgency of educational effort presses upon
us, will be the ardour of our appreciation, the diligence of our
employment, of those truths which the great pioneers, Froebel and
the rest, have won for us by no less than prophetic insight. But,
alas, and alas, for the cravings of lazy human nature--we may not
have an educational pope; we must think out for ourselves, as well as
work out, those things that belong to the perfect bringing-up of our
children.
=What we Owe to Froebel.=--We reverence Froebel. Many of his great
thoughts we share; we cannot say borrow, because some, like the
child’s relations to the universe, are at least as old as Plato;
others belong to universal practice and experience, and this shows
their psychological rightness. Froebel gathered diffused thought
and practice into a system, but he did a greater thing than this.
He raised an altar to the enthusiasm of childhood upon which the
flame has never since gone out. The true _Kindergärtnerin_ is
the artist amongst teachers; she is filled with the inspiration of
her work, and probably most sincere teachers have caught something
from her fervour, some sense of the beauty of childhood, and of the
enthralling delight of truly educational work.
=Requirements of a Person.=--And yet I enter a _caveat_. Our
first care should be to preserve the individuality, give play to the
personality, of children. Now _persons_ do not grow in a garden,
much less in a greenhouse. It is a doubtful boon to a person to
have conditions too carefully adapted to his needs. The exactly due
sunshine and shade, pruning and training, are good for a plant whose
uses are subordinate, so to say, to the needs and pleasures of its
owner. But a _person_ has other uses in the world, and mother or
teacher who regards him as a plant and herself as the gardener, will
only be saved from grave mistakes by the force of human nature in
herself and in her child.
=Nature as an Educator.=--The notion of supplementing Nature from the
cradle is a dangerous one. A little guiding, a little restraining,
much reverent watching, Nature asks of us; but beyond that, it is the
wisdom of parents to leave children as much as may be to Nature, and
“to a higher Power than Nature itself.”
=Danger of undervaluing Children’s Intelligence.=--Those of us who
have watched an urchin of seven making Catherine-wheels down the
length of a street, or a group of little girls dancing to a barrel
organ, or small boys and girls on a door-step giving what Dickens
calls ‘dry nourishment’ to their babies, or a small girl sent by her
mother to make four careful purchases out of sixpence and bring home
the change--are not ready to believe that physical, mental, and moral
development waits, so to speak, upon Kindergarten teaching. Indeed,
I am inclined to question whether, in the interest of carrying out
a system, the charming Kindergärtnerin is not in danger sometimes
of greatly undervaluing the intelligence of her children. I know a
person of three who happened to be found by a caller alone in the
drawing-room. It was spring, and the caller thought to make himself
entertaining with talk about the pretty ‘baa-lambs.’ But a pair of big
blue eyes were fixed upon him and a solemn person made this solemn
remark, “Isn’t it a dwefful howid thing to see a pig killed!” We
hope she had never seen or even heard of the killing of a pig, but
she made as effective a protest against twaddle as would any woman
of Society. Boers and kopjes, Russians and Japs, Treasure Island,
Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, the fight of Thermopylæ, Ulysses
and the Suitors--these are the sorts of things that children play
at by the month together; even the toddlers of three and four will
hold their own manfully with their brothers and sisters. And, if the
little people were in the habit of telling how they feel, we should
learn perhaps that they are a good deal bored by the nice little games
in which they frisk like lambs, flap their fins, and twiddle their
fingers like butterflies.
=We all like to be Humoured.=--‘But,’ says the reader, ‘children do
all these things so pleasantly and happily in the Kindergarten!’ It
is a curious thing about human nature that we all like to be managed
by persons who take the pains to play on our amiabilities. Even a dog
can be made foolishly sentimental; and, if we who are older have
our foibles in this kind, it is little wonder that children can be
wooed to do anything by persons whose approaches to them are always
charming. It is true that ‘W. V.,’ the child whom the world has been
taught to love, sang her Kindergarten songs with little hands waving
in the ‘air so blue!’ but that was for the delectation and delusion of
the elders when bedtime came. ‘W. V.’ had greater thoughts at other
times.
=Teachers mediate too much.=--There are still, probably, Kindergartens
where a great deal of twaddle is talked in song and story, where the
teacher conceives that to make poems for the children herself and
to compose tunes for their singing and to draw pictures for their
admiration, is to fulfil her function to the uttermost. The children
might echo Wordsworth’s complaint of ‘the world’ and say, the teacher
is too much with us, late and soon. Everything is directed, expected,
suggested. No other personality out of book, picture, or song, no,
not even that of Nature herself, can get at the children without the
mediation of the teacher. No room is left for spontaneity or personal
initiation on their part.
=Danger of Personal Magnetism.=--Most of us are misled by our virtues,
and the entire zeal and enthusiasm of the Kindergärtnerin is perhaps
her stone of stumbling. ‘But the children are so happy and good!’
Precisely; the home-nursery is by no means such a scene of peace, but
I venture to think it a better growing-place. I am delighted to see
that an eminent Fröbelian protests against the element of personal
magnetism in the teacher; but there is, or has been, a good deal of
this element in the successful Kindergärtner, and we all know how we
lose vigour and individuality under this sort of influence. Even apart
from this element of charm, I doubt if the self-adjusting property of
life in the Kindergarten is good for children.
=‘Kindergarten’ a False Analogy.=--The world suffered that morning
when the happy name of ‘Kindergarten’ suggested itself to the greatest
among educational ‘Fathers.’ No doubt it was simple and fit in
its first intention as meaning an out-of-door garden life for the
children; but, a false analogy has hampered, or killed, more than one
philosophic system--the child became a plant in a well-ordered garden.
The analogy appealed to the orderly, scientific German mind, which
does not much approve of irregular, spontaneous movement in any sort.
Culture, due stimulus, sweetness and light, became the chief features
of a great educational code. From the potting-shed to the frame and
thence to the flower-bed, the little plant gets in due proportion what
is good for him. He grows in a seemly way, in ordered ranks; and in
fit season puts forth his flower.
Now, to figure a _person_ by any analogy whatsoever is dangerous
and misleading; there is nothing in nature commensurable with a
person. Because the analogy of the garden plant is very attractive,
it is the more misleading; manifestations of purpose in a plant are
wonderful and delightful, but in a person such manifestations are
simply normal. The outcome of any thought is necessarily moulded by
that thought, and to have a cultivated garden as the ground-plan of
our educational thought, either means nothing at all, which it would
be wronging the Master to suppose, or it means undue interference with
the spontaneous development of a human being.
=Mother-games too strenuous for a Child.=--To begin with the
‘Mother-games,’ a sweet conception, most lovingly worked out. But
let us consider; the infant is exquisitely aware of every mood of
his mother, the little face clouds with grief or beams with joy in
response to the expression of hers. The two left to themselves have
rare games. He jumps and pulls, crows and chuckles, crawls and kicks
and gurgles with joy; and, amid all the play, is taught what he may
_not_ do. Hands and feet, legs and arms, fingers and toes, are
continually going while he is awake; mouth, eyes and ears are agog.
All is play without intention, and mother plays with baby as glad as
he. Nature sits quietly by and sees to it that all the play is really
work; and development of every sort is going on at a greater rate
during the first two years of life than at any like period of after
life--enough development and not too much, for baby is an inordinate
sleeper. Then comes in the educator and offers a little more. The
new games are so pretty and taking that baby might as well be doing
these as his own meaningless and clumsy jumpings and pattings. But a
real labour is being put upon the child in addition to the heaviest
two years’ work that his life will know. His sympathy with his
mother is so acute that he perceives something strenuous in the new
play, notwithstanding all the smiles and pretty talk; he answers by
endeavour, great in proportion as he is small. His nerve centres and
brain power have been unduly taxed, some of the joy of living has been
taken from him, and though his baby response to direct education is
very charming, he has less latent power left for the future calls of
life.
=The Society of his Equals too stimulating for a Child.=--Let us
follow the little person to the Kindergarten, where he has the
stimulus of classmates of his own age. It certainly is stimulating.
For ourselves, no society is so much so as that of a number of persons
of our own age and standing; this is the great joy of college life;
a wholesome joy for all young people for a limited time. But persons
of twenty have, or should have, some command over their inhibitory
centres. They should not permit the dissipation of nerve power caused
by too much social stimulus; yet even persons of twenty are not always
equal to the task of self-management in exciting circumstances. What
then, is to be expected of persons of two, three, four, five? That
the little person looks rather stolid than otherwise is no guarantee
against excitement within. The clash and sparkle of our equals now
and then stirs us up to health; but for everyday life, the mixed
society of elders, juniors and equals, which we get in a family, gives
at the same time the most repose and the most room for individual
development. We have all wondered at the good sense, reasonableness,
fun and resourcefulness shown by a child in his own home as compared
with the same child in school life.
=Danger of supplanting Nature.=--Danger lurks in the Kindergarten,
just in proportion to the completeness and beauty of its organisation.
It is possible to supplement Nature so skilfully that we run some
risk of supplanting her, depriving her of space and time to do her
own work in her own way. ‘Go and see what Tommy is doing and tell
him he mustn’t,’ is not sound doctrine. Tommy should be free to do
what he likes with his limbs and his mind through all the hours of
the day when he is not sitting up nicely at meals. He should run and
jump, leap and tumble, lie on his face watching a worm, or on his back
watching the bees in a lime tree. Nature will look after him and give
him promptings of desire _to know_ many things, and somebody must
tell as he wants to know; and _to do_ many things, and somebody
should be handy just to put him in the way; and _to be_ many
things, naughty and good, and somebody should give direction.
=Importance of Personal Initiative.=--Here we come to the real crux of
the Kindergarten question. The busy mother says she has no leisure to
be that somebody, and the child will run wild and get into bad habits;
but we must not make a fetish of habit; education is a _life_ as
well as a discipline. Health, strength, and agility, bright eyes and
alert movements, come of a free life, out-of-doors, if it may be; and
as for habits, there is no habit or power so useful to man or woman as
that of personal initiative. The resourcefulness which will enable a
family of children to invent their own games and occupations through
the length of a summer’s day is worth more in after life than a good
deal of knowledge about cubes and hexagons, and this comes, not of
continual intervention on the mother’s part, but of much masterly
inactivity.
=Parents and Teachers must sow Opportunities.=--The educational error
of our day is that we believe too much in mediators. Now, Nature is
her own mediator, undertakes, herself, to find work for eyes and
ears, taste and touch; she will prick the brain with problems and the
heart with feelings; and the part of mother or teacher in the early
years (indeed, all through life) is to sow opportunities, and then to
keep in the background, ready with a guiding or restraining hand only
when these are badly wanted. Mothers shirk their work and put it, as
they would say, into better hands than their own, because they do not
recognise that wise letting alone is the chief thing asked of them,
seeing that every mother has in Nature an all-sufficient handmaid, who
arranges for due work and due rest of mind, muscles, and senses.
In one way the children of the poor have better chances than those of
the rich. Poor children get education out of household ways; but there
is a great deal of good teaching to be got out of a wisely ordered
nursery, and their own small persons and possessions should, as I have
said, afford much ‘Kindergarten’ training to the little family at
home. At six or seven, definite lessons should begin, and these need
not be watered down or served with jam for the acute intelligences
that will in this way be brought to bear on them.
=‘Only’ Children.=--But what of only children, or the child too old to
play with her baby brother? Surely the Kindergarten is a great boon
for these! Perhaps so; but a cottage-child as a companion, or a lively
young nursemaid, might be better. A child will have taught himself
to paint, paste, cut paper, knit, weave, hammer and saw, make lovely
things in clay and sand, build castles with his bricks; possibly,
too, will have taught himself to read, write, and do sums, besides
acquiring no end of knowledge and notions about the world he lives in,
by the time he is six or seven. What I contend for is that he shall
do these things because he chooses (provided that the standard of
perfection in his small works be kept before him).
=The Child should be allowed some Ordering of his Life.=--The details
of family living will give him the repose of an ordered life; but, for
the rest, he should have more free-growing time than is possible in
the most charming school. The fact that lessons look like play is no
recommendation: they just want the freedom of play and the sense of
his own ordering that belongs to play. Most of us have little enough
opportunity for the ordering of our own lives, so it is well to make
much of the years that can be given to children to gain this joyous
experience.
=Helen Keller.=--I think what I have said of natural development as
opposed to any too carefully organised system is supported by a recent
contribution, of unique value, to the science of education--I mean the
autobiography of Helen Keller.[11]
When she was nineteen months old, Helen had a severe illness, in
which she lost sight and hearing, and consequently speech. She never
recovered the lost senses; and here, we should say, was a soul almost
inviolably sealed, to which there was no approach but through the
single sense of touch; yet, this lady’s book, written with her own
unaided hands (she used a typewriter), with hardly any revision,
should rank as a classic for the purity and pregnancy of the style,
independently of the vital interest of the matter. How was the miracle
accomplished? Of her childhood Helen says herself that, save for a
few impressions, “the shadows of the prison-house” enveloped it. But
there were always roses, and she had the sense of smell; and there
was love--but she was not loving then. When she was seven Miss
Sullivan came to her. This lady had herself been blind for some years,
and had been at the Perkins Institute, founded by that Dr Howe who
liberated the intelligence of Laura Bridgman. But Miss Sullivan is
no mere output of any institution. She is a person of fine sanity
and wholesomeness, trusting to her personal initiative, and aware
from the first that her work was to liberate the personality of her
little pupil and by no means to superimpose her own. “Thus I came up
out of Egypt,” says Miss Keller of the arrival of her teacher, and
the voice which she heard from Sinai said, “Knowledge is love and
light and vision”; and then follows that amazing and enthralling epic
which tells how it was all done, how the one word _water_ was
the key which opened the doors of the child’s mind, while the word
_love_ opened those of the closed heart. Thenceforth, many new
words came every day with crowds of ideas; and it is not too much to
say that this imprisoned and desolate child entered upon such a large
inheritance of thought and knowledge, of gladness and vision, as
few of us of the seeing and hearing world attain to. The instrument
in this great liberation was nothing more than the familiar manual
alphabet, followed in course of time by raised books and ‘Braille.’
=Miss Sullivan on Systems of Education.=--Like all great discoveries,
this, of a soul, was, in all its steps, marked by simplicity. Miss
Sullivan had little love for psychologists and all their ways;
would have no experiments; would not have her pupil treated as a
phenomenon, but as a person. “No,” she says, “I don’t want any more
Kindergarten materials.... I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and
special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the
supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to
think, whereas if the child is left to himself he will think more and
better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch
real things, and combine his impressions for himself, instead of
sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher
suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a
rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead
flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations
that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas
out of actual experiences.” It is a great thing to have a study of
education as it were _de novo_, in which we see the triumph of
mind, not only over apparently insuperable natural obstacles, but over
the dead wall of systematised education--a more complete hindrance to
many a poor child than her grievous defects proved to Helen Keller.
=The Kindergarten in the United States.=--This question of the
Kindergarten, as the proper place for the education of young children,
is so important that I should like to recommend to parents and
teachers the examination of the subject contained in the _Special
Reports_ published by the Board of Education.[12]
We must go to the United States to witness the apotheosis of
educational theory; I say theory rather than practice, because the
American mind, like the French, seems to me severely logical as well
as generously impulsive. A theory arrives, is liberally entertained,
and is set to work with due appliances on a magnificent scale to
do that which in it lies for the education of a great people. That
is to say, educational science in America appears to be deductive
rather than inductive; theories are translated into experiments
with truly imposing zeal and generosity. An inductive theory of
education is, on the other hand, arrived at by means of long, slow,
various, and laborious experiments which disclose, here a little,
and there a little, of universal truth. The Americans have chosen,
perhaps, the easier way, and in the end, they too experiment _upon
their theory_. The Kindergarten system illustrates what I mean;
notwithstanding its German name, the Kindergarten is not a common
product in the Fatherland; it is in America that the ideas of Froebel
have received their greatest development, that the Kindergarten has
become a cult, and the great teacher a prophet. But the impulse has
worn itself out; any way, it is waxing weak.
=Mr Thistleton Mark on the Kindergarten.=--According to Mr Thistleton
Mark--whose able paper on ‘Moral Education in American Schools’
offers matter for much profitable reflection--“Even a stationary
Froebelian is driven to have some better holdfast than the _ipse
dixit_ of the great reformer. The word Kindergarten is no longer
a proper noun signifying always and everywhere the one, sole,
original, and identical thing. It is a common noun, and as such is
assured of a more permanent place in American speech.” That is to
say, educational thought in America is tending towards the broad and
natural conception expressed in the phrase ‘education is a life.’ But
I wish that educationalists would give up the name Kindergarten. I
cannot help thinking that it is somewhat of a strain to conscientious
minds to draw the cover of Froebelian doctrine and practice over the
broader and more living conceptions that are abroad to-day. Even
revolutionised Kindergarten practice must suffer from the memory and
habit of weaknesses such as are pointed out by Dr Stanley Hall in the
following words:--
=Dr Stanley Hall on the Kindergarten.=--“The most decadent
intellectual new departure of the American Froebelists is the emphasis
now laid upon the mother-plays as the acme of Kindergarten wisdom.
These are represented by very crude poems, indifferent music and
pictures, illustrating certain incidents of child life believed to be
of fundamental and typical significance. I have read these in German
and in English, have strummed the music, and have given a brief course
of lectures from the sympathetic standpoint, trying to put all the new
wine of meaning I could think of into them. But I am driven to the
conclusion that, if they are not positively unwholesome and harmful
for the child, and productive of anti-scientific and unphilosophical
intellectual habits in the teacher, they should nevertheless be
superseded by the far better things now available.”[13]
“Another cardinal error of the Kindergarten is the intensity of its
devotion to gifts and occupations. In devising these Froebel showed
great sagacity; but the scheme as it left his own hands was a very
inadequate expression of his educational ideas, even for his time. He
thought it a perfect grammar of play and an alphabet of industries;
and in this opinion he was utterly mistaken. Play and industry were
then relatively undeveloped; and while his devices were beneficent for
the peasant children in the country, they lead in the interests of the
modern city child a very pallid and unreal life.” With these important
utterances I must conclude a superficial examination of the very
important question,--Is the Kindergarten the best training-ground for
a child?
IV.--READING
=Time of Teaching to Read, an Open Question.=--_Reading_ presents
itself first amongst the _lessons_ to be used as instruments of
education, although it is open to discussion whether the child should
acquire the art unconsciously, from his infancy upwards, or whether
the effort should be deferred until he is, say, six or seven, and then
made with vigour. In a valuable letter, addressed to her son John, we
have the way of teaching to read adopted by that pattern mother, the
mother of the Wesleys:--
=Mrs Wesley’s Plan.=--“None of them was taught to read till five years
old, except Kezzy, in whose case I was overruled; and she was more
years in learning than any of the rest had been months. The way of
teaching was this: the day before a child began to learn, the house
was set in order, every one’s work appointed them, and a charge given
that no one should come into the room from nine to twelve, or from two
to five, which were our school hours. One day was allowed the child
wherein to learn its letters, and each of them did in that time know
all its letters, great and small, except Molly and Nancy, who were a
day and a half before they knew them perfectly, for which I thought
them then very dull; but the reason why I thought them so was because
the rest learned them so readily; and your brother Samuel, who was the
first child I ever taught, learned the alphabet in a few hours. He
was five years old the tenth of February; the next day he began to
learn, and as soon as he knew the letters, began at the first chapter
of Genesis. He was taught to spell the first verse, then to read it
over and over until he could read it off-hand without hesitation; so
on, to the second verse, etc., till he took ten verses for a lesson,
which he quickly did. Easter fell low that year, and by Whitsuntide
he could read a chapter very well; for he read continually, and had
such a prodigious memory, that I cannot remember to have told him the
same word twice. What was yet stranger, any word he had learnt in his
lesson he knew wherever he saw it, either in his Bible or any other
book, by which means he learned very soon to read an English author
well.”[14]
It is much to be wished that thoughtful mothers would more often keep
account of the methods they employ with their children, with some
definite note of the success of this or that plan.
Many persons consider that to learn to read a language so full of
anomalies and difficulties as our own is a task which should not be
imposed too soon on the childish mind. But, as a matter of fact, few
of us can recollect how or when we learned to read: for all we know,
it came by nature, like the art of running; and not only so, but often
mothers of the educated classes do not know how their children learned
to read. ‘Oh, he taught himself,’ is all the account his mother can
give of little Dick’s proficiency. Whereby it is plain, that this
notion of the extreme difficulty of learning to read is begotten by
the elders rather than by the children. There would be no little books
entitled _Reading without Tears_, if tears were not sometimes
shed over the reading lesson; but, really, when that is the case, the
fault rests with the teacher.
=The Alphabet.=--As for his letters, the child usually teaches
himself. He has his box of ivory letters, and picks out _p_ for
pudding, _b_ for blackbird, _h_ for horse, big and little, and knows
them both. But the learning of the alphabet should be made a means of
cultivating the child’s observation: he should be made to _see_ what
he looks at. Make big _B_ in the air, and let him name it; then let
him make round _O_, and crooked _S_, and _T_ for Tommy, and you name
the letters as the little finger forms them with unsteady strokes in
the air. To make the small letters thus from memory is a work of more
art, and requires more careful observation on the child’s part. A tray
of sand is useful at this stage. The child draws his finger boldly
through the sand, and then puts a back to his _D_; and behold, his
first essay in making a straight line and a curve. But the devices for
making the learning of the ‘_A B C_’ interesting are endless. There is
no occasion to hurry the child: let him learn one form at a time, and
know it so well that he can pick out the _d_’s, say, big and little,
in a page of large print. Let him say _d_ for duck, dog, doll, thus:
_d_--uck, _d_--og, prolonging the sound of the initial consonant, and
at last sounding _d_ alone, not _dee_, but _d’_, the mere sound of the
consonant separated as far as possible from the following vowel.
Let the child alone, and he will learn the alphabet for himself: but
few mothers can resist the pleasure of teaching it; and there is no
reason why they should, for this kind of learning is no more than
play to the child, and if the alphabet be _taught_ to the little
student, his appreciation of both form and sound will be cultivated.
When should he begin? Whenever his box of letters begins to interest
him. The baby of two will often be able to name half a dozen letters;
and there is nothing against it so long as the finding and naming of
letters is a game to him. But he must not be urged, required to show
off, teased to find letters when his heart is set on other play.
=Word-making.=--The first exercises in the making of words will be
just as pleasant to the child. Exercises treated as a game, which yet
teach the powers of the letters, will be better to begin with than
actual sentences. Take up two of his letters and make the syllable
‘at’: tell him it is the word we use when we say ‘at home,’ ‘at
school.’ Then put _b_ to ‘at’--_bat_; _c_ to ‘at’--_cat_; _fat_,
_hat_, _mat_, _sat_, _rat_, and so on. First, let the child say what
the word becomes with each initial consonant; then let him add the
right consonant to ‘at,’ in order to make _hat_, _pat_, _cat_. Let the
syllables all be actual words which he knows. Set the words in a row,
and let him read them off. Do this with the short vowel sounds in
combination with each of the consonants, and the child will learn to
read off dozens of words of three letters, and will master the
short-vowel sounds with initial and final consonants without effort.
Before long he will do the lesson for himself. ‘How many words can you
make with “en” and another letter, with “od” and another letter?’ etc.
Do not hurry him.
=Word-making with Long Vowels, etc.=--When this sort of exercise
becomes so easy that it is no longer interesting, let the long sounds
of the vowels be learnt in the same way: use the same syllables as
before with a final _e_; thus, ‘at’ becomes ‘ate,’ and we get _late_,
_pate_, _rate_, etc. The child may be told that _a_ in ‘rate’ is _long
a_; _a_ in ‘rat’ is _short a_. He will make the new sets of words with
much facility, helped by the experience he gained in the former
lessons.
Then the same sort of thing with final ‘ng’--‘ing,’ ‘ang,’ ‘ong,’
‘ung’; as _ring_, _fang_, _long_, _sung_: initial ‘th,’ as _then_,
_that_: final ‘th,’ as _with_, _pith_, _hath_, _lath_, and so on,
through endless combinations which will suggest themselves. This is
not reading, but it is preparing the ground for reading; words will be
no longer unfamiliar, perplexing objects, when the child meets with
them in a line of print. Require him to pronounce the words he makes
with such finish and distinctness that he can himself hear and count
the sounds in a given word.
=Early Spelling.=--Accustom him from the first to shut his eyes
and spell the word he has made. This is important. Reading is not
spelling, nor is it necessary to spell in order to read well; but
the good speller is the child whose eye is quick enough to take in
the letters which compose it, in the act of reading off a word; and
this is a habit to be acquired from the first: _accustom_ him to
_see_ the letters in the word, and he will do so without effort.
If words were always made on a given pattern in English, if the same
letters always represented the same sounds, learning to read would
be an easy matter; for the child would soon acquire the few elements
of which all words would, in that case, be composed. But many of our
English words are, each, a law unto itself: there is nothing for it,
but the child must learn to know them at sight; he must recognise
‘which,’ precisely as he recognises ‘_B_,’ because he has seen
it before, been made to look at it with interest, so that the pattern
of the word is stamped on his retentive brain. This process should
go on side by side with the other--the learning of the powers of the
letters; for the more variety you can throw into his reading lessons,
the more will the child enjoy them. Lessons in word-making help him to
take intelligent interest in _words_; but his progress in the art
of reading depends chiefly on the ‘reading at sight’ lessons.
=Reading at Sight.=--The teacher must be content to proceed very
slowly, securing the ground under her feet as she goes. Say--
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are,”
is the first lesson; just those two lines. Read the passage for
the child, very slowly, sweetly, with just expression, so that it
is pleasant to him to listen. Point to each word as you read. Then
point to ‘twinkle,’ ‘wonder,’ ‘star,’ ‘what,’--and expect the child
to pronounce each word in the verse taken promiscuously; then, when
he shows that he knows each word by itself, and not before, let him
_read_ the two lines with clear enunciation and expression:
insist from the first on clear, beautiful reading, and do not let the
child fall into a dreary monotone, no more pleasant to himself than to
his listener. Of course, by this time he is able to say the two lines;
and let him say them clearly and beautifully. In his after lessons he
will learn the rest of the little poem.
=The Reading of Prose.=--At this stage, his reading lessons must
advance so slowly that he may just as well learn his reading
exercises, both prose and poetry, as recitation lessons. Little
poems suitable to be learned in this way will suggest themselves at
once; but perhaps prose is better, on the whole, as offering more
of the words in everyday use, of Saxon origin, and of anomalous
spelling. Short fables, and such graceful, simple prose as we have in
Mrs Gatty’s _Parables from Nature_, and, still better, in Mrs
Barbauld’s prose poems, are very suitable. Even for their earliest
reading lessons, it is unnecessary to put twaddle into the hands of
children.
But we have not yet finished the reading lesson on ‘Twinkle, twinkle,
little star.’ The child should hunt through two or three pages of good
clear type for ‘little,’ ‘star,’ ‘you,’ ‘are,’ each of the words he
has learned, until the word he knows looks out upon him like the face
of a friend in a crowd of strangers, and he is able to pounce upon
it anywhere. Lest he grow weary of the search, the teacher should
guide him, unawares, to the line or paragraph where the word he wants
occurs. Already the child has accumulated a little capital; he knows
eight or ten words so well that he will recognise them anywhere, and
the lesson has occupied probably ten minutes.
The next ‘reading at sight’ lesson will begin with a hunt for the
familiar words, and then--
“Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky,”
should be gone through in the same way. As spelling is simply the art
of _seeing_, seeing the letters in a word as we see the features
of a face--say to the child, ‘Can you spell sky?’--or any of the
shorter words. He is put on his mettle, and if he fail this time, be
sure he will be able to spell the word when you ask him next; but do
not let him _learn_ to spell or even say the letters aloud with
the word before him.
As for understanding what they read, the children will be full of
bright, intelligent remarks and questions, and will take this part of
the lesson into their own hands; indeed, the teacher will have to be
on her guard not to let them carry her away from the subject.
=Careful Pronunciation.=--The little people will probably have to be
pulled up on the score of pronunciation. They must render ‘high,’
‘sky,’ ‘like,’ ‘world,’ with delicate precision; ‘diamond,’ they
will no doubt wish to hurry over, and say as ‘di’mond,’ just as they
will reduce ‘history’ to ‘hist’ry.’ But here is another advantage of
slow and steady progress--the _saying_ of each word receives
due attention, and the child is trained in the habit of careful
enunciation. Every day increases the number of words he is able to
read at sight, and the more words he knows already, the longer his
reading lesson becomes in order to afford the ten or a dozen new words
which he should master every day.
=A Year’s Work.=--‘But what a snail’s progress!’ you are inclined
to say. Not so slow, after all: a child will thus learn, without
appreciable labour, from two to three thousand words in the course of
a year; in other words, he will learn _to read_, for the mastery
of this number of words will carry him with comfort through most of
the books that fall in his way.
=Ordinary Method.=--Now, compare the steady progress and constant
interest and liveliness of such lessons with the deadly weariness of
the ordinary reading lesson. The child blunders through a page or two
in a dreary monotone without expression, with imperfect enunciation.
He comes to a word he does not know, and he spells it; that throws
no light on the subject, and he is told the word: he repeats it, but
as he has made no mental effort to secure the word, the next time he
meets with it the same process is gone through. The reading lesson
for that day comes to an end. The pupil has been miserably bored,
and has not acquired one new word. Eventually, he learns to read,
somehow, by mere dint of repetition; but consider what an abuse of his
intelligence is a system of teaching which makes him undergo daily
labour with little or no result, and gives him a distaste for books
before he has learned to use them.
V.--THE FIRST READING LESSON[15]
(_Two Mothers Confer_)
“You don’t mean to say you would go plump into words of three or four
syllables before a child knows his letters?”
“It is possible to read words without knowing the alphabet, as you may
know a face without singling out its features; but we learn not only
the names but the _sounds_ of the letters before we begin to read
words.”
“Our children learn their letters without any teaching. We always
keep by us a shallow table drawer, the bottom covered half an inch
deep with sand. Before they are two, the babies make round _O_
and crooked _S_, and _T_ for Tommy, and so on, with dumpy,
uncertain little fingers. The elder children teach the little ones by
way of a game.”
“The sand is capital! We have various devices, but none so good as
that. Children love to be doing. The funny, shaky lines the little
finger makes in the sand will be ten times as interesting as the
shapes the eye sees.”
“But the reading! I can’t get over three syllables for the first
lesson. Why, it’s like teaching a twelve-months old child to waltz!”
“You say that because we forget that a group of letters is no more
than the _sign_ of a word, while a word is only the vocal sign of
a thing or an act. This is how the child learns. First, he gets the
notion of table; he sees several tables; he finds they have legs, by
which you can scramble up; very often covers which you may pull off;
and on them many things lie, good and pleasant for a baby to enjoy;
sometimes, too, you can pull these things off the table, and they
go down with a bang, which is nice. The grown-up people call this
pleasant thing, full of many interests, ‘table,’ and, by-and-by, baby
says ‘table’ too; and the word ‘table’ comes to mean, in a vague way,
all this to him. ‘A round table,’ ‘on the table,’ and so on, form part
of the idea of ‘table’ to him. In the same way baby chimes in when
his mother sings. She says, ‘Baby, sing,’ and, by-and-by, notions of
‘sing,’ ‘kiss,’ ‘love,’ dawn on his brain.”
“Yes, the darlings! and it’s surprising how many words a child knows
even before he can speak them; ‘pussy,’ ‘dolly,’ ‘carriage,’ soon
convey interesting ideas to him.”
“That’s just it. Interest the child in the thing, and he soon learns
the _sound-sign_ for it--that is, its name. Now, I maintain that, when
he is a little older, he should learn the _form-sign_--that is, the
printed word--on the same principle. It is far easier for a child to
read plum-pudding than to read ‘to, to,’ because ‘plum-pudding’
conveys a far more interesting idea.”
“That may be, when he gets into words of three or four syllables; but
what would you do while he’s in words of one syllable--indeed, of two
or three letters?”
“I should never put him into words of one syllable at all. The bigger
the word, the more striking the look of it, and, therefore, the easier
it is to read, provided always that the idea it conveys is interesting
to a child. It is sad to see an intelligent child toiling over a
reading-lesson infinitely below his capacity--_ath_, _eth_, _ith_,
_oth_, _uth_--or, at the very best, ‘The cat sat on the mat.’ How
should we like to begin to read German, for example, by toiling over
all conceivable combinations of letters, arranged on no principle but
similarity of sound; or, worse still, that our readings should be
graduated according to the number of letters each word contains? We
should be lost in a hopeless fog before a page of words of three
letters, all drearily like one another, with no distinctive features
for the eye to seize upon; but the child? ‘Oh, well--children are
different; no doubt it is good for the child to grind in this mill!’
But this is only one of many ways in which children are needlessly and
cruelly oppressed!”
“You are taking high moral ground! All the same, I don’t think I am
convinced. It is far easier for a child to spell cat, cat, than
to spell plum-pudding, plum-pudding.”
“But spelling and reading are _two_ things. You must learn to spell in
order to _write_ words, not to _read_ them. A child is droning over a
reading-lesson, spells cough; you say ‘cough,’ and she repeats. By
dint of repetition, she learns at last to associate the look of the
word with the sound, and says ‘cough’ without spelling it; and you
think she has arrived at ‘cough’ through cough. Not a bit of it; cof
spells cough!”
“Yes; but ‘cough’ has a silent _u_, and a _gh_ with the sound of _f_.
There, I grant, is a great difficulty. If only there were no silent
letters, and if all letters had always the same sound, we should,
indeed, have reading made easy. The phonetic people have something to
say for themselves.”
“You would agree with the writer of an article in a number of a
leading review: ‘Plough ought to be written and printed _plow_;
through, _thru_; enough, _enuf_; ought, _aut_ or _ort_’; and so on.
All this goes on the mistaken idea that in reading we look at the
letters which compose a word, think of their sounds, combine these,
and form the word. We do nothing of the kind; we accept a word,
written or printed, simply as the _symbol_ of a word we are accustomed
to say. If the word is new to us we may try to make something of the
letters, but we know so well that this is a shot in the dark, that we
are careful not to _say_ the new word until we have heard some one
else say it.”
“Yes, but children are different.”
“Children are the same, ‘only more so.’ _We_ could, if we liked,
break up a word into its sounds, or put certain sounds together
to make a word. But these are efforts of mind beyond the range of
children. First, as last, they learn to know a word by the look of it,
and the more striking it looks the easier it is to recognise; provided
always that the printed word is one which they already know very well
by sound and by sense.”
“It is not clear yet; suppose you tell me, step by step, how you would
give your first reading lesson. An illustration helps one so much.”
“Very well: Bobbie had his first lesson yesterday--on his sixth
birthday. The lesson was part of the celebration. By the way, I think
it’s rather a good plan to begin a new study with a child on his
birthday, or some great day; he _begins_ by thinking the new
study a privilege.”
“That is a hint. But go on; did Bobbie know his letters?”
“Yes, he had picked them up, as you say; but I had been careful not to
allow any small readings. You know how Susanna Wesley used to retire
to her room with the child who was to have his first reading-lesson,
and not to appear again for some hours, when the boy came out able
to read a good part of the first chapter of Genesis? Well, Bobbie’s
first reading-lesson was a solemn occasion too, for which we had been
preparing for a week or two. First, I bought a dozen penny copies of
the ‘History of Cock Robin’--good bold type, bad pictures, that we cut
out.
“Then we had a nursery pasting day--pasting the sheets on common
drawing-paper--six one side down, and six the other; so that now we
had six complete copies, and not twelve.
“Then we cut up the _first page only_, of all six copies, line
by line, and word by word. We gathered up the words and put them in a
box, and our preparations were complete.
“Now for the lesson. Bobbie and I are shut in by ourselves in the
morning-room. I always use a blackboard in teaching the children. I
write up, in good clear ‘print’ hand,
_Cock Robin._
Bobbie watches with the more interest because he knows his letters. I
say, pointing to the word, ‘cock robin,’ which he repeats.
“Then the words in the box are scattered on the table, and he finds
half a dozen ‘cock robins’ with great ease.
“We do the same thing with ‘sparrow,’ ‘arrow,’ ‘said,’ ‘killed,’
‘who,’ and so on, till all the words in the verse have been learned.
The words on the blackboard grow into a column, which Bob reads
backwards and forwards, and every way, except as the words run in the
verse.
“Then Bobbie arranges the loose words into columns like that on the
board.
“Then into columns of his own devising, which he reads off.
“Lastly, culminating joy (the whole lesson has been a delight!), he
finds among the loose words, at my dictation,
‘Who killed Cock Robin
I said the sparrow
With my bow and arrow
I killed Cock Robin,’
arranging the words in verse form.
“Then I had still one unmutilated copy, out of which Bob had
the pleasure of reading the verse, and he read it forwards and
_backwards_. So long as he lives he will know those twelve words.”
“No doubt it was a pleasant lesson; but, think of all the pasting and
cutting!”
“Yes, that is troublesome. I wish some publisher would provide us
with what we want--nursery rhymes, in good bold type, with boxes of
loose words to match--a separate box, or division, for each page, so
that the child may not be confused by having too many words to hunt
amongst. The point is that he should _see_, and _look at_,
the new word many times, so that its shape becomes impressed on his
brain.”
“I see; but he is only able to read ‘Cock Robin’; he has no general
power of reading.”
“On the contrary, he will read those twelve words wherever he meets
with them. Suppose he learns ten words a day, in half a year he will
have at least six hundred words; he will know how to read a little.”
“Excellent, supposing your children _remember_ all they learn. At
the end of a week, mine would remember ‘Cock Robin,’ perhaps, but the
rest would be gone!”
“Oh, but we keep what we get! When we have mastered the words of the
second verse, Bob runs through the first in the book, naming words
here and there as I point to them. It takes less than a minute, and
the ground is secured.”
“The first lesson must have been long?”
“I’m sorry to say it lasted half an hour. The child’s interest tempted
me to do more than I should.”
“It all sounds very attractive--a sort of game--but I cannot be
satisfied that a child should learn to read without knowing the powers
of the letters. You constantly see a child spell a word over to
himself, and then pronounce it; the more so, if he has been carefully
taught the sounds of the letters--not merely their names.”
“Naturally; for though many of our English words are each a law unto
itself, others offer a key to a whole group, as arrow gives us sp
arrow, m arrow, h arrow; but we have alternate days--one for reading,
the other for word-building--and that is one way to secure variety,
and, so, the joyous interest which is the real secret of success.”
VI.--READING BY SIGHT AND BY SOUND
=Learning to read is Hard Work.=--Probably that vague whole which we
call ‘Education’ offers no more difficult and repellent task than
that to which every little child is (or ought to be) set down--the
task of learning to read. We realise the labour of it when some grown
man makes a heroic effort to remedy shameful ignorance, but we forget
how contrary to Nature it is for a little child to occupy himself
with dreary hieroglyphics--all so dreadfully alike!--when the world
is teeming with interesting objects which he is agog to know. But
we cannot excuse our volatile Tommy, nor is it good for him that we
should. It is quite necessary he should know how to read; and not only
so--the discipline of the task is altogether wholesome for the little
man. At the same time, let us recognise that learning to read is to
many children hard work, and let us do what we can to make the task
easy and inviting.
=Knowledge of Arbitrary Symbols.=--In the first place, let us bear
in mind that reading is not a science nor an art. Even if it were,
the children must still be the first consideration with the educator;
but it is not. Learning to read is no more than picking up, how we
can, a knowledge of certain arbitrary symbols for objects and ideas.
There are absolutely no right and necessary ‘steps’ to reading, each
of which leads to the next; there is no true beginning, middle, or
end. For the arbitrary symbols we must know in order to read are not
_letters_, but _words_. By way of illustration, consider the
delicate differences of sound represented by the letter ‘o’ in the
last sentence; to analyse and classify the sounds of ‘o’ in ‘for,’
‘symbols,’ ‘know,’ ‘order,’ ‘to,’ ‘not,’ and ‘words,’ is a curious,
not especially useful, study for a philologist, but a laborious and
inappropriate one for a child. It is time we faced the fact that
the letters which compose an English word are full of philological
interest, and that their study will be a valuable part of education
by-and-by; but meantime, sound and letter-sign are so loosely wedded
in English, that to base the teaching of reading on the sounds of the
letters only, is to lay up for the child much analytic labour, much
mental confusion, due to the irregularities of the language; and some
little moral strain in making the sound of a letter in a given word
fall under any of the ‘sounds’ he has been taught.
Definitely, what is it we propose in teaching a child to read?
(_a_) that he shall know at sight, say, some thousand words;
(_b_) that he shall be able to build up new words with the
elements of these. Let him learn ten new words a day, and in twenty
weeks he will be to some extent able to read, without any question
as to the number of letters in a word. For the second, and less
important, part of our task, the child must know the sounds of the
letters, and acquire power to throw given sounds into new combinations.
What we want is a bridge between the child’s natural interests and
those arbitrary symbols with which he must become acquainted, and
which, as we have seen, are words, and not letters.
=These Symbols should be Interesting.=--The child cares for things,
not words; his analytic power is very small, his observing faculty
is exceedingly quick and keen; nothing is too small for him; he will
spy out the eye of a fly; nothing is too intricate, he delights
in puzzles. But the thing he learns to know by looking at it, is
a thing which interests him. Here we have the key to reading. No
meaningless combinations of letters, no _cla_, _cle_, _cli_, _clo_,
_clu_, no _ath_, _eth_, _ith_, _oth_, _uth_, should be presented to
him. The child should be taught from the first to regard the printed
word as he already regards the spoken word, as the symbol of fact or
idea full of interest. How easy to read ‘robin redbreast,’ ‘buttercups
and daisies’; the number of letters in the words is no matter; the
words themselves convey such interesting ideas that the general form
and look of them fixes itself on the child’s brain by the same law of
association of ideas which makes it easy to couple the objects with
their spoken names. Having got a word fixed on the sure peg of the
idea it conveys, the child will use his knowledge of the sounds of the
letters to make up other words containing the same elements with great
interest. When he knows ‘butter’ he is quite ready to make ‘mutter’ by
changing the _b_ for an _m_.
=Tommy’s First Lesson.=--But example is better than precept, and more
convincing than the soundest reasoning. This is the sort of reading
lesson we have in view. Tommy knows his letters by name and sound, but
he knows no more. To-day he is to be launched into the very middle of
reading, without any ‘steps’ at all, because reading is neither an art
nor a science, and has, probably, no beginning. Tommy is to learn to
read to-day--
“I like little pussy,
Her coat is so warm”--
and he is to know those nine words so well that he will be able to
read them wherever they may occur henceforth and for evermore.
“Oh, yes,” says a reader, “as in the ‘Cock Robin’ lesson; grant that
the principle is sound--and there is much to be said on both sides
of that question--but grant it, who in the world could get through
all the pasting and cutting and general messing preparatory to the
great lesson? No; the method of the books may be only second-best,
but ready-made books must do for me. I have no time to make my own
apparatus.”
I must own that the cutting and pasting was very clumsy, but the
lesson served its purpose because it induced a good friend to
education[16] to have a delightful ‘Little Pussy’ box prepared for
us, loose words, nice big type, two lines in a bag. Whoso learns
‘Little Pussy’ as it should be learned will know at least one hundred
words--not a bad stock-in-trade for a beginner--all of them good
useful words that we want every day. There is one objection; such
contractions as ‘I’ll’ are ugly at the best, and I hope that in the
word-lessons based upon ‘Little Pussy,’ pieces will be chosen in which
this fault is avoided.
=Steps.=--And now, we begin. _Matériel_: Tommy’s box of loose
letters, the new ‘Little Pussy’ box, pencil and paper, or much better,
blackboard and chalk. We write up in good big print hand ‘Pussy.’
Tommy watches with interest: he knows the letters, and probably says
them as we write. Besides, he is prepared for the great event of his
life; he knows he is going to begin to learn to read to-day. But we
do not ask anything yet of his previous knowledge. We simply tell
him that the word is ‘pussy.’ Interest at once; he knows the thing,
pussy, and the written symbol is pleasant in his eyes because it is
associated with an existing idea in his mind. He is told to look
at the word ‘pussy’ until he is sure he would know it again. Then
he makes ‘pussy’ from memory with his own loose letters. Then the
little bag containing our two lines in loose words is turned out, and
he finds the word ‘pussy’; and, lastly, the little sheet with the
poem printed on it is shown to him, and he finds ‘pussy,’ but is not
allowed yet to find out the run of the rhyme. ‘Coat, little, like,
is, her, warm, I, so,’ are taught in the same way, in less time than
it takes to describe the lesson. When each new word is learned, Tommy
makes a column of the old ones, and reads up and down and cris-cras,
the column on the blackboard.
=Reading Sentences.=--He knows words now, but he cannot yet read
sentences. Now for the delight of _reading_. He finds at our
dictation, amongst his loose words, ‘pussy--is--warm,’ places them in
‘reading’ order, one after the other, and then reads off the sentence.
Joy, as of one who has found a new planet! And Tommy has indeed found
a new power. Then, ‘her--little--coat--is--warm,’ ‘Pussy--is--so--
little,’ ‘I--like--pussy,’ ‘Pussy--is--little--like--her--coat,’ and
so on through a dozen more little arrangements. If the rhyme can be
kept a secret till the whole is worked out, so much the better. To
make the verses up with his own loose words will give Tommy such a
delicious sense that knowledge is power, as few occasions in after
life will afford. Anyway, reading is to him a delight henceforth, and
it will require very bad management indeed to make him hate it.
=Tommy’s Second Lesson.=--Tommy promises himself another reading
lesson next day, but he has instead a spelling lesson, conducted
somewhat in this way:--
He makes the word ‘coat’ with his letters, from memory if he can; if
not, with the pattern word. Say ‘coat’ slowly; give the sound of the
_c_. ‘Take away _c_, and what have we left?’ A little help will get
‘oat’ from him. How would you make ‘boat’ (say the word very slowly,
bringing out the sound of _b_). He knows the sounds of the letters,
and says b-oat readily; fl-oat, two added sounds, which you lead him
to find out; g-oat, he will give you the _g_, and find goat a charming
new word to know; m-oat, he easily decides on the sound of _m_; a
little talk about _moat_; the other words are too familiar to need
explanation. Tommy will, no doubt, offer ‘note,’ and we must make a
clean breast of it and say, ‘No, _note_ is spelt with other letters’;
but what other letters we do not tell him now. Thus he comes to learn
incidentally and very gradually that different groups of letters may
stand for the same sounds. But we do not ask him to generalise; we
only let him have the fact that n-oat does not spell the symbol we
express by ‘note.’ ‘Stoat’--he will be able to give the sounds of the
initial letters, and stoat again calls for a little talk--another
interesting word. He has made a group of words with his letters, and
there they are on the blackboard in a column, thus--
c-oat
m-oat
g-oat
fl-oat
st-oat
b-oat
He reads the column up and down and cris-cras; every word has a
meaning and carries an idea. Then the loose words he knows are
turned out, and we dictate new sentences, which he arranges:
‘I--like--her--goat’; ‘her--little--stoat--is--warm,’ and so on,
making the new words with loose letters.
=Unknown Words.=--Now for a new experience. We dictate ‘pussy is in
the boat.’ Consternation! Tommy does not know ‘in’ nor ‘the.’ ‘Put
counters for the words you don’t know; they may soon come in our
lessons,’ and Tommy has a desire and a need--that is, an appetite for
learning.
=Like Combinations have Different Sounds.=--We deal with the remaining
words in the same way: ‘little’ gives brittle, tittle, skittle: pussy,
is, I, and her, give no new words. ‘Like’ gives mike and pike. ‘So’
gives no, do (the musical ‘do’), and lo! From ‘warm’ we get arm, harm,
charm, barm, alarm; we pronounce warm as arm. Tommy perceives that
such a pronunciation is wrong and vulgar, and sees that all these
words are sounded like ‘arm,’ but not one of them like ‘warm’--that
is, he sees that the same group of letters need not always have
the same sound. But we do not ask him to ‘make a note of’ this new
piece of knowledge; we let it grow into him gradually, after many
experiences.
By this time he has eighteen new words on the blackboard of which to
make sentences with the nine loose words of ‘pussy.’ Her skittle is
little, her charm is brittle, her arm is warm, and so on. But we take
care that the sentences make sense. Her goat is brittle, is ‘silly,’
and not to be thought of at all. Tommy’s new words are written in
his ‘note-book’ in print hand, so that he can take stock of his
possessions in the way of words.
=Moral Training in Reading Lessons.=--The next day we do the last
two lines of the stanza, as at first. These lines afford hardly any
material for a spelling lesson, so in our next lesson we go on with
the second verse. But our stock of words is growing; we are able, as
we go on, to make an almost unlimited number of little sentences.
If we have to use counters now and then, why, that only whets our
appetite for knowledge. By the time Tommy has worked ‘Little Pussy’
through he has quite a large stock of words; has considerable power
to attack new words with familiar combinations; what is more, he has
achieved; he has courage to attack all ‘learning,’ and has a sense
that delightful results are quite within reach. Moreover, he learns
to read in a way that affords him some moral training. There is no
stumbling, no hesitation from the first, but bright attention and
perfect achievement. His reading lesson is a delight, of which he
is deprived when he comes to his lesson in a lazy, drawling mood.
Perfect enunciation and precision are insisted on, and when he comes
to arrange the whole of the little rhyme in his loose words and
read it off (most delightful of all the lessons) his reading must
be a perfect and finished recitation.[17] I believe that this is a
practical common-sense way to teach reading in English. It may be
profitable for the little German child to work through all possible
dreary combinations of letters before he is permitted to have any joy
in ‘reading,’ because wherever these combinations occur they will have
the sounds the child has learned laboriously. The fact that English is
anomalous as regards the connection between sign and sound, happily
exonerates us from enforcing this dreary grind.[18]
VII.--RECITATION
‘_The Children’s Art_’
On this subject I cannot do better than refer the reader to Mr Arthur
Burrell’s _Recitation_.[19] This book purports to be a handbook
for teachers in elementary schools. I wish that it may be very largely
used by such teachers, and may also become a family handbook; though
many of the lessons will not be called for in educated homes. There is
hardly any ‘subject’ so educative and so elevating as that which Mr
Burrell has happily described as ‘The Children’s Art.’ All children
have it in them to recite; it is an imprisoned gift waiting to be
delivered, like Ariel from the pine. In this most thoughtful and
methodical volume we are possessed of the fit incantations. Use them
duly, and out of the woodenness of even the most commonplace child
steps forth the child-artist, a delicate sprite, who shall make you
laugh and make you weep. Did not the great Sir Walter “sway to and
fro, sobbing his fill,” to his little ‘Pet’s’ speaking of--
“For I am sick, and capable of fears,
Oppressed with wrong, and therefore full of fears;
A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;
A woman, naturally born to fears”?
Marjorie Fleming was, to be sure, a child-genius; but in this book we
learn by what carefully graduated steps a child who is not a genius,
is not even born of cultivated parents, may be taught the fine art
of beautiful and perfect speaking; but that is only the first step
in the acquisition of ‘The Children’s Art.’ The child should speak
beautiful thoughts so beautifully, with such delicate rendering of
each _nuance_ of meaning, that he becomes to the listener the
interpreter of the author’s thought. Now, consider what appreciation,
sympathy, power of expression this implies, and you will grant that
‘The Children’s Art’ is, as Steele said of the society of his wife,
“a liberal education in itself.” It is objected--‘Children are such
parrots! They say a thing as they hear it said; as for troubling
themselves to “appreciate” and “interpret,” not a bit of it!’ Most
true of the ‘My name is Norval’ style of recitation; but throughout
this volume the child is led to find the just expression of the
thought for himself; never is the poor teacher allowed to set a
pattern--‘say this as I say it.’ The ideas are kept well within the
child’s range, and the expression is his own. He is caught with guile,
his very naughtiness is pressed into service, he finds a dozen ways
of saying ‘I shan’t,’ is led cunningly up to the point of expressing
himself, and--he does it, to his own surprise and delight. The pieces
given here for recitation are a treasure-trove of new joys. ‘Winken,
Blinken, and Nod,’ ‘Miss Lilywhite’s Party,’ and ‘The Two Kittens,’
would compel any child to recite. Try a single piece over with the
author’s markings and suggestions, and you will find there is as much
difference between the result and ordinary reading aloud as there
is in a musical composition played with and without the composer’s
expression marks. I hope that my readers will train their children
in the art of recitation; in the coming days, more even than in our
own, will it behove every educated man and woman to be able to speak
effectively in public; and, in learning to recite you learn to speak.
=Memorising.=--Recitation and committing to memory are not necessarily
the same thing, and it is well to store a child’s memory with a good
deal of poetry, learnt without labour. Some years ago I chanced to
visit a house, the mistress of which had educational notions of her
own, upon which she was bringing up a niece. She presented me with a
large foolscap sheet written all over with the titles of poems, some
of them long and difficult: _Tintern Abbey_, for example. She
told me that her niece could repeat to me any of those poems that I
liked to ask for, and that she had never learnt a single verse by
heart in her life. The girl did repeat several of the poems on the
list, quite beautifully and without hesitation; and then the lady
unfolded her secret. She thought she had made a discovery, and I
thought so too. She read a poem through to E.; then the next day,
while the little girl was making a doll’s frock, perhaps, she read it
again; once again the next day, while E.’s hair was being brushed.
She got in about six or more readings, according to the length of the
poem, at odd and unexpected times, and in the end E. could say the
poem which she had _not_ learned.
I have tried the plan often since, and found it effectual. The child
must not try to recollect or to say the verse over to himself, but,
as far as may be, present an open mind to receive an impression of
interest. Half a dozen repetitions should give children possession
of such poems as--‘Dolly and Dick,’ ‘Do you ask what the birds say?’
‘Little lamb, who made thee?’ and the like. The gains of such a method
of learning are, that the edge of the child’s enjoyment is not taken
off by weariful verse by verse repetitions, and, also, that the habit
of making mental images is unconsciously formed.
I remember once discussing this subject with the late Miss Anna
Swanwick in some connection with Browning which I do not recall,
but in the course of talk an extremely curious incident transpired.
A lady, a niece of Miss Swanwick’s, said that after a long
illness, during which she had not been allowed to do anything, she
read ‘Lycidas’ through, by way of a first treat to herself as a
convalescent. She was surprised to find herself the next day repeating
to herself long passages. Then she tried the whole poem and found she
could say it off, the result of this single reading, for she had
not learned the poem before her illness, nor read it with particular
attention. She was much elated by the treasure-trove she had chanced
upon, and to test her powers, she read the whole of ‘Paradise Lost,’
book by book, and with the same result,--she could repeat it book
by book after a single reading! She enriched herself by acquiring
other treasures during her convalescence; but as health returned, and
her mind became preoccupied with many interests, she found she no
longer had this astonishing power. It is possible that the disengaged
mind of a child is as free to take and as strong to hold beautiful
images clothed in beautiful words as was that of this lady during
her convalescence. But, let me again say, every effort of the kind,
however unconscious, means wear and tear of brain substance. Let
the child lie fallow till he is six, and then, in this matter of
memorising, as in others, attempt only a little, and let the poems
the child learns be simple and within the range of his own thought
and imagination. At the same time, when there is so much noble poetry
within a child’s compass, the pity of it, that he should be allowed to
learn twaddle!
VIII.--READING FOR OLDER CHILDREN
In teaching to read, as in other matters, _c’est le premier pas
qui coûte_. The child who has been taught to read with care and
deliberation until he has mastered the words of a limited vocabulary,
usually does the rest for himself. The attention of his teachers
should be fixed on two points--that he acquires the _habit_ of
reading, and that he does not fall into _slipshod habits_ of
reading.
=The Habit of Reading.=--The most common and the monstrous defect in
the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of
reading. Knowledge is conveyed to them by lessons and talk, but the
studious habit of using books as a means of interest and delight is
not acquired. This habit should be begun early; so soon as the child
can read at all, he should read for himself, and to himself, history,
legends, fairy tales, and other suitable matter. He should be trained
from the first to think that one reading of any lesson is enough to
enable him to narrate what he has read, and will thus get the habit of
slow, careful reading, intelligent even when it is silent, because he
reads with an eye to the full meaning of every clause.
=Reading Aloud.=--He should have practice, too, in reading aloud, for
the most part, in the books he is using for his term’s work. These
should include a good deal of poetry, to accustom him to the delicate
rendering of shades of meaning, and especially to make him aware that
words are beautiful in themselves, that they are a source of pleasure,
and are worthy of our honour; and that a beautiful word deserves to
be beautifully said, with a certain roundness of tone and precision
of utterance. Quite young children are open to this sort of teaching,
conveyed, not in a lesson, but by a word now and then.
=Limitation.=--In this connection the teacher should not trust to
setting, as it were, a copy in reading for the children’s imitation.
They do imitate readily enough, catching tricks of emphasis and action
in an amusing way; but these are mere tricks, an aping of
intelligence. The child must express what _he_ feels to be the
author’s meaning; and this sort of intelligent reading comes only of
the habit of reading with understanding.
=Reading to Children.=--It is a delight to older people to read
aloud to children, but this should be only an occasional treat and
indulgence, allowed before bedtime, for example. We must remember the
natural inertness of a child’s mind; give him the habit of being read
to, and he will steadily shirk the labour of reading for himself;
indeed, we all like to be spoon-fed with our intellectual meat, or
we should read and think more for ourselves and be less eager to run
after lectures.
=Questions on the Subject-matter.=--When a child is reading, he should
not be teased with questions as to the meaning of what he has read,
the signification of this word or that; what is annoying to older
people is equally annoying to children. Besides, it is not of the
least consequence that they should be able to give the meaning of
every word they read. A knowledge of meanings, that is, an ample and
correct vocabulary, is only arrived at in one way--by the habit of
reading. A child unconsciously gets the meaning of a new word from the
context, if not the first time he meets with it, then the second or
the third: but he is on the look-out, and will find out for himself
the sense of any expression he does not understand. Direct questions
on the subject-matter of what a child has read are always a mistake.
Let him _narrate_ what he has read, or some part of it. He enjoys
this sort of consecutive reproduction, but abominates every question
in the nature of a riddle. If there must be riddles, let it be his to
ask and the teacher’s to direct him to the answer. Questions that lead
to a side issue or to a personal view are allowable because these
interest children--‘What would you have done in his place?’
=Lesson-Books.=--A child has not begun his education until he has
acquired the habit of reading to himself, with interest and pleasure,
books fully on a level with his intelligence. I am speaking now of
his lesson-books, which are all too apt to be written in a style of
insufferable twaddle, probably because they are written by persons
who have never chanced to meet a child. All who know children know
that they do not talk twaddle and do not like it, and prefer that
which appeals to their understanding. Their lesson-books should offer
matter for their reading, whether aloud or to themselves; therefore
they should be written with literary power. As for the matter of these
books, let us remember that children can take in ideas and principles,
whether the latter be moral or mechanical, as quickly and clearly as
we do ourselves (perhaps more so); but detailed processes, lists and
summaries, blunt the edge of a child’s delicate mind. Therefore, the
selection of their first lesson-books is a matter of grave importance,
because it rests with these to give children the idea that knowledge
is supremely attractive and that reading is delightful. Once the habit
of reading his lesson-books with delight is set up in a child, his
education is--not completed, but--ensured; he will go on for himself
in spite of the obstructions which school too commonly throws in his
way.
=Slipshod Habits; Inattention.=--I have already spoken of the
importance of a single reading. If a child is not able to narrate
what he has read once, let him not get the notion that he may, or
that he must, read it again. A look of slight regret because there
is a gap in his knowledge will convict him. The power of reading with
perfect attention will not be gained by the child who is allowed to
moon over his lessons. For this reason, reading lessons must be short;
ten minutes or a quarter of an hour of fixed attention is enough for
children of the ages we have in view, and a lesson of this length will
enable a child to cover two or three pages of his book. The same rule
as to the length of a lesson applies to children whose lessons are
read to them because they are not yet able to read for themselves.
=Careless Enunciation.=--It is important that, when reading aloud,
children should make due use of the vocal organs, and, for this
reason, a reading lesson should be introduced by two or three simple
breathing exercises, as, for example, a long inspiration with closed
lips and a slow expiration with open mouth. If a child read through
his nose, it is well to consult a doctor; an operation for adenoids
may be necessary, which is rarely distressing, and should be performed
while children are young. Provincial pronunciation and slipshod
enunciation must be guarded against. Practice in pure vowel sounds,
and the respect for words which will not allow of their being hastily
slurred over, should cure these defects. By the way, quite little
children commonly enunciate beautifully, because a big word is a new
acquirement which they delight in and make the most of; our efforts
should be directed to make older children hold words in like esteem.
The habit of ‘minding your stops’ comes of intelligent reading.
A child’s understanding of the passage will lead him to correct
pointing.
IX.--THE ART OF NARRATING
=Children Narrate by Nature.=--Narrating is an _art_, like
poetry-making or painting, because it is _there_, in every
child’s mind, waiting to be discovered, and is not the result of any
process of disciplinary education. A creative fiat calls it forth.
‘Let him narrate’; and the child narrates, fluently, copiously, in
ordered sequence, with fit and graphic details, with a just choice
of words, without verbosity or tautology, so soon as he can speak
with ease. This amazing gift with which normal children are born
is allowed to lie fallow in their education. Bobbie will come home
with a heroic narrative of a fight he has seen between ‘Duke’ and a
dog in the street. It is wonderful! He has seen everything, and he
tells everything with splendid vigour in the true epic vein; but so
ingrained is our contempt for children that we see nothing in this but
Bobbie’s foolish childish way! Whereas here, if we have eyes to see
and grace to build, is the ground-plan of his education.
Until he is six, let Bobbie narrate only when and what he has a mind
to. He must not be called upon to _tell_ anything. Is this the
secret of the strange long talks we watch with amusement between
creatures of two, and four, and five? Is it possible that they narrate
while they are still inarticulate, and that the other inarticulate
person takes it all in? They try us, poor dear elders, and we reply
‘Yes,’ ‘Really!’ ‘Do you think so?’ to the babble of whose meaning we
have no comprehension. Be this as it may; of what goes on in the dim
region of ‘under two’ we have no assurance. But wait till the little
fellow has words and he will ‘tell’ without end to whomsoever will
listen to the tale, but, for choice, to his own compeers.
=This Power should be used in their Education.=--Let us take the
goods the gods provide. When the child is six, not earlier, let
him narrate the fairy-tale which has been read to him, episode by
episode, upon one hearing of each; the Bible tale read to him in the
words of the Bible; the well-written animal story; or all about other
lands from some such volume as _The World at Home_.[20] The
seven-years-old boy will have begun to read for himself, but must get
most of his intellectual nutriment, by ear, certainly, but read to him
out of books. Geography, sketches from ancient history, _Robinson
Crusoe_,[20a] _The Pilgrim’s Progress_,[20a] _Tanglewood
Tales_,[20a] _Heroes of Asgard_,[20a] and much of the same
calibre, will occupy him until he is eight. The points to be borne in
mind are, that he should have no book which is not a child’s classic;
and that, given the right book, it must not be diluted with talk or
broken up with questions, but given to the boy in fit portions as
wholesome meat for his mind, in the full trust that a child’s mind is
able to deal with its proper food.
The child of eight or nine is able to tackle the more serious material
of knowledge; but our business for the moment is with what children
under nine can narrate.
=Method of Lesson.=--In every case the reading should be consecutive
from a well-chosen book. Before the reading for the day begins, the
teacher should talk a little (and get the children to talk) about the
last lesson, with a few words about what is to be read, in order that
the children may be animated by expectation; but she should beware of
explanation, and, especially, of forestalling the narrative. Then, she
may read two or three pages, enough to include an episode; after that,
let her call upon the children to narrate,--in turns, if there be
several of them. They not only narrate with spirit and accuracy, but
succeed in catching the style of their author. It is not wise to tease
them with corrections; they may begin with an endless chain of ‘ands,’
but they soon leave this off, and their narrations become good enough
in style and composition to be put in a ‘print book’!
This sort of narration lesson should not occupy more than a quarter of
an hour.
The book should always be deeply interesting, and when the narration
is over, there should be a little talk in which moral points are
brought out, pictures shown to illustrate the lesson, or diagrams
drawn on the blackboard. As soon as children are able to read with
ease and fluency, they read their own lesson, either aloud or
silently, with a view to narration; but where it is necessary to
make omissions, as in the Old Testament narratives and Plutarch’s
_Lives_ for example, it is better that the teacher should always
read the lesson which is to be narrated.
X.--WRITING
=Perfect Accomplishment.=--I can only offer a few hints on the
teaching of _writing_, though much might be said. First, let the
child accomplish something _perfectly_ in every lesson--a stroke,
a pothook, a letter. Let the writing lesson be short; it should
not last more than five or ten minutes. Ease in writing comes by
practice; but that must be secured later. In the meantime, the thing
to be avoided is the habit of careless work--humpy _m_’s, angular
_o_’s.
=Printing.=--But the child should have practice in printing before
he begins to write. First, let him print the simplest of the capital
letters with single curves and straight lines. When he can make the
capitals and large letters, with some firmness and decision, he
might go on to the small letters--‘printed’ as in the type we call
‘_italics_,’ only upright,--as simple as possible, and large.
=Steps in Teaching.=--Let the stroke be learned first; then the
pothook; then the letters of which the pothook is an element--_n_,
_m_, _v_, _w_, _r_, _h_, _p_, _y_; then _o_, and letters of which the
curve is an element--_a_, _c_, _g_, _e_, _x_, _s_, _q_; then looped
and irregular letters-_-b_, _l_, _f_, _t_, etc. One letter should be
perfectly formed in a day and the next day the same elemental forms
repeated in another letter, until they become familiar. By-and-by
copies, three or four of the letters they have learned grouped into a
word--‘man,’ ‘aunt’; the lesson to be the production of the written
word _once_ without a single fault in any letter. At this stage the
chalk and blackboard are better than pen and paper, as it is well that
the child should rub out and rub out until his own eye is satisfied
with the word or letter he has written.
Of the further stages, little need be said. Secure that the child
_begins_ by making perfect letters and is never allowed to make
faulty ones, and the rest he will do for himself; as for ‘a good
hand,’ do not hurry him; his ‘handwriting’ will come by-and-by, out
of the character that is in him; but, as a child, he cannot be said,
strictly speaking, to have character. Set good copies before him, and
see that he imitates his model dutifully: the writing lesson being,
not so many lines, or ‘a copy’--that is, a page of writing--but a
single line which is as exactly as possible a copy of the characters
set. The child may have to write several lines before he succeeds in
producing this.
=Text-hand.=--If he write in books with copperplate headlines (which
are, on the whole, to be eschewed), discrimination should be exercised
in the choice of these; in many of them the writing is atrocious, and
the letters are adorned with flourishes which increase the pupil’s
labour but by no means improve his style. One word more; do not hurry
the child into ‘small hand’; it is unnecessary that he should labour
much over what is called ‘large hand,’ but ‘text-hand,’ the medium
size, should be continued until he makes the letters with ease. It
is much easier for the child to get into an irregular scribble by
way of ‘small-hand,’ than to get out of it again. In this, as in
everything else, the care of the educator must be given, not only to
the formation of good, but to the prevention of bad habits.
=A ‘New Handwriting.’=--Some years ago I heard of a lady who
was elaborating, by means of the study of old Italian and other
manuscripts, a ‘system of beautiful handwriting’ which could be taught
to children. I waited patiently, though not without some urgency, for
the production of this new kind of ‘copy-book.’ The need for such an
effort was very great, for the distinctly commonplace writing taught
from existing copy-books, however painstaking and legible, cannot
but have a rather vulgarising effect both on the writer and the
reader of such manuscript. At last the lady, Mrs Robert Bridges, has
succeeded in her tedious and difficult undertaking, and this book for
teachers will enable them to teach their pupils a style of writing
which is pleasant to acquire because it is beautiful to behold. It is
surprising how quickly young children, even those already confirmed in
‘ugly’ writing, take to this ‘new handwriting.’
But Mrs Bridges’ purpose in _A New Handwriting_ will be better
understood by some passages quoted, with her permission, from her
preface:--“The accompanying ten plates are intended chiefly for those
who teach writing: a few words, both of apology and explanation, are
needed to introduce them. I was always interested in handwriting, and
after making acquaintance with the Italianised Gothic of the sixteenth
century, I consciously altered my hand towards some likeness with its
forms and general character. The script happening to please, I was
often asked to make alphabets and copies, and begged by professional
teachers to have such a book as this printed, that they might use it
in their schools. One can never quite satisfy oneself in the making
of models for others to copy, but these plates are very much what I
intended, though, owing to my inexperience, some of them have suffered
in the reproduction.... A child must first learn to control his hand
and constrain it to obey his eye; at this earliest stage, any simple
forms will serve the purpose; and hence it might be further argued
that the forms are always indifferent, and that full mastery of the
hand can be as well attained by copying bad models as good; but this
can hardly be: the ordinary copybook, the aim of which seems to be to
economise the component parts of the letters, cannot train the hand
as more varied shapes will; nor does this uniformity, exclusive of
beauty, offer as good training to the eye. Moreover, I should say that
variety and beauty of form are attractive, even to little children,
and that the attempt to create something which interests them, cheers
and crowns their stupendous efforts with a pleasure that cannot be
looked for in the task of copying monotonous shapes. But whether such
a hand as that here shown lends itself as easily as the more uniform
model to the development of a quick, useful cursive, I cannot say; and
it is possible that the degradations, inevitable in the habit of quick
writing, might produce a mere untidiness, almost the worst reproach
of penmanship. Some of the best English hands of to-day are as good
a quick cursive as one can desire, and show points of real beauty;
but such hands are rare, and are only those which have, as we say,
character; which probably means that the writer would have done well
for himself under any system: whereas the average hands, which are the
natural outcome of the old copybook writing, degraded by haste, seem
to owe their common ugliness to the mean type from which they sprang;
and the writers, when they have occasion to write well, find they can
do but little better, and only prove that haste was not the real cause
of their bad writing.”
=How to Use.=--The method of using Mrs Bridges’ _Handwriting_,[21]
which we find most effectual, is to practise each form on the
blackboard from the plate, and later to use pencil, and still later
pen and ink. By-and-by the children will be promoted to transcribe
little poems, and so on, in this very pleasing script. Set headlines
are to be avoided, as children fail to use the forms of the headline
in their ordinary writing. It is sometimes objected that this rather
elaborate and beautiful handwriting will interfere with a
characteristic ‘hand,’ but it seems to me that to have a beautiful,
instead of a commonplace, basis for handwriting is a great gain.
XI.--TRANSCRIPTION
=Value of Transcription.=--The earliest practice in writing proper for
children of seven or eight should be, not letter-writing or dictation,
but transcription, slow and beautiful work, for which the _New
Handwriting_ is to be preferred, though perhaps some of the more
ornate characters may be omitted with advantage.
Transcription should be an introduction to spelling. Children should
be encouraged to look at the word, see a picture of it with their eyes
shut, and then write from memory.
=Children should Transcribe favourite Passages.=--A certain sense
of possession and delight may be added to this exercise if children
are allowed to choose for transcription their favourite verse in one
poem and another. This is better than to write a favourite poem, an
exercise which stales on the little people before it is finished. But
a book of their own, made up of their own chosen verses, should give
them pleasure.
=Small Text-hand--Double-ruled Lines.=--Double-ruled lines, small
text-hand, should be used at first, as children are eager to write
very minute ‘small hand,’ and once they have fallen into this habit
it is not easy to get good writing. A sense of beauty in their writing
and in the lines they copy should carry them over this stage of their
work with pleasure. Not more than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour
should be given to the early writing-lessons. If they are longer the
children get tired and slovenly.
=Position in Writing.=--For the writing position children should sit
so that light reaches them from the left, and desk or table should be
at a comfortable height.
It would be a great gain if children were taught from the first to
hold the pen between the first and second fingers, steadying it with
the thumb. This position avoids the uncomfortable strain on the
muscles produced by the usual way of holding a pen--a strain which
causes writer’s cramp in later days when there is much writing to be
done. The pen should be held in a comfortable position, rather near
the point, fingers and thumb somewhat bent, and the hand resting on
the paper. The writer should also be allowed to support himself with
the left hand on the paper, and should write in an easy position,
with bent head but not with stooping figure. It would be unnecessary
to say that the flat of the nib should be used if children had not a
happy gift for making spider marks with the nib held sideways. In all
writing lessons, free use should be made of the blackboard by both
teacher and children by way of model and practice.
=Desks.=--The best desks I know are those recommended by Dr Roth,[22]
single desks which may be raised or lowered, moved backwards or
forwards, with seat, back, and a back pad, and rests for the feet.
There may be others as good, even better, in the market, but these
seem to answer every purpose.
=Children’s Table.=--For little children it is a good plan to have a
table of the right height made by the house carpenter, the top of the
table consisting of two leaves with hinges. These leaves open in the
middle, and disclose a sort of box in the space which is often used
for a drawer, the table-top itself making the lids of the box. Such a
receptacle for the children’s books, writing materials, etc., is more
easily kept neat by themselves than is an ordinary drawer or box.
XII.--SPELLING AND DICTATION
Of all the mischievous exercises in which children spend their
school hours, dictation, as commonly practised, is perhaps the most
mischievous; and this, because people are slow to understand that
there is no part of a child’s work at school which some philosophic
principle does not underlie.
=A Fertile Cause of Bad Spelling.=--The common practice is for the
teacher to dictate a passage, clause by clause, repeating each clause,
perhaps, three or four times under a fire of questions from the
writers. Every line has errors in spelling, one, two, three, perhaps.
The conscientious teacher draws her pencil under these errors, or
solemnly underlines them with red ink. The children correct in various
fashions; sometimes they change books, and each corrects the errors
of another, copying the word from the book or from the blackboard. A
few benighted teachers still cause children to copy their own error
along with the correction, which last is written three or four times,
learned, and spelt to the teacher. The latter is astonished at the
pure perversity which causes the same errors to be repeated again and
again, notwithstanding all these painstaking efforts.
=The Rationale of Spelling.=--But the fact is, the gift of spelling
depends upon the power the eye possesses to ‘take’ (in a photographic
sense) a detailed picture of a word; and this is a power and habit
which must be cultivated in children from the first. When they have
read ‘cat,’ they must be encouraged to see the word with their eyes
shut, and the same habit will enable them to image ‘Thermopylæ.’
This picturing of words upon the retina appears to me to be the only
royal road to spelling; an error once made and corrected leads to
fearful doubt for the rest of one’s life, as to which was the wrong
way and which the right. Most of us are haunted by some such doubt as
to whether ‘balance,’ for instance, should have one ‘l’ or two; and
_the doubt is born of a correction_. Once the eye sees a misspelt
word, that image remains; and if there is also the image of the word
rightly spelt, we are perplexed as to which is which. Now we see why
there could not be a more ingenious way of making bad spellers than
‘dictation’ as it is commonly taught. Every misspelt word is an image
in the child’s brain not to be obliterated by the right spelling. It
becomes, therefore, the teacher’s business to prevent false spelling,
and, if an error has been made, to hide it away, as it were, so that
the impression may not become fixed.
=Steps of a Dictation Lesson.=--Dictation lessons, conducted in some
such way as the following, usually result in good spelling. A child
of eight or nine prepares a paragraph, older children a page, or two
or three pages. The child prepares by himself, by looking at the word
he is not sure of, and then seeing it with his eyes shut. Before he
begins, the teacher asks what words he thinks will need his attention.
He generally knows, but the teacher may point out any word likely to
be a cause of stumbling. He lets his teacher know when he is ready.
The teacher asks if there are any words he is not sure of. These she
puts, one by one, on the blackboard, letting the child look till he
has a picture, and then rubbing the word out. If anyone is still
doubtful he should be called to put the word he is not sure of on the
board, the teacher watching to rub out the word when a wrong letter
begins to appear, and again helping the child to get a mental picture.
Then the teacher gives out the dictation, clause by clause, each
clause repeated _once_. She dictates with a view to the pointing,
which the children are expected to put in as they write; but they must
not be told ‘comma,’ ‘semicolon,’ etc. After the sort of preparation
I have described, which takes ten minutes or less, there is rarely an
error in spelling. If there be, it is well worth while for the teacher
to be on the watch with slips of stamp-paper to put over the wrong
word, that its image may be erased as far as possible. At the end of
the lesson, the child should again study the wrong word in his book
until he says he is sure of it, and should write it correctly on the
stamp-paper.
A lesson of this kind secures the hearty co-operation of children, who
feel they take their due part in it; and it also prepares them for the
second condition of good spelling, which is--much reading combined
with the habit of imaging the words as they are read.
Illiterate spelling is usually a sign of sparse reading; but,
sometimes, of hasty reading without the habit of _seeing_ the
words that are skimmed over.
Spelling must not be lost sight of in the children’s other studies,
though they should not be teased to spell. It is well to write a
difficult proper name, for example, on the blackboard in the course of
history or geography readings, rubbing the word out when the children
say they can see it. The whole secret of spelling lies in the habit
of visualising words from memory, and children must be trained to
visualise in the course of their reading. They enjoy this way of
learning to spell.
XIII.--COMPOSITION
=George Osborne’s Essay.=--“What a prodigiously well-read and
delightful person the Reverend Lawrence Veal was, George’s master!
‘He knows _everything_,’ Amelia said. ‘He says there is no place
in the bar or the senate that Georgy may not aspire to. Look here,’
and she went to the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of George’s
composition. This great effort of genius, which is still in the
possession of Georgy’s mother, is as follows:--
“‘_On Selfishness._--Of all the vices which degrade
the human character, Selfishness is the most odious and
contemptible. An undue love of Self leads to the most
monstrous crimes, and occasions the greatest misfortunes
both in _States and Families_. As a selfish man will
impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin; so a
selfish king brings ruin on his people and often plunges
them into war. Example: The selfishness of Achilles, as
remarked by the poet Homer, occasioned a thousand woes to
the Greeks--μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε--(Hom., _Il_.,
A. 2). The selfishness of the late Napoleon Bonaparte
occasioned innumerable wars in Europe, and caused him to
perish, himself, in a miserable island--that of St Helena
in the Atlantic Ocean.
“‘We see by these examples that we are not to consult our
own interest and ambition, but that we are to consider the
interests of others as well as our own. GEORGE S. OSBORNE.
“‘ATHENÈ HOUSE, _24 April 1827_.’
“‘Think of him’ (George was 10) ‘writing such a hand, and
quoting Greek too, at his age,’ the delighted mother said.”
And well might Mrs George Sedley be delighted. Would not many a mother
to-day triumph in such a literary effort? What can Thackeray be
laughing at? Or does he, in truth, give us this little ‘theme’ as a
_tour de force_?
=An Educational Futility.=--I think this great moral teacher here
throws down the gauntlet in challenge of an educational futility which
is practised, and an educational fallacy which is accepted, even in
the twentieth century. That futility is the exaction of original
composition from schoolboys and schoolgirls. The proper function
of the mind of the young scholar is to collect material for the
generalisations of after-life. If a child is asked to generalise, that
is, to write an essay upon some abstract theme, a double wrong is done
him. He is brought up before a stone wall by being asked to do what is
impossible to him, and that is discouraging. But a worse moral injury
happens to him in that, having no thought of his own to offer on the
subject, he puts together such tags of commonplace thought as have
come in his way and offers the whole as his ‘composition,’ an effort
which puts a strain upon his conscience while it piques his vanity.
In these days masters do not consciously put their hand to the work
of their pupils as did that ‘prodigiously well-read and delightful’
master who had the educating of George Osborne. But, perhaps without
knowing it, they give the ideas which the cunning schoolboy seizes
to ‘stick’ into the ‘essay’ he hates. Sometimes they do more. They
deliberately teach children how to ‘build a sentence’ and how to ‘bind
sentences’ together.
=Lessons in Composition.=--Here is a series of preliminary exercises
(or rather a part of the series, which numbers 40) intended to help
a child to write an essay on ‘An Umbrella,’ from a book of the hour
proceeding from one of our best publishing houses:--
“_Step I._
“1. What are you?
“2. How did you get your name?
“3. Who uses you?
“4. What were you once?
“5. What were you like then?
“6. Where were you obtained or found?
“7. Of what stuff or materials are you made?
“8. From what sources do you come?
“9. What are your parts?
“10. Are you made, grown, or fitted together?
* * * * *
“_Step II._
“I am an umbrella, and am used by many people, young and old.
“I get my name from a word which means a shade.
“The stick came perhaps from America, and is quite smooth, even, and
polished, so that the metal ring may slide easily up and down the
stick.
“My parts are a frame and a cover. My frame consists of a stick about
a yard long, wires, and a sliding metal band. At the lower end of the
stick is a steel ferrule or ring. This keeps the end from wearing away
when I am used in walking.
“_Step III._
“Now use _it_, _is_, _are_, and _was_, instead of _I_, _have_, _my_,
and _am_.
* * * * *
“_Exercise._
“Now write out your own description of it.”
=Such Teaching a Public Danger.=--And this is work intended for
Standards VI. and VII.! That is to say, this kind of thing is the
final literary effort to be exacted from children in our elementary
schools!
The two volumes (I quote from near the end of the second and more
advanced volume) are not to be gibbeted as exceptionally bad. A few
years ago the appalling discovery was made that, both in secondary
and elementary schools, ‘composition’ was dreadfully defective,
and, therefore, badly taught. Since then many volumes have been
produced, more or less on the lines indicated in the above citation,
and distinguished publishers have not perceived that to offer to the
public, with the sanction of their name, works of this sterilising
and injurious character, is an offence against society. The body of
a child is sacred in the eye of the law, but his intellectual powers
may be annihilated on such starvation diet as this, and nothing said!
The worst of it is, both authors and publishers in every case act
upon the fallacy that well-intentioned effort is always excusable, if
not praiseworthy. They do not perceive that no effort is permissible
towards the education of children without an intelligent conception,
both of children, and of what is meant by education.
=‘Composition’ comes by Nature.=--In fact, lessons on ‘_composition_’
should follow the model of that famous essay on “Snakes in
Ireland”--“There are none.” For children under nine, the question of
composition resolves itself into that of narration, varied by some
such simple exercise as to write a part and narrate a part, or write
the whole account of a walk they have taken, a lesson they have
studied, or of some simple matter that they know. Before they are ten,
children who have been in the habit of using books will write good,
vigorous English with ease and freedom; that is, if they have not been
hampered by instructions. It is well for them not even to learn rules
for the placing of full stops and capitals until they notice how these
things occur in their books. Our business is to provide children with
material in their lessons, and, _leave the handling of such material
to themselves_. If we would believe it, composition is as natural as
jumping and running to children who have been allowed due use of
books. They should narrate in the first place, and they will compose,
later, readily enough; but they should not be taught ‘composition.’
XIV.--BIBLE LESSONS
=Children enjoy the Bible.=--We are apt to believe that children
cannot be interested in the Bible unless its pages be watered
down--turned into the slipshod English we prefer to offer them. Here
is a suggestive anecdote of the childhood of Mrs Harrison, one of the
pair of little Quaker maidens introduced to us in the _Autobiography
of Mary Howitt_, the better known of the sisters. “One day she
found her way into a lumber room. There she caught sight of an old
Bible, and turning over its yellow leaves she came upon words that
she had not heard at the usual morning readings, the opening chapters
of St Luke--which her father objected to read aloud--and the closing
chapter of Revelation. The exquisite picture of the Great Child’s
birth in the one chapter, and the beauty of the description of the New
Jerusalem in the other, were seized upon by the eager little girl of
six years old with a rapture which, she used to say, no novel in after
years ever produced.”
And here is a mention of a child of five. “The little ones read every
day the events of Holy Week with me. Z. is inexpressibly interesting
in his deep, reverent interest, almost _excitement_.”
We are probably quite incapable of measuring the religious receptivity
of children. Nevertheless, their fitness to apprehend the deep things
of God is a fact with which we are called to ‘deal prudently,’ and to
deal reverently. And that, because, as none can appreciate more fully
than the ‘Darwinian,’ the attitude of thought and feeling in which you
place a child is the vital factor in his education.
=Should know the Bible Text.=--Children between the ages of six
and nine should get a considerable knowledge of the Bible text.
By nine they should have read the simple (and suitable) narrative
portions of the Old Testament, and, say, two of the gospels. The Old
Testament should, for various reasons, be read to children. The gospel
stories, they might read for themselves as soon as they can read them
beautifully. It is a mistake to use paraphrases of the text; the fine
roll of Bible English appeals to children with a compelling music,
and they will probably retain through life their first conception of
the Bible scenes, and, also, the very words in which these scenes are
portrayed. This is a great possession. Half the clever talk we hear
to-day, and half the uneasiness which underlies this talk, are due
to a thorough and perfect ignorance of the Bible text. The points
of assault are presented to men’s minds naked and jagged, without
atmosphere, perspective, proportion; until the Bible comes to mean for
many, the speaking of Balaam’s ass or the standing still of the sun at
Joshua’s bidding.
But let the imaginations of children be stored with the pictures,
their minds nourished upon the words, of the gradually unfolding
story of the Scriptures, and they will come to look out upon a wide
horizon within which persons and events take shape in their due place
and in due proportion. By degrees, they will see that the world is a
stage whereon the goodness of God is continually striving with the
wilfulness of man; that some heroic men take sides with God; and that
others, foolish and headstrong, oppose themselves to Him. The fire of
enthusiasm will kindle in their breast, and the children, too, will
take their side, without much exhortation, or any thought or talk of
spiritual experience.
=Essential and Accidental Truth.=--As for whether such and such a
narrative be a myth, or a parable, or a circumstance that has actually
occurred, such questions do not affect the sincere mind of a child,
because they have nothing to do with the main issues. It is quite
well to bring before children, in the course of their Bible readings,
whatever new light modern research puts in our way; the more we can
help them in this way, the more vivid and real will Bible teaching
become to them. But this grace, at any rate, the children may claim
at our hands, that they shall not be disturbed by questions of
authenticity in their Bible reading any more than in their reading
of English history. Let them hear the story of the Garden of Eden,
for example, as it stands; just so, we might even let them have the
story of the man who went fishing and found a goodly pearl; and this,
because the thing that matters in both stories is the essential truths
they embody, and not the mere accidents of time and place. It is
conceivable that the ‘pearl of great price’ was matter of current talk
at the time; a so-called ‘fact’ seized upon by our Lord to make of it
the vehicle for essential truth. If we will believe it, the minds of
children are, perhaps, more fit than our own to appropriate and deal
with truth. By-and-by they will perceive, and discard, if necessary,
the accidental circumstances with which the truth is clothed upon; but
let us be very chary of our own action. Let us remember that neither
we nor the children can bear the white light of naked truth; that
if, for example, we succeed in destroying the clothing that covers
the story of the first fall--the tree and its fruit, the tempting
serpent, the yielding woman--we have no other clothing at hand for
the fundamental truths of responsibility, temptation, sin; and, once
uncovered, with no vesture which we can lay hold upon, the truths
themselves will assuredly slip from our grasp.
We need not be at the pains to discriminate, in teaching children
Bible narratives, between essential and accidental truth--the truth
which interprets our own lives, and that which concerns only the
time, place, and circumstances proper to the narrative. The children
themselves will discern and keep fast hold of the essential, while the
merely accidental slips from their memory as from ours. Therefore,
let the minds of young children be well stored with the beautiful
narratives of the earlier portions of the Old Testament and of the
gospels; but, in order that these stories may be always fresh and
delightful to them, care must be taken lest Bible teaching stale
upon their minds. Children are more capable of being bored than even
we ourselves, and many a revolt has been brought about by the undue
rubbing-in of the Bible, in season and out of season, even in nursery
days. But we are considering, not the religious life of children, but
their education by lessons; and their Bible _lessons_ should
help them to realise in early days that the knowledge of God is the
principal knowledge, and, therefore, that their Bible lessons are
their chief lessons.
=Method of Bible Lessons.=--The method of such lessons is very simple.
Read aloud to the children a few verses covering, if possible, an
episode. Read reverently, carefully, and with just expression. Then
require the children to narrate what they have listened to as nearly
as possible in the words of the Bible. It is curious how readily
they catch the rhythm of the majestic and simple Bible English.
Then, talk the narrative over with them in the light of research and
criticism. Let the teaching, moral and spiritual, reach them without
much personal application. I know of no better help in the teaching of
young children than we get in Canon Paterson Smyth’s _Bible for the
Young_. Mr Smyth brings both modern criticism and research to bear,
so that children taught from his little manuals will not be startled
to be told later that the world was not made in six days; and, at the
same time, they will be very sure that the world was made by God.
The moral and spiritual teaching in these manuals is on broad and
convincing lines. It is rather a good plan occasionally to read aloud
Mr Smyth’s lesson on the subject after the Bible passage has been
narrated. Children are more ready to appropriate lessons that are not
directly levelled at themselves; while the teacher makes the teaching
her own by the interest with which she reads, the pictures and other
illustrations she shows, and her conversational remarks.
=Picture Illustrations.=--The pictures in the _Illustrated New
Testament_ are, at the same time, reverent and actual, an unusual
combination, and children enjoy them greatly. It would be well for
them to have only the penny gospel they are reading, but it should
perhaps be protected (and honoured) by an embroidered cover. A
tattered Bible is not a wholesome sight for children. _The Holy
Gospels with Illustrations from the Old Masters_,[23] published
by the S.P.C.K., is admirable. The study of such pictures as are
here reproduced should be a valuable part of a child’s education;
it is no slight thing to realise how the Nativity and the visit of
the Wise Men filled the imagination of the early Masters, and with
what exceeding reverence and delight they dwelt upon every detail of
the sacred story. This sort of impression is not to be had from any
up-to-date treatment, or up-to-date illustrations; and the child who
gets it in early days, will have a substratum of reverent feeling
upon which should rest his faith. But it is well to let the pictures
tell their own tale. The children should study a subject quietly for a
few minutes; and then, the picture being removed, say what they have
seen in it. It will be found that they miss no little reverent or
suggestive detail which the artist has thought well to include.
The various R.T.S. publications issued in the series of _Bypaths
of Bible Knowledge_ will be found very helpful by the teacher, as
illustrating modern research; notably, Professor Sayce’s _Fresh
Light from Ancient Monuments_, and Budge’s _Dwellers on the
Nile_.[24]
=Bible Recitations.=--The learning by heart of Bible passages should
begin while the children are quite young, six or seven. It is a
delightful thing to have the memory stored with beautiful, comforting,
and inspiring passages, and we cannot tell when and how this manner
of seed may spring up, grow, and bear fruit; but the learning of the
parable of the Prodigal Son, for example, should not be laid on the
children as a burden. The whole parable should be read to them in a
way to bring out its beauty and tenderness; and then, day by day, the
teacher should recite a short passage, perhaps two or three verses,
saying it over some three or four times until the children think they
know it. Then, but not before, let them recite the passage. Next day
the children will recite what they have already learned, and so on,
until they are able to say the whole parable.
XV.--ARITHMETIC
=Educative Value of Arithmetic.=--Of all his early studies, perhaps
none is more important to the child as a means of education than
that of arithmetic. That he should do sums is of comparatively small
importance; but the use of those functions which ‘summing’ calls into
play is a great part of education; so much so, that the advocates of
mathematics and of language as instruments of education have, until
recently, divided the field pretty equally between them.
The practical value of arithmetic to persons in every class of life
goes without remark. But the use of the study in practical life is
the least of its uses. The chief value of arithmetic, like that
of the higher mathematics, lies in the training it affords to the
reasoning powers, and in the habits of insight, readiness, accuracy,
intellectual truthfulness it engenders. There is no one subject in
which good teaching effects more, as there is none in which slovenly
teaching has more mischievous results. Multiplication does not produce
the ‘right answer,’ so the boy tries division; that again fails, but
subtraction may get him out of the bog. There is no _must be_ to
him; he does not see that one process, and one process _only_,
can give the required result. Now, a child who does not know what rule
to apply to a simple problem within his grasp, has been ill taught
from the first, although he may produce slatefuls of quite right sums
in multiplication or long division.
=Problems within the Child’s Grasp.=--How is this insight, this
exercise of the reasoning powers, to be secured? Engage the child
upon little problems within his comprehension from the first, rather
than upon set sums. The young governess delights to set a noble ‘long
division sum,’--953,783,465 ÷ 873--which shall fill the child’s slate,
and keep him occupied for a good half-hour; and when it is finished,
and the child is finished too, done up with the unprofitable labour,
the sum is not right after all: the two last figures in the quotient
are wrong, and the remainder is false. But he cannot do it again--he
must not be discouraged by being told it is wrong; so, ‘nearly right’
is the verdict, a judgment inadmissible in arithmetic. Instead of this
laborious task, which gives no scope for mental effort, and in which
he goes to sea at last from sheer want of attention, say to him--
“Mr Jones sent six hundred and seven, and Mr Stevens eight hundred and
nineteen, apples to be divided amongst the twenty-seven boys at school
on Monday. How many apples apiece did they get?”
Here he must ask himself certain questions. ‘How many apples
altogether? How shall I find out? Then I must _divide_ the apples
into twenty-seven heaps to find out each boy’s share.’ That is to
say, the child perceives what rules he must apply to get the required
information. He is interested; the work goes on briskly: the sum is
done in no time, and is probably right, because the attention of the
child is concentrated on his work. Care must be taken to give the
child such problems as he _can_ work, but yet which are difficult
enough to cause him some little mental effort.
=Demonstrate.=--The next point is to demonstrate everything
demonstrable. The child may learn the multiplication-table and do
a subtraction sum without any insight into the _rationale_ of
either. He may even become a good arithmetician, applying rules
aptly, without seeing the reason of them; but arithmetic becomes an
elementary mathematical training only in so far as the reason why
of every process is clear to the child. 2 + 2 = 4, is a self-evident
fact, admitting of little demonstration; but 4 × 7 = 28 may be proved.
He has a bag of beans; places four rows with seven beans in a row;
adds the rows, thus: 7 and 7 are 14, and 7 are 21, and 7 are 28; how
many sevens in 28? 4. Therefore it is right to say 4 × 7 = 28; and the
child sees that multiplication is only a short way of doing addition.
A bag of beans, counters, or buttons should be used in all the early
arithmetic lessons, and the child should be able to work with these
freely, and even to add, subtract, multiply, and divide mentally,
without the aid of buttons or beans, before he is set to ‘do sums’ on
his slate.
He may arrange an addition table with his beans, thus--
⬭⬭ ⬭ = 3 beans
⬭⬭ ⬭⬭ = 4 ”
⬭⬭ ⬭⬭⬭ = 5 ”
and be exercised upon it until he can tell, first without counting,
and then without looking at the beans, that 2 + 7 = 9, etc.
Thus with 3, 4, 5,--each of the digits: as he learns each line of his
addition table, he is exercised upon imaginary objects, ‘4 apples
and 9 apples,’ ‘4 nuts and 6 nuts,’ etc.; and lastly, with abstract
numbers--6 + 5, 6 + 8.
A subtraction table is worked out simultaneously with the addition
table. As he works out each line of additions, he goes over the same
ground, only taking away one bean, or two beans, instead of adding,
until he is able to answer quite readily, 2 from 7? 2 from 5? After
working out each line of addition or subtraction, he may put it on
his slate with the proper signs, that is, if he have learned to make
figures. It will be found that it requires a much greater mental
effort on the child’s part to grasp the idea of subtraction than that
of addition, and the teacher must be content to go slowly--one finger
from four fingers, one nut from three nuts, and so forth, until he
knows what he is about.
When the child can add and subtract numbers pretty freely up to
twenty, the multiplication and division tables may be worked out with
beans, as far as 6 × 12; that is, ‘twice 6 are 12’ will be ascertained
by means of two rows of beans, six beans in a row.
When the child can say readily, without even a glance at his beans, 2
× 8 = 16, 2 × 7 = 14, etc., he will take 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 beans, and
divide them into groups of two: then, how many twos in 10, in 12, in
20? And so on, with each line of the multiplication table that he
works out.
=Problems.=--Now he is ready for more ambitious problems: thus, ‘A
boy had twice ten apples; how many heaps of 4 could he make?’ He
will be able to work with promiscuous numbers, as 7 + 5 - 3. If he
must use beans to get his answer, let him; but encourage him to work
with _imaginary_ beans, as a step towards working with abstract
numbers. Carefully graduated teaching and _daily_ mental effort
on the child’s part at this early stage may be the means of developing
real mathematical power, and will certainly promote the habits of
concentration and effort of mind.
=Notation.=--When the child is able to work pretty freely with small
numbers, a serious difficulty must be faced, upon his thorough mastery
of which will depend his apprehension of arithmetic as a science;
in other words, will depend the educational value of all the sums
he may henceforth do. He must be made to understand our system of
notation. Here, as before, it is best to begin with the concrete: let
the child get the idea of ten _units_ in one _ten_ after he
has mastered the more easily demonstrable idea of twelve pence in one
shilling.
Let him have a heap of pennies, say fifty: point out the
inconvenience of carrying such weighty money to shops. Lighter money
is used--shillings. How many pennies is a shilling worth? How many
shillings, then, might he have for his fifty pennies? He divides them
into heaps of twelve, and finds that he has four such heaps, and two
pennies over; that is to say, fifty pence are (or are worth) four
shillings and twopence. I buy ten pounds of biscuits at fivepence a
pound; they cost fifty pence, but the shopman gives me a bill for
4_s_. 2_d_.; show the child how put down: the pennies, which
are worth least, to the right; the shillings, which are worth more, to
the left.
When the child is able to work freely with shillings and pence, and
to understand that 2 in the right-hand column of figures is pence,
2 in the left-hand column, shillings, introduce him to the notion
of tens and units, being content to work very gradually. Tell him
of uncivilised peoples who can only count so far as five--who say
‘five-five beasts in the forest,’ ‘five-five fish in the river,’ when
they wish to express an immense number. We can count so far that we
might count all day long for years without coming to the end of the
numbers we might name; but after all, we have very few numbers to
count with, and very few figures to express them by. We have but
nine figures and a nought: we take the first figure and the nought to
express another number, ten; but after that we must begin again until
we get two tens, then, again, till we reach three tens, and so on. We
call two tens, twenty, three tens, thirty, because ‘ty’ (_tig_)
means ten.
But if I see figure 4, how am I to know whether it means four tens
or four ones? By a very simple plan. The _tens_ have a place of
their own; if you see figure 6 in the ten-place, you know it means
sixty. The tens are always put behind the units: when you see two
figures standing side by side, thus, ‘55,’ the left-hand figure stands
for so many tens; that is, the second 5 stands for ten times as many
as the first.
Let the child work with tens and units only until he has mastered
the idea of the tenfold value of the second figure to the left, and
would laugh at the folly of writing 7 in the second column of figures,
knowing that thereby it becomes seventy. Then he is ready for the
same sort of drill in hundreds, and picks up the new idea readily if
the principle have been made clear to him, that each remove to the
left means a tenfold increase in the value of a number. Meantime,
‘set’ him no sums. Let him never work with figures the notation of
which is beyond him, and when he comes to ‘carry’ in an addition or
multiplication sum, let him not say he carries ‘two,’ or ‘three,’ but
‘two tens,’ or ‘three hundreds,’ as the case may be.
=Weighing and Measuring.=--If the child do not get the ground under
his feet at this stage, he works arithmetic ever after by rule of
thumb. On the same principle, let him learn ‘weights and measures’
by measuring and weighing; let him have scales and weights, sand or
rice, paper and twine, and weigh, and do up, in _perfectly_
made parcels, ounces, pounds, etc. The _parcels_, though they
are not arithmetic, are educative, and afford considerable exercise
of judgment as well as of neatness, deftness, and quickness. In like
manner, let him work with foot-rule and yard measure, and draw up his
tables for himself. Let him not only measure and weigh everything
about him that admits of such treatment, but let him use his judgment
on questions of measure and weight. How many yards long is the
tablecloth? how many feet long and broad a map, or picture? What does
he suppose a book weighs that is to go by parcel post? The sort of
readiness to be gained thus is valuable in the affairs of life, and,
if only for that reason, should be cultivated in the child. While
engaged in measuring and weighing concrete quantities, the scholar is
prepared to take in his first idea of a ‘fraction,’ half a pound, a
quarter of a yard, etc.
=Arithmetic a Means of Training.=--Arithmetic is valuable as a means
of training children in habits of strict accuracy, but the ingenuity
which makes this exact science tend to foster slipshod habits of mind,
a disregard of truth and common honesty, is worthy of admiration!
The copying, prompting, telling, helping over difficulties, working
with an eye to the answer which he knows, that are allowed in the
arithmetic lesson, under an inferior teacher, are enough to vitiate
any child; and quite as bad as these is the habit of allowing that
a sum is _nearly_ right, two figures wrong, and so on, and
letting the child work it over again. Pronounce a sum _wrong_,
or _right_--it cannot be something between the two. That which
is _wrong_ must remain _wrong_: the child must not be let
run away with the notion that wrong can be mended into right. The
future is before him: he may get the next sum right, and the wise
teacher will make it her business to see that he _does_, and that
he starts with new hope. But the wrong sum must just be let alone.
Therefore his progress must be carefully graduated; but there is no
subject in which the teacher has a more delightful consciousness of
drawing out from day to day new power in the child. Do not offer him
a crutch: it is in his own power he must go. Give him short sums, in
words rather than in figures, and excite in him the enthusiasm which
produces concentrated attention and rapid work. Let his arithmetic
lesson be to the child a daily exercise in clear thinking and rapid,
careful execution, and his mental growth will be as obvious as the
sprouting of seedlings in the spring.
=The A B C Arithmetic.=--Instead of entering further into the subject
of the teaching of elementary arithmetic, I should like to refer the
reader to the _A B C Arithmetic_ by Messrs Sonnenschein & Nesbit.
The authors found their method upon the following passage from Mill’s
_Logic_:--“The fundamental truths of the science of Number all
rest on the evidence of sense; they are proved by showing to our
eyes and our fingers that any given number of objects, ten balls for
example, may by separation and re-arrangement exhibit to our senses
all the different sets of numbers the sum of which is equal to ten.
All the improved methods of teaching arithmetic to children proceed
on a knowledge of this fact. All who wish to carry the child’s
_mind_ along with them in learning arithmetic, all who wish to
teach numbers and not mere ciphers, now teach it through the evidence
of the senses in the manner we have described.”
Here we may, I think, trace the solitary source of weakness in a
surpassingly excellent manual. It is quite true that the fundamental
truths of the science of number all rest on the evidence of sense;
but, having used eyes and fingers upon ten balls or twenty balls, upon
ten nuts, or leaves, or sheep, or what not, the child has formed the
association of a given number with objects, and is able to conceive
of the association of various other numbers with objects. In fact,
he begins to _think_ in numbers and not in objects, that is, he
begins mathematics. Therefore I incline to think that an elaborate
system of staves, cubes, etc., instead of tens, hundreds, thousands,
errs by embarrassing the child’s mind with too much teaching, and by
making the illustration occupy a more prominent place than the thing
illustrated.
Dominoes, beans, graphic figures drawn on the blackboard, and the
like, are, on the other hand, aids to the child when it is necessary
for him to conceive of a great number with the material of a small
one; but to see a symbol of the great numbers and to work with such a
symbol are quite different matters.
With the above trifling exception, which does not interfere at all
with the use of the books, nothing can be more delightful than the
careful analysis of numbers and the beautiful graduation of the
work, “only one difficulty at a time being presented to the mind.”
The examples and the little problems could only have been invented
by writers in sympathy with children. I advise the reader who is
interested in the teaching of arithmetic to turn to Mr Sonnenschein’s
paper on ‘The Teaching of Arithmetic in Elementary Schools,’ in one of
the volumes published by the Board of Education.[25]
=Preparation for Mathematics.=--In the ‘forties’ and ‘fifties’ it was
currently held that the continual sight of the outward and visible
signs (geometrical forms and figures) should beget the inward and
spiritual grace of mathematical genius, or, at any rate, of an
inclination to mathematics. But the educationalists of those days
forgot, when they gave children boxes of ‘form’ and stuck up cubes,
hexagons, pentagons, and what not, in every available schoolroom
space, the immense capacity for being bored which is common to us
all, and is far more strongly developed in children than in grown-up
people. The objects which bore us, or the persons who bore us, appear
to wear a bald place in the mind, and thought turns from them with
sick aversion. Dickens showed us the pathos of it in the schoolroom of
the little Gradgrinds, which was bountifully supplied with objects of
uncompromising outline. Ruskin, more genially, exposes the fallacy.
No doubt geometric forms abound,--the skeletons of which living
beauty, in contour and gesture, in hill and plant, is the covering;
and the skeleton is beautiful and wonderful to the mind which has
already entered within the portals of geometry. But children should
not be presented with the skeleton, but with the living forms which
clothe it. Besides, is it not an inverse method to familiarise the
child’s eye with patterns made by his compasses, or stitched upon his
card, in the hope that the form will beget the idea? For the novice,
it is probably the rule that the idea must beget the form, and any
suggestion of an idea from a form comes only to the initiated. I do
not think that any direct preparation for mathematics is desirable.
The child, who has been allowed to think and not compelled to cram,
hails the new study with delight when the due time for it arrives. The
reason why mathematics are a great study is because there exists in
the normal mind an affinity and capacity for this study; and too great
an elaboration, whether of teaching or of preparation, has, I think, a
tendency to take the edge off this manner of intellectual interest.
XVI.--NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
=A Basis of Facts.=--Of the teaching of _Natural Philosophy_,
I will only remind the reader of what was said in an earlier
chapter--that there is no part of a child’s education more important
than that he should lay, by his own observation, a wide basis of
_facts_ towards scientific knowledge in the future. He must
live hours daily in the open air, and, as far as possible, in the
country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note,
_consciously_, every peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast,
bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every
plant. He must be accustomed to ask _why_--Why does the wind
blow? Why does the river flow? Why is a leaf-bud sticky? And do not
hurry to answer his questions for him; let him think his difficulties
out so far as his small experience will carry him. Above all, when
you come to the rescue, let it not be in the ‘cut and dried’ formula
of some miserable little text-book; let him have all the insight
available, and you will find that on many scientific questions the
child may be brought at once to the level of modern thought. Do not
embarrass him with too much scientific nomenclature. If he discover
for himself (helped, perhaps, by a leading question or two), by
comparing an oyster and his cat, that some animals have backbones and
some have not, it is less important that he should learn the terms
vertebrate and invertebrate than that he should class the animals he
meets with according to this difference.
=Eyes and No-eyes.=--The _method_ of this sort of instruction is
shown in _Evenings at Home_, where ‘Eyes and No-eyes’ go for a
walk. No-eyes comes home bored; he has seen nothing, been interested
in nothing: while Eyes is all agog to discuss a hundred things that
have interested him. As I have already tried to point out, to get
this sort of instruction for himself is simply the _nature_ of a
child: the business of the parent is to afford him abundant and varied
opportunities, and to direct his observations, so that, knowing little
of the principles of scientific classification, he is, unconsciously,
furnishing himself with the materials for such classification. It
is needless to repeat what has already been said on this subject;
but, indeed, the future of the man or woman depends very largely on
the store of real knowledge gathered, and the habits of intelligent
observation acquired, by the child. “Think you,” says Mr Herbert
Spencer, “that the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches calls
up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of the geologist,
who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a million of years ago?
The truth is, that those who have never entered on scientific pursuits
are blind to most of the poetry by which they are surrounded. Whoever
has not in youth collected plants and insects, knows not half the halo
of interest which lanes and hedgerows can assume.”
=Principles.=--In this connection I should like to recommend _The
Sciences_, by Mr Holden. America comes to the fore with a
schoolbook after my own heart. _The Sciences_ is a forbidding
title, but since the era of Joyce’s _Scientific Dialogues_ I have
met with nothing on the same lines which makes so fit an approach to
the sensible and intelligent mind of a child. This is what we may call
a ‘first-hand’ book. The knowledge has of course all been acquired;
but then it has been assimilated, and Mr Holden writes freely out
of his own knowledge both of his subject-matter and of his readers.
The book has been thrown into the form of conversations between
children--simple conversations without padding. About three hundred
topics are treated of: Sand-dunes, Back-ice, Herculaneum, Dredging,
Hurricanes, Echoes, the Prism, the Diving-bell, the Milky Way, and,
shall I say, everything else? But the amazing skill of the author is
shown in the fact that there is nothing scrappy and nothing hurried
in the treatment of any topic, but each falls naturally and easily
under the head of some principle which it elucidates. Many simple
experiments are included, which the author insists shall be performed
by the children themselves. I venture to quote from the singularly
wise preface, a _vade mecum_ for teachers:--
“The object of the present volume is to present chapters to be read in
school or at home that shall materially widen the outlook of American
schoolchildren in the domain of science, and of the applications of
science to the arts and to daily life. It is in no sense a text-book,
although the fundamental principles underlying the sciences treated
are here laid down. Its main object is to help the child to understand
the material world about him.”
=To be Comprehended by Children.=--“All natural phenomena are orderly;
they are governed by law; they are not magical. They are comprehended
by someone; why not by the child himself? It is not possible to
explain every detail of a locomotive to a young pupil, but it is
perfectly practicable to explain its principles so that this machine,
like others, becomes a mere special case of certain well-understood
general laws. The general plan of the book is to awaken the
imagination; to convey useful knowledge; to open the doors towards
wisdom. Its special aim is to stimulate observation and to excite a
living and lasting interest in the world that lies about us.
“The sciences of astronomy, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and
physiography are treated as fully and as deeply as the conditions
permit; and the lessons that they teach are enforced by examples
taken from familiar and important things. In astronomy, for example,
emphasis is laid upon phenomena that the child himself can observe,
and he is instructed how to go about it. The rising and setting of
the stars, the phases of the moon, the uses of the telescope, are
explained in simple words. The mystery of these and other matters is
not magical, as the child at first supposes. It is to deeper mysteries
that his attention is here directed. Mere phenomena are treated as
special cases of very general laws. The same process is followed in
the exposition of the other sciences.
“Familiar phenomena, like those of steam, of shadows, of reflected
light, of musical instruments, of echoes, etc., are referred to their
fundamental causes. Whenever it is desirable, simple experiments
are described and fully illustrated, and all such experiments can
very well be repeated in the schoolroom.... The volume is the result
of a sincere belief that much can be done to aid young children to
comprehend the material world in which they live, and of a desire to
have a part in a work so very well worth doing.”
I cannot help quoting also in this connection from an article[26] by
the Rev. H. H. Moore dealing with a forgotten pioneer of a rational
education and his experiment. This pioneer was the Rev. Richard Dawes,
at one time Rector of Kings Somborne parish, Hampshire, who, in 1841,
worked out the problem of rational education in an agricultural
village, in which he found the population unusually ignorant and
debased. The whole story is of great interest, but our concern is with
the question of Natural Philosophy, the staple of the teaching given
in this school.
=As taught in a Village School.=--Mr Dawes thus explained his
object:--“I aimed at teaching what would be profitable and interesting
to persons in the position in life which the children were likely
to occupy. I aimed at their being taught what may be called the
philosophy of common things--of everyday life. They were shown how
much there is that is interesting, and which it is advantageous for
them to know, in connection with the natural objects with which they
are familiar; they had explained to them, and were made acquainted
with, the principles of a variety of natural phenomena, as well as
the principles and construction of various instruments of a useful
kind. A practical turn was given to everything; the uses and fruits of
the knowledge they were acquiring were never lost sight of.” A list
of some of the subjects included in this kind of teaching will be the
best commentary on Mr Dawes’ scheme:--
“Some of the properties of air, explaining how its pressure enables
them to pump up water, to amuse themselves with squirts and popguns,
to suck up water through a straw; explaining also the principles
and construction of a barometer, the common pump, the diving-bell,
a pair of bellows. That air expands by heat, shown by placing a
half-blown bladder near the fire, when the wrinkles disappear. Why the
chimney-smoke sometimes rises easily in the air, sometimes not. Why
there is a draught up the chimney, and under the door, and towards
the fire. Air as a vehicle of sound, and why the flash of a distant
gun fired is seen before the report is heard; how to calculate the
distance of a thunderstorm; the difference in the speeds at which
different materials conduct sound. Water and its properties, its
solid, fluid, and vaporous state; why water-pipes are burst by frost;
why ice forms and floats on the surface of ponds, and not at the
bottom; why the kettle-lid jumps up when the water is boiling on the
fire; the uses to which the power of steam is applied; the gradual
evolution of the steam-engine, shown by models and diagrams; how their
clothes are dried, and why they feel cold sitting in damp clothes;
why a damp bed is so dangerous; why one body floats in water, and
another sinks; the different densities of sea and fresh water; why,
on going into the school on a cold morning, they sometimes see a
quantity of water on the glass, and why on the inside and not on the
outside; why, on a frosty day, their breath is visible as vapour; the
substances water holds in solution, and how their drinking water is
affected by the kind of soil through which it has passed. Dew, its
value, and the conditions necessary for its formation; placing equal
portions of dry wool on gravel, glass, and the grass, and weighing
them the next morning. Heat and its properties; how it is that the
blacksmith can fit iron hoops so firmly on the wheels of carts and
barrows; what precautions have to be taken in laying the iron rails
of railways and in building iron bridges, etc.; what materials are
good, and what bad, conductors of heat; why at the same temperature
some feel colder to our touch than others; why a glass sometimes
breaks when hot water is poured into it, and whether thick or thin
glass would be more liable to crack; why water can be made to boil in
a paper kettle or an eggshell without its being burned. The metals,
their sources, properties, and uses; mode of separating from the ores.
Light and its properties, illustrated by prisms, etc.; adaptation
of the eye; causes of long- and short-sightedness. The mechanical
principles of the tools more commonly used, the spade, the plough, the
axe, the lever, etc.”
“It may surprise some who read carefully the above list that such
subjects should have been taught to the children of a rural elementary
school. But it is an undeniable fact that they were taught in Kings
Somborne school, and so successfully that the children were both
interested and benefited by the teaching. Mr Dawes, in answer to the
objection that such subjects are above the comprehension of the young,
said:--‘The distinguishing mark of Nature’s laws is their extreme
simplicity. It may doubtless require intellect of a high order to make
the discovery of these laws; yet, once evolved, they are within the
capacity of a child,--in short, the principles of natural philosophy
are the principles of common sense, and if taught in a simple and
common-sense way, they will be speedily understood and eagerly
attended to by children; and it will be found that with pupils of
even from ten to twelve years of age much may be done towards forming
habits of observation and inquiry.’ Such a fact, I think, suggests
some valuable practical lessons for those who have the responsibility
of deciding what subjects to include in an educational system for
children.”
In reading of this remarkable experiment, we feel that we must at once
secure a man, all-informed like the late Dean Dawes, to teach our
own Jack and Elsie; but it is something to realise what these young
persons should know, and Mr Holden has done a great deal for us. Some
of the chapters in _The Sciences_ may be beyond children under
nine, but they will be able to master a good deal. One thing is to be
borne in mind: nothing should be done without its due experiment. By
the way, our old friend, Joyce’s _Scientific Dialogues_, if it
is still to be had, describes a vast number of easy and interesting
experiments which children can work for themselves.
XVII.--GEOGRAPHY
=Geography= is, to my mind, a subject of high educational value;
though not because it affords the means of scientific training.
Geography does present its problems, and these of the most
interesting, and does afford materials for classification; but it
is physical geography only which falls within the definition of a
science, and even that is rather a compendium of the results of
several sciences than a science itself. But the peculiar value of
geography lies in its fitness to nourish the mind with ideas, and to
furnish the imagination with pictures. Herein lies the educational
value of geography.
=As commonly Taught.=--Now, how is the subject commonly taught? The
child learns the names of the capital cities of Europe, or of the
rivers of England, or of the mountain-summits of Scotland, from some
miserable text-book, with length in miles, and height in feet, and
population, finding the names on his map or not, according as his
teacher is more or less up to her work. Poor little fellow! the lesson
is hard work to him; but as far as _education_ goes--that is, the
developing of power, the furnishing of the mind--he would be better
employed in watching the progress of a fly across the windowpane. But,
you will say, geography has a further use than this strictly educative
one; everybody wants the sort of information which the geography
lesson should afford. That is true, and is to be borne in mind in the
schoolroom; the child’s geography lesson should furnish just the sort
of information which grown-up people care to possess. Now, do think
how unreasonable we are in this matter; nothing will persuade us to
read a book of travel unless it be interesting, graphic, with a spice
of personal adventure. Even when we are going about with _Murray_
in hand, we skip the dry facts and figures, and read the suggestive
pictorial scraps; these are the sorts of things we like to know, and
remember with ease. But none of this pleasant padding for the poor
child, if you please; do not let him have little pictorial sentences
that he may dream over; facts and names and figures--these are the
_pabulum_ for him!
=Geography should be Interesting.=--But, you say, this sort of
knowledge, though it may be a labour to the child to acquire it,
is useful in after life. Not a bit of it; and for this reason--it
has never been really received by the brain at all; has never got
further than the floating nebulæ of mere verbal memory of which I have
already had occasion to speak. Most of us have gone through a good
deal of drudgery in the way of ‘geography’ lessons, but how much do
we remember? Just the pleasant bits we heard from travelled friends,
about the Rhine, or Paris, or Venice, or bits from _The Voyages of
Captain Cook_, or other pleasant tales of travel and adventure.
We begin to see the lines we must go upon in teaching geography: for
_educative_ purposes, the child must learn such geography, and
in such a way, that his mind shall thereby be stored with ideas, his
imagination with images; for _practical_ purposes he must learn
such geography only as, the nature of his mind considered, he will
able to remember; in other words, he must learn what _interests_
him. The educative and the practical run in one groove, and the
geography lesson becomes the most charming occupation of the child’s
day.
=How to begin.=--But, how to begin? In the first place, the child gets
his rudimentary notions of geography as he gets his first notions of
natural science, in those long hours out of doors of which we have
already seen the importance. A pool fed by a mere cutting in the
fields will explain the nature of a lake, will carry the child to
the lovely lakes of the Alps, to Livingstone’s great African lake, in
which he delighted to see his children ‘paidling’--“his own children
‘paidling’ in his own lake.” In this connection will come in a great
deal of pleasant talk about places, ‘pictorial geography,’ until the
child knows by name and nature the great rivers and mountains, deserts
and plains, the cities and countries of the world. At the same time,
he gets his first notions of a map from a rude sketch, a mere few
lines and dots, done with pencil and paper, or, better still, with
a stick in the sand or gravel. ‘This crooked line is the Rhine; but
you must imagine the rafts, and the island with the Mouse Tower, and
the Nuns’ Island, and the rest. Here are the hills, with their ruined
castles--now on this side, now on that. This dot is Cologne,’ etc.
Especially, let these talks cover all the home scenery and interests
you are acquainted with, so that, by-and-by, when he looks at the
map of England, he finds a score of familiar names which suggest
landscapes to him--places where ‘mother has been,’--the woody, flowery
islets of the Thames; the smooth Sussex downs, delightful to run and
roll upon, with soft carpet of turf and nodding harebells; the York or
Devon moors, with bilberries and heather:--and always give him a rough
sketch-map of the route you took in a given journey.
=What next?=--Give him next intimate knowledge, with the fullest
details, of any country or region of the world, any county or district
of his own country. It is _not_ necessary that he should learn at
this stage what is called the ‘geography’ of the countries of Europe,
the continents of the world--mere strings of names for the most part;
he may learn these, but it is tolerably certain that he will not
remember them. But let him be _at home_ in any single region; let
him see, with the mind’s eye, the people at their work and at their
play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts, each in its
habitat; and let him see all _sympathetically_, that is, let him
follow the adventures of a traveller; and he knows more, is better
furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the
maps. The ‘way’ of this kind of teaching is very simple and obvious;
read to him, or read for him, that is, read bit by bit, and tell as
you read, Hartwig’s _Tropical World_,[27] the same author’s Polar
World,[27a] Livingstone’s missionary travels, Mrs Bishop’s _Unbeaten
Tracks in Japan_[27a]--in fact, any interesting, well-written book
of travel. It may be necessary to leave out a good deal, but every
illustrative anecdote, every bit of description, is so much towards
the child’s education. Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how
many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing.
=Maps.=--_Maps_ must be carefully used in this kind of work,--a
sketch-map following the traveller’s progress, to be compared finally
with a complete map of the region; and the teacher will exact a
description of such and such a town, and such and such a district,
marked on the map, by way of testing and confirming the child’s
exact knowledge. In this way, too, he gets intelligent notions of
_physical_ geography; in the course of his readings he falls in
with a description of a volcano, a glacier, a cañon, a hurricane; he
hears all about, and asks and learns the how and the why, of such
phenomena at the moment when his interest is excited. In other words,
he learns as his elders elect to learn for themselves, though they
rarely allow the children to tread in paths so pleasant.
=What General Knowledge a Child of Nine should have.=--Supposing that
between the child’s sixth and his ninth year half a dozen well-chosen
standard books of travel have been read with him in this way, he
has gained distinct ideas of the contours, the productions, and the
manners of the people, of every great region of the world; has laid up
a store of reliable, valuable knowledge, that will last his lifetime;
and besides, has done something to acquire a taste for books and
the habit of reading. Such books as Lady Brassey’s _Voyage in the
‘Sunbeam’_ should be avoided, as covering too much ground, and
likely to breed some confusion of ideas.
=Particular Knowledge.=--But we are considering lessons as
‘Instruments of Education’; and the sort of knowledge of the world I
have indicated will be conveyed rather by readings in the ‘Children’s
Hour’ and at other times than by way of lessons. I know of nothing
so good as the old-fashioned _World at Home_ (for lessons) for
children between six and seven. As they hear, they wonder, admire,
imagine, and can even ‘play at’ a hundred situations. The first
ideas of geography, the lessons on _place_, which should make
a child observant of local geography, of the features of his own
neighbourhood, its heights and hollows, and level lands, its streams
and ponds, should be gained, as we have seen, out of doors, and should
prepare him for a certain amount of generalisation--that is, he should
be able to discover definitions of river, island, lake, and so on, and
should make these for himself in a tray of sand, or draw them on the
blackboard.
=Definitions.=--But definitions should come in the way of recording
his experiences. Before he is taught what a river is, he must have
watched a stream and observed that it flows; and so on with the rest.
Children easily simulate knowledge, and at this point the teacher
will have to be careful that nothing which the child receives is mere
verbiage, but that every generalisation is worked out somewhat in this
way:--The child observes a fact, as, for example, a wide stretch of
flat ground; the teacher amplifies. He reads in his book about Pampas,
the flat countries of the north-west of Europe, the Holland of our own
eastern coast, and, by degrees, he is prepared to receive the idea of
a _plain_, and to show it on his tray of sand.
=Fundamental Ideas.=--By the time he is seven, or before, he finds
himself in need of further knowledge. He has read of hot countries and
cold countries, has observed the seasons and the rising and setting of
the sun, has said to himself--
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!”--
knows something of ocean and sea, has watched the tide come in and
go out, has seen many rough sketch-maps made and has made some for
himself, and has, no doubt, noticed the criss-cross lines on a
‘proper’ map; that is to say, his mind is prepared for knowledge
in various directions; there are a number of things concerned with
geography which he really wants to know.
The shape and motions of the earth are fundamental ideas,[28] however
difficult to grasp, but the difficulty is of a kind which increases
with years. The principle in each case is simple enough, and a
child does not concern himself, as do his elders, with the enormous
magnitude of the scale upon which operations in space are carried on.
It is probable that a child’s vivid imagination puts him on a level
with the mathematician in dealing with the planetary system, with the
behaviour and character of Earth, with the causes of the seasons, and
much besides.
=Meaning of a Map.=--Then, again, geography should be learned
chiefly from maps. Pictorial readings and talks introduce him to
the subject, but so soon as his geography lessons become definite
they are to be learned, in the first place, from the map. This is an
important principle to bear in mind. The child who gets no ideas from
considering the map, say of Italy or of Russia, has no knowledge of
geography, however many _facts_ about places he may be able to
produce. Therefore he should begin this study by learning the meaning
of a map and how to use it. He must learn to draw a plan of his
schoolroom, etc., according to scale, go on to the plan of a field,
consider how to make the plan of his town, and be carried gradually
from the idea of a plan to that of a map; always beginning with the
notion of an explorer who finds the land and measures it, and by means
of sun and stars, is able to record just where it is on the earth’s
surface, east or west, north or south.
Now he will arrive at the meaning of the lines of latitude and
longitude. He will learn how sea and land are shown on a map, how
rivers and mountains are represented; and having learned his points
of direction and the use of his compass, and knowing that maps are
always made as if the beholder were looking to the north, he will
be able to tell a good deal about situation, direction, and the
like, in very early days. The fundamental ideas of geography and
the meaning of a map are subjects well fitted to form an attractive
introduction to the study. Some of them should awaken the delightful
interest which attaches in a child’s mind to that which is wonderful,
incomprehensible, while the map lessons should lead to mechanical
efforts equally delightful. It is only when presented to the child for
the first time in the form of stale knowledge and foregone conclusions
that the facts taught in such lessons appear dry and repulsive to
him. An effort should be made to treat the subject with the sort of
sympathetic interest and freshness which attracts children to a new
study.
XVIII.--HISTORY
=A Storehouse of Ideas.=--Much that has been said about the teaching
of geography applies equally to that of history. Here, too, is a
subject which should be to the child an inexhaustible storehouse
of ideas, should enrich the chambers of his House Beautiful with
a thousand tableaux, pathetic and heroic, and should form in him,
insensibly, principles whereby he will hereafter judge of the
behaviour of nations, and will rule his own conduct as one of a
nation. This is what the study of history should do for the child;
but what is he to get out of the miserable little chronicle of
feuds, battles, and death which is presented to him by way of ‘a
reign’--all the more repellent because it bristles with dates? As for
the dates, they never come right; the tens and units he can get, but
the centuries _will_ go astray; and how is he to put the right
events in the right reign, when, to him, one king differs from another
only in number, one period from another only in date? But he blunders
through with it; reads in his pleasant, chatty little history book all
the reigns of all the kings, from William the Conqueror to William
IV., and back to the dim days of British rule. And with what result?
This: that, possibly, no way of warping the judgment of the child, of
filling him with crude notions, narrow prejudices, is more successful
than that of carrying him through some such course of English history;
and all the more so if his little text-book be moral or religious
in tone, and undertake to point the moral as well as to record the
fact. Moral teaching falls, no doubt, within the province of history;
but the one small volume which the child uses affords no scope for
the fair and reasonable discussion upon which moral decisions should
be based, nor is the child old enough to be put into the judicial
attitude which such a decision supposes.
=‘Outlines’ Mischievous.=--The fatal mistake is in the notion that
he must learn ‘outlines,’ or a baby edition of the _whole_
history of England, or of Rome, just as he must cover the geography
of _all_ the world. Let him, on the contrary, linger pleasantly
over the history of a single man, a short period, until he thinks the
thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he
is reading and thinking of the lifetime of a single man, he is really
getting intimately acquainted with the history of a whole nation for
a whole age. Let him spend a year of happy intimacy with Alfred, ‘the
truth-teller,’ with the Conqueror, with Richard and Saladin, or with
Henry V.--Shakespeare’s Henry V.--and his victorious army. Let him
know the great people and the common people, the ways of the court and
of the crowd. Let him know what other nations were doing while we at
home were doing thus and thus. If he come to think that the people of
another age were truer, larger-hearted, simpler-minded than ourselves,
that the people of some other land were, at one time, at any rate,
better than we, why, so much the better for him.
=So are most History Books written for Children.=--For the matter for
this intelligent teaching of history, eschew, in the first place,
nearly all history books written expressly for children; and in the
next place, all compendiums, outlines, abstracts whatsoever. For
the abstracts, considering what part the study of history is fitted
to play in the education of the child, there is not a word to be
said in their favour; and as for what are called children’s books,
the children of educated parents are able to understand history
written with literary power, and are not attracted by the twaddle of
reading-made-easy little history books. Given, judicious skipping, and
a good deal of the free paraphrasing mothers are so ready at, and the
children may be taken through the first few volumes of a well-written,
illustrated, popular history of England, say as far as the Tudors.
In the course of such reading a good deal of questioning into them,
and questioning out of them, will be necessary, both to secure their
attention and to fix the facts. This is the least that should be done;
but better than this would be fuller information, more graphic details
about two or three early epochs.
=Early History of a Nation best fitted for Children.=--The early
history of a nation is far better fitted than its later records for
the study of children, because the story moves on a few broad, simple
lines; while statesmanship, so far as it exists, is no more than the
efforts of a resourceful mind to cope with circumstances. Mr Freeman
has provided interesting early English history for children; but is
it not on the whole better to take them straight to the fountainhead,
where possible? In these early years, while there are no examinations
ahead, and the children may yet go leisurely, let them get the
_spirit_ of history into them by reading, at least, one old
_Chronicle_ written by a man who saw and knew something of what
he wrote about, and did not get it at secondhand. These old books
are easier and pleasanter reading than most modern works on history,
because the writers know little of the ‘dignity of history’; they purl
along pleasantly as a forest brook, tell you ‘all about it,’ stir
your heart with the story of a great event, amuse you with pageants
and shows, make you intimate with the great people, and friendly with
the lowly. They are just the right thing for the children whose eager
souls want to get at the living people behind the words of the history
book, caring nothing at all about progress, or statutes, or about
anything but the persons, for whose action history is, to the child’s
mind, no more than a convenient stage. A child who has been carried
through a single old chronicler in this way has a better foundation
for an historical training than if he knew all the dates and names and
facts that ever were crammed for examination.
=Some old Chronicles.=--First in order of time, and full of the
most captivating reading, is the _Ecclesiastical History of
England_[29] of the Venerable Bede, who, writing of himself so
early as the seventh century, says, “It was always sweet to me to
learn, to teach, and to write.” “He has left us,” says Professor
Morley, “a history of the early years of England, succinct, yet often
warm with life; business-like, and yet childlike in its tone; at
once practical and spiritual, simply just, and the work of a true
scholar, breathing love to God and man. We owe to Bede alone the
knowledge of much that is most interesting in our early history.”
William of Malmesbury (twelfth century) says of Bede, “That almost
all knowledge of past events was buried in the same grave with him”;
and he is no bad judge, for in his _Chronicles of the Kings of
England_ he himself is considered to have carried to perfection
the art of chronicle-making. He is especially vivid and graphic about
contemporary events--the story of the dreary civil war of Stephen and
Matilda. Meantime, there is Asser, who writes the life of Alfred,
whose friend and fellow-worker he is. “It seems to me right,” he
says, “to explain a little more fully what I have heard from my lord
Alfred.” He tells us how, “When I had come into his presence at the
royal villa, called Leonaford, I was honourably received by him, and
remained that time with him at his court about eight months, during
which I read to him whatever books he liked, and such as he had at
hand; for this is his most usual custom, both night and day, amid his
many other occupations of mind and body, either himself to read books,
or to listen whilst others read them.” When he was not present to see
for himself, as at the battle of Ashdown, Asser takes pains to get the
testimony of eye-witnesses. “But Alfred, as we have been told by those
who were present and would not tell an untruth, marched up promptly
with his men to give them battle; for King Ethelred remained a long
time in his tent in prayer.” Then there are _Chronicles of the
Crusades_, contemporary narratives of the crusades of Richard Cœur de
Lion, by Richard of Devizes, and Geoffrey de Vinsany, and of the
crusade of St Louis, by Lord John de Joinville.
It is needless to extend the list; one such old chronicle in a
year, or the suitable bits of one such chronicle, and the child’s
imagination is aglow, his mind is teeming with ideas; he has
had speech of those who have themselves seen and heard: and the
matter-of-fact way in which the old monks tell their tales is exactly
what children prefer. Afterwards, you may put any dull outlines into
their hands, and they will make _history_ for themselves.
=Age of Myths.=--But every nation has its heroic age before authentic
history begins: there were giants in the land in those days, and the
child wants to know about them. He has every right to revel in such
classic myths as we possess as a nation; and to land him in a company
of painted savages, by way of giving him his first introduction to
his people, is a little hard; it is to make his vision of the past
harsh and bald as a Chinese painting. But what is to be done? If
we ever had an Homeric age, have we not, being a practical people,
lost all record thereof? Here is another debt that we owe to those
old monkish chroniclers: the echoes of some dim, rich past had come
down to, at any rate, the twelfth century: they fell upon the ear
of a Welsh priest, one Geoffrey of Monmouth; and while William of
Malmesbury was writing his admirable _History of the Kings of
England_, what does Geoffrey do but weave the traditions of the
people into an orderly _History of the British Kings_, reaching
back all the way to King Brut, the grandson of Æneas. How he came to
know about kings that no other historian had heard of, is a matter he
is a little roguish about; he got it all, he says, out of “that book
in the British language which Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, brought
out of Brittany.” Be that as it may, here we read of Gorboduc, King
Lear, Merlin, Uther Pendragon, and, best of all, of King Arthur, the
writer making ‘the little finger of his Arthur stouter than the back
of Alexander the Great.’ Here is, indeed, a treasure-trove which the
children should be made free of ten years before they come to read the
_Idylls of the King_. Some caution must, however, be exercised
in reading Geoffrey of Monmouth. His tales of marvel are delightful;
but when he quits the marvellous and romances freely about historical
facts and personages, he becomes a bewildering guide. Many of these
‘chronicles,’ written in Latin by the monks, are to be had in readable
English; the only caution to be observed is, that the mother should
run her eye over the pages before she reads them aloud.[30]
Froissart, again, most delightful of chroniclers, himself ‘tame’ about
the court of Queen Philippa, when he chose to be in England--from whom
else should the child get the story of the French wars? And so of as
much else as there is time for; the principle being, that, wherever
practicable, the child should get his first notions of a given period,
not from the modern historian, the commentator and reviewer, but from
the original sources of history, the writings of contemporaries. The
mother must, however, exercise discrimination in her choice of early
‘Chronicles,’ as all are not equally reliable.
=Plutarch’s ‘Lives.’=--In the same way, readings from Plutarch’s
_Lives_ will afford the best preparation for the study of Grecian
or of Roman history. Alexander the Great is something more than a name
to the child who reads this sort of thing:--
“When the horse Bucephalus was offered in sale to Philip,
at the price of thirteen talents (= £2518, 15s.), the king,
with the prince and many others, went into the field to see
some trial made of him. The horse appeared very vicious
and unmanageable, and was so far from suffering himself to
be mounted, that he would not bear to be spoken to, but
turned fiercely upon all the grooms. Philip was displeased
at their bringing him so wild and ungovernable a horse, and
bade them take him away. But Alexander, who had observed
him well, said, ‘What a horse are they losing for want of
skill and spirit to manage him!’
“Philip at first took no notice of this; but upon the
prince’s often repeating the same expression, and showing
great uneasiness, he said, ‘Young man, you find fault with
your elders as if you knew more than they, or could manage
the horse better.’
“‘And I certainly could,’ answered the prince.
“‘If you should not be able to ride him, what forfeiture
will you submit to for your rashness?’
“‘I will pay the price of the horse.’
“Upon this all the company laughed; but the king and
prince agreeing as to the forfeiture, Alexander ran to
the horse, and laying hold on the bridle, turned him to
the sun, for he had observed, it seems, that the shadow
which fell before the horse, and continually moved as he
moved, greatly disturbed him. While his fierceness and fury
lasted, he kept speaking to him softly and stroking him;
after which he gently let fall his mantle, leaped lightly
upon his back, and got his seat very safe. Then, without
pulling the reins too hard, or using either whip or spur,
he set him agoing. As soon as he perceived his uneasiness
abated, and that he wanted only to run, he put him in a
full gallop, and pushed him on both with the voice and spur.
“Philip and all his court were in great distress for him
at first, and a profound silence took place; but when the
prince had turned him and brought him safe back, they all
received him with loud exclamations, except his father, who
wept for joy, and kissing him, said, ‘Seek another kingdom,
my son, that may be worthy of thy abilities, for Macedonia
is too small for thee.’”
Here, again, in North’s inimitable translation, we get the sort of
vivid graphic presentation which makes ‘History’ as _real_ to the
child as are the adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
To sum up, to know as much as they may about even _one_ short
period, is far better for the children than to know the ‘outlines’ of
all history. And in the second place, children are quite able to take
in intelligent ideas in intelligent language, and should by no means
be excluded from the best that is written on the period they are about.
=History Books.=--It is not at all easy to choose the right history
books for children. Mere summaries of facts must, as we have seen, be
eschewed; and we must be equally careful to avoid generalisations.
The natural function of the mind, in the early years of life, is to
gather the material of knowledge with a view to that very labour of
generalisation which is proper to the adult mind; a labour which we
should all carry on to some extent for ourselves. As it is, our minds
are so poorly furnished that we accept the conclusions presented to
us without demur; but we can, at any rate, avoid giving children
cut-and-dried opinions upon the course of history while they are
yet young. What they want is graphic details concerning events and
persons upon which imagination goes to work; and opinions tend to form
themselves by slow degrees as knowledge grows.
Mr York Powell has, perhaps more than others, hit upon the right
teaching for the young children I have in view. In the preface to his
_Old Stories from British History_,[31] he says:--“The writer
has chosen such stories as he thought would amuse and please his
readers, and give them at the same time some knowledge of the lives
and thoughts of their forefathers. To this end he has not written
solely of great folk--kings and queens and generals--but also of plain
people and children, ay, and birds and beasts too”; and we get the
tale of King Lear and of Cuculain, and of King Canute and the poet
Otter, of Havelock and Ubba, and many more, all brave and glorious
stories; indeed, Mr. York Powell gives us a perfect treasure-trove in
his two little volumes of _Old Stories_ and _Sketches from
British History_,[31a] which are the better for our purpose, because
children can read them for themselves so soon as they are able to read
at all. These tales, written in good and simple English, and with
a certain charm of style, lend themselves admirably to narration.
Indeed, it is most interesting to hear children of seven or eight go
through a long story without missing a detail, putting every event in
its right order. These narrations are never a slavish reproduction of
the original. A child’s individuality plays about what he enjoys, and
the story comes from his lips, not precisely as the author tells it,
but with a certain spirit and colouring which express the narrator.
By the way, it is very important that children should be allowed to
narrate in their own way, and should not be pulled up or helped with
words and expressions from the text. A narration should be original
as it comes from a child--that is, his own mind should have acted
upon the matter it has received. Narrations which are mere feats of
memory are quite valueless. I have already spoken of the sorts of old
chronicles upon which children should be nourished; but these are
often too diffuse to offer good matter for narration, and it is well
to have quite fitting short tales for this purpose.
I should like to mention two other little volumes in which children
delight, which feed patriotic sentiment and lay a broad basis for
historical knowledge. I mean Mrs Frewen Lord’s _Tales from St
Paul’s_[32] and _Tales from Westminster Abbey_.[32a] It is a
beautiful and delightful thing to take children informed by these
tales to the Abbey or St Paul’s, and let them identify for themselves
the spots consecrated to their heroes. They know so much and are so
full of vivid interest that their elders stand by instructed and
inspired. There are, no doubt, multitudes of historical tales and
sketches for children, and some of them, like Miss Brooke Hunt’s
_Prisoners of the Tower_,[33] are very good; but let the mother
beware: there is nothing which calls for more delicate tact and
understanding sympathy with the children than this apparently simple
matter of choosing their lesson-books, and especially, perhaps, their
lesson-books in history.
Many children of eight or nine will be quite ready to read with
pleasure _A History of England_, by H. O. Arnold Forster, who
has long since won his spurs in the field of educational literature.
In this, as in matters of more immediate statecraft, Mr Arnold
Forster has the gift to see a defect and a remedy, an omission and
the means of supplying it. He saw that English children grew up
without any knowledge of the conditions under which they live, and
of the laws which govern them; but, since the appearance of _The
Citizen Reader_ and _The Laws of Every-day Life_, we have
changed all that. _The History of England_, or, as the children
call it, _History_, ignoring the fact that there is any other
history than that of England, has hitherto been presented to young
people as “outlines of dates and facts, or as collections of romantic
stories, with little coherence and less result on the fortunes of the
country.” Mr Arnold Forster says in his preface that he “is reluctant
to introduce his book by any such repellent title as ‘A Summary,’ or
‘An Outline of English History.’ Such titles seem on the face of them
to imply that the element of interest and the romance inseparable from
the life and doings of individuals are excluded, and that an amplified
chronological table has been made to do duty for history. But to read
English history and fail to realise that it is replete with interest,
sparkling with episode, and full of dramatic incident, is to miss all
the pleasure and most of the instruction which its study, if properly
pursued, can give.” The author fulfils his implied promise, and his
work is, I venture to say, as “replete with interest, sparkling with
episode, and full of dramatic incident” as is possible, considering
the limitations imposed upon him by the facts that he writes for
uneducated readers, and gives us a survey of the whole of English
History in a pleasant, copiously and wisely illustrated volume of
some eight hundred pages. How telling and lucid this is, for example,
and how we all wish we had come across such a paragraph in our early
studies of architecture:--“On page 23 we have pictures of two windows.
One of them is what is called a _Pointed_ window. All the arches
in it go up to a point. It was built a long time before the Tudor
period. The other was built in the time of Queen Elizabeth. In it the
upright shaft, or _mullion_, of the window goes straight up to
the top without forming an arch. This style of building a window is
called the _Perpendicular Style_, because the mullions of the
windows are ‘perpendicular.’ Some of the most famous buildings in
England built in Tudor times, and in the perpendicular style, are the
Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, and Hatfield House, the residence
of the Marquis of Salisbury, in Hertfordshire.” Mr Arnold Forster has
done in this volume for children and the illiterate, what Professor
Green did in his _Shorter History of England_ for somewhat
more advanced students, awakening many to the fact that history is
an entrancing subject of study. This is a real introduction to real
history. The portraits are an especially valuable feature of the work.
=Dates.=--In order to give definiteness to what may soon become a
pretty wide knowledge of history--mount a sheet of cartridge-paper
and divide it into twenty columns, letting the first century of the
Christian era come in the middle, and let each remaining column
represent a century B.C. or A.D., as the case may be.
Then let the child himself write, or print, as he is able, the names
of the people he comes upon in due order, in their proper century. We
need not trouble ourselves at present with more exact dates, but this
simple table of the centuries will suggest a graphic panorama to the
child’s mind, and he will see events in their time-order.
=Illustrations by the Children.=--History readings afford admirable
material for narration, and children enjoy narrating what they have
read or heard. They love, too, to make illustrations. Children who had
been reading _Julius Cæsar_ (and also, Plutarch’s _Life_),
were asked to make a picture of their favourite scene, and the results
showed the extraordinary power of visualising which the little people
possess. Of course that which they visualise, or imagine clearly, they
know; it is a life possession.
The drawings of the children in question are psychologically
interesting as showing what various and sometimes obscure points
appeal to the mind of a child; and also, that children have the same
intellectual pleasure as persons of cultivated mind in working out
new hints and suggestions. The drawings, be it said, leave much to
be desired, but they have this in common with the art of primitive
peoples: they tell the tale directly and vividly. A girl of nine and a
half pictures Julius Cæsar conquering Britain. He rides in a chariot
mounted on scythes, he is robed in blue, and bits of blue sky here
and there give the complementary colour. In the distance, a soldier
plants the ensign bearing the Roman eagle, black on a pink ground! In
the foreground, is a hand-to-hand combat between Roman and Briton,
each having a sword of enormous length. Other figures are variously
employed.
Another, gives us Antony ‘making his speech after the death of Cæsar.’
This girl, who is older, gives us architecture; you look through an
arch, which leads into a side street, and, in the foreground, Antony
stands on a platform at the head of a flight of marble steps. Antony’s
attitude expresses indignation and scorn. Below, is a crowd of Romans
wearing the toga, whose attitudes show various shades of consternation
and dismay. Behind, is Antony’s servant in uniform, holding his
master’s horse; and on the platform, in the rear of Antony, lies
Cæsar, with the royal purple thrown over him. The chief value of the
drawing, as a drawing, is that it tells the tale.
Another girl draws Calpurnia begging Cæsar not to go to the Senate.
Cæsar stands armed and perturbed, while Calpurnia holds his
outstretched hand with both of hers as she kneels before him, her face
raised in entreaty; her loose blue night-robe and long golden hair
give colour to the picture. This artist is fourteen, and the drawing
is better done.
Another artist presents Brutus and Portia in the orchard with a
‘south-wall’ of red brick, espaliers, and two dignified figures which
hardly tell their tale.
Another child gives us the scene in the forum, Cæsar seated in royal
purple, Brutus kneeling before him, and Casca standing behind his
chair with outstretched hand holding a dagger, saying “Speak, hands,
for me,” while Cæsar says, “Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?”
Again, we get Lucius playing to Brutus in the tent. Brutus, armed
cap-à-pie, seated on a stool, is vainly trying to read, while Lucius,
a pretty figure, seated before him, plays the harp. The two sentries,
also fully armed, are stretched on the floor sound asleep.
Another, gives us Claudius dressed as a woman at the women’s
festival--the ladies with remarkable eyes, and each carrying a flaming
torch.
Another pictures, with great spirit, Cæsar reading his history to the
conquered Gauls, who stand in rows on the hillside listening to the
great man with exemplary patience.
In these original illustrations (several of them by older children
than those we have in view here), we get an example of the various
images that present themselves to the minds of children during the
reading of a great work; and a single such glimpse into a child’s mind
convinces us of the importance of sustaining that mind upon strong
meat. Imagination does not stir at the suggestion of the feeble,
much-diluted stuff that is too often put into children’s hands.
=‘Playing at’ History.=--Children have other ways of expressing the
conceptions that fill them when they are duly fed. They play at their
history lessons, dress up, make tableaux, act scenes; or they have a
stage, and their dolls act, while they paint the scenery and speak the
speeches. There is no end to the modes of expression children find
when there is anything in them to express.
The mistake we make is to suppose that imagination is fed by nature,
or that it works on the insipid diet of children’s story-books. Let a
child have the meat he requires in his history readings, and in the
literature which naturally gathers round this history, and imagination
will bestir itself without any help of ours; the child will live out
in detail a thousand scenes of which he only gets the merest hint.
XIX.--GRAMMAR
=Grammar a Difficult Study.=--Of _grammar_, Latin and English, I
shall say very little here. In the first place, grammar, being a study
of _words_ and not of _things_, is by no means attractive
to the child, nor should he be hurried into it. English grammar,
again, depending as it does on the position and logical connection
of words, is peculiarly hard for him to grasp. In this respect the
Latin grammar is easier; a change in the form, the _shape_ of the
word, to denote case, is what a child can see with his bodily eye, and
therefore is plainer to him than the abstract ideas of nominative and
objective case as we have them in English. Therefore, if he learns no
more at this early stage than the declensions and a verb or two, it
is well he should learn thus much, if only to help him to see what
English grammar would be at when it speaks of a change in case or
mood, yet shows no change in the form of the word.
=Latin Grammar.=--Of the teaching of Latin grammar, I think I cannot
do better than mention a book for beginners that really answers.
Children of eight and nine take to this _First Latin Course_
(Scott and Jones)[34] very kindly, and it is a great thing to begin a
study with pleasure. It is an open question, however, whether it is
desirable to begin Latin at so early an age.
=English Grammar a Logical Study.=--Because English grammar is a
logical study, and deals with _sentences_ and the positions that
words occupy in them, rather than with _words_, and what they are
in their own right, it is better that the child should begin with the
_sentence_, and not with the parts of speech; that is, that he
should learn a little of what is called _analysis_ of sentences
before he learns to parse; should learn to divide simple sentences
into the thing we speak of, and what we say about it--‘The cat--sits
on the hearth’--before he is lost in the fog of person, mood, and part
of speech.
“‘So then I took up the next book. It was about grammar. It said
extraordinary things about nouns and verbs and particles and pronouns,
and past participles and objective cases and subjunctive moods. ‘What
are all these things?’ asked the King. ‘I don’t know, your Majesty,’
and the Queen did not know, but she said it would be very suitable for
children to learn. It would keep them quiet.’”[35]
It is so important that children should not be puzzled as were this
bewildered King and Queen, that I add a couple of introductory grammar
lessons; as a single example is often more useful than many precepts.
LESSON I
Words put together so as to make sense form what is called a sentence.
‘Barley oats chair really good and cherry’ is not a sentence, because
it makes no(n)sense.
‘Tom has said his lesson’ is a sentence.
It is a sentence because it tells us something about Tom.
Every sentence speaks of someone or of something, and tells us
something about that of which it speaks.
So a sentence has two parts:
(1) The thing we speak of;
(2) What we say about it.
In our sentence, we speak of ‘Tom.’
We say about him that he ‘has learned his lesson.’
The thing we speak of is often called the SUBJECT, which just
means that which we talk about.
People sometimes say ‘the _subject_ of conversation was so and
so,’ which is another way of saying ‘the thing we were speaking about
was so and so.’
_To be learnt_--
Words put together so as to make sense form a sentence.
A sentence has two parts: that which we speak of, and what we say
about it.
That which we speak of is the SUBJECT.
_Exercises on Lesson I_
1. Put the first part to--
---- has a long mane.
---- is broken.
---- cannot do his sums.
---- played for an hour; etc., etc.
2. Put the second part to--
That poor boy ----.
My brother Tom ----.
The broken flowerpot ----.
Bread and jam ----.
Brown’s tool-basket ----; etc., etc.
3. Put six different subjects to each half sentence in 1.
4. Make six different sentences with each subject in 2.
5. Say which part of the sentence is wanting, and supply it in--
Has been mended
Tom’s knife
That little dog
Cut his finger
Ate too much fruit
My new book
The snowdrops in our garden, etc., etc.
_N.B._--Be careful to call the first part of each sentence the
_subject_.
Draw a line under the subject of each sentence in all the exercises.
LESSON II
We may make a sentence with only two words--the name of the thing we
speak of and what we say about it:--
John writes.
Birds sing.
Mary sews.
We speak about ‘John.’
We say about him that he ‘writes.’
We speak about ‘birds.’
We say about them that they ‘sing.’
These words, _writes_, _sing_, _sews_, all come out of the same group
of words, and the words in that group are the chief words of all, for
this reason--we cannot make sense, and therefore cannot make a
sentence, without using at least one of them.
They are called VERBS, which means _words_, because they are the chief
_words_ of all.
A verb always tells one of two things about the subject. Either it
tells what the subject _is_, as--
I _am_ hungry.
The chair _is_ broken.
The birds _are_ merry;
or it tells what the subject does, as--
Alice _writes_.
The cat _mews_.
He _calls_.
_To be learnt_--
We cannot make a sentence without a verb.
_Verb_ means _word_.
Verbs are the chief words.
Verbs show that the subject is something--
He is sleepy;
or does something--
He runs.
_Exercises on Lesson II_
1. Put in a verb of being:--
Mary ---- sleepy.
Boys ---- rough.
Girls ---- ---- quiet.
He ---- first yesterday.
I ---- a little boy.
Tom and George ---- swinging before dinner.
We ---- ---- busy to-morrow.
He ---- ---- punished; etc., etc.
2. Make three sentences with each of the following verbs:--_Is_,
_are_, _should be_, _was_, _am_, _were_, _shall be_, _will be_.
3. Make six sentences with verbs of being in each.
4. Put a verb of doing to--
Tigers ----.
The boy with the pony ----.
My cousins ----; etc., etc.
5. Make twenty sentences about--
That boy in kilts,
with verbs showing what he _does_.
6. Find the verbs, and say whether of _being_ or _doing_,
in--
The bright sun rises over the hill.
We went away.
You are my cousin.
George goes to school.
He took his slate.
We are seven.
7. Count how many verbs you use in your talk for the next ten minutes.
8. Write every verb you can find in these exercises, and draw a line
under it.
XX.--FRENCH
French should be acquired as English is, not as a grammar, but as a
living speech. To train the ear to distinguish and the lips to produce
the French vocables is a valuable part of the education of the senses,
and one which can hardly be undertaken too soon. Again, all educated
persons should be able to speak French. Sir Lyon Playfair, once
speaking at a conference of French masters, lamented feelingly our
degeneracy in this respect, and instanced the grammar school of Perth
to show that in a Scotch school in the sixteenth century the boys were
required to speak _Latin_ during school hours, and _French_
at all other times. There is hardly another civilised nation so dull
in acquiring foreign tongues as we English of the present time; but,
probably, the fault lies rather in the way we set about the study than
in any natural incapacity for languages.
As regards French, for instance, our difficulties are twofold--the
want of a vocabulary, and a certain awkwardness in producing
unfamiliar sounds. It is evident that both these hindrances should be
removed in early childhood. The child should never see French words in
print until he has learned to say them with as much ease and readiness
as if they were English. The desire to give printed combinations of
letters the sounds they would bear in English words is the real cause
of our national difficulty in pronouncing French. Again, the child’s
vocabulary should increase steadily, say, at the rate of half a dozen
words a day. Think of fifteen hundred words in a year! The child who
has that number of words, and knows how to apply them, can speak
French. Of course, his teacher will take care that, in giving words,
she gives idioms also, and that as he learns new words, they are
_put into sentences and kept in use from day to day_. A note-book
in which she enters the child’s new words and sentences will easily
enable the teacher to do this. The young child has no foolish shame
about _saying_ French words--he pronounces them as simply as if
they were English; but it is very important that he should acquire
a pure accent from the first. It is not often advisable that young
English children should be put into the hands of a French governess or
nurse; but would it not be possible for half a dozen families, say, to
engage a French lady, who would give half an hour daily to each family?
=M. Gouin’s Method.=--A serious effort is being made to approach the
study of foreign languages rationally and scientifically. I have no
hesitation in saying that M. Gouin’s work (_The Art of Teaching
and Studying Languages_)[36] is the most important attempt that
has yet been made to bring the study of languages within the sphere
of practical education. Indeed, the great reform in our methods of
teaching modern languages owe their origin to this remarkable work.
The initial idea, that we must acquire a new language as a child
acquires his mother tongue, is absolutely right, whether the attempt
to follow this idea out by analysing a language into a certain
number, say fifteen, exhaustive ‘series,’ be right or not. Again,
it is incontestable that the ear, and not the eye, is the physical
organ for apprehending a language, just as truly as it is by the
mouth, and not the ear, we appropriate food. If M. Gouin’s book
establish these two points only, it will be a valuable contribution
to educational thought. Equally important is his third position, that
the verb is the key to the sentence, and more, is the living bridge
between thought and act. He maintains, too, that the child thinks in
sentences, not in words; that his sentences have a logical sequence;
that this sequence is one of time--the order of the operations in,
for example, the growth of a plant, or the grinding of corn in a
mill; that, as the child perceives the operations, he has an absolute
need to express them; that his ear solicits, his memory cherishes,
his tongue reproduces, the words which say the thing he thinks. No
doubt M. Gouin’s method should be more successful than any other in
steeping the student (child or man) in German or French thought. If
you are all day long trying to work out a ‘series’ in French, say,
you come to think in French, to ‘dream in French,’ to _speak_
French. Moreover, one has a delightful sense that at last the way is
made clear to us to conduct all teaching in the language under study.
You have the ‘Art Series’ and the ‘Bee Series’ and the ‘River’ and the
‘Character Series’ and the ‘Poet Series,’ and any series you like. You
think the thing out in the order of time and natural sequence; you get
the right _verbs_, nouns, and such epithets as are necessary,
follow suit, and in amazingly few sentences, very short sentences too,
connected by ‘and,’ you have said _all_ that is essential to the
subject. The whole thing is a constant surprise, like the children’s
game which unearths the most extraordinary and out-of-the-way thing
you can think of by means of a dozen or so questions.
=The ‘Series.’=--Thus, a language learned by M. Gouin’s method is ‘a
liberal education in itself.’ One learns how few and simple are, after
all, the conceptions of which the human mind is cognisant, and how few
and simple, putting mere verbiage aside, are the words necessary to
express these.
You really learn to _think_ in the new language, because you
have no more than vague impressions about these acts or facts in your
mother tongue.
You order your thoughts in the new language, and, having done so, the
words which express these are an inalienable possession.
Here is an example of an elementary ‘Series,’ showing how ‘the servant
lights the fire’:
“The servant takes a box of matches, _takes_.
She opens the match-box, _opens_.
She takes out a match, _takes out_.
She shuts up the match-box, _shuts up_.
She strikes the match on the cover, _strikes_.
The match takes fire, _takes fire_.
The match smokes, _smokes_.
The match flames, _flames_.
The match burns, _burns_.
And spreads a smell of burning over the kitchen, _spreads_.
The servant bends down to the hearth, _bends down_.
Puts out her hand, _puts out_.
Puts the match under the shavings, _puts_.
Holds the match under the shavings, _holds_.
The shavings take fire, _take fire_.
The servant leaves go of the match, _leaves go_.
Stands up again, _stands up_.
Looks at her fire burning, _looks_.
And puts back the box of matches in its place, _puts back_.”
But any attempt to quote gives an uncertain and unsatisfactory idea of
this important work.
=How does the Child learn?=--Whatever may be said of M. Gouin’s
methods, the steps by which he arrives at them are undoubtedly
scientific. He learns from a child:
“Unhappily the child has remained up to the present a
hackneyed riddle, which we have never taken sufficient
trouble to decipher or examine....”
“The little child, which at the age of two years utters
nothing but meaningless exclamations, at the age of three
finds itself in possession of a complete language. How does
it accomplish this? Does this miracle admit of explanation
or not? Is it a problem of which there is a possibility of
finding the unknown quantity?... The organ of language--ask
the little child--is not the eye: it is the ear. The eye
is made for colours, and not for sounds and words.... This
tension, continuous and contrary to nature, of the organ of
sight, the forced precipitancy of the visual act, produced
what it was bound to produce, a disease of the eyesight.”
This refers to M. Gouin’s herculean labours in the attempt to learn
German. He knew everybody’s ‘Method,’ learned the whole dictionary
through, and found at the end that he did not know _one word_ of
German ‘as she is spoke.’
He returned to France, after a ten months’ absence, and found that his
little nephew--whom he had left, a child of two and a half, not yet
able to talk--had in the interval done what his uncle had signally
failed to do. “‘What!’ I thought; ‘this child and I have been working
for the same time, each at a language. He, playing round his mother,
running after flowers, butterflies and birds, without weariness,
without apparent effort, without even being conscious of his work,
is able to say all he thinks, express all he sees, understand all
he hears; and when he began his work, his intelligence was yet a
futurity, a glimmer, a hope. And I, versed in the sciences, versed in
philosophy, armed with a powerful will, gifted with a powerful memory
... have arrived at nothing, or at practically nothing!’”
“The linguistic science of the college has deceived me, has misguided
me. The classical method, with its grammar, its dictionary, and its
translations, is a delusion.” “To surprise Nature’s secret, I must
watch this child.”
M. Gouin watches the child--the work in question is the result of his
observations.
The method of teaching may be varied, partly because that recommended
by M. Gouin requires a perfect command of the French tongue, and
teachers who are diffident find a conversational method founded on
book and picture[37] easier to work and perhaps as effectual--more so,
some people think; but, be this as it may, it is to M. Gouin we owe
the fundamental idea.
It is satisfactory to find principles, which we have urged
continually, enunciated in this most thoughtful work. For example:
“If one learns French without being able to read it--as the child
does--there will be no longer much greater difficulty in pronouncing
it than in pronouncing words in English. ‘How about the spelling?’
you will ask. The spelling? You would learn it as the young French
children learn it, as you yourself have learnt the English spelling,
ten times more difficult than the French; and this without letting
the study of the spelling spoil your already acquired pronunciation.
Besides, the spelling is a thing that can be reformed--the
pronunciation hardly at all. We must choose between the two evils.”
M. Gouin speaks of the possibility of a child’s picking up another
tongue--even Chinese from a Chinese nurse; and his words remind
me of an extraordinary instance of a child’s facility in picking
up languages, which once came before me. Having occasion to speak
in public of three little children, all aged three, belonging to
different families, where one parent was English, the other German,
I said that these three children of my acquaintance could each say
everything they had to say, express the whole range of their ideas,
with equal ease and fluency in the two languages. At the close of the
meeting, a gentleman present came forward and endorsed my remarks.
He said he had a son whose wife was a German lady, and who was now
a missionary in Bagdad. They have a child of three, and their child
speaks _three_ languages with perfect fluency--English, German,
and Arabic! No doubt the child will forget two of the three, and this
is no argument for teaching foreign tongues to babies, but surely it
does prove that the acquisition of a foreign tongue need not present
insuperable difficulties to any of us.
XXI.--PICTORIAL ART
=Study of Pictures.=--The art training of children should proceed on
two lines. The six-year-old child should begin both to express himself
and to appreciate, and his appreciation should be well in advance
of his power to express what he sees or imagines. Therefore it is
a lamentable thing when the appreciation of children is exercised
only upon the coloured lithographs of their picture-books or of the
‘Christmas number.’ But the reader will say, ‘A young child cannot
appreciate art; it is only the colour and sentiment of a picture that
reach him. A vividly coloured presentation of Bobbie’s Birthday, or
of Barbara’s Broken Doll, will find its way straight to his “business
and bosom.”’ ‘Therefore,’ says the reader, ‘Nature indicates the
sort of art proper for the children!’ But, as a matter of fact, the
minds of children and of their elders alike accommodate themselves
to what is put in their way; and if children appreciate the vulgar
and sentimental in art, it is because that is the manner of art to
which they become habituated. A little boy of about nine was (with
many others) given reproductions of some half-dozen of the pictures
of Jean François Millet to study during a school term. At the end,
the children were asked to describe the one of these pictures which
they liked best. Of course they did it, and did it well. This is what
the little boy I mentioned makes of it:--“I liked the Sower best. The
sower is sowing seeds; the picture is all dark except high up on the
right-hand side where there is a man ploughing the field. While he is
ploughing the field the sower sows. The sower has got a bag in his
left hand and is sowing with his right hand. He has wooden clogs on.
He is sowing at about six o’clock in the morning. You can see his head
better than his legs and body, because it is against the light.”
A little girl of seven prefers the ‘Angelus,’ and says:--“The picture
is about people in the fields, a man and a woman. By the woman is a
basket with something in it; behind her is a wheelbarrow. They are
praying; the man has his hat off in his hand. You can tell that it is
evening, because the wheelbarrow and the basket are loaded.”
=Should be Regular.=--When children have begun regular lessons (that
is, as soon as they are six), this sort of study of pictures should
not be left to chance, but they should take one artist after another,
term by term, and study quietly some half-dozen reproductions of his
work in the course of a term.
The little memory outlines I have quoted show that something definite
remains with a child after his studies; but this is the least of the
gains. We cannot measure the influence that one or another artist
has upon the child’s sense of beauty, upon his power of seeing, as
in a picture, the common sights of life; he is enriched more than
we know in having really looked at even a single picture. It is a
mistake to think that colour is quite necessary to children in their
art studies. They find colour in many places, and are content, for
the time, with form and feeling in their pictures. By the way, for
schoolroom decorations, I know of nothing better than the Fitzroy
Pictures,[38] especially those of the Four Seasons, where you get
beauty, both of line and colour, and poetic feeling. I should like,
too, to quote Ruskin’s counsel that English children should be brought
up on Jean Richter’s picture-books for children, the _Unser Vater,
Sontag_,[38a] and the rest.
I subjoin notes of a lesson on a Picture-talk[39] given to children of
eight and nine, to show how this sort of lesson may be given.
PICTURE-TALK
“_Objects_
“1. To continue the series of Landseer’s pictures the children are
taking in school.
“2. To increase their interest in Landseer’s works.
“3. To show the importance of his acquaintance with animals.
“4. To help them to read a picture truly.
“5. To increase their powers of attention and observation.
“_Step I._--Ask the children if they remember what their
last picture-talk was about, and what artist was famous for
animal-painting. Tell them Landseer was acquainted with animals when
he was quite young: he had dogs for pets, and because he loved them he
studied them and their habits--so was able to paint them.
“_Step II._--Give them the picture ‘Alexander and Diogenes’ to
look at, and ask them to find out all they can about it themselves,
and to think what idea the artist had in his mind, and what idea or
ideas he meant his picture to convey to us.
“_Step III._--After three or four minutes, take the picture
away and see what the children have noticed. Then ask them what
the different dogs suggest to them: the strength of the mastiff
representing Alexander; the dignity and stateliness of the bloodhounds
in his rear; the look of the wise counsellor on the face of the
setter; the rather contemptuous look of the rough-haired terrier in
the tub. Ask the children if they have noticed anything in the picture
which shows the time of day: for example, the tools thrown down by
the side of the workman’s basket suggesting the mid-day meal; and the
bright sunshine on the dogs who cast a shadow on the tub shows it must
be somewhere about noon.
“_Step IV._--Let them read the title, and tell any facts they know
about Alexander and Diogenes; then tell them Alexander was a great
conqueror who lived B.C. 356-323, famous for the battles he won
against Persia, India, and along the coast of the Mediterranean. He
was very proud, strong, and boastful. Diogenes was a cynic
philosopher. Explain cynic, illustrating by the legend of Alexander
and Diogenes; and from it find out which dog represents Alexander and
which Diogenes.
“_Step V._--Let the children draw the chief lines of the picture,
in five minutes, with pencil and paper.”
=Original Illustrations.=--I have spoken, from time to time, of
original illustrations drawn by the children. It may be of use to
subjoin notes of a lesson[40] showing the sort of occasional help a
teacher may give in this kind of work; but in a general way it is best
to leave children to themselves.
“_Objects_
“1. To help the children to make clear mental pictures from
description, and to reproduce the same in painting.
“2. To increase their power of imagination.
“3. To help them in their ideas of form and colour.
“4. To increase their interest in the story of Beowulf by letting them
illustrate a scene from the book they are reading.
“5. To bring out their idea of an unknown creature (Grendel).
“_Steps_
“_Step I._--To draw from the children what they know of the poem
‘Beowulf,’ and of the hero himself.
“_Step II._--To tell them any points they may miss in the story,
as far as they have read (_i.e._ to the death of Grendel).
“_Step III._--To read the description of the dress at that time,
and the account of Grendel’s death (including three possible pictures).
“_Step IV._--To draw from the children what mental pictures they
have made--and to re-read the passage.
“_Step V._--To let them produce their mental picture with brush
and paint.
“_Step VI._--To show them George Harrow’s ‘original illustration’
of Beowulf in _Heroes of Chivalry and Romance_.”
=Drawing Lessons.=--But ‘for their actual drawing lessons,’ says the
reader, ‘I suppose you use “blobs”?’--‘blobs,’ _i.e._ splashes
of paint made with the flat of the brush, which take an oval form.
I think blobs have one use--they give a certain freedom in using
colour. Otherwise ‘blobs’ seem to me a sort of apparatus of art which
a child acquires with a good deal of labour, and with which, by proper
combinations into flowers, and so on, he can produce effects beyond
his legitimate power as an artist, while all the time he can do this
without a particle of the feeling for the natural object which is the
very soul of art. The power of effective creation by a sort of clever
trick maims those delicate feelers of a child’s nature by which he
apprehends art.
“Let the eye” (says Ruskin) “but rest on a rough piece of branch
of curious form during a conversation with a friend, rest, however
unconsciously, and though the conversation be forgotten, though every
circumstance connected with it be as utterly lost to the memory as
though it had not been, yet the eye will, through the whole life
after, take a certain pleasure in such boughs which it had not
before, a pleasure so slight, a trace of feeling so delicate, as to
leave us utterly unconscious of its peculiar power, but undestroyable
by any reasoning, a part thenceforward of our constitution.”
This is what we wish to do for children in teaching them to draw--to
cause the eye to rest, not unconsciously, but consciously, on some
object of beauty which will leave in their minds an image of delight
for all their lives to come. Children of six and seven draw budding
twigs of oak and ash, beech and larch, with such tender fidelity to
colour, tone, and gesture, that the crude little drawings are in
themselves things of beauty.
=Children have ‘Art’ in them.=--With art, as with so many other things
in a child, we must believe that it is there, or we shall never find
it. Once again, here is a delicate Ariel whom it is our part to
deliver from his bonds. Therefore we set twig or growing flower before
a child and let him deal with it as he chooses. He will find his own
way to form and colour, and our help may very well be limited at first
to such technical matters as the mixing of colours and the like.
In order that we may not impede the child’s freedom or hinder the
deliverance of the art that is in him, we must be careful not to offer
any aids in the way of guiding lines, points, and such other crutches;
and, also, he should work in the easiest medium, that is, with paint
brush or with charcoal, and _not_ with a black-lead pencil. Boxes
of cheap colours are to be avoided. Children are worthy of the best,
and some half-dozen tubes of really good colours will last a long
time, and will satisfy the eye of the little artists.
=Clay-modelling.=--While speaking of the art training of children,
it may be as well to give a word to clay-modelling. Neat little
birds’-nests, baskets of eggs, etc., are of no use in the way of art
development, and soon cease to be amusing. The chief thing the teacher
has to do is to show the child how to prepare his clay so as to expel
air-bubbles, and to give him the idea of making a little platform for
his work, so that it may from the first have an artistic effect. Then
put before him an apple, a banana, a Brazil nut, or the like; let him,
not take a lump of clay and squeeze it into shape, but build up the
shape he desires morsel by morsel. His own artistic perception seizes
on the dint in the apple, the crease in the child’s shoe, the little
notes of expression in the objects which break uniformity and make for
art.
=The Piano and Singing.=--I must close, with the disappointing sense
that subjects of importance in the child’s education have been left
out of count, and that no one matter has been adequately treated.
Certain subjects of peculiar educational value, music, for instance, I
have said nothing about, partly for want of space, and partly because
if the mother have not Sir Joshua Reynolds’s _‘that!_’ in her,
hints from an outsider will not produce the art-feeling which is the
condition of success in this sort of teaching. If possible, let the
children learn from the first under _artists_, lovers of their
work: it is a serious mistake to let the child lay the foundation
of whatever he may do in the future under ill-qualified mechanical
teachers, who kindle in him none of the enthusiasm which is the
life of art. I should like, in connection with singing, to mention
the admirable educational effects of the Tonic Sol-fa method.[41]
Children learn by it in a magical way to produce sign for sound and
sound for sign, that is, they can not only read music, but can write
the notes for, or make the proper hand signs for, the notes of a
passage sung to them. Ear and voice are simultaneously and equally
cultivated.
Mrs Curwen’s _Child Pianist_[42] method is worked out, with
minute care, upon the same lines; that is, the child’s knowledge of
the theory of music and his ear training keep pace with his power
of execution, and seem to do away with the deadly dreariness of
‘practising.’
=Handicrafts and Drills.=--It is not possible to do more than mention
two more important subjects--the Handicrafts and Drills--which should
form a regular part of a child’s daily life. For physical training
nothing is so good as Ling’s Swedish Drill, and a few of the early
exercises are within the reach of children under nine. Dancing, and
the various musical drills, lend themselves to grace of movement, and
give more pleasure, if less scientific training, to the little people.
The Handicrafts best fitted for children under nine seem to me to
be chair-caning, carton-work, basket-work, Smyrna rugs, Japanese
curtains, carving in cork, samplers on coarse canvas showing a variety
of stitches, easy needlework, knitting (big needles and wool),
etc. The points to be borne in mind in children’s handicrafts are:
(_a_) that they should not be employed in making futilities
such as pea and stick work, paper mats, and the like; (_b_)
that they should be taught slowly and carefully what they are to do;
(_c_) that slipshod work should not be allowed; (_d_) and
that, therefore, the children’s work should be kept well within their
compass.
May I hope, in concluding this short review of the subjects proper for
a child’s intellectual education, that enough has been said to show
the necessity of grave consideration on the mother’s part before she
allows promiscuous little lesson-books to be put into the hands of her
children, or trusts ill-qualified persons to strike out methods of
teaching for themselves?
FOOTNOTES:
[9] See Appendix A.
[10] See Appendix A.
[11] See Appendix A.
[12] See Appendix A.
[13] Quoted by Mr Thistleton Mark.
[14] Southey’s _Life of Wesley_.
[15] It is so important that children should be taught to read in a
rational way, that I introduce two papers (by the writer) which have
appeared in the _Parents’ Review_, in the hope that they will
make the suggested method fairly clear and familiar.
[16] Miss Miller, founder of a Training College at Oxford.
[17] Spirited nursery rhymes form the best material for such reading
lessons. A “Delightful Reading Box” has been issued on a similar plan
to the ‘Pussy’ Box, whose one fault is that the verses are a little
dull. But this ‘Box’ should be of great use.
[18] It is desirable that ‘Tommy’ should not begin to ‘read’ until his
intelligence is equal to the effort required by these lessons. Even
then, it may be well to break up one into two, or half a dozen, as he
is able to take it.
[19] Appendix A.
[20] See Appendix A.
[21] See Appendix A.
[22] See Appendix A.
[23] See Appendix A.
[24] See Appendix A.
[25] See Appendix A.
[26] _Parents’ Review_, April 1904.
[27] See Appendix A.
[28] See Appendix A.
[29] See Appendix A.
[30] Bohn’s Antiquarian Library (5s. a volume) includes Bede, William
of Malmesbury, Dr Giles’s _Six Old English Chronicles_--Asser
and Geoffrey of Monmouth being two of them--_Chronicles of the
Crusaders_, etc.
[31] See Appendix A.
[32] See Appendix A.
[33] See Appendix A.
[34] See Appendix A.
[35] _Palace Tales_, H. Fielding.
[36] See Appendix A.
[37] See Appendix A.
[38] See Appendix A.
[39] By a student of the House of Education.
[40] By a student of the House of Education.
[41] See Appendix A.
[42] See Appendix A.
PART VI
THE WILL--THE CONSCIENCE--THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE CHILD
I.--THE WILL
=Government of Mansoul.=--We have now to consider a subject of
unspeakable importance to every being called upon to sustain a
reasonable life here, with the hope of the fuller life hereafter; I
mean, the government of the kingdom of Mansoul. Every child who lives
long enough in the world is invested, by degrees, with this high
function, and it is the part of his parents to instruct him in his
duties, and to practise him in his tasks. Now, the government of this
kingdom of Mansoul is, like that of some well-ordered states, carried
on in three chambers, each chamber with its own functions, exercised,
not by a multitude of counsellors, but by a single minister.
=Executive Power vested in the Will.=--In the outer of the three
chambers sits the Will. Like that Roman centurion, he has soldiers
under him: he says to this man, Go, and he goeth; to another, Come,
and he cometh; to a third, Do this, and he doeth it. In other words,
the _executive_ power is vested in the will. If the will have
the habit of authority, if it deliver its mandates in the tone that
constrains obedience, the kingdom is, at any rate, at unity with
itself. If the will be feeble, of uncertain counsels, poor Mansoul is
torn with disorder and rebellion.
=What is the Will?=--I do not know what the will is; it would appear
to be an ultimate fact, not admitting of definition: but there are few
subjects on which those who have the education of children in their
hands make more injurious mistakes; and therefore it is worth while to
consider, as we may, what are the functions of the will, and what are
its limitations.
=Persons may go through life without deliberate act of Will.=--In the
first place, the will does not necessarily come into play in any of
the aspects in which we have hitherto considered the child. He may
reflect and imagine; be stirred by the desire of knowledge, of power,
of distinction; may love and esteem; may form habits of attention,
obedience, diligence, sloth, _involuntarily_--that is, without
ever intending, purposing, _willing_ these things for himself. So
far is this true, that there are people who live through their lives
without an act of deliberate will: amiable, easy-going people, on the
one hand, hedged in by favouring circumstances; and poor souls, on the
other, whom circumstances have not saved, who have drifted from their
moorings, and are hardly to be named by those to whom they belong.
Great intellectual powers by no means imply a controlling will. We
read how Coleridge had to be taken care of, because he had so little
power of willing. His thoughts were as little under his own volition
as his actions, and the fine talk people went to hear was no more
than an endless pouring forth of ideas connected by no other link
than that of association; though so fine was his mind, that his ideas
flowed methodically--of their own accord, so to speak.
=Character the Result of Conduct regulated by Will.=--It is not
necessary to say a word about the dignity and force of character which
a confirmed will gives to its possessors. In fact, _character_ is
the result of conduct regulated by will. We say, So-and-so has a great
deal of character, such another is without character; and we might
express the fact equally by saying, So-and-so has a vigorous will,
such another has no force of will. We all know of lives, rich in gifts
and graces, which have been wrecked for the lack of a determining will.
=Three Functions of the Will.=--The will is the controller of the
passions and emotions, the director of the desires, the ruler of the
appetites. But observe, the passions, the desires, the appetites, are
there already, and the will gathers force and vigour only as it is
exercised in the repression and direction of these; for though the
will appears to be of purely spiritual nature, yet it behaves like any
member of the body in this--that it becomes vigorous and capable in
proportion as it is duly nourished and fitly employed.
=A Limitation of the Will disregarded by some Novelists.=--The villain
of a novel, it is true, is, or rather used to be, an interesting
person, because he was always endowed with a powerful will, which
acted, not in controlling his violent passions, but in aiding and
abetting them: the result was a diabolical being out of the common way
of nature. And no wonder, for, according to natural law, the member
which does not fulfil its own functions is punished by loss of power;
if it does not cease to be, it becomes as though it were not; and the
will, being placed in the seat of authority, is not able to carry
its forces over to the mob--the disorder would be too fearful; just
as when the executive powers of a state are seized upon by a riotous
mob, and there are shootings in the highways and hangings from the
lanterns, infinite confusion everywhere.
=Parents fall into this Metaphysical Blunder.=--I am anxious to bring
before you this limitation of the will to its own proper functions,
because parents often enough fall into the very metaphysical blunder
we have seen in the novel-writer. They admire a vigorous will, and
rightly. They know that if their child is to make his mark in the
world, it must be by force of will. What follows? The baby screams
himself into fits for a forbidden plaything, and the mother says, ‘He
has such a strong will.’ The little fellow of three stands roaring in
the street, and will neither go hither nor thither with his nurse,
because ‘he has such a strong will.’ He _will_ rule the sports
of the nursery, _will_ monopolise his sisters’ playthings, all
because of this ‘strong will.’ Now we come to a divergence of opinion:
on the one hand, the parents decide that, whatever the consequence,
the child’s will is not to be broken, so all his vagaries must go
unchecked; on the other, the decision is, that the child’s will must
be broken at all hazards, and the poor little being is subjected to a
dreary round of punishment and repression.
=Wilfulness indicates want of Will Power.=--But, all the time, nobody
perceives that it is the mere want of will that is the matter with
the child. He is in a state of absolute ‘wilfulness,’--the rather
unfortunate word we use to describe the state in which the will has
no controlling power; willessness, if there were such a word, would
describe this state more truly. Now, this confusion, in the minds
of many persons, between the state of wilfulness and that of being
dominated by will, leads to mischievous results even where wilfulness
is not fostered nor the child unduly repressed: it leads to the
neglect of the due cultivation and training of the will, that almost
divine possession, upon the employment of which every other gift, be
it beauty or genius, strength or skill, depends for its value.
=What is Wilfulness?=--What, then, is wilfulness, if it be not an
exercise of will? Simply this: remove bit and bridle--that is, the
control of the will--from the appetites, the desires, the emotions,
and the child who has mounted his hobby, be it resentment, jealousy,
desire of power, desire of property, is another Mazeppa, borne
along with the speed of the swift and the strength of the strong,
and with no power at all to help himself. Appetite, passion, there
is no limit to their power and their persistence if the appointed
check be removed; and it is this impetus of appetite or of passion,
this apparent determination to go in one way and no other, which is
called wilfulness and mistaken for an exercise of will. Whereas the
_determination_ is only apparent; the child is, in fact, hurried
along without resistance, because that opposing force which should
give balance to his character is undeveloped and untrained.
=The Will has Superior and Inferior Functions.=--The will has its
superior and its inferior, what may be called its moral and its
mechanical functions; and that will which, for want of practice, has
grown flaccid and feeble in the exercise of its higher functions,
may yet be able for the ordering of such matters as going or coming,
sitting or standing, speaking or refraining from speech.
=The Will not a Moral Faculty.=--Again, though it is impossible to
attain moral excellence of character without the agency of a vigorous
will, the will itself is not a moral faculty, and a man may attain
great strength of will in consequence of continued efforts in the
repression or direction of his appetites or desires, and yet be
an unworthy man; that is, he may be keeping himself in order from
unworthy motives, for the sake of appearances, for his own interest,
even for the injury of another.
=A Disciplined Will necessary to Heroic Christian Character.=--Once
again, though a disciplined will is not a necessary condition of
the Christian life, it _is_ necessary to the development of
the heroic Christian character. A Gordon, a Havelock, a Florence
Nightingale, a St Paul, could not be other than a person of vigorous
will. In this respect, as in all others, Christianity reaches the
feeblest souls. There is a wonderful Guido ‘Magdalen’ in the Louvre,
with a mouth which has plainly never been set to any resolve for
good or ill--a lower face moulded by the helpless following of the
inclination of the moment; but you look up to the eyes, which are
raised to meet the gaze of eyes not shown in the picture, and the
countenance is transfigured, the whole face is aglow with a passion
of service, love, and self-surrender. All this the divine grace may
accomplish in weak _un_willing souls, and then they will do what
they can; but their power of service is limited by their past. Not so
the child of the Christian mother, whose highest desire is to train
him for the Christian life. When he wakes to the consciousness of
whose he is and whom he serves, she would have him ready for that high
service, with every faculty in training--a man of war from his youth;
above all, with an effective will, to will and to do of His good
pleasure.
=The sole Practical Faculty of Man.=--Before we consider how to
train this ‘sole practical faculty of man,’ we must know how the will
operates--how it manages the ordering of all that is done and thought
in the kingdom of Mansoul. “Can’t you make yourself do what you wish
to do?” says Guy, in the _Heir of Redclyffe_, to poor Charlie
Edmonston, who has never been in the habit of _making_ himself
do anything. There are those, no doubt, who have not even arrived at
wishing, but most of us desire to do well; what we want to know is,
how to _make_ ourselves do what we desire. And here is the line
which divides the effective from the non-effective people, the great
from the small, the good from the well-intentioned and respectable; it
is in proportion as a man has self-controlling, self-compelling power
that he is able to do, even of his own pleasure; that he can depend
upon himself, and be sure of his own action in emergencies.
=How the Will operates.=--Now, how does this autocrat of the bosom
behave? Is it with a stern ‘Thou shalt,’ ‘Thou shalt not,’ that the
subject man is coerced into obedience? By no means. Is it by a
plausible show of reasons, mustering of motives? Not this either.
Since Mr John Stuart Mill taught us that “all that man does, or can
do, with matter” is to “move one thing to or from another,” we need
not be surprised if great moral results are brought about by what seem
inadequate means; and a little bit of nursery experience will show
better than much talking what is possible to the will. A baby falls,
gets a bad bump, and cries piteously. The experienced nurse does not
“kiss the place to make it well,” or show any pity for the child’s
trouble--that would make matters worse; the more she pities, the more
he sobs. She hastens to ‘change his thoughts,’ so she says; she carries
him to the window to see the horses, gives him his pet picture-book,
his dearest toy, and the child pulls himself up in the middle of a
sob, though he is really badly hurt. Now this, of the knowing nurse,
is precisely the part the will plays towards the man. It is by force
of will that a man can ‘change his thoughts,’ transfer his attention
from one subject of thought to another, and that, with a shock of
mental force of which he is distinctly conscious. And this is enough
to save a man and to make a man, this power of making himself think
only of those things which he has beforehand decided that it is good
to think upon.
=The Way of the Will--Incentives.=--His thoughts are wandering on
forbidden pleasures, to the hindrance of his work; he pulls himself
up, and deliberately fixes his attention on those incentives which
have most power to make him work, the leisure and pleasure which
follow honest labour, the duty which binds him to the fulfilling of
his task. His thoughts run in the groove he _wills_ them to run
in, and work is no longer an effort.
=Diversion.=--Again, some slight affront has called up a flood of
resentful feeling: So-and-so should not have done it, he had no
_right_, it was mean, and so on, through all the hard things
we are ready enough to say in our hearts of an offender against our
_amour propre_. But the man under the control of his own will
does not allow this to go on: he does not fight it out with himself,
and say, ‘This is very wrong in me. So-and-so is not so much to blame,
after all.’ He is not ready for that yet; but he just compels himself
to think of something else--the last book he has read, the next letter
he must write, anything interesting enough to divert his thoughts.
When he allows himself to go back to the cause of offence, behold,
all rancour is gone, and he is able to look at the matter with the
coolness of a third person. And this is true, not only of the risings
of resentment, but of every temptation that besets the flesh and
spirit.
=Change of Thought.=--Again, the sameness of his duties, the weariness
of doing the same thing over and over, fills him with disgust and
despondency, and he relaxes his efforts;--but not if he be a man under
the power of his own will, because he simply does not allow himself
in idle discontent; it is always within his power to give himself
something pleasant, something outside of himself, to think of, and he
does so; and, given what we call a ‘happy frame of mind,’ no work is
laborious.
=The Way of the Will should be taught to Children.=--It is something
to _know_ what to do with ourselves when we are beset, and the
knowledge of this _way of the will_ is so far the secret of a
happy life, that it is well worth imparting to the children. Are you
cross? Change your thoughts. Are you tired of trying? Change your
thoughts. Are you craving for things you are not to have? Change your
thoughts; there is a power within you, your own will, which will
enable you to turn your attention from thoughts that make you unhappy
_and wrong_, to thoughts that make you happy _and right_.
And this is the exceedingly simple way in which the will acts;
this is the sole secret of the power over himself which the strong
man wields--he can compel himself to think of what he chooses, and
_will_ not allow himself in thoughts that breed mischief.
=Power of Will implies Power of Attention.=--But you perceive that,
though the will is all-powerful within certain limits, these are
but narrow limits after all. Much must go before and along with a
vigorous will if it is to be a power in the ruling of conduct. For
instance, the man must have acquired the habit of _attention_,
the great importance of which we have already considered. There
are bird-witted people, who have no power of thinking connectedly
for five minutes under any pressure, from within or from without.
If they have never been trained to apply the whole of their mental
faculties to a given subject, why, no energy of will, supposing they
had it, which is impossible, could make them think steadily thoughts
of their own choosing or of anyone else’s. Here is how the parts of
the intellectual fabric dovetail: power of will implies power of
attention; and before the parent can begin to train the will of the
child, he must have begun to form in him the habit of attention.
=Habit may Frustrate the Will.=--Again, we have already considered the
fatal facility in evil, the impulse towards good, which _habit_
gives. Habit is either the ally or the opponent, too often the
frustrator, of the will. The unhappy drunkard does _will_ with
what strength there is in him; he turns away the eyes of his mind
from beholding his snare; he plies himself assiduously with other
thoughts; but alas, his thoughts will only run in the accustomed
groove of desire, and _habit_ is too strong for his feeble will.
We all know something of this struggle between habit and will in
less vital matters. Who is without some dilatory, procrastinating,
in some way tiresome, habit, which is in almost daily struggle with
the rectified will? But I have already said so much about the duty of
parents to ease the way of their children by laying down for them the
lines of helpful habits, that it is unnecessary to say a word more
here of habit as an ally or a hinderer of the will.
=Reasonable Use of so effective an Instrument.=--And, once more,
only the man of cultivated reason is capable of being ruled by a
well-directed will. If his understanding does not show good _cause
why_ he should do some solid reading every day, _why_ he
should cling to the faith of his fathers, _why_ he should take
up his duties as a citizen,--the movement of his will will be feeble
and fluctuating, and very barren of results. And, indeed, worse may
happen: he may take up some wrong-headed, or even vicious, notion
and work a great deal of mischief by what he feels to be a virtuous
effort of will. The parent may venture to place the power of will
in the hands of his child only in so far as he trains him to make a
reasonable use of so effective an instrument.
=How to Strengthen the Will.=--One other limitation of the will we
shall consider presently; but supposing the parent take pains that the
child shall be in a fit state to use his will, how is he to strengthen
that will, so that by and by the child may employ it to control his
own life by? We have spoken already of the importance of training the
child in the habit of obedience. Now, obedience is valuable only in
so far as it helps the child towards making himself do that which he
knows he ought to do. Every effort of obedience which does not give
him a sense of _conquest_ over his own inclinations, helps to
enslave him, and he will resent the loss of his liberty by running
into license when he can. That is the secret of the miscarrying of
many strictly brought-up children. But invite his co-operation, let
him heartily intend and purpose to do the thing he is bidden, and then
it is his own will that is compelling him, and not yours; he has begun
the greatest effort, the highest accomplishment of human life--the
_making_, the compelling of himself. Let him know what he is
about, let him enjoy a sense of triumph, and of your congratulation,
whenever he fetches his thoughts back to his tiresome sum, whenever he
makes his hands finish what they have begun, whenever he throws the
black dog off his back, and produces a smile from a clouded face.
=Habit of Self-management.=--Then, as was said before, let him know
the secret of _willing_; let him know that, by an effort of will,
he _can_ turn his thoughts to the thing he wants to think of--his
lessons, his prayers, his work, and away from the things he should
not think of;--that, in fact, he can be such a brave, strong little
fellow, he can _make_ himself think of what he likes; and let
him try little experiments--that if he once get his _thoughts_
right, the rest will take care of itself, he will be sure to _do_
right then; that if he feels cross, naughty thoughts coming upon him,
the plan is, to think _hard_ about something else, something
nice--his next birthday, what he means to do when he is a man. Not all
this at once, of course; but line upon line, precept upon precept,
here a little and there a little, as opportunity offers. Let him get
into the _habit_ of managing himself, controlling himself, and it
is astonishing how much self-compelling power quite a young child will
exhibit. “Restrain yourself, Tommy,” I once heard a wise aunt say to
a boy of four, and Tommy restrained himself, though he was making a
terrible hullabaloo about some small trouble.
=Education of the Will more important than that of the Intellect.=--All
this time, the will of the child is being both trained and
strengthened; he is learning how and when to use his will, and it is
becoming every day more vigorous and capable. Let me add one or two
wise thoughts from Dr Morell’s _Introduction to Mental Philosophy_:
“The education of the will is really of far greater importance, as
shaping the destiny of the individual, than that of the intellect....
Theory and doctrine, and inculcation of laws and propositions, will
never of themselves lead to the uniform habit of right action. It is
by doing, that we learn to do; by overcoming, that we learn to
overcome; and every _right act_ which we cause to spring out of pure
principles, whether by authority, precept, or example, will have a
greater weight in the formation of character than all the theory in
the world.”
II.--THE CONSCIENCE
=Conscience is Judge and Lawgiver.=--But the will by no means carries
on the government of the kingdom of Mansoul single-handed. True, the
will wields the executive power; it is only by _willing_ we are
enabled to do; but there is a higher power behind, whose mandate the
will does no more than express. _Conscience_ sits supreme in the
inner chamber. Conscience is the lawgiver, and utters the ‘Thou shalt’
and the ‘Thou shalt not’ whereon the will takes action; the judge,
too, before whom the offending soul is summoned; and from the ‘Thou
art the man’ of conscience, there is no appeal.
‘=I am, I ought, I can, I will.=’--‘I am, I ought, I can, I
will’--these are the steps of that ladder of St Augustine, whereby we
“rise on stepping-stones
Of our dead selves to higher things.”
‘I am’--we have the power of knowing ourselves. ‘I ought’--we have
within us a moral judge, to whom we feel ourselves subject, and who
points out and requires of us our duty. ‘I can’--we are conscious of
power to do that which we perceive we ought to do. ‘_I will_’--we
determine to exercise that power with a volition which is in itself
a step in the execution of that which we will. Here is a beautiful
and perfect chain, and the wonder is that, so exquisitely constituted
as he is for right-doing, error should be even possible to man. But
of the sorrowful mysteries of sin and temptation it is not my place
to speak here; you will see that it is because of the possibilities
of ruin and loss which lie about every human life that I am pressing
upon parents the duty of saving their children by the means put into
their hands. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that ninety-nine out
of a hundred lost lives lie at the door of parents who took no pains
to deliver their children from sloth, from sensual appetites, from
wilfulness, no pains to fortify them with the _habits_ of a good
life.
=Inertness of Parents not supplemented by Divine Grace.=--We live
in a redeemed world, and infinite grace and help from above attend
every rightly directed effort in the training of the children; but
I do not see much ground for hoping that divine grace will step in
as a substitute for any and every power we choose to leave unused
or misdirected. In the physical world, we do not expect miracles to
make up for our neglect of the use of means; the rickety body, the
misshapen limb, for which the child has to thank his parents, remain
with him through life, however much else he may have to thank God
for; and a feeble will, bad habits, an uninstructed conscience, stick
by many a Christian man through his life, because his parents failed
in their duty to him, and he has not had force enough in himself to
supply their omission.
=Conscience not an Infallible Guide.=--In this matter of conscience,
for instance, the _laissez-faire_ habit of his parents is the
cause of real wrong and injury to many a child. The parents are
thankful to believe that their child is born with a conscience; they
hope his conduct may be ruled thereby: and the rest they leave; the
child and his conscience may settle it between them. Now this is to
suppose, either that a fully-informed conscience is born into an
infant body, or that it grows, like the hair and the limbs, with the
growth of the body, and is not subject to conditions of spiritual
progress proper to itself. In other words, it is to suppose that
conscience is an _infallible_ guide, a delusion people cling
to in spite of common sense and of everyday experience of the
wrong-headed things men do from conscientious motives. The vagaries
of the uninstructed conscience are so familiar as to have given rise
to popular proverbs: ‘Honour among thieves,’ ‘To strain out the gnat
and swallow the camel,’ point to cases of misguided conscience; while
‘The wish is father to the thought,’ ‘None is so blind as he who won’t
see,’ point to the still more common cases, in which a man knowingly
tricks his conscience into acquiescence.
=But a real Power.=--Then, if conscience be not an infallible
guide--if it pass blindfold by heinous offences, and come down heavily
upon some mere quibble, tithing mint, rue, and all manner of herbs,
and neglecting the weightier matters of the law--if conscience be
liable to be bamboozled, persuaded into calling evil good and good
evil, when _Desire_ is the special pleader before the bar, where
is its use, this broken reed? Is this stern lawgiver of the breast no
more, after all, than a fiction of the brain? Is your conscience no
more than what you happen to think about your own actions and those
of other people? On the contrary, these aberrations of conscience are
perhaps the strongest proof that it exists as a real power. As Adam
Smith has well said, “The supreme authority of conscience is felt and
tacitly acknowledged by the worst, no less than by the best, of men;
for even they who have thrown off all hypocrisy with the world, are at
pains to conceal their real character from their own eyes.”
=That Spiritual Sense whereby we know Good and Evil.=--What conscience
is, how far it lies in the feelings, how far in the reason, how far
it is independent of both, are obscure questions which it is not
necessary for practical purposes to settle; but this much is
evident--that conscience is as essential a part of human nature as are
the affections and the reason, and that conscience is that spiritual
sense whereby we have knowledge of good and evil. The six-months-old
child who cannot yet speak exhibits the workings of conscience; a
reproving look will make him drop his eyes and hide his face. But,
observe, the mother may thus cover him with confusion by way of an
experiment when the child is all sweetness, and the poor little
untutored conscience rises all the same, and condemns him on the word
of another.
Facts like this afford a glimpse of the appalling responsibility
that lies upon parents. The child comes into the world with a moral
faculty, a delicate organ whereby he discerns the flavour of good and
evil, and at the same time has a perception of delight in the good--in
himself or others,--of loathing and abhorrence of the evil. But, poor
little child, he is like a navigator who does not know how to box his
compass. He is born to love the good, and to hate the evil, but he has
no real knowledge of what is good and what is evil; what intuitions
he has, he puts no faith in, but yields himself in simplicity to the
steering of others. The wonder that Almighty God can endure so far
to leave the very making of an immortal being in the hands of human
parents is only matched by the wonder that human parents can accept
this divine trust with hardly a thought of its significance.
=A Child’s Conscience an Undeveloped Capability rather than a Supreme
Authority.=--Looking, then, upon conscience in the child rather as an
undeveloped capability than as a supreme authority, the question is,
how is this nascent lord of the life to be educated up to its high
functions of informing the will and decreeing the conduct? For though
the ill-taught conscience may make fatal blunders, and a man may
carry slaughter amongst the faithful because his conscience bids; yet,
on the other hand, no man ever attained a godly, righteous, and sober
life except as he was ruled by a good conscience--a conscience with
not only the _capacity_ to discern good and evil, but trained
to perceive the qualities of the two. Many a man may have the great
delicacy of taste which should qualify him for a tea-taster, but it is
only as he has _trained_ experience in the qualities of teas that
his nice taste is valuable to his employers, and a source of income to
himself.
=The Uninstructed Conscience.=--As with that of the will, so with
the education of the conscience; it depends upon much that has gone
before. Refinement of conscience cannot coexist with ignorance. The
untutored savage has his scruples that we cannot enter into; we cannot
understand to this day how it was that the horrors of the Indian
Mutiny arose from the mere suspicion that a mixture of hog’s lard
and beef fat had been used to grease the cartridges dealt out to the
Sepoys. Those scruples which are beyond the range of our ideas we call
superstitions and prejudices, and are unwilling to look upon conduct
as conscientious, even when prompted by the uninstructed conscience,
unless in so far as it is reasonable and right in itself.
=The Processes implied in a ‘Conscientious’ Decision.=--Therefore,
it is plain that before conscience is in a position to pronounce its
verdict on the facts of a given case, the cultivated reason must
review the pros and cons; the practised judgment must balance these,
deciding which have the greater weight. Attention must bring all the
powers of the mind to bear on the question; habits of right action
must carry the feelings, must make right-doing seem the easier and
the pleasanter. In the meantime, desire is clamorous; but conscience,
the unbiassed judge, duly informed in full court of the merits of
the case, decides for the right. The will carries out the verdict of
conscience; and the man whose conduct is uniformly moulded upon the
verdicts of conscience is the conscientious man, of whose actions
and opinions you may be sure beforehand. But life is not long enough
for such lengthy process; a thousand things have to be decided
off-hand, and then what becomes of these elaborate proceedings? That
is just the advantage of an instructed conscience backed by a trained
intelligence; the judge is always sitting, the counsel always on the
spot.
=The Instructed Conscience nearly always right.=--Here is, indeed, a
high motive for the all-round training of the child’s intelligence; he
wants the highest culture you can give him, backed by carefully formed
habits, in order that he may have a conscience always alert, supported
by every power of the mind; and such a conscience is the very flower
of a noble life. The _instructed_ conscience may claim to be, if
not infallible, at any rate nearly always right. It is not generally
mature until the man is mature; young people, however right-minded and
earnest, are apt to err, chiefly because they fix their attention too
much upon some one duty, some one theory of life, at the expense of
much besides.
=The Good Conscience of a Child.=--But even the child, with the
growing conscience and the growing powers, is able to say, ‘No, I
can’t; it would not be _right_’; ‘Yes, I will; for it _is_
right.’ And once able to give either of these answers to the
solicitations that assail him, the child is able to live; for the
rest, the development, and what may be called the adjustment, of
conscience will keep pace with his intellectual growth. But allowing
that a great deal of various discipline must go to secure that final
efflorescence of a good conscience, what is to be done by way of
training the conscience itself, quickening the spiritual taste so that
the least _soupçon_ of evil is detected and rejected?
=Children play with Moral Questions.=--There is no part of education
more nice and delicate than this, nor any in which grown-up people are
more apt to blunder. Everyone knows how tiresome it is to discuss any
nice moral question with children; how they quibble, suggest a hundred
ingenious explanations or evasions, fail to be shocked or to admire
in the right place--in fact, play with the whole question; or, what
is more tiresome still, are severe and righteous overmuch, and ‘deal
damnation round’ with much heartiness and goodwill. Sensible parents
are often distressed at this want of conscience in the children; but
they are not greatly in fault; the mature conscience demands to be
backed up by the mature intellect, and the children have neither the
one nor the other. Discussions of the kind should be put down; the
children should not be encouraged to give their opinions on questions
of right and wrong, and little books should not be put into their
hands which pronounce authoritatively upon conduct.
=The Bible the Chief Source of Moral Ideas.=--It would be well if the
reticence of the Bible in this respect were observed by the writers
of children’s books, whether of story or history. The child hears the
history of Joseph (with reservations) read from the Bible, which
rarely offers comment or explanation. He does not need to be told what
was ‘naughty’ and what was ‘good’; there is no need to press home the
teaching, or the Bible were written in vain, and good and bad actions
carry no witness with them. Let all the circumstances of the daily
Bible reading--the consecutive reading, from the first chapter of
Genesis onwards, _with necessary omissions_--be delightful to
the child; let him be in his mother’s room, in his mother’s arms; let
that quarter of an hour be one of sweet leisure and sober gladness,
the child’s whole interest being allowed to go to the story without
distracting moral considerations; and then, the less talk the better;
the story will sink in, and bring its own teaching, a little now, and
more every year as he is able to bear it. One such story will be in
him a constantly growing, fructifying moral idea.
=Tales fix attention upon Conduct.=--The Bible (the fitting parts of
it, that is) first and supreme; but any true picture of life, whether
a tale of golden deeds or of faulty and struggling human life, brings
aliment to the growing conscience. The child gets into the habit
of fixing his attention on conduct; actions are weighed by him, at
first, by their consequences, but by degrees his conscience acquires
discriminating power, and such and such behaviour is bad or good to
him whatever its consequences. And this silent growth of the moral
faculty takes place all the more surely if the distraction of chatter
on the subject is avoided; for a thousand small movements of vanity
and curiosity and mere love of talk are easily called into play, and
these take off the attention from the moral idea which should be
conveyed to the conscience. It is very important, again, that the
child should not be allowed to condemn the conduct of the people about
him. Whether he is right or wrong in his verdict, is not the question;
the habit of bestowing blame will certainly blunt his conscience,
deaden his sensibility to the injunction, “Judge not, that ye be not
judged.”
=Ignorance of a Child’s Conscience.=--But the child’s own conduct:
surely he may be called upon to look into that? His conduct, including
his words, yes; but his motives, no; nothing must be done to induce
the evil habit of introspection. Also, in setting the child to
consider his ways, regard must be had to the extreme ignorance of
the childish conscience, a degree of ignorance puzzling to grown-up
people when they chance to discover it, which is not often, for the
children, notwithstanding their endless chatter and their friendly,
loving ways, live very much to themselves. They commit serious
offences against truth, modesty, love, and do not know that they have
done wrong, while some absurd featherweight of transgression oppresses
their souls. Children will bite and hurt one another viciously, commit
petty thefts, do such shocking things that their parents fear they
must have very bad natures: it is not necessarily so; it is simply
that the untaught conscience sees no clear boundary line between
right and wrong, and is as apt to err on the one side as the other. I
once saw a dying child of twelve who was wearing herself out with her
great distress because she feared she had committed ‘the unpardonable
sin,’ so she said (how she picked up the phrase nobody knew); and
that was--that she had been saying her prayers without even kneeling
up in bed! The ignorance of children about the commonest matters of
right and wrong is really pathetic; and yet they are too often treated
as if they knew all about it, because ‘they have consciences,’ as if
conscience were any more than a spiritual organ waiting for direction!
=Instructing the Conscience--Kindness.=--That the children do wrong
knowingly is another matter, and requires, alas, no proving; all I am
pressing for is the real need there exists to instruct them in their
duty; and this, not at haphazard, but regularly and progressively.
_Kindness_, for instance, is, let us say, the subject of
instruction this week. There is one of the talks with their mother
that the children love--a short talk is best--about kindness. Kindness
is love, showing itself in act and word, look and manner. A well of
love, shut up and hidden in a little boy’s heart, does not do anybody
much good; the love must bubble up as a spring, flow out in a stream,
and then it is _kindness_. Then will follow short daily talks
about kind ways, to brothers and sisters, to playmates, to parents,
to grown-up friends, to servants, to people in pain and trouble, to
dumb creatures, to people we do not see but yet can think about--all
in distress, the heathen. Give the children one thought at a time, and
every time some lovely example of loving-kindness that will fire their
hearts with the desire to do likewise.
Take our Lord’s parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ for a model of
instruction in morals. Let tale and talk make the children emulous of
virtue, and then give them the “Go and do likewise,” the law. Having
presented to them the idea of _kindness_ in many aspects, end
with the law: Be kind, or, “Be kindly affectioned one to another.” Let
them know that this is the law of God for children and for grown-up
people. Now, conscience is instructed, the feelings are enlisted on
the side of duty, and if the child is brought up, it is for breaking
the law of kindness, a law that he knows of, that his conscience
convicts him in the breaking. Do not give children deterrent examples
of error, because of the sad proclivities of human nature, but always
tell them of beautiful ‘Golden Deeds,’ small and great, that shall
stir them as trumpet-calls to the battle of life.
=The Conscience made effective by Discipline.=--Be courteous, be
candid, be grateful, be considerate, be true; there are aspects of
duty enough to occupy the attention of mother and child for every day
of the child-life; and all the time, the idea of duty is being formed,
and conscience is being educated and developed. At the same time, the
mother exercises the friendly vigilance of a guardian angel, being
watchful, not to catch the child tripping, but to guide him into the
acting out of the duty she has already made lovely in his eyes; for it
is only as we _do_ that we learn to do, and become strong in the
doing. As she instructs her child in duty, she teaches him to listen
to the voice of conscience as to the voice of God, a ‘Do this,’ or
‘Do it not,’ within the breast, to be obeyed with full assurance. It
is objected that we are making infallible, not the divinely implanted
conscience, but that same conscience made effective by discipline. It
is even so; in every department of life, physical or spiritual, human
effort appears to be the condition of the Divine energising; there
must be a stretching forth of the withered arm before it receives
strength; and we have every reason to believe that the instructed
conscience, being faithfully followed, _is_ divinely illuminated.
III.--THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE CHILD
“=The very Pulse of the Machine.=”--It is evident we have not yet
reached
“The very pulse of the machine.”
Habits, feeling, reason, conscience--we have followed these into the
inmost recesses of the child’s life; each acts upon the other, but
what acts upon the last: what acts upon them all? “It is,” says a
writer who has searched into the deep things of God--“it is a King
that our spirits cry for, to guide them, discipline them, unite them
to each other; to give them a victory over themselves, a victory over
the world. It is a Priest that our spirits cry out for, to lift them
above themselves to their God and Father,--to make them partakers of
His nature, fellow-workers in carrying out His purposes. Christ’s
Sacrifice is the one authentic testimony that He is both the Priest
and King of men.”[43]
=Parents have some Power to Enthrone the King.=--Conscience, we
have seen, is effective only as it is moved from within, from that
innermost chamber of Mansoul, that Holy of Holies, the secrets of
which are only known to the High-Priest, who “needed not that any
man should tell Him, for He knew what was in man.” It is necessary,
however, that we should gather up crumbs of fact and inference, and
set in order such knowledge as we have; for the keys even of this
innermost chamber are placed in the hands of parents, and it is a
great deal in their power to enthrone the King, to induct the Priest,
that every human spirit cries for.
=The Functions and Life of the Soul.=--We take it for granted in
common speech that every soul is a ‘living soul,’ a fully developed,
full-grown soul; but the language of the Bible and that of general
experience seem to point to startling conclusions. It has been said
of a great poet--with how much justice is not the question here--that
if we could suppose any human being to be made without a soul, he
was such an abortive attempt; for while he had reason, imagination,
passions, all the appetites and desires of an intelligent being,
he appeared to exercise not one of the functions of the soul. Now,
what are these functions, the suspension of which calls the very
existence of a man’s soul in question? We must go back to the axiom
of Augustine--“The soul of man is for God, as God is for the soul.”
The soul has one appetite, for the things of God; breathes one air,
the breath, the Spirit of God; has one desire, for the knowledge of
God; one only joy, in the face of God. “I want to live in the Light
of a Countenance which never ceases to smile upon me,”[44] is the
language of the soul. The direct action of the soul is all Godward,
with a reflex action towards men. The speech of the soul is prayer and
praise, the right hand of the soul is faith, the light of the soul
is love, the love of God shed abroad upon it. Observe, these are the
functions, this, the life of the soul, the only functions, the only
life it can have: if it have not these, it has no power to turn aside
and find the “life of its hand” elsewhere. As the conscience, the
will, the reason, is ineffective till it be nourished with its proper
food, exercised in its proper functions, so of the soul; and its
chamber is dull, with cobwebbed doors and clouded windows, until it
awake to its proper life; not quite empty, though, for there _is_
the nascent soul; and the awakening into life takes place, sometimes
with the sudden shock, the gracious miracle, which we call conversion;
sometimes, when the parents so will, the soul of the child expands
with a gentle, sweet growth and gradual unfolding as of a flower.
There are torpid souls, which are yet alive; there are feeble, sickly
souls, which are yet alive; and there are souls which no movement
Godward ever quickens.
=What is the Life of the Soul?=--This life of the soul, what is it?
Communicated life, as when one lights a torch at the fire? Perhaps;
but it is something more intimate, more unspeakable: “I am the Life”;
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men”; “Abide _in_
Me and I _in_ you.” The truth is too ineffable to be uttered in
any words but those given to us. But it means this, at least, that the
living soul does not abide alone in its place; that place becomes the
temple of the living God. “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I
knew it not. How dreadful is this place!”
=The Parent must present the Idea of God to the Soul of the
Child.=--But this holy mystery, this union and communion of God and
the soul, how may human parents presume to meddle with it? What can
they do? How can they promote it? and is there not every risk that
they may lay rude hands upon the ark? In the first place, it does not
rest with the parent to choose whether he will or will not attempt to
quicken and nourish this divine life in his child. To do so is his
bounden duty and service. If he neglect or fail in this, I am not sure
how much it matters that he has fulfilled his duties in the physical,
moral, and mental culture of his child, except in so far as the
child is the fitter for the divine service should the divine life be
awakened in him. But what can the parent do? Just this, and no more:
he can present the idea of God to the soul of the child. Here, as
throughout his universe, Almighty God works by apparently inadequate
means. Who would say that a bee can produce apple trees? Yet a bee
flies from an apple tree laden with the pollen of its flowers: this it
unwittingly deposits on the stigmas of the flowers of the next tree
it comes to. The bee goes, but the pollen remains, but with all the
length of the style between it and the immature ovule below. That does
not matter; the ovule has no power to reach the pollen grain, but the
latter sends forth a slender tube, within the tube of the style; the
ovule is reached; behold, then, the fruit, with its seed, and, if you
like, future apple trees! Accept the parable: the parent is little
better in this matter than the witless bee; it is his part to deposit,
so to speak, within reach of the soul of the child some fruitful idea
of God; the immature soul makes no effort towards that idea, but the
living Word reaches down, touches the soul,--and there is _life_;
growth and beauty, flower and fruit.
=Must not make Blundering Efforts.=--I venture to ask you to look, for
once, at these divine mysteries from the same philosophical standpoint
we have taken up in regarding all the capabilities and functions of
the child, partly, because it is instructive to see how the mysteries
of the religious life appear when it is looked at from without its
own sphere; partly, because I wish to rise by unbroken steps to the
supreme function of the parent in the education of his child. For
here the similitude of the bee and the apple tree fails. The parent
must not make blundering, witless efforts: as this is the highest
duty imposed upon him, it is also the most delicate; and he will have
infinite need of faith and prayer, tact and discretion, humility,
gentleness, love, and sound judgment, if he would present his child to
God, and the thought of God to the soul of his child.
=God presented to Children as an Exactor and a Punisher.=--“If
we think of God as an exactor and not a giver,” it has been well
said, “exactors and not givers shall we become.” Yet is not this
the light in which God is most commonly set before the children--a
Pharaoh demanding his tale of bricks, bricks of good behaviour and
right-doing? Do not parents deliberately present God as an exactor, to
back up the feebleness of their own government; and do they not freely
utter, on the part of God, threats they would be unwilling to utter on
their own part? Again, what child has not heard from his nurse this,
delivered with much energy, ‘God does not love you, you naughty boy!
He will send you to the bad place!’ And these two thoughts of God,
as an exactor and a punisher, make up, often enough, all the idea
the poor child gets of his Father in heaven. What fruit can come of
this but aversion, the turning away of the child from the face of his
Father? What if, instead, were given to him the thought well expressed
in the words, “The all-forgiving gentleness of God”?
=Parents must select Inspiring Ideas.=--These are but two of many
deterrent thoughts of God commonly presented to the tender soul;
and the mother, who realises that the heart of her child may be
irrevocably turned against God by the ideas of Him imbibed in the
nursery, will feel the necessity for grave and careful thought, and
definite resolve, as to what teaching her child shall receive on this
momentous subject. She will most likely forbid any mention of the
Divine Name to the children, except by their parents, explaining at
the same time that she does so because she cares so much that her
children should get none but right thoughts on this great matter. It
is better that children should receive a few vital ideas that their
souls may grow upon than a great deal of indefinite teaching.
=We must Teach only what we Know.=--How to select these few quickening
thoughts of the infinite God? The selection is not so difficult to
make as would appear at first sight. In the first place, we must
teach that which we know, know by the life of the soul, not with any
mere knowledge of the mind. Now, of the vast mass of the doctrines
and the precepts of religion, we shall find that there are only a few
vital truths that we have so taken into our being that we live upon
them--this person, these; that person, those; some of us, not more
than a single one. One or more, these are the truths we must teach the
children, because these will come straight out of our hearts with the
enthusiasm of conviction which rarely fails to carry its own idea into
the spiritual life of another. There is no more fruitful source of
what it is hardly too much to call infant infidelity than the unreal
dead words which are poured upon children about the best things, with
an artificial solemnity of tone and manner intended to make up for the
want of living meaning in the words. Let the parent who only knows one
thing from above teach his child that one; more will come to him by
the time the child is ready for more.
=Fitting and Vital Ideas.=--Again, there are some ideas of the
spiritual life more proper than others to the life and needs of the
child. Thus, Christ the Joy-giver is more to him than Christ the
Consoler.
And there are some few ideas which are as the daily bread of the soul,
without which life and growth are impossible. All other teaching may
be deferred until the child’s needs bring him to it; but whoever sends
his child out into life without these vital ideas of the spiritual
life, sends him forth with a dormant soul, however well-instructed he
may be in theology.
=The Knowledge of God distinct from Morality.=--Again, the knowledge
of God is distinct from morality, or what the children call ‘being
good,’ though ‘being good’ follows from that knowledge. But let these
come in their right order. Do not bepreach the child to weariness
about ‘being good’ as what he owes to God, without letting in upon him
first a little of that knowledge which shall make him good.
We are no longer suffering from an embarrassment of riches; these
limitations shut out so much of the ordinary teaching about divine
things that the question becomes rather, What shall we teach? than,
How shall we choose?
=The Times and the Manner of Religious Instruction.=--The next
considerations that will press upon the mother are of the times, and
the manner, of this teaching in the things of God. It is better that
these teachings be rare and precious, than too frequent and slightly
valued; better not at all, than that the child should be surfeited
with the mere sight of spiritual food, rudely served. At the same
time, he must be built up in the faith, and his lessons must be
regular and progressive; and here everything depends upon the tact
of the mother. Spiritual teaching, like the wafted odour of flowers,
should depend on which way the wind blows. Every now and then there
occurs a holy moment, felt to be holy by mother and child, when the
two are together--that is the moment for some deeply felt and softly
spoken word about God, such as the occasion gives rise to. Few words
need be said, no exhortation at all; just the flash of conviction from
the soul of the mother to the soul of the child. Is ‘Our Father’ the
thought thus laid upon the child’s soul? There will be, perhaps, no
more than a sympathetic meeting of eyes hereafter, between mother and
child, over a thousand showings forth of ‘Our Father’s’ love; but the
idea is growing, becoming part of the child’s spiritual life. This is
all: no routine of spiritual teaching; a dread of many words, which
are apt to smother the fire of the sacred life; much self-restraint
shown in the allowing of seeming opportunities to pass; and all
the time, earnest purpose of heart, and a definite scheme for the
building up of the child in the faith. It need not be added that, to
make another use of our Lord’s words, “this kind cometh forth only by
prayer.” It is as the mother gets wisdom liberally from above, that
she will be enabled for this divine task.
=The Reading of the Bible.=--A word about the reading of the Bible. I
think we make a mistake in burying the text under our endless comments
and applications. Also, I doubt if the picking out of individual
verses, and grinding these into the child until they cease to have any
meaning for him, is anything but a hindrance to the spiritual life.
The Word is full of vital force, capable of applying itself. A seed,
light as thistledown, wafted into the child’s soul, will take root
downwards and bear fruit upwards. What is required of us is, that we
should implant a _love_ of the Word; that the most delightful
moments of the child’s day should be those in which his mother reads
for him, with sweet sympathy and holy gladness in voice and eyes, the
beautiful stories of the Bible; and now and then in the reading will
occur one of those convictions, passing from the soul of the mother
to the soul of the child, in which is the life of the Spirit. Let the
child grow, so that,
“New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven,”
are a joy to him, too; things to be counted first amongst the
blessings of a day. Above all, do not read the Bible _at_ the
child: do not let any words of the Scriptures be occasions for
gibbeting his faults. It is the office of the Holy Ghost to convince
of sin; and He is able to use the Word for this purpose, without risk
of that hardening of the heart in which our clumsy dealings too often
result.
The matter for this teaching of divine things will come out of every
mother’s own convictions. I will attempt to speak of only one or two
of those vital truths on which the spiritual life must sustain itself.
=Father and Giver.=--“Our Father, who is in heaven,” is perhaps the
first idea of God which the mother will present to her child--Father
and Giver, straight from whom comes all the gladness of every day.
‘What a happy birthday our Father has given to my little boy!’ ‘The
flowers are coming again; our Father has taken care of the life of the
plants all through the winter cold!’ ‘Listen to that skylark! It is a
wonder how our Father can put so much joy into the heart of one little
bird.’ ‘Thank God for making my little girl so happy and merry!’ Out
of this thought comes prayer, the free utterance of the child’s heart,
more often in thanks for the little joys of the day counted up than
in desire, just yet. The words do not matter; any simple form the
child can understand will do; the rising Godward of the child-heart
is the true prayer. Out of this thought, too, comes duty--the glad
acknowledgment of the debt of service and obedience to a Parent so
gracious and benign--not One who exacts service at the sword’s point,
as it were, but One whom His children run to obey.
=The Essence of Christianity is Loyalty to a Person.=--_Christ,
our King._ Here is a thought to unseal the fountains of love
and loyalty, the treasures of faith and imagination, bound up in
the child. The very essence of Christianity is personal loyalty,
passionate loyalty to our adorable Chief. We have laid other
foundations--regeneration, sacraments, justification, works, faith,
the Bible--any one of which, however necessary to salvation in its due
place and proportion, may become a religion about Christ and without
Christ. And now a time of sifting has come upon us, and thoughtful
people decline to know anything about our religious systems; they
write down all our orthodox beliefs as things _not knowable_.
Perhaps this may be because, in thinking much of our salvation, we
have put out of sight our King, the divine fact which no soul of man
to whom it is presented _can_ ignore. In the idea of Christ is
_life_; let the thought of Him once get touch of the soul, and
it rises up, a living power, independent of all formularies of the
brain. Let us save Christianity for our children by bringing them into
allegiance to Christ, the King. How? How did the old Cavaliers bring
up sons and daughters, in passionate loyalty and reverence for not too
worthy princes? Their own hearts were full of it; their lips spake
it; their acts proclaimed it; the style of their clothes, the ring of
their voices, the carriage of their heads--all was one proclamation
of boundless devotion to their king and his cause. That civil war,
whatever else it did, or missed doing, left a parable for Christian
people. If a Stuart prince could command such measure of loyalty,
what shall we say of “the Chief amongst ten thousand, the altogether
lovely”?
_Jesus, our Saviour._ Here is a thought to be brought tenderly
before the child in the moments of misery that follow wrong-doing. ‘My
poor little boy, you have been very naughty to-day! Could you not help
it?’ ‘No, mother,’ with sobs. ‘No, I suppose not; but there _is_
a way of help.’ And then the mother tells her child how the Lord Jesus
is our Saviour, because He saves us _from our sins_. It is a
matter of question when the child should first learn the ‘Story of the
Cross.’ One thinks it would be very delightful to begin with Moses and
the prophets: to go through the Old Testament history, tracing the
gradual unfolding of the work and character of the Messiah; and then,
when their minds are full of the expectation of the Jews, to bring
before them the mystery of the Birth in Bethlehem, the humiliation
of the Cross. But perhaps no gain in freshness of presentation would
make up to the children for not having grown up with the associations
of Calvary and Bethlehem always present to their minds. One thing in
this connection: it is not well to allow the children in a careless
familiarity with the Name of Jesus, or in the use of hymns whose tone
is not reverent. “Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so
I am.”
=The Indwelling of Christ= is a thought particularly fit for the
children, because their large faith does not stumble at the mystery,
their imagination leaps readily to the marvel, that the King Himself
should inhabit a little child’s heart. ‘How am I to know He is come,
mother?’ ‘When you are quite gentle, sweet, and happy, it is because
Christ is within,--
‘“And when He comes, He makes your face so fair,
Your friends are glad, and say, ‘The King is there.’”’
I will not attempt to indicate any more of the vital truths which the
Christian mother will present to her child; having patience until they
blossom and bear, and his soul is as a very fruitful garden which the
Lord hath blessed. But, once more, “This kind cometh forth only by
prayer.”
FOOTNOTES:
[43] Maurice, _Sermons on Sacrifice_.
[44] _Christmas Day, and other Sermons_.
Appendices
APPENDIX A
Appended is a list of books, etc., spoken of in various connections in
this volume, with particulars as to publisher or agent, and price; but
it must be borne in mind that books of the kind are constantly going
out of print, and that the mention of these in the text is designed
rather to indicate the sort of books it is desirable to use than to
point out particular works. Indeed, to regard this as a stereotyped
list of school-books for young children would be unfair both to
authors and publishers, and also to the purchaser; for there are, no
doubt, many equally good books in the market at the present time, and
new works on similar lines are constantly issuing from the press.
+-----+---------------------------+---------------+-------------+----------+
| | | |Publisher or | |
|Page.| Title. | Author. | Agent. | Price. |
+-----+---------------------------+---------------+-------------+----------+
| 51 |Wild Flowers. |Ann Pratt. |S.P.C.K. |8s. |
| | | | | |
| 55 |Nature Note-books. | .... |To be had at |1s. and |
| | | | 26 Victoria| 1s. 6d. |
| | | | St., S.W. | each. |
| | | | | |
| 58 |The Natural History |Gilbert White. |Cassell. |6s. |
| | of Selborne. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 64 |The Water Babies. |Chas. Kingsley.|Macmillan. |2s. |
| | | | | |
| ” |Madam How and Lady Why. | ” | ” |2s. 6d. |
| | | | | |
| ” |Inmates of My House |Mrs Brightwen. |Fisher Unwin.|2s. |
| | and Garden. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 64 |Wild Nature Won by |Mrs Brightwen. |Fisher Unwin.|2s. |
| | Kindness. | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |Eyes and No Eyes Series |A. Buckley |Cassell. |4d. and |
| | (parts i.-vi.). | (Mrs Fisher). | |6d. each. |
| | | | | |
| ” |Life and Her Children. | ” |Stanford. |6s. |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Fairy-land of | ” | ” | ” |
| | Science. | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |The School of the |W. Long. |Ginn & Co. |7s. 6d. |
| | Woods. | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Little Brother of | ” | ” ” | ” |
| | the Bear. | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |Wild Nature’s Ways. |R. Kearton. |Cassell. |10s. 6d. |
| | | | | |
| ” |Living Animals of the | |Hutchinson. |10s. 6d. |
| | World, 2 vols. | | |net. each.|
| | | | | |
| ” |The Lives of the Hunted. |Seton Thompson.|Nutt. |6s. net. |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Biography o f | ” |Hodder & | ” |
| | Grizzly. | |Stoughton. | |
| | | | | |
| 88 |Scouting |Baden-Powell. |Glaisher. |1s. net. |
| | | | | |
| 91 |British Birds in their |Rev. C. A. |S.P.C.K. |5s. |
| | Haunts. | Johns. | | |
| | | | | |
| 151 |Alice in Wonderland. |Lewis Carroll. |Macmillan. |From 2s. |
| | | | | |
| 152 |The Swiss Family | |Routledge. |2s. |
| | Robinson. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 152 |Robinson Crusoe. |D. Defoe. | ” |From 2s. |
| | | | | |
| 182 |Childhood, Boyhood, |Count Tolstoi. |Dent. |3s. 6d. |
| | and Youth. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 184 |The Story of a Child. |Margt. Deland. |Longmans. |5s. |
| | | | | |
| 194 |Helen Keller. |An |Hodder & |7s. 6d. |
| | | Autobiography.| Stoughton. | |
| | | | | |
| 196{|Special Reports on | |Eyre & |2s. 6d. |
| 263{| Educational Subjects, | |Spotiswoode. |3s. 2d. |
| {| vol. ii., vol. viii. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 205 |Parables from Nature. |Mrs Gatty. |Bell. |3s. |
| | | | | |
| ” |Prose Poems. |Mrs Barbauld. |Glaisher. |6d. and |
| | | | | 2s. |
| | | | | |
| 222 |A Delightful Reading-Box. |Sar. M. Mason. |School |1s. 6d. |
| | | | Depôt | |
| | | | South | |
| | | | Norwood. | |
| | | | | |
| ” |Recitation: A Handbook |A. Burrell. |Griffith & |3s. 6d. |
| | for Teachers. | | Farran. | |
| | | | | |
| 232 |The World at Home. | |Nelson. | ” |
| | | | | |
| 232 |The Heroes of Asgard. |A. & E. Keary. |Macmillan. |2s. 6d. |
| | | | | |
| ” |Tanglewood Tales. |N. Hawthorne. |Blackwood. |1s. 2d. |
| | | | | |
| 232 |The Pilgrim’s Progress. |Bunyan. |Glaisher. |From 1s. |
| | | | | |
|233 }|Plutarch’s Lives. |Nat. Library. |Cassell. |3d. each. |
|286 }| | | | |
| | | | | |
| 236 |A New Handwriting for |Mrs Bridges. |Glaisher. |2s. 8d. |
| |Teachers. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 239 |Dr Roth’s Desk. | ... |Educational |From £2. |
| | | |Supply, 42a | |
| | | |Holborn | |
| | | |Viaduct, | |
| | | |London. | |
| | | | | |
| 252 |The Bible for the Young. |Dr Paterson |Sampson |1s. net. |
| | | Smyth. | Low. | a vol. |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Holy Gospels with | ... |S.P.C.K. |£2, 2s. |
| | Illustrations from the | | | |
| | Old Masters. | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Illustrated New | ... |R.T.S. |1s. net. |
| | Testament. | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |Penny Illustrated Gospels. | ... |Walters, 15 |1d. each. |
| | | | Strand, | |
| | | | London. | |
| | | | | |
| 253 |Bypaths of Bible Knowledge,|Professor Sayce|R.T.S. |2s. each. |
| | vols. ii., iii., viii., | and others. | | |
| | xvii. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 261 |The ABC Arithmetic, |Sonnenschein | ... |1s. each. |
| | Teachers’, parts i. | and Nesbitt. | | |
| | and ii. | | | |
| | | | | |
|266 }|The Sciences. |E. S. Holden. |Ginn & Co. |2s. 6d. |
|271 }| | | | |
| | | | | |
| 266 |Scientific Dialogues. |Joyce. |Bell, Bohn’s |5s. |
| | | | Library. | |
| | | | | |
| 268 |The Parents’ Review. | ... |26 Victoria | 6d. |
| | | |St., London |monthly. |
| | | |S.W. | |
| | | | | |
| 273 |The Voyages of Captain | ... |{ Routledge. | 2s. } |
| | Cook. | |{ Newnes. |3s. 6d. } |
| | | | | |
| 275 |The Tropical World. |Dr Hartwig. |Longmans. |7s. net. |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Polar World. | ” | ” | ” |
| | | | | |
| ” |Unbeaten Tracks in |Mrs Bishop. |Murray. |2s. 6d. |
| | Japan. | | | net. |
| | | | | |
| 277 |The London Geographical |C. M. Mason. |Stanford.[45]|1s. to |
| | Readers, 5 vols. | | | 2s. 6d. |
| | | | | ea. |
| | | | | |
| 282 |Ecclesiastical History of |Venerable |Dent. |1s. 6d. |
| | England. | Bede. | | |
| | | | | |
| 285 |Six Old English Chronicles.|Bohn’s Library.| |5s. |
| | | | | |
| ” |Chronicles of the Crusades.| ” | ” | |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Chronicles of |Edited by G . |Macmillan. |3s. 6d. |
| | Froissart. | C. Macaulay. | | |
| | | | | |
| 288 |Old Stories from British |York Powell. |Longmans. |1s. |
| | History. | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |Sketches from British | ” | ” | ” |
| | History. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 289 |Tales from St Paul’s. |Mrs Frewen |Sampson | ” |
| | | Lord. | Low. | |
| | | | | |
| ” |Tales from Westminster | ” | ” | ” |
| | Abbey. | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |Prisoners of the Tower |V. Brooke |Dent. |5s. net. |
| | of London. | Hunt. | | |
| | | | | |
| 290 |A History of England. |H. K. O. Arnold|Cassell. |5s. |
| | | Forster. | | |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Citizen Reader. | ” | ” |1s. 6d. |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Laws of Everyday | ” | ” | ” |
| | Life. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 291 |A Short History of the |J. R. Green. |Macmillan. |8s. 6d. |
| | English People. | | | |
| | | | | |
| 295 |First Latin Course. |Scott & Jones. |Blackie. |1s. 6d. |
| | | | | |
| 302 |The Art of Teaching and |M. Gouin. |Philip & |7s. 6d. |
| | Studying Languages. | | Sons. | |
| | | | | |
| 306 |Pictures for the Modern | |Dent. |2s. 6d. |
| | Language Series. | | | each. |
| | | | | |
| 309 |The Perry Pictures (see | |Glaisher. |3d. |
| | Art for Schools | | | |
| | Association Catalogue). | | | |
| | | | | |
| ” | _Unser Vater_, _Sontag_, |Ludwig Richter.|Grumbach, |6s. to |
| | etc. | | Leipzig. | 1cs. the |
| | | | | set. |
| | | | | |
| ” |The Fitzroy Pictures | |Bell & Sons. |From |
| | (send for Illustrated | | | 2s. 6d. |
| | Catalogue). | | | each net.|
| | | | | |
| 314 |Tonic Solfa Method. | |Curwen & |1s. 6d. |
| | | | Sons. | |
| | | | | |
| 315 |Child Pianist Method, | | ” ” |1s. 6d. |
| | Steps I.-VI. | | | & 2s. 6d.|
| | | | | each. |
| | | | | |
| ” |Child Pianist Method, | | ” ” |2s. 6d. |
| | Teacher’s Guide, 2 vols. | | | each. |
+-----+---------------------------+---------------+-------------+----------+
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Or Glaisher, 58 High Street, Notting Hill Gate, London.
APPENDIX B
_Questions for the Use of Students_[46]
PART I
SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
1. Show that children are a public trust. What follows?
2. What questions does Pestalozzi put to mothers?
3. What is Mr Herbert Spencer’s argument for the study of education?
4. How do parents usually proceed?
5. What is the strenuous part of a parent’s work?
I. A METHOD OF EDUCATION
1. Contrast four or five older theories with later, and perhaps
sounder notions.
2. Point out the opposite characters of a system and a method.
3. Why is a system tempting to parents?
II. THE CHILD’S ESTATE
1. What do the Gospel sayings about children indicate?
2. What are the three commandments of the Gospel code of education?
III. OFFENDING THE CHILDREN
1. Distinguish between ‘offending’ and ‘despising’ children.
2. What is to be said of parents whose children have ‘no sense of
_ought_’?
3. Trace the steps by which a mother’s ‘no’ comes to be disregarded.
4. Why must parents themselves be law-compelled?
5. Show that parents may offend their children by disregarding the
laws of health.
6. By disregarding the laws of the intellectual life.
7. Of the moral life.
IV. DESPISING THE CHILDREN
1. Show that children may be despised in the choice of a nurse.
2. By taking their faults too lightly.
V. HINDERING THE CHILDREN
1. In what ways may parents hinder their children’s access to God?
VI. CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY BRAIN ACTIVITY
1. What is the first condition of successful education?
2. Show that daily efforts, intellectual, moral, and physical, are
necessary for children.
3. On what principle is the blood-supply regulated?
4. Show the importance of rest after meals.
5. What is the best time for lessons? Why?
6. On what principle should a time-table be arranged?
7. Show that brain activity is affected by nourishment.
8. Under what conditions does food increase the vital quality of the
blood?
9. Why must food be varied?
10. Show that children are spendthrifts of vitality.
11. Give a few useful hints concerning meals.
12. Why should there be talk at meals?
13. Give some rules to secure variety.
14. Show fully that air is as important as food.
15. What have you to say of the children’s daily walk?
16. What is meant by the oxygenation of the blood?
17. Show that oxygen has its limitations.
18. What are the dangers of unchanged air in spacious rooms?
19. ‘I feed Alice on beef-tea.’ Why?
20. What of Alice’s mind?
21. What are the joys of Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy’?
22. Show the danger of stuffy rooms.
23. What principle must regulate ventilation?
24. Why is night air wholesome?
25. Upon what physical facts does the need of sunshine depend?
26. Show that the skin does much scavenger’s work.
27. Why do persons die of external scalds or burns?
28. Why is a daily bath necessary?
29. Give some instructions for clothing children.
VII. ‘THE REIGN OF LAW’ IN EDUCATION
1. What should be the method of all education?
2. Why are common sense and good intentions not sufficient?
3. How may we meet the danger to religion arising from the blameless
lives of some non-religious persons?
4. Account for the superior morality of such non-believers.
5. Show that all observance of law brings its reward.
6. Show that parents should not lay up crucial difficulties for their
children.
7. Why should parents study mental and moral science?
PART II
OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE FOR THE CHILDREN
I. A GROWING TIME
1. Why is out-of-door life for young children especially important in
these days?
2. What are the gains of meals out of doors?
3. What might be accomplished by dwellers in towns and suburbs?
4. What five or six points should be remembered in a day in the open?
5. What of story-books or tale-telling on such occasions?
6. What of ‘the baby’?
II. ‘SIGHT-SEEING’
1. Give an example of ‘sight-seeing.’
2. What five or six educational uses may be made of ‘sight-seeing’?
3. Show the value of discriminating observation.
III. ‘PICTURE PAINTING’
1. What is meant by ‘picture painting’?
2. Give an example.
3. Show the value of this exercise.
4. What caution must be borne in mind?
5. What invaluable habit should this play tend to form?
6. What is the mother’s part in the play?
7. What is the after-reward for taking pains in the act of seeing?
IV. FLOWERS AND TREES
1. With what field crops may children become acquainted in your
neighbourhood?
2. What should a child know about any wild flower of his neighbourhood?
3. How should children take up the study of trees?
4. Show how the seasons should be followed in this study.
5. What does Leigh Hunt say about flowers?
6. What use should be made of calendars and note-books?
7. What of the child who says, ‘I can’t stop thinking’?
V. ‘LIVING CREATURES’
1. What part of the pleasure in living creatures may be secured for
town dwellers?
2. Of what ‘creatures’ may children observe the habits?
3. What points about an insect should children observe?
4. How did White of Selborne and Audubon get their bent towards nature?
5. What can town children do in getting a knowledge of ‘living
creatures’?
6. Show that nature-knowledge is the most important knowledge for
young children.
7. What intellectual powers are trained in the child naturalist?
8. Show that nature-work is especially valuable for girls.
VI. FIELD LORE AND NATURALISTS’ BOOKS
1. Should young children be taught the elements of natural science?
2. Show the value of rough classifications.
3. Contrast with classifications learnt from books.
4. What are the uses of Naturalists’ books?
5. Name a few.
6. Why should mothers and teachers have some knowledge of nature?
VII. THE CHILD GETS KNOWLEDGE BY MEANS OF HIS SENSES
1. Show, from the behaviour of a baby, that a child gets knowledge by
means of his senses.
2. Characterise Nature’s teaching.
3. Wherein lies the danger of over-pressure?
4. Why are object-lessons inefficient?
5. Why does a child learn most from _things_?
6. Give some examples showing that a sense of beauty comes from early
contact with nature.
7. What does Dickens say on the subject of a child’s observing powers?
VIII. THE CHILD SHOULD BE MADE FAMILIAR WITH NATURAL OBJECTS
1. Compare town and country as to things worth observing.
2. How does the fact that every natural object is a member of a series
affect education?
3. ‘Power will pass more and more into the hands of scientific
men’--how should this influence parents and teachers?
4. In what ways does intimacy with nature make for personal
well-being?
IX. OUT-OF-DOOR GEOGRAPHY
1. Show that small things may suggest great in pictorial geography.
2. What should children be taught to observe about the position of the
sun?
3. What, of clouds, rain, snow, and hail?
4. Show how, by pacing, a child should get the idea of distance.
5. What is the first step towards a knowledge of direction?
6. What practice should a child have in finding direction?
7. What compass-drill would you give him?
8. How should a child get the notion of boundaries?
9. When should he begin to make ‘plans’?
10. What geographical ideas should he get from his own neighbourhood?
X. THE CHILD AND MOTHER NATURE
1. Why must the mother refrain from much talk?
2. How is a new acquaintance begun?
3. What are the two things permissible to the mother?
XI. OUT-OF-DOOR GAMES, ETC.
1. Why should not the French lesson be omitted?
2. Why should children indulge in cries and shouts out of doors?
3. Why should _rondes_ be preserved?
4. What are the best ways of using skipping-rope and shuttlecock?
5. What is to be said for climbing?
6. What, for woollen garments?
XII. WALKS IN BAD WEATHER
1. Why are winter walks as necessary as summer walks?
2. What pleasures are connected with frost and snow?
3. How may children be kept alert on dull days?
4. How does winter lend itself to observation?
5. Why are wet weather tramps wholesome and necessary?
6. What sort of garments are necessary? Why?
7. What precautions should be borne in mind?
XIII. ‘RED INDIAN’ LIFE
1. What do you understand by ‘scouting’? Show the value of scouting.
2. Describe a ‘bird-stalking’ expedition.
3. In what ways should these things afford training?
XIV. THE CHILDREN REQUIRE COUNTRY AIR
1. How may the essential proportion of oxygen be diminished?
2. How is excess of carbonic acid gas produced?
3. Why do children, especially, need unvitiated, unimpoverished air?
4. Show that children require solar light.
5. Describe a physical ideal for a child, and show the use of having
such an ideal.
PART III
‘HABIT IS TEN NATURES’
I. EDUCATION BASED UPON NATURAL LAW
1. Show that a healthy brain and outdoor life are conditions of
education.
2. Show that habit is the instrument by which parents work.
II. THE CHILDREN HAVE NO SELF-COMPELLING POWER
1. Show that education is commonly a _cul-de-sac_.
2. Name three great educational forces.
3. Why are not these forces sufficient?
4. Why are children incapable of steady effort?
5. Why should young children be, to some extent, saved the effort of
decision?
III. WHAT IS ‘NATURE’?
1. What may we state of the child as a human being?
2. Show that all persons are born with the same primary desires.
3. And affections.
4. Name affections common to us all.
5. What does the most elemental notion of human nature include?
6. What have you to say of the strength of nature _plus_ heredity?
7. What manner of differences may physical conditions bring about?
8. Of what is human nature the sum?
9. Why must not the child be left to his human nature?
10. What is the problem before the educator?
11. Show that divine grace works on the lines of human effort.
12. Why must not the trust of parents be supine?
IV. HABIT MAY SUPPLANT ‘NATURE’
1. Show that habit runs on the lines of nature.
2. How must habit work to be a lever?
3. Show that a mother forms her children’s habits involuntarily.
4. Illustrate the fact that habit may force nature into new channels.
5. To what end must parents and teachers lay down the lines of habit?
V. THE LAYING DOWN OF LINES OF HABIT
1. Show that parents initiate their children’s habits of thought and
feeling by their own behaviour.
2. Does education in habit interfere with free-will?
3. Show how good it is that habit should rule our thoughts.
4. Show that habit is powerful even when the will decides.
VI. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HABIT
1. Illustrate the fact that growing tissues form themselves to the
modes of action required of them.
2. Show fully and exactly why children should learn dancing, swimming,
etc., at an early age.
3. To what fact is the strength of moral habits probably due?
4. Show the danger of persistent trains of thought.
5. What does the incessant regeneration of brain tissue imply to the
educator?
6. Show that to acquire artificial reflex action in certain directions
is a great part of education.
7. What are the aims of intellectual and moral education?
8. Show that character is affected by the acquired modification of
brain tissue.
9. Show the need for care with regard to outside influences.
VII. THE FORMING OF A HABIT--‘SHUT THE DOOR AFTER YOU’
1. What remains to be tried when neither time, reward, nor punishment
is effective in curing a bad habit?
2. Show that habit is a delight in itself.
3. Show that misguided sympathy is a hindrance in the formation of
habits.
4. What are the qualities necessary in the mother who would form
habits in her children?
5. What are the stages in the formation of a habit?
6. Which is the dangerous stage?
VIII. INFANT HABITS
1. Show the necessity for cleanliness in the nursery.
2. How do cleanliness, order, etc., educate a child?
3. Why is the training of a sensitive nose an important part of
education?
4. Why should nurses know that the baby is ubiquitous?
5. Show that personal cleanliness should be made an early habit.
6. How may parents approach the subjects of modesty and purity?
7. Show how the habit of obedience and the sense of honour are
safeguards.
8. What manner of life is the best safeguard?
9. Give some suggestions with regard to ‘order’ in the nursery.
10. Show how and why the child of two should put away his playthings.
11. Distinguish between neatness and order.
12. What occasions are there for regularity with an infant?
13. Show that irregularity leads to self-indulgence.
IX. PHYSICAL EXERCISES
1. Show the importance of daily physical exercises.
2. What moral qualities appear in alert movements?
3. Suggest a drill of good manners.
4. How would you train the ear and voice?
5. How may the habit of music be cultivated?
6. Show that the mother who trains habits can let her children alone.
PART IV
SOME HABITS OF MIND--SOME MORAL HABITS
1. What can a knowledge of the science of education effect?
2. Show that education in habit favours an easy life.
3. Show how the mother’s labours are eased by the fact that training
in habits becomes a habit.
4. Instance some habits inspired with the home atmosphere.
I. THE HABIT OF ATTENTION
1. Why is the habit of attention of supreme importance?
2. Instance minds at the mercy of associations.
3. Give instances from literature of the habit of wandering attention.
4. Where is the harm of wandering attention?
5. How may the habit of attention be cultivated in the infant?
6. How would you cultivate attention to lessons?
7. What principles should help the teacher to make lessons attractive?
8. Show the value of definite work in a given time.
9. On what principle must a time-table be drawn up?
10. What is the natural reward of attention at lessons?
11. What is to be said for and against emulation?
12. What is the risk in employing affection as a motive?
13. Show that the attractiveness of knowledge is a sufficient motive
to the learner.
14. What is attention?
15. How would you induce self-compelled attention?
16. What is the secret of over-pressure?
17. How may parents be of use in the home-work of the day-school boy?
18. Describe a wholesome home-treatment for ‘mooning.’
19. What have you to say of the discipline of consequences?
20. Show that rewards and punishments should be _relative_,
rather than natural, consequences of conduct.
21. Distinguish between natural and educative consequences.
II. THE HABITS OF APPLICATION, ETC.
1. How may rapid mental effort be secured?
2. How may zeal be stimulated?
III. THE HABIT OF THINKING
1. Give the example of thinking cited.
2. What operations are included in ‘thinking’?
IV. THE HABIT OF IMAGINING
1. What is the double danger of many books ministering to the sense of
the incongruous?
2. Show that commonplace tales leave nothing to the imagination.
3. In what way do tales of the imagination afford children a second
life?
4. Show that we can have great conceptions only as we have imagination.
5. Upon what does imagination grow?
6. What lessons should feed imagination?
7. Why?
8. Show the educative value of the right story-books.
9. How would you promote the habit of thinking?
V. THE HABIT OF REMEMBERING
1. Distinguish between remembering and recollecting.
2. Describe what is here called a ‘spurious’ memory.
3. What results from the fact that memory is a record on the brain
substance?
4. Made under what conditions?
5. Show that recollection depends upon the law of association of ideas.
6. What is the condition for recollecting a course of lessons?
7. Given, what conditions, may we say there is no limit to the
recording power of the brain?
8. Show that links of association are a condition of recollection.
Where are these to be discovered?
VI. THE HABIT OF PERFECT EXECUTION
1. What national error hinders us from the effort to throw perfection
into all we do?
2. Show the danger of the habit of turning out imperfect work.
3. How may a child be taught to execute perfectly?
VII. SOME MORAL HABITS--OBEDIENCE
1. What is the whole duty of a child?
2. What is the state opposed to obedience?
3. Show that a parent has no right to forego obedience.
4. What is the true motive for obedience?
5. Account for the fact that strictly brought up children are often
failures.
6. Why may parents and teachers expect obedience?
7. How may children be brought up to ‘do as they choose’?
8. What manner of obedience is of lasting value to the child?
9. How may children be trained towards liberty?
VIII. TRUTHFULNESS, ETC.
1. What are the causes of lying?
2. Show that all kinds of lying are vicious.
3. How is it that only one kind is visited on children?
4. How would you train a child in accuracy of statement?
5. How would you deal with exaggeration?
6. With ludicrous embellishments?
7. Show that reverence, consideration, etc., claim special attention
in these days.
8. Is temper born in a child?
9. Show that, not temper, but tendency is ‘born.’
10. How must parents correct such tendency?
11. Show fully the efficacy of changing the child’s thoughts.
12. Distinguish between changing a child’s thoughts and conveying to
him the thought you intend him to think.
PART V
LESSONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION
I. THE MATTER AND METHOD OF LESSONS
1. Discuss the statement, This is ‘an age of pedagogy.’
2. Why must parents reflect on the subject-matter of instruction?
3. Show that home is the best growing ground for young children.
4. Why must a mother have definite views?
5. What are the three questions for the mother?
6. Show that children learn, to grow.
7. Show that any doctoring of the material of knowledge is unnecessary
for a healthy child.
8. What is an idea?
9. Show that an idea feeds, grows, and produces.
10. What did Sir Walter Scott and George Stephenson each do with an
idea?
11. Show the value of dominant ideas.
12. Why must lessons furnish ideas?
13. What quality of knowledge should children get?
14. What is the evil of ‘diluted knowledge’?
15. Illustrate a child’s power of getting knowledge (Dr Arnold).
16. What is the harm of lesson-books with pretty pictures and easy
talk?
17. What are the four tests which should be applied to children’s
lessons?
18. Give a _résumé_ of six points already considered.
II. THE KINDERGARTEN AS A PLACE OF EDUCATION
1. Show that the mother is the best _Kindergärtnerin_.
2. How may the child get education out of his daily nursery life?
3. Show that the children’s pursuit of real knowledge may be hindered
by the kindergarten.
4. Show that a just eye and a faithful hand may be trained at home.
5. In what respects does the kindergarten give a hint of the
discipline proper for the nursery.
6. What temper should be cultivated in the nursery?
7. What general conclusion may we come to as to the principles and
practices of the kindergarten?
III. FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN
1. What anecdote of a child is quoted from Tolstoi’s _Childhood,
Boyhood, and Youth_?
2. Why are such tales as Miss Deland’s _The Story of a Child_
valuable?
3. What do we owe to Froebel?
4. What may we learn from the true _Kindergärtnerin_?
5. Comment upon, ‘Persons do not grow in a garden.’
6. Show that we must leave opportunity for the work of nature in
education.
7. Give instances showing the intelligence of children.
8. Account for the pleasure children take in kindergarten games.
9. In what ways do teachers mediate too much?
10. Show the danger of personal magnetism in the teacher.
11. Show fully that the name ‘kindergarten’ implies a false analogy.
12. What might be said concerning the Froebel ‘mother-games’?
13. Is the society of a large number of his equals in age the best for
a young child?
14. Show the dangers of supplanting nature.
15. What would you say regarding the importance of personal initiative?
16. In what ways must parents and teachers sow opportunities?
17. Do ‘only’ children profit by the kindergarten?
18. In what ways should children be allowed some ordering of their
lives?
19. Give a few of the lessons we may learn from the autobiography of
Helen Keller.
20. What conclusions does Miss Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher,
arrive at with regard to systems of education?
21. Account for the success of the kindergarten in the United States.
22. What changes does Mr Thistleton Mark observe?
23. Give some of the comments of Dr Stanley Hall.
IV. READING
1. Discuss the question of the age at which children should learn to
read.
2. How did Mrs Wesley teach her children to read?
3. Give a few hints for teaching the alphabet.
4. How would you introduce a child to word-making?
5. Describe a lesson in word-making with long vowels, etc.
6. How should the child’s first reading lessons help him to spell?
7. Give the steps of a reading lesson on ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little
star.’
8. Why is prose better in some ways than verse for early lessons?
9. Describe a second reading lesson on ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star.’
10. Show that slow and steady progress tends to careful enunciation.
11. Show how much a child might gain in a year’s work on these lines.
12. Contrast this steady progress with the casual way in which
children generally learn to read.
V. FIRST READING LESSON
(_Two Mothers Confer_)
VI. READING BY SIGHT AND BY SOUND
1. Why is learning to read hard work?
2. What are the symbols children must learn?
3. What do we definitely propose in teaching a child to read?
4. Can the symbols he learns be interesting?
5. Describe the stages of a lesson on ‘I like little Pussy.’
6. How does Tommy learn to read sentences?
7. Describe Tommy’s first spelling lesson.
8. How would you deal with the fact that like combinations have
different sounds?
9. Show that his reading lesson should afford moral training to a
child.
VII. RECITATION
‘THE CHILDREN’S ART’
1. What should we aim at in teaching children to recite?
2. How should we proceed?
3. What should we avoid?
4. Why may we expect success?
5. Distinguish between reciting and memorising.
6. Show that children have a natural capacity for memorising.
7. How would you teach them to memorise a poem?
VIII. READING FOR OLDER CHILDREN
1. To what two points must the teacher attend?
2. What is the most common and the monstrous defect in the education
of the day?
3. How may we correct this defect?
4. What points require attention when the child is reading aloud?
5. What must the teacher be careful to avoid?
6. What is to be said for and against reading to children?
7. Should children be questioned about the meaning of what they read?
8. Why not?
9. Suggest a better test of their intelligence.
10. Why is the selection of a child’s early lesson-books a matter of
great importance?
11. What general rule should help in the choice of these?
12. How may the attention of children be secured during a reading
lesson?
13. Give two or three hints with regard to careful enunciation.
IX. THE ART OF NARRATION
1. Prove from your own observation that children narrate by nature.
2. How should this power be used in their education?
3. What points must be borne in mind with regard to a child’s
narrations?
4. Describe the method of a lesson.
X. WRITING
1. How would you avoid the habit of careless work?
2. What printing should a child do before he comes to write?
3. What stages should be followed in teaching writing?
4. What is to be said about copperplate headlines?
5. Why should children practise in text-hand?
6. What arguments are advanced in favour of a beautiful handwriting?
7. What is to be said for a beautiful basis for characteristic
handwriting?
8. Suggest a way of using _A New Handwriting_.
XI. TRANSCRIPTION
1. Show the use of transcription before children write dictation.
2. What should children transcribe?
3. How should transcription help children to spell?
4. Why should text-hand and double-ruled lines be used?
5. Describe the proper position in writing.
6. How should children hold their pens?
7. What are the points of a good desk?
8. Describe a school-table for little children.
XII. SPELLING AND DICTATION
1. Show how dictation may be made a cause of bad spelling.
2. What is the _rationale_ of spelling?
3. What are the steps of a dictation lesson as it should be?
4. Show clearly what principle is involved.
5. What are the two causes of illiterate spelling?
XIII. COMPOSITION
1. Show that the exaction of original composition from school-boys and
school-girls is a futility.
2. And a moral injury to the children.
3. Illustrate the sort of teaching that should be regarded as a public
danger.
4. Upon what condition does composition ‘come by nature’?
XIV. BIBLE LESSONS
1. Illustrate the religious receptivity of children.
2. What Bible knowledge should children of nine have?
3. What would you say with regard to Bible narratives done into modern
English?
4. Show fully why children should be made familiar with the text.
5. What conception should gradually unfold itself to them?
6. Distinguish between essential and accidental truth.
7. In what event may it be said that ‘the truths themselves will
assuredly slip from our grasp’?
8. Why should care be taken lest Bible teaching stale upon the minds
of children?
9. Describe the method of a Bible lesson.
10. What use would you make of illustrations?
11. What is to be said as to the learning by heart of Bible passages?
XV. ARITHMETIC
1. Why is arithmetic important as a means of education?
2. How would you test a child’s knowledge of principles?
3. Why are long sums mischievous?
4. What mental exercise should a problem offer?
5. What caution must be observed?
6. How may arithmetic become an elementary training in mathematics?
7. How should a child demonstrate 4 × 7 = 28?
8. How would you use buttons, beans, etc.?
9. Show how you would teach a child to work out an addition and
subtraction table with each of the digits.
10. When would you introduce multiplication and division tables?
11. How would you teach division?
12. What is the step between working with things and with abstract
numbers?
13. How would you introduce our system of notation?
14. Why?
15. Show fully how you would deal with ‘tens.’
16. How long should a child work with ‘tens’ and units only?
17. What should follow?
18. What rule must be observed throughout?
19. How would you apply the same principle to weights and measures?
20. What part should _parcels_ play at this stage, and why?
21. Show how the child should use a foot-rule.
22. How would you exercise his judgment as to measures and weights.
23. How does the idea of a fraction occur in this work with concrete
quantities?
24. What should be the moral value of the study of arithmetic?
25. How does the inferior teacher instil a disregard of truth and
common honesty in this study?
26. How would you deal with a ‘wrong’ sum?
27. What should the daily arithmetic lesson be to the children?
28. Discuss the _A B C Arithmetic_.
29. What is to be said against accustoming young children to the sight
of geometrical forms and figures?
XVI. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
1. Show that childhood is the time for gathering materials for
classification.
2. What does Mr Herbert Spencer say as to the value of scientific
pursuits?
3. Show that children are able to comprehend principles.
4. Mention some of the phenomena they might readily understand.
5. From the subjects taught successfully in a village school, write a
list of questions which intelligent children should be able to answer.
6. ‘The principles of natural philosophy are the principles of common
sense.’ Show how this statement should be a key to our educational
practice.
XVII. GEOGRAPHY
1. Wherein lies the peculiar educational value of geography?
2. How is geography commonly taught?
3. What sort of information about places do children and grown-up
people enjoy?
4. Why is the geography learnt at school of little use in after life?
5. What should a child learn in geography?
6. How should he get his rudimentary notions?
7. How should children be introduced to maps?
8. Why should a child be made ‘at home’ in some one region?
9. Why is it well to follow the steps of a traveller?
10. Mention a few books useful in this connection.
11. How should maps be used in this kind of work?
12. How should a child get his first notion of a glacier, a cañon,
etc.?
13. What course of reading might parents aim at between a child’s
fifth and his tenth year?
14. How should young children get their lessons on place?
15. How should they arrive at definitions?
16. What fundamental ideas should a child receive?
17. How should he be introduced to the meaning of a map?
XVIII. HISTORY
1. What is the intellectual and what the moral worth of history as an
educational subject?
2. What is to be said of the usual ways of teaching English history?
3. What, if the little text-book be moral or religious in tone?
4. What is the fatal mistake as regards the early teaching of history?
5. What is the better way?
6. What should a child know of the period in which any person, about
whom he is reading, lived?
7. What moral gain may he get from such intimate knowledge?
8. What manner of books must be eschewed?
9. What is the least that should be done to introduce children to the
history of England?
10. Why is the early history of a nation better fitted for children
than its later records?
11. Why are the old Chronicles profitable reading for them?
12. Name and comment upon a few of the Chronicles upon which
children’s knowledge of history should rest.
13. What effect on a child should the reading of such old Chronicles
have?
14. Show that children should know something of the heroic age of
their own nation.
15. What use may be made of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s _History of the
British Kings_?
16. From what authority should a child get the story of the French
wars?
17. Why do Plutarch’s _Lives_ afford the best preparation for the
study of Grecian and Roman history?
18. Give two counsels which should regulate the teaching of history.
19. Upon what principles should history books for children be selected?
20. Mention one or two books that lend themselves to narrating.
21. Comment upon Mr Arnold Forster’s _History of England_.
22. How would you help children to clearness with regard to dates?
23. Mention two or three ways in which children’s minds work if their
history books are of the proper quality.
XIX. GRAMMAR
1. Why is grammar uninteresting to a child?
2. Why is English grammar peculiarly hard?
3. Show that the Latin grammar is easier.
4. Show that the Latin affords some help in the learning of English
grammar.
5. Why should a child begin with a _sentence_ and not with the
parts of speech?
6. Write notes of one or two introductory lessons.
XX. FRENCH
1. How should French be acquired?
2. Show that the learning of French is an education of the senses.
3. What are our two difficulties in speaking French?
4. Show that these hindrances should be removed in childhood.
5. How?
6. How might the difficulty of accent be dealt with?
7. What half-dozen principles has M. Gouin made plain to us?
8. Show that the _Series_ method enables a child to think in the
new language.
9. Trace fully the steps by which the author worked out his theory.
10. How does he treat the difficulty of spelling?
11. Illustrate the facility with which a child learns a new language.
XXI. PICTORIAL ART, ETC.
1. Upon what two lines should the art training of children proceed?
2. How should picture-talks be regulated?
3. What gains may we hope for from this kind of teaching?
4. Discuss the use of blobs in early drawing lessons.
5. What should be our aim in these lessons?
6. Children have ‘art’ in them. How should this fact affect our
teaching?
7. What should we bear in mind in teaching clay-modelling to children?
8. Name methods of teaching singing and the piano which are to be
commended.
9. What physical exercises would you recommend?
10. Name some handicrafts suitable for young children.
PART VI
THE WILL--THE CONSCIENCE--THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE CHILD
I. THE WILL
1. How is the government of Mansoul carried on?
2. Show that the executive power is vested in the will.
3. What is the will?
4. In what respects may persons go through life without a deliberate
act of will?
5. Show that character is the result of conduct regulated by will.
6. What are the three functions of the will?
7. What limitation of the will is disregarded by certain novelists?
8. Show that parents blunder into this metaphysical error.
9. Show that wilfulness indicates want of will-power.
10. What is wilfulness?
11. What are the superior and inferior functions of the will?
12. Show that the will does not always act for good.
13. Show that a disciplined will is necessary to heroic Christian
character.
14. How would you distinguish between effective and non-effective
persons?
15. How does the will operate?
16. Show how incentives, diversion, change of thought are severally
aids to the will.
17. What should be taught to children as to the ‘way of the will’?
18. Show that power of will implies power of attention.
19. Show that habit may frustrate the will.
20. Show the necessity for the reasonable use of so effective an
instrument.
21. By what line of conduct should parents strengthen the wills of
their children?
22. How may children be taught to manage themselves?
23. Show that the education of the will is more important than that of
the intellect.
II. CONSCIENCE
1. What are the functions of conscience?
2. What is implied in ‘I am, I ought, I can, I will’?
3. What mistake is made by the inert parent with regard to the divine
grace?
4. Show that conscience is not an infallible guide.
5. How does Adam Smith illustrate the fact that conscience is a real
power?
6. What do we know of conscience?
7. Distinguish between a nascent and a trained conscience.
8. Show that refinement of conscience cannot coexist with ignorance.
9. What are the processes implied in a ‘conscientious’ decision?
10. What may be said of the instructed conscience?
11. What may be expected of the good conscience of a child?
12. Show that children play with moral questions.
13. How would you impart any of the moral ideas contained in the Bible
to a child?
14. Show the use of tales in the training of conscience.
15. Show the extreme ignorance of a child’s conscience.
16. How would you instruct children in the duty of ‘kindness,’ for
example?
17. What is to be said of the conscience made effective by discipline?
III. THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE CHILD
1. What is the ‘very pulse of the machine’?
2. Show that parents have some power to enthrone the King.
3. Define as far as you can the functions of the soul.
4. What is the life of the soul?
5. Show by the illustration of the bee and the apple-tree what is the
parent’s part in quickening the Divine life in his child.
6. Show where the similitude of the bee and the apple-tree fails.
7. By what two deterrent ideas is God most often presented to children?
8. What precautions must a mother take to secure that her children get
inspiring ideas of God?
9. What considerations should help us to select the quickening
thoughts proper for children?
10. How would you select fitting and vital ideas?
11. Show the danger of confounding ‘being good’ with knowing God.
12. What cautions will the mother observe as to the times and the
manner of religious instruction?
13. Make some suggestions for the reading of the Bible.
14. How might a mother give her child the idea of God as Father and
Giver?
15. How may children be brought up in allegiance to Christ?
16. How would you bring the thought of their Saviour home to children?
17. Show that the indwelling of Christ is a thought fit for children.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] The students in question are persons preparing to become
“Qualified Members” of the Parents’ National Educational Union.
Particulars may be had at the office, 28 Victoria Street, London, S.W.
APPENDIX C
THE EXAMINATION OF A CHILD OF SEVEN UPON A TERM’S WORK ON THE LINES
INDICATED IN THIS VOLUME
CLASS 1B
_Programme of the Term’s Work, on which the Examination
Questions are set_
_Bible Lessons._
_The Bible for the Young_, by Rev. J. Paterson Smyth
(Sampson, Low, 1s. each); _Exodus_, Lessons i.-vii.;
_St Mark’s Gospel_, i., ii., iii., iv. Teacher to
prepare beforehand as much of each lesson as the children
can understand, and to use the Bible passages in teaching.
_Recitations._
To recite two poems, to learn three hymns, and a passage of
six verses, each, from (_a_) _Exodus_, (_b_)
_St Mark’s Gospel_ (part set for Bible lessons).
Longman’s _Junior Poetry Book_ (1s. 6d.) may be used,
or Miss Wood’s _A First Book of Poetry_ (Macmillan,
2s. 6d.).
_Sums._
Chapter xi., _A B C Arithmetic_ (Teacher’s Book, part i.,
1s.; Sonnenschein). Tables up to twelve times twelve.
Tables should be worked out in money thus: (9×7 = 63 pence
= 5s. 3d.).
_N.B._--The terms ‘tens’ and ‘units,’ etc., should be used
instead of ‘staves’ and ‘cubes,’ etc.
BEGINNERS--Chapters vi., vii., viii.
Books for Pupils, containing exercises only, are published at 4d. each.
_Music._
_Child Pianist_ (Curwen & Son), continue. _Teacher’s
Guide_ (revised edition).
_Singing._
Three French Songs, _Chansons d’Enfants_ (Librairie Ch.
Delagrave, Paris, 1s. 6d.). _Ten Minutes’ Lessons in
Tonic Sol-fa_ (Curwen & Son). Three English songs from
Novello’s _School Songs_, book xxi. (8d.).
_Drill._
Light-Pole Exercises and Calisthenics, from _Musical Drills
for Standards_ (Philip & Son, 2s. 9d.). Ex-students take
House of Education Drills.
_Writing._
_A New Handwriting for Teachers_, by M. M. Bridges (Mrs
Bridges, Yattenden, Newbury, 2s. 9d.), page 2, lines 1 and
2; page 3, line 5. Two letters to be mastered each lesson.
Transcribe from Reading Book in _New Handwriting_ and
write a little from dictation.
_Reading._
Read books used for History, Geography, Tales, and
_Hiawatha_.
BACKWARD CHILDREN.--_Happy Reader_, part ii., by
E. L. Young (Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.).
_English History._
_Sketches from British History_, by F. York Powell
(Longmans, 1s. 3d.), lessons xx.-xxxi. Mrs Frewen Lord’s
_Tales from St Paul’s_ (Sampson Low, 1s.), pages 1-19.
_Tales._
_The Pilgrim’s Progress_ (Partridge, 1s.), pages 102-148.
_The Heroes of Asgard_ (Macmillan, 3s. 6d.), pages
50-108. Two Tales from Mrs Beesly’s _Stories from the
History of Rome_ (Macmillan, 2s. 6d.).
_Natural History._[47]
Keep Nature Note-Book. Watch and describe twelve birds. _The
Birds of the Air_, by A. Buckley (Cassell, 6d.), pages
38-79. Children to notice all they can themselves about
birds. _Wild Nature Won by Kindness_, by Mrs Brightwen
(Fisher Unwin, 2s.), pages 99-139.
_Picture Talk._
Study six reproductions of J. F. Millet’s work (see the Perry
Pictures).
_French._[48]
The Gouin Method: _The Study of French_, by Eugène and
Duriaux (Macmillan & Co., 3s. 6d.), pages 31, 35, 36,
37. Make new sentences with the words learnt in these
_Series_. _Illustrated French Primer_, by H. Bué
(Hachette & Co., 1s. 6d.), pages 109-112, 141-150.
_Geography._
_London Geographical Reader_ (Stanford), book ii. (1s.
6d.), pages 1-14. Book i. (1s.), pages 1-11. Map questions
to be worked through with map before each lesson.
Description of any rivers, hills, mountains, etc., the
child may know of, with plans.
_Work._
Six twigs of trees (not done before) in brushwork. For
occasional use, _Pour Dessiner Simplement_, par V.
Jacquot et P. Ravoux (Glaisher, 3s. 6d.), _cahier_
ii. Attend to garden (_Aunt Mai’s Annual_, 1894).
_Carton Work_, by G. C. Hewitt (King & Sons, Halifax,
2s.): make a pillar-box, a match-box, a pen-tray, and
a vase. Smyrna rugs (see _Aunt Mai’s Annual_,
1894). Children make their own designs. _Self-Teaching
Needlework Manual_ (Longmans, 1s.): children to be
exercised in stitches, pages 1-15. Use coarse canvas and
wool; then, _coloured_ cotton and coarse linen.
_Questions on Preceding Programme_
_Bible Lessons._
I. 1. What do you know of Moses as a little boy?
2. Tell about Moses and the burning bush.
II. 1. Tell the story of Jesus curing the man sick of the palsy.
2. When did Jesus say, “Peace, be still”? Tell all about it.
_Writing._
I_a_. Print} “The field mouse has gone to
I_b_. Write} her nest.”
_Natural History._
I_a_. How does a beaver build his house?
I_b_. 1. Tell one story about ‘Blanche.’ What have you
noticed about any tits you have watched?
I_a_ & I_b_. 2. Describe a rook, a starling, a
chaffinch, and tell anything you have noticed about them.
_Geography._
I_b_. 1. How can we tell that the earth is round?
2. What countries would you pass through going from England to
Russia by land?
3. What are the countries to the South of Europe? Which
countries have the most indented coastlines? Mention two
inland seas and say where they are.
I_a_. 1. Describe a forest in Brazil.
2. Tell about the Indian’s blow-pipe, and a hanging nest. Can
you draw a hanging nest?
_Number._
I_b_. 1. Tom went to school at 6¼; he was 8 years and
3 months at one school, 4 years at another, 1 year and
9 months going round the world, 3 years and 3 months in
Corea, and 5½ months in Japan. How old was he then?
2. John had to take three cheques to the bank, £175, 13s. 3d.,
£30, 7s. 5d., and £89, 19s. 11d. How much did the cheques
come to?
3. Find the rent of four houses at £17, 8s. 4½d. a year
each.
BEGINNERS--
1. Which is greater, and by how much, a quarter of a hundred
or a fifth of a hundred?
2. How many pounds in a hundred shillings?
3. If tops cost 9d. for 5, how much will 25 cost?
I_a_. 1. If Jack’s dinner costs 1s. 6d., how much will he
have to pay for himself and three friends?
2. If a copy of _Robinson Crusoe_ cost 6s., how many can
I buy for £2, 2s. 0d.?
3. How many sixpences are equal to nine fourpenny pieces?
BEGINNERS--
1. How many newts and how many robins have twenty-eight legs
between them?
2. His father gave Jack 1d. a week. How many weeks must he
save to buy a slate for 4d.?
_Picture Talk._
Describe from memory the picture of Millet’s you liked best.
_Tales._
I_a_. Tell a fairy tale.
I_b_. 1. Tell about the trial of Christian and Faithful in
Vanity Fair.
2. Tell about Odin’s journey to Jotunheim until he came
to the land of giants.
or, 3. Tell a short story from the History of Rome.
_History._
1. Can you remember two Scottish proverbs?
2. Tell a story of John Hall, or Wat Tyler, or Robin Hood.
3. Tell what Taswell says about the burning of St Paul’s. What
are the words over the north transept door?
_Reading._[49]
Father to choose unseen passage, marking words not known.
_Recitations._[49a]
Father to choose a poem, a hymn, and two Bible passages.
_Singing._[49a]
Father to choose an English and a French song and, (I_b_),
two Tonic Sol-fa exercises.
_Drill._[49a]
Drill, before parents.
_Music._[49a]
Examine in work done.
_Drawing._
(_a_) An outline drawing with your brush of a bird and a
cat, (_b_) a brushdrawing of an ash, and a lime twig
with leaf-buds.
_Work._[49a]
Outside friend to examine.
_N.B._--The work suggested in the course of this volume is usually
with a view to children in classes I_a_ and I_b_, but many children in
their ninth year are fit for Class II. (See Appendix D).
B. B., aged 7½. CLASS IB
_Subjects taken_
1. Bible Lessons.
2. Writing.
3. Number.
4. Picture Talk.
5. Geography.
6. Tales.
7. Natural History.
8. History.
9. Reading.
10. Drawing.
The answers of all the children in this class reach much the same
standard as those here printed. The children in class I_b_ range
in age from seven to eight or eight and a half.
_Bible Lessons_
I. (1) When Moses was born, King Pharaoh of Egypt had ordered that all
the new-born baby-boys should be killed, and Moses’ mother hid him for
three months and at last he grew so big that when he cried he would
be heard. So his mother made him a basket of bulrushes and put him
in it in the water. And she plastered it together so that the water
would not get in. And when Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe, her
servants walked along by the river, and when she saw the basket in the
river, she asked her maid to bring it to her. And when she opened the
basket she saw the baby in it, and she said that this was one of the
Hebrews’ children. Then the baby’s sister came and asked Pharaoh’s
daughter if she would get a nurse for the baby, and Pharaoh’s daughter
said ‘Yes.’ And she brought a Hebrew woman, and it was the child’s
mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said that she would call him Moses,
because she drew him out of the water. Then Pharaoh’s daughter gave
the baby to his mother, and she took him home and nursed him and she
taught him to be good. And then when he was pretty old he was taken to
the palace and there he got a very good education.
(2) When Moses was married, he was out in the field keeping his wife’s
father’s sheep when he saw a burning bush. And a voice spoke out from
the burning bush and said, “Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes
from off thy feet for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”
It was God speaking to him, and God told him to go and bring the
children of Israel out of Egypt. But Moses said, “Who am I to go to
Pharaoh? he won’t listen to me,” and God said that he would be with
him. But Moses said, “Pharaoh will not believe that God has spoken
to me at all.” Then God said, “I will teach you to make signs before
Pharaoh.” But Moses said, “I am slow of speech.” And God was angry
with Moses and said that he would send his brother Aaron to do the
speaking.
II. (1) Jesus was surrounded with people and there was a man sick of
the palsy wanted to see him; and he was let down through the roof on
his bed which was only a mattress. And Jesus said, “Rise, take up thy
bed and walk.” And the man took up his bed and was cured.
(2) When Jesus was crossing the sea of Galilee with his disciples to
the other side there arose a great storm, and Jesus’ disciples thought
that they would be thrown into the sea. And they awoke Jesus and said
to him, “Master, carest thou not that we perish.” And Jesus woke up
and said to the sea and the foam, “Peace, be still.” And his disciples
marvelled and said, “What manner of man is this that even the sea
obeys him.”
_Number_
I_a_. 1. 6/.
2. 7 copies.
3. 6 sixpences.
Beginners.--
1. 14 Robins.
2. 4 weeks.
_Picture Talk_
‘THE FIRST STEP’
In this picture I see a baby taking its first step alone. The father
is stretching out his arms to catch it, then the baby toddles to its
father.
They are not rich people and they live in a farm, and the father had
just left off his work when his wife met him in the garden and told
him that his baby was going to walk alone for the first time.
_Geography_
1. We know that the world is round because if a sailor starts from
his home and sails on and on without turning he will come back to the
place he started from; if you stand on the sea shore and watch a ship
coming to-wards you, you will first of all see the mast of the ship
and then the hull last; if you stand on a high place you will see that
you are in the middle of a circle.
_Tales_
FROM ‘HEROES OF ASGARD’
2. Loki, before he left Jotunheim, told his witch-wife to keep the
children indoors, for said he, the Æsir will soon find out that we
have a secret down here, but while Loki was away, his wife could not
keep Jormungand in the house, because he grew so big, that she had to
let his tail out of the door. And Odin saw Jormungand’s tail sticking
out of the door, so he dismounted Air Throne, and said farewell to all
the Æsir, and then went to Jotunheim, but before he went he taught
all the people how to fight and make armour, and not to forget what
he had taught them. So he went on and on and on until he came to the
Golden Van, and asked him what his education was, and what he did
up here. And the answer was, that he gave wisdom, but that it was so
dear that many people turned away sorrowfully. Odin said, “What is
the price? I would willingly give my right hand.” But the Van said it
is your right eye you must give; but Odin didn’t think the price too
dear, so he plucked his right eye out and gave it to the Van. Then he
got wisdom and set off for Jotunheim. At last he came to the very edge
of Jotunheim, and then he peeped over to Jotunheim and saw all the
hideous creatures that lived down there; and he hung over Jotunheim
two or three days and nights before he went in.
_Natural History_
1. There was a lady that wanted to have a pair of pigeons, and a
friend sent her two. And when she opened the basket she found that the
mate had flown away. Then the lady got a mate for the pigeon but the
pigeon just pecked at it, so the lady got another one, that was white
like herself, and so she kept this one. The female was named Blanche;
and every day for four hours Blanche would come in to the lady’s room
and take a rest on a great big Bible that lay on the table.
2. Tits are very fond of fat in the Winter. There are four different
kinds of Tits, Greater Tit, Marsh Tit, Blue Tit, and the Cole Tit. And
sometimes the tits sit at the entrance to a beehive and eat all the
bees that come out. They build in old letter-boxes sometimes. The Blue
Tits are great fighters, and if you hang a basket outside your window
with fat in it, the Blue Tit will hang down and eat all it wants, and
act King of the Castle. And the Cole Tit takes away all it wants and
stores it up.
Rooks are black and very like crows, and the way you will know them
from crows is that they build altogether and crows don’t. When the
rook is one year old, it has a grey bald patch on its head.
Starlings look black when you see them far off and when you see them
near to you they look purple and white on their backs. They build in
hollow trees and in chimneys.
_History_
1. One day when King James of Scotland was staying with his friend
McFarlane, he saw his geese running about in the yard and playing; and
the king laughed at them. And that evening they had a goose for dinner
and it was so lean and tough that the king could not help saying
“McFarlane, your geese mind their play more than their meat.” And
always after that people that played more than they worked were called
McFarlane’s geese.
ROBIN HOOD AND THE FORESTERS
2. One day when Robin Hood was only sixteen, he was walking in the
Forest with his bow and arrow, when he met fifteen foresters, who
laughed at him when they saw the bigness of his bow. Then Robin got
angry with them and said, “I am only out bird-shooting to-day.” But
they just laughed at him the more, and he said, “I would wager my
head, I hit a deer at twelve score yards.” And they held him to his
word, and they staked one hundred shillings against that. Then they
sent a deer galloping past him, and just as he was taking aim, one
of the foresters jeeringly bade him remember his head was at stake,
because he was frightened he would lose his money. And all the
foresters marvelled because Robin Hood hit the deer. But Robin Hood
said he wouldn’t take any man’s money, except the man’s money who had
tried to put him out when he was taking aim; and that, he said, “we
will spend on a feast for us all.” Then the man that had lost his
money, made a cut at Robin, but Robin dashed nimbly aside, and ran
away one hundred yards, and then he turned round, and shot the man
that had tried to put him out when he was taking aim. The foresters
saw his fall, and all ran for Robin Hood, but he shot them down dead
or badly wounded as they came to him. The friends of these foresters
got Robin Hood outlawed for this act.
* * * * *
(Children in Classes 1_a_ and 1_b_ narrate the answers to
their examination questions, which are written at their dictation.)
FOOTNOTES:
[47] Where there are children in I_a_ as well in I_b_, both classes
should work together, doing the work of I_b_ in the subjects thus
indicated; or, if the children are backward, that of I_a_.
[48] See note, page 388.
[49] Subjects thus indicated to be marked according to _Regulations_.
APPENDIX D
THE EXAMINATION OF A CHILD IN HIS NINTH YEAR UPON A TERM’S WORK ON
THE LINES INDICATED IN THIS VOLUME
CLASS II
_Programme of the Term’s Work, on which the Examination
Questions are set_
_Bible Lessons._
_The Bible for the Young_, by Rev. J. Paterson Smyth
(Sampson Low, 1s. each vol.); _Exodus_, Lessons
i.-vii. inclusive. _St Mark’s Gospel_, chapters i.,
ii., iii., iv. Teacher to prepare beforehand, and to use
the Bible passages in teaching. Answers to the Catechism
with explanations as far as the _Lord’s Prayer_
(optional).
_Recitations._
_Lyra Heroica_ (Nutt, 2s. 6d.), _Boadicea_, and _A
Welcome_. Two hymns and two passages of twelve verses
each, one from _Exodus_, one from _St Mark_.
_French._
The Gouin _Series_; pages 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 93, from
_The Study of French_, by Eugène and Duriaux (1898
edition, Macmillan & Co., 3s. 6d.). _Little French
Folk_, by C. T. Onions (Simpkin & Marshall, 2s.),
pages 15-25. Make new sentences with the words learnt
in the _Series_. Recite two poems from _La Lyre
Enfantine_ (Hachette & Co., 1s. 3d.).
_Latin._
_A First Latin Course_, by E. H. Scott and F. Jones
(Blackie, 1s. 6d.), pages 1-10, 67-71, and vocabularies.
Revise work carefully by means of exercises, and make fresh
sentences with all the words learnt. Boys may, if desired,
take Latin instead of German; in this case they should take
Hall’s _Child’s First Latin Book_ (Murray, 2s.), pages
1-23 in addition.
BEGINNERS, _A First Latin Course_, by E. H. Scott
and F. Jones, pages 1-5, with vocabularies and exercises on
pages 67, 68, 69.
_German._
_Little German Folk_, by M. Schramm (The Norland Press,
2s.), pages 16-20 inclusive, to be learnt orally, only.
_Drill._
Light-Pole and Calisthenic Exercises, from _Musical Drill for
Standards_ (Philip & Son, 1s. 6d.). Ex-students take
House of Education Drills.
_Music._
Continue _Child Pianist_ (Curwen & Son); teacher using the
Teacher’s Guide.
_Singing._
Two French songs, _La Lyre des Écoles_; two German songs,
_Deutscher Liedergarten_ (each of these, Curwen &
Son, 2s. 6d.). Two new English songs from Novello’s
_School Songs_, book xxi. (8d.). _Ten Minutes’
Lessons in Tonic Sol-fa_ (Curwen & Son).
_Geography._
_London Geographical Readers_ (Stanford): book ii. (1s.
6d.), pages 1-22; book iii. (2s. 3d.), pages 1-26; map
questions to be answered from map and then from memory,
and then in filling up blank map from memory before each
lesson. All geography to be learnt with map. Children to
make memory maps. Know something about foreign places
coming into notice in the current newspapers. _The School
Atlas_, edited by H. O. Arnold-Forster (37 Bedford
Street, London, 3s.).
_English Grammar._
_A Short English Grammar_, by Professor Meiklejohn (Holden,
1s.), pages 25-52. Parse and point out Subjects, Verbs,
Objects.
BEGINNERS, pages 5-25.
_Writing._
_A New Handwriting for Teachers_, by M. M. Bridges
(Mrs Bridges, Yattenden, Newbury, 2s. 9d. post free);
practise pages 1, 2, 3. Two perfectly-written lines every
day. Transcribe some of your favourite passages from
Shakespeare’s _Julius Cæsar_, with page 6 as model.
_Dictation._
Two pages at a time to be prepared carefully; then a paragraph
from these pages to be written from dictation or from
memory. _The Citizen Reader_, by H. O. Arnold-Forster
(Cassell, 1s. 6d.), chapters vi., vii., viii. (both parts).
_Plutarch’s ‘Lives.’_
Plutarch’s _Julius Cæsar_ (omitting unsuitable parts)
(Cassell’s National Library, 3d.).
_English History._
_A History of England_, by H. O. Arnold-Forster (Cassell,
5s.), pages 1-56 (B.C. 55-A.D. 871). Read from Shakespeare’s
_Julius Cæsar_ (Cassell’s National Library, 3d.). Read
contemporary parts from _Old Stories from British History_
(Longmans, 1s.).
_French History._
_A First History of France_, by L. Creighton (Longmans, 3s.
6d.), pages 2-22, to be contemporary with English history.
Any time over should be given to English history.
_Drawing._
_Pour Dessiner Simplement_, par V. Jacquot et P. Ravoux
(Glaisher, 3s. 6d.), _cahiers_ ii. and iii., for
occasional use. Twelve twigs of trees with leaf-buds
in brushdrawing. Original brushdrawings from scenes in
_Julius Cæsar_. Garden (or section of) drawn to scale;
and, Join the _Portfolio of Painting_ (see _The Children’s
Quarterly_).
_Picture Talk._
Study six reproductions of J. F. Millet’s work (see Perry
Pictures).
_Reading._
Geography, English history, French history, should afford
exercise in careful reading. The _Morte D’Arthur_,
Selections by C. L. Thomson (Marshall, 2s., pages
190-238), or, poetry, to be read on Thursdays.
_Nature Lore._
(Tuesday) Buckley’s _Fairy Land of Science_ (Stanford),
pages 99-123. (Wednesday) _The Sciences_, by E. S.
Holden (Ginn & Co., 2s. 6d.), pages 1-34. _Seaside and
Wayside_ may also be used. Keep a Nature Note-book.
Record, when you see them, and describe twelve birds and
notice all you can about them. (Saturday) _Birds of the
Air_, by Mrs Fisher (Cassell, 6d.), pages 38-79. All
members must take in _The Children’s Quarterly_.
_Arithmetic._
_A B C Arithmetic_, Teacher’s Book, part ii. (Sonnenschein
& Nesbitt, 1s.), pages 93-111. Mental Arithmetic and
Numeration for five minutes on alternate days. Mair’s
_Mental Arithmetic_ (Sonnenschein, 9d.). Steady
progress. Much care with tables.
BEGINNERS, 1-27.
_Composition._
_The Citizen Reader_, by H. O. Arnold-Forster (Cassell, 1s.
9d.), chapters vi., vii., viii. (both parts). Selections
from _Morte D’Arthur_. Read and write substance. Young
children who cannot write easily may narrate.
_Work._
_Cardboard Modelling_, by A. Sutcliffe and W. Nelson
(Philip & Son, 2s. 6d.), or, better, _A Manual of
Cardboard Modelling_, by H. Heaton (Newmann & Son, 5s.).
Make a set of furniture for the bedroom of your doll’s
house. Make the curtains, rugs, bed linen, and counterpane
for this bedroom. _Self-Teaching Needlework Manual_
(Longmans, 1s.). Practise stitches on pages 15-24. Attend
to Garden (_Aunt Mai’s Annual_, 1894).
_Questions on Preceding Programme_
_Bible Lessons._
I. 1. “Take this child and nurse it for me.” Tell what you
know about the education and early life of the child.
2. “Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?” “Take off the
shoes from off thy feet.” On what occasions were these
words used? Tell the whole story in each case.
II. 1. (_a_) “Come ye after me.”
(_b_) “Arise, take up thy bed.”
(_c_) “Stretch forth thine hand.”
(_d_) “Peace, be still.” Tell all about the occasions
when these words were used.
2. Give, as far as you can in the words of the Bible, the
Parable of the Sower.
_Writing._
Write from memory two lines of _A Welcome_.
_Dictation._
_The Citizen Reader_, page 79, § 2.
_Composition._
Describe your favourite scene from _Julius Cæsar_, or, the
picture of J. F. Millet’s that you like best.
_English Grammar._
1. Analyse and parse the words in italics,--
“O, _when_ do _fairies_ hide _their heads_?
_When_ snow lies on the _hills_,
When _frost_ has spoiled their _mossy beds_,
And crystallised their rills.”
2. Make sentences using the following words, and parse each
of them: _this_, _which_, _herself_,
_many_, _above_, _after_, _once_,
_very_, _that_.
BEGINNERS--
1. Pick out the nouns, adverbs, prepositions, and verbs in (1).
2. Make sentences containing the following words, and say
what part of speech each is: _her_, _carry_,
_very_, _to_, _on_, _before_,
_soon_, _all_, _since_.
_English History._
1. “You can put me to death but you will gain more honour if
you spare my life.” What do you know of the speaker?
2. What history is there in the words _Manchester_,
_Thursday_, _Saturday_, _Oxford_? Who gave
us these words?
3. “From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us.” What
do you know about these Northmen?
_French History._
1. “Martin has clothed me with his garment.” Tell what you
know about this Martin. On what day of the year do we
remember him?
2. “Thus did you break the vase at Soissons.” Tell what you
know of the speaker.
3. What do you know of Charles the Great?
_Plutarch’s ‘Lives.’_
1. “Arms and laws do not flourish together.” Who said this?
Tell the story.
2. Describe one of Cæsar’s expeditions into Gaul.
_Natural History._
1. What are earth-pillars, landslips, and pot-holes? How are
they caused? Describe some work of water as a sculptor that
you have seen.
2. Make a diagram, giving the names and the sizes as near as
you can of the planets. Which planets have you seen? What
do you know about Jupiter and Saturn?
3. Describe a rook, a starling, a jackdaw, a thrush. Tell
anything you have noticed about them.
_Geography._
1. What countries can I visit in going from England by sea
through the Mediterranean to the Black Sea?
2. What are the boundaries of Austria, Switzerland, Greece?
3. Draw a map of Northumberland, putting in the river Tyne and
the chief towns on its banks.
4. Describe a journey in the Lake District.
_French._
1. Recite Les Cerises and the poem learnt.
2. Name, in French, the various parts of a house, and make six
sentences, using the words.
_German._
1. Tell, in German, all you can about the pictures on pages 18
and 19 of _Little German Folks_.
2. Make three new sentences with some of the words you have
learnt.
_Latin._
1. Translate into Latin: (_a_) The road is not safe; (_b_) The
slave is Roman; (_c_) Here is a wide road; (_d_) The town
has four big gates; (_e_) The poet’s daughter is tall.
2. Make sentences, using the words,--_sex_, _Romani_, _magnae_,
_pila_, _iratus_, _cujus_, _dux_, _octo_, _reliqui_, _vos_.
BOYS ONLY. 3. Decline fully,--_bona malus_, _niger equus_,
_vir liber_.
BEGINNERS--
1. Do the first half of question 2 above.
2. Answer in Latin the questions,--_Ubi est porta?_ _Quot portae
sunt?_ _Estne servus magnus?_
_Arithmetic._
1. If a railway guard travels 2303 miles a week, how much does
he travel in twelve days?
2. Find the interest on (_a_) £11, 15s., (_b_) £7,
16s., at 5% for one year.
3. What sum of money multiplied by 11 will give £38,020, 4s.
9½d.?
BEGINNERS--
1. How much is each of the following numbers--197, 931, 240,
99, short of 1000?
2. If quill pens cost 12s. a thousand, how much would 250 cost?
3. How many florins in 1000 shillings?
_Drawing._
(_a_) An outline of a bird with your brush.
(_b_) An original brush-drawing from _Julius Cæsar_.
(_c_) A birch, and an elm twig.
_Recitations._[50]
Father to choose a poem, and ten verses from St Mark and ten
verses from Exodus.
_Reading._[50a]
Father to choose unseen poem, marking words not known.
_Music._[50a]
Examine in work done.
_Singing._[50a]
Father to choose an English, a French, and a German song, and
two Tonic Sol-fa exercises.
_Drill._[50a]
Drill, before parents.
_Work._[50a]
Outside friend to examine.
A. A., aged 9 years
_Subjects taken_
Scripture.
English History.
French History.
Natural History.
Geography.
Writing.
Dictation.
Arithmetic.
French.
Composition.
Drawing.
English Grammar.
Plutarch’s _Lives_.
_French_
LES CERISES.
1. Albert a envie de manger des cerises.
Il court au verger, et grimpe à un cerisier.
Albert se pose à califourchon, sur une branche.
D’œil, il choisit les plus belles cerises,
Il cueille les plus mûres,
Et les mange au fur et à mesure.
DIEU
Qui dit au soleil sur la terre
D’eclairer tout homme et tout lieu,
Qui donne à la nuit son mystère,
O mes enfants, c’est Dieu.
Le bluet le ciel superbe.
Qui les a teints d’un même bleu,
Qui verdit l’emeraude l’herbe?
O mes enfants, c’est Dieu.
[51]
Qui donne au bosquet son ombrage,
Et quand l’oiseau chante au milieu,
Qui donne à l’oiseau son ramage?
O mes enfants, c’est Dieu.
Qui donne à chacun chaque chose,
A l’un beaucoup, à l’autre peu,
Moins au ciron, plus à la rose?
O mes enfants, c’est Dieu.
Qui donne à vos mères ce charme,
De rire à votre moindre jeu,
Pleurant à votre moindre larme?
O mes enfants, c’est Dieu.
2. Les murs, les portes, la salle à manger, la cuisine, le feu.[52]
_Composition_
JULIUS CÆSAR
My favourite scene from _Julius Cæsar_ is where Mark Antony makes
his speech to the people about Cæsar, and they all think it such a
good one, and wished to destroy the conspirators who had killed Cæsar.
He tells them that he had thrice offered the crown to Cæsar and yet
he had refused it, and yet Brutus in his speech had said that the
deed was done for the good of the country in case Cæsar should get to
be the King, which would not be good for Rome. Antony said that in
Cæsar’s will he had left to every one of the people a sum of money,
and left his shaded gardens for the public use.
_English Grammar_
1. _Nouns_--fairies, heads, snow, hills, frost, beds, rills.
_Preposition_--on.
_Verbs_--hide, lies, spoiled, has, crystallised.
2. her Pronoun.
carry Verb.
very
to Preposition.
on Preposition.
before Preposition.
soon
all Adjective.
since Preposition.
Were you with _her_?
Will you _carry_ this?
Yesterday was _very_ wet.
Are you going _to_ London?
London is _on_ the Thames.
Please walk on _before_ us.
We will be there _soon_.
That is _all_.
_Since_ you are not coming I will not come.
_Plutarch’s ‘Lives’_
1. These words “Arms and laws do not flourish together,” were said by
Julius Cæsar in answer to a book that had been written by a greater
orator than himself called Cicero. In this he said that the people
could not expect him to be such a great orator as Cicero who had
studied all his life for Cæsar had to fight and could not study.
2. When Cæsar first went into Gaul to fight against the Helvetians and
the Tigurini he sent out his lieutenant to fight the Tigurini. His
lieutenant defeated them so he went on to fight the Helvetians who had
burnt 400 of their villages, and 12 of their large towns. He marched
against them and after having fought them he defeated them and he made
the prisoners he took resettle in the land and rebuild the towns and
villages they had burnt for fear that other tribes from Germany should
come and settle in a country that was left with no inhabitants.
_Arithmetic_
1. 1000 1000 1000 1000
197 931 240 99
---- ---- ---- ----
803 69 760 901
2. If quill pens cost 12s. a thousand, how much would 250 cost?
4)12
----
3 Ans. 3s. = four 250.
3. How many florins in 1000 shillings?
2)1000
-----
500 Ans. 500 florins.
_English History_
1. _Caractacus_ was one of the early British chiefs who held out
against the Romans for a long time. After he had been fighting many
times he was defeated and taken prisoner by the Romans and was then
brought before the R. Governor, where he was tried. The Roman Governor
wished to put him to death, but he said “You can put me to death but
you will more honour if you spare my life.” So after a time he was
let go, and the Governor said for his brave words he was to be well
treated.
2. _Chester_ or _Castra_ in Latin meant camp, so therefore
in the word Manchester it is shown that the Romans had a camp there
and that tells us it is a old town.
2. (_b_) When we use the word _Thursday_, we are bringing
the old Saxon God _Thor_ into our mind, as it was on this day
that the Saxons worshipped this God.[53]
(_c_) When we say the word _Saturday_, we are again recalling
the old Saxon God, whose name was Saturn, the planet which we now
have, and it was on this day that the Saxons worshipped their old
God.[53a]
3. _The Northmen_ were a wild race who came from Germany and
Denmark, and they were always coming and invading England as the
Saxons had done before them. Canute was their greatest king and he
had many flatterers at his court, and they said that everything would
obey him, the water, the sun and the moon, etc. So one day he ordered
his chair to be carried to the water’s edge and then he said to the
sea “Come no further on my land,” but of course the sea still came
on, and his courtiers had to rush and save him from getting very wet.
The Northmen plundered the land and burnt it, so that the Saxons all
wanted to get rid of them, and some of the Bishops prayed “From the
fury of the Northmen, good Lord deliver us.”[53a]
_Natural History_
1. _Earth pillars_ are pillars of earth generally with a stone on
the top. Where they are now was once all level ground, but the rain
came and washed away the softest clay, then the sun came, and hardened
the other into cracks. Then more rain came and washed that away, but
occasionally there was a large stone which prevented the water washing
the clay away and there it remained beneath, thus forming an earth
pillar with a stone on the top. When the stone comes off, the pillar
is almost sure to fall down for then it is no longer protected from
the rain.
[_Diagram of four earth pillars_]
1. (_b_) A _landslip_ is a large piece of land which has
fallen away from the top of a cliff, or the side of a hill. It is
caused by the rain sinking down through some soil until it comes to
a hard rock, and then more and more rain coming, it makes a regular
little pond or pool. This makes the foundation of the hill or cliff
very unsafe. Then it begins to fall away, and thus gradually the whole
part goes down, and that is how the landslip is caused.[54]
1. (_c_) _Pot-holes_ are round holes at the sides of a waterfall. They
are caused by the water coming down and bringing little stones with
it, and beating them against the rock on each side of the waterfall,
so that it gradually pounds away the side of the rock till it makes it
into a round hole. If you look in these holes you will generally find
one or two round stones, which have been used by the water for
pounding the rock. When the water has broken these stones to tiny
little bits, it brings others down, which it uses in the same way, and
so it continues to make the pot-hole.[54a]
I have noticed a waterfall in Ireland gradually cutting itself
deeper and deeper into the earth, and carrying down the rocks from up
above.[55]
3. (_a_) A _rook_ is a fairly large black bird. It does a
great deal of good to the farmers by eating the grubs which are in
their fields, though it eats a little corn, but it does much more good
than evil. Once several farmers decided to shoot all the rooks round
about, expecting to get a very good crop, but instead of this they
had only a very little corn, so that they had to induce more rooks to
come and settle there again. Rooks generally fly in flocks. They make
their nests high up in tall trees, and use the same nests each year,
repairing them every now and then in the winter to keep them all right
for the next nesting time.[55a]
3. (_b_) A _starling_ is also a black bird, but it has bright colours
on the tips of its wings so that it does not look nearly as black as a
rook. It is the smallest of its family, the crow is the largest. It
feeds generally upon grubs, though it will eat bread and corn when it
cannot get other food. Its eggs are pale blue, and there are from four
to five of them in the nest, which is generally built half-way up a
tree or in old buildings and barns.[55a]
3. (_c_) A _jackdaw_ is another black bird, though it has a
little grey on the head and a little on the body. It belongs to the
crow family and builds its nest very high up, and so is very hard to
find. The nest is made of straw and bits of dry grass and other little
bits of old stuff. Its eggs are the same colour as the starling.[55a]
3. (_d_) The colours of a _thrush_ are, on the back a browny
grey, the throat and breast are a whity grey with spots of brown, the
tail also brown with a little white and spots underneath, and the
wings are brown like the back. Its nest is made of dry grass, etc.,
and other bits of old stuff, and the inside is lined with mud. Its
eggs are generally about four, occasionally five. They are a beautiful
blue colour with spots of brownish black. It sings very beautifully.
Once a little thrush was known to die from having sung too violently,
and by that breaking one of its bloodvessels.[56]
I have noticed that the thrush sings very loudly, and that the sort
of song he sings is--‘Pretty Mary’ or ‘Pretty Joey.’ When we put out
crumbs for the birds in the morning, the thrush does not come so much
as the other birds, such as sparrows and black-birds, etc.[56a]
_Scripture_
I. 1. There had been a law made by the king of Egypt that all the
Hebrew children should be put to death so Moses’ mother took her
little babe Moses to the river’s side in a cradle which she had made
and pushed it out until it went into the reeds on the other side.
When Pharoah’s (_sic_) daughter came down to bathe in the river,
she heard the baby crying, and told some of her maids to fetch the
cradle and see what was in it. When she found it was a little baby
she thought she would keep it, as she had none herself. Before this
Moses’ mother had put her daughter to watch what would happen to the
baby, and when she saw the Princess take it, she came and asked if she
should get a nurse for it. The Princess said to the mother “Take this
child and nurse it for me.” So Moses was taken into the palace and
nursed there and was treated as a prince.
All royal children were very well educated so Moses was taken to
school and had to study very hard. When he had learned reading and
writing, he went to college at On, where there was a University and
here he studied all the arts and laws of the Egyptians. We know he
was a great warrior because we told him coming back in triumph after
defeating some of the enemies of Pharoah (_sic_).
II. 1. (_a_) Jesus was walking along by the Sea of Galilee when
he saw two fishermen, whose names were Andrew and Simon Peter, and
they were mending their nets. He turned to them, wishing them to be
his disciples and said “Come ye after me.” So they left their nets and
followed Him.[57]
(_b_) Jesus was in Peter’s house at Capernaum and as he healed
the people there was a great crowd round about and a man which had
palsy could not get in. So his four friends which were carrying him
lifted him up on to the roof, and then opened the trap door, and let
him down unto Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith He said “Is it easier
to say forgive thee thy sins,” or to say “Arise and take up thy bed.”
Then He turned to the man and said “Arise, take up thy bed and go to
thy house.” So the man was healed.[57a]
(_c_) After Jesus had healed the man with the withered hand the
Pharisees took counsel with the Herodians how they could destroy Him,
but Jesus took a boat to sail across the Sea of Galilee to the other
shore. As He was going, He fell asleep in the boat. When they got
about half-way across a great storm came on, so that the boat was
almost full of water and His disciples were frightened, and woke Him
up and said “Master, save us, for otherwise we shall drown.” Then
Jesus woke and said, “Have ye so little faith, that ye are frightened
at this storm.” So He got up, and said to the winds and the storm
“Peace, be still” and the storm ceased, and there was a great calm.
Then the disciples marvelled and said to themselves “Who is this, that
even the winds and the waves obey.”[57a]
II. 2. A sower went forth to sow, and as he sowed some of the seeds
fell by the way side and the fowls of the air came along, and ate them
up; others fell upon rocky places, where there was no depth of earth,
and they sprang up quickly but when the sun came out it scorched them
up--others fell among thorns and prickles, so that when they came
up, they were choked and could not live, and others fell among good
soil and produced fruit, some thirty fold, some sixty, and some a
hundred.[58]
_French History_
1. _Martin_, who was afterwards made saint, came from Germany.
When he was only about ten years old he ran away from home to become
a monk, but he was taken by the Romans to be made a soldier. One day
while he was a soldier he was coming out of town when he saw a beggar
without anything on him who was asking for alms, so he took out his
purse but he found he had no money in it so taking his sword he cut
his cloak in half and gave one half to the beggar. In a dream that
night he saw God clothed in half a cloak and He said to the angels
around Him “Martin who is not yet a Christian has clothed me with his
garment.” So he took it as a sign that he should be made a Christian
and so he went to the Bishop and was baptized. After he left the army,
he studied some time in Italy and then came back to Gaul and founded
the first Christian monastery at Tours. He went from place to place
with his disciples preaching and teaching and he was one of the most
famous early Christian teachers.
2. _Clovis_ was one of the great Merovingian kings. When he was
only about sixteen years old, he was made king of the Franks. After
they had been plundering a church the Bishop of Rheims asked Clovis
if he would send him back a silver vase which had originally belonged
to that church, so Clovis sent back a message saying he would, if it
fell to his share, but otherwise he could not. When all the treasure
was collected, Clovis asked if the silver vase could be given to him
and all agreed but one man, who said that rather than let him have
it, he would break it, so he took his sword and smashed it in little
pieces. This was at Soissons. Some time after, when he was reviewing
his army, he saw the same man that had broken the vase, and as his
sword was hanging not quite properly, he told the man to right it. As
the man was doing so, he drew out his own sword, and cut the man’s
head off, saying at the same time “Thus did you break the vase at
Soissons.” Later on, when he was fighting a battle, he was not yet a
Christian, and the fight was going against him, so he called out “If I
win this battle, I will serve the Lord of my wife,” she being already
a Christian, and as he did win, he was baptized by the Bishop, who had
already received the pieces of the vase which had been broken. As he
was being baptized the Bishop said to him “Adore what you have burnt,
burn what you have adored.”[59]
3. _Charles the Great_, or Charlemange, as he is usually called,
was one of the very greatest Emperors. His empire stretched to the
mouth of the Elbe in Germany, to the Theiss in Austria, half of
Italy, the whole of France and a small piece of Spain. He was called
the Emperor of the West, and had been made so by the Pope. There had
not been an Emperor of the West for a long time, there having been
nobody great enough for the position. He was a very good king, and
had schools built all over the country, and thus he made a Christian
empire amidst all the wild races there. He placed Counts over the
different parts to see that all was done well there, and if they could
not manage anything, they were to send up to Charlemange. He had also
two chief ministers whom he sent round to the different places to see
that the Counts did their work rightly. He liked to live best at a
place in Germany called Aachen, and it was there he died.[59a]
_Geography_
1. In going a tour from England through the Mediterranean to the
Black Sea, I could go first to France, then to Spain and Portugal,
then reach Gibraltar, and on one side be Africa, and on the other
Spain. Then I would see France again and then Italy with the Island of
Sicily. Then I would pass Turkey and Greece, and come to the Straits
of Constantinople, and reaching the Black Sea I could visit Russia.
2. The boundaries of _Austria_ are--
North, Germany and Russia.
South, Turkey.
East, Russia and Turkey.
West, Adriatic Sea and Italy.
The boundaries of _Switzerland_:--
North, Germany.
South, Italy.
East, Austria.
West, France.
The boundaries of _Greece_ are--
North, Turkey.
South, Mediterranean.
East, Archipelago.
West, Adriatic Sea.
4. A journey in the lake District would be very beautiful, especially
in summer. Derwent-water is the most beautiful of the lakes, but
Windermere is the largest of all. The Lake District is called the
playground of England, because people go there to see the glorious
scenery. There are many mountains of which Helvyllen is the monarch,
but Scaw-fell is higher. There are lots of other mountains with
curious names, one is the Pillar another the Saddle-back, and there
is a waterfall there which has a lot of water rushing down. The poets
Southy (_sic_) and Wordsworth lived in the Lake District, and
Southey has written a poem about the waterfall splashing and dashing.
One of the towns is called Ambleside and from there the coachs
(_sic_) start for the lakes.
5. A Map of Northumberland.
This boy has written the whole of his papers, excepting where
‘dictated’ is indicated by the figure ‘1.’ Children in Class II. may
write part and dictate part of their examination work, as to write the
whole would be tiring for the younger pupils.
Parents and teachers are so often at a loss as to whether the work
of the children they are teaching does, or does not, reach a fair
average standard, and as to whether their education is conducted on
lines too broad or too narrow, that these specimens of children’s work
may be of use by way of a fair average standard. The programme of
the term’s work for each child is given, as well as the examination
questions the children have answered. It will be seen that the plan
of their studies is very much the same as would be adopted in the
case of advanced students, that is to say, the children read during
the term an appointed number of pages or chapters in a considerable
number of books written with intelligence. I think that the style
of the children’s answers justifies this method of teaching; they
speak out of a full and satisfying knowledge of their subjects. It
is astonishing what repose of mind children gain when they entirely
comprehend their lessons, and that they should remember what they have
fully understood is a matter of course. The little girl (Appendix
C) has dictated all her answers, but sends specimens of her writing
and reading. The boy’s work is partly dictated and partly written
by himself. I have indicated the end of each dictated answer. His
diagrams, maps, drawings, are very good. His pointing, spelling, etc.,
have been carefully preserved. Having been educated upon books for
three years, spelling and composition have come to him as matters of
course. Hundreds of children educated in the same way are constantly
producing comparable results. Some children, as one in fifty, perhaps,
are inveterately bad spellers, but no child taught in this way fails
to compose with ease and vigour. The habit of narration in ordinary
lessons makes the dictation of answers to examination questions a very
simple matter.
I should add that this work is done during morning school, which lasts
two and a half (for the girl) to three hours (for the boy), out of
which time half an hour is given to drill and play. No preparation
is done in the evenings. The afternoons are spent in field work,
handicrafts, etc., but no book work is done except in the morning
school-hours.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] Subjects thus indicated to be marked according to _Regulations_.
[51] Dictated to end.
[52] Dictated.
[53] Dictated.
[54] Dictated.
[55] Dictated.
[56] Dictated.
[57] Dictated.
[58] Dictated. Some Scripture answers omitted for want of space.
[59] Dictated.
Index
Accuracy, 165.
_Adam Bede_, 69.
Affection as a motive, 144.
Affections, the, 101.
Air,
as important as food, 28;
unchanged, 31;
night, wholesome, 34;
country, 92;
unvitiated, 93.
Airings, indoor, 33.
Alfred, King, 283.
Alphabet, teaching the, 201.
Ants, how to keep, 57.
Application, habits of, 149, 150.
Arithmetic,
the teaching of, 253-264;
a means of training, 260.
Arnold, Dr, 175.
Art, pictorial, 307-313.
Artificial reflex actions, 116.
Asser, 283.
Association,
a mind at the mercy of, 138;
the law of, 157;
a condition of recollection, 158.
Attention,
habit of, 86, 137-149;
wandering, 139;
to things, 141;
what is?, 145;
self-compelled, 145.
Audubon, 59.
Augustine, St, 330.
Austen, Jane, 83.
Autobiography of Mary Howitt, 248.
Avebury, Lord, 56.
Baby is ubiquitous, the, 126.
Bath, the daily, 36.
Bede, the Venerable, 284, 285.
Beef-tea, 32.
Bible,
lessons, 247-253;
method of, lessons, 251;
recitations in, lessons, 253;
the chief source of moral ideas, 336;
the reading of the, 348.
‘Bird-stalking,’ 89-92.
Blood, certain causes affect the quality of the, 25.
Books,
field-lore and naturalists’, 62;
uses of naturalists’, 64;
lesson, 229.
Brain,
conditions of healthy, activity, 20;
all mind labour means wear of, tissue, 21;
a healthy, 96;
incessant regeneration of, tissue, 115;
no limit to recording power of the, 158.
Bridgman, Laura, 195.
Burns, 126.
Calendars, naturalists’, 54.
Carpenter, Dr, 68, 111, 112, 116, 131.
Cerebration, unconscious, 108.
Change,
of occupation, 23;
the child’s thoughts, 167, 325.
Character affected by acquired modifications of brain tissue, 118;
the result of conduct regulated by will, 320.
Charles II., 29.
Charts, history, 293.
Child,
the estate of the, 11;
divine estimate of the, 12.
Children,
are public trusts, 1;
training of, dreadfully defective, 3;
offending the, 13-17;
are born law-abiding, 13;
must perceive that their governors are law-compelled, 15;
should have the best of their mothers, 17;
despising the, 17;
hindering the, 19;
the faults of, are serious, 19;
relationships of, with God, 19;
the, walk every day, 29;
out-of-door life for the, 42-95;
should know field-crops, 51;
should follow the seasons, 52;
should be encouraged to watch, 57;
what town, can do, 59;
get knowledge by means of their senses, 65;
learn from _things_, 67;
should be made familiar with natural objects, 69;
and mother nature, 78-80;
require country air, 92;
a physical ideal for, 94;
have no self-compelling power, 98;
are incapable of steady effort, 99;
should be saved the effort of decision, 100;
must not be left to their human nature, 102;
habits of, are formed involuntarily, 105;
should learn dancing, etc., at an early age, 113;
should put away their playthings, 130;
should be let alone, 134;
should execute perfectly, 159;
must have desire to obey, 161;
learn, to grow, 171;
learn, to get ideas, 173;
learn, to get knowledge, 174;
literature proper for, 176;
danger of undervaluing intelligence of, 186;
should be allowed some ordering of their lives, 194;
‘only,’ 193;
narrate by nature, 231;
enjoy the Bible, 247;
should know the Bible text, 248;
have art in them, 313;
should be taught the way of the will, 326;
play with moral questions, 336.
Christ, our King, 350;
the indwelling of, 352.
Christianity, the essence of, 350.
_Christmas Day and other Sermons_, 341, 342.
_Cinderella_, 138.
Classification, first-hand, 63.
Clay-modelling, 313.
Cleanliness, 124, 127.
Climbing, 83.
Clothing, 84.
Cobbe, Frances Power, 102.
Code of education in the Gospels, 12.
Coleridge, 61, 318, 337.
Common sense, 37.
Compass drill, 76.
Composition, 243-247;
lessons in, 245;
comes by nature, 247.
Conditions of healthy brain activity, 20-37
Conscience,
is judge and lawgiver, 329;
is not an infallible guide, 331;
a real power, 332;
a spiritual sense, 332;
an undeveloped capability in children, 333;
the uninstructed, 334;
the instructed, 335;
a child’s good, 335;
of a child ignorant, 338;
instructing the, 339;
made effective by discipline, 340.
Consequences, natural and educative, of conduct, 148.
_Copperfield, David_, 69.
Cowper, 22, 86.
Creatures, living, 56-62.
_Cul-de-sac_, an educational, 89.
Darwin, 107.
Dates in history teaching, 289.
Dawes, the Rev. Richard, 270.
Days in the open, 43.
Decision, a ‘conscientious,’ 334.
Desires, the, 100.
Desks, 239, 265.
Despising the children, 17-19.
Dickens, Charles, 69, 186, 263.
Dictation, 240;
steps of a lesson in, 241.
_Diogenes and the Naughty Boys of Troy_, 152.
Direction,
in geography lessons, 74;
practice in finding, 75.
Distance, in geography lessons, 73.
Diversion, 324.
Divine life in the child, the, 341-352.
Drawing lessons, 312.
Drills, 315.
Duty of a child, the whole, 160.
Edgeworth, Maria, 148.
_Education_, by Herbert Spencer, 4.
Education,
traditional methods of, 6;
code of, in the Gospels, 12;
‘the reign of law’ in, 37;
based upon natural law, 96-134;
is the formation of habits, 97;
intellectual and moral, 117;
infant, 125;
in habits favours an easy life, 135;
a science of, 135;
lessons as instruments of, 169-316.
Educational forces, Love, Law, Religion, 99.
Educator, problem before the, 103.
Emulation, 143.
Enunciation, 230.
Esau, 40.
Evans, Mr, 69.
_Evenings at Home_, 265.
Exaggeration, 165.
Exercise,
mental, 21;
daily physical, 132-134.
Family is the unit of the nation, the, 5.
Farrar, Dean, 56.
Faults of children, the, 19.
_Faust_, Marlowe’s, 107, 119.
Field lore, 62-65.
Fleming, Marjorie, 223.
Flowers,
and trees, 51-56;
field, and the life-history of plants, 51;
Leigh Hunt on, 53.
Francis, S., 60.
Free-will and habit, 110.
_French Home Life_, 7.
French,
the, lesson, 80, 157, 300-307;
M. Gouin’s method, 302;
the _Series_, 303.
Froebel, 179, 185, 197, 198.
Games,
out-of-door, 80;
noisy, 81.
Garden of Eden, the, 128.
Garments,
porous, 36;
for walks in bad weather, 87.
Geography,
out-of-door, 72-78;
pictorial, 72;
physical, 73;
‘distance,’ 73;
‘direction,’ 74;
use of compass in, 76;
‘boundaries,’ 77;
‘plans,’ 77;
local, 78, 271-279;
should be interesting, 273;
how to begin, 273;
maps, 275;
general knowledge of, 276;
particular knowledge of, 276;
definitions, 277;
fundamental ideas of, 277.
God,
relationship of children with, 19;
allegiance to, 38;
the Law-giver, 39;
presented as an Exactor, 345;
the knowledge of, distinct from morality, 347;
the Father and Giver, 349.
Gordon, 322.
Gospels, the code of education in the, 12, 19.
Gouin, M., 304.
Grace, divine, works on lines of human effort, 104.
Grammar, 295-300;
a difficult study, 295;
Latin, 295;
English, a logical study, 295;
first lessons in, 296-300.
Guido’s ‘Magdalen,’ 322.
Habit,
is ten natures, 96-134;
the instrument by which parents work, 97;
may supplant nature, 105;
runs on the lines of nature, 105;
may be a lever, 105;
a, is formed involuntarily, 105;
forces nature into new channels, 106;
lines of, must be laid down, 107;
direction of lines of, 109;
and free-will, 110;
rules our thoughts and acts, 110;
powerful even when the will decides, 111;
the physiology of, 111-118;
the forming of a, 119-124;
a delight in itself, 121;
stages in formation of a, 122;
of music, 133;
of attention, 137;
of application, 149;
of thinking, 150;
of imagining, 151;
of remembering, 154;
of perfect execution, 159;
of obedience, 160-164;
may frustrate the will, 326;
of self-management, 328.
Habits,
moral and mental, 113;
infant, 124-132;
of time and place, 131;
of mind, 135-168;
moral, 135-168;
training in, becomes a habit, 136;
inspired in the home atmosphere, 137;
slipshod, 229.
Hall, Dr Stanley, 198.
Handicrafts, 315.
Havelock, 322.
Head, Captain, 150.
Heidelberg, 159.
Heredity, 101.
Hindering the children, 19, 20.
History,
the teaching of, 279-295;
a storehouse of ideas, 279;
‘outlines,’ mischievous, 280;
early, best fitted for children, 281;
chronicles, 282;
myths, 284;
books, 287;
dates in teaching, 291;
narrating and illustrations, 294;
‘playing at,’ 294.
Home,
the best growing ground for young children, 170;
work, 147.
Honour, the sense of, 128.
Houdin, 86.
Howe, Dr, 195.
Hullah, Mr, 133.
Human nature, 101, 102.
Hunt, Leigh, 53.
Huxley, 23, 116.
Ideas,
children learn, to get, 173;
grow and produce after their kind, 173;
Scott and Stevenson worked with, 174;
value of dominant, 174;
lessons must furnish, 174;
fitting and vital, 347.
Illustrations, original, 311.
Imagination,
tales of the, 152;
and great conceptions, 152;
grows, 153.
Imagining, the habit of, 151-154.
Inattention, 229.
Incongruous, sense of the, 151.
Indian Mutiny, the, 335.
Inertness of parents, the, 332.
Influence, outside, 118.
Initiative, the importance of personal, 192.
Intelligence, the danger of undervaluing children’s, 186.
Intentions, good, and common sense, 37.
Intimacy with nature, 71.
_Intimations of Immortality_, 11-12.
Jerusalem, 82.
Jesus, our Saviour, 351.
Keller, Helen, 194-196.
Kindergarten,
the, method, 8, 82, 170;
the, as a place of education, 178-199;
the nursery need not be a, 179;
field of knowledge too circumscribed in the, 179;
‘occupations,’ 180;
‘sweetness and light’ in the, 180;
further considerations of the, 182-199;
a false analogy, 189;
Miss Sullivan on the, 195;
the, in the United States, 196;
Mr Thistleton Mark on the, 197;
Dr Stanley Hall on the, 198.
Kindergärtnerin,
the mother the best, 178;
the true, 185, 188.
Kindness, 339.
Kingsley, 58, 71.
King’s Somborne School, 268.
Knowledge,
nature, 61;
attractiveness of, 145;
the doctoring of the material of, 172;
children learn, to get, 174;
diluted, 175;
Dr Arnold’s, as a child, 175;
of God distinct from morality, 347.
Landseer, 309.
Law,
reign of, in education, 37;
‘mind’ and ‘matter’ equally governed by, 39;
antagonism to, shown by some religious persons, 39;
and love as educational forces, 99;
ensures liberty, 164.
Laws of health, 16;
of the intellectual and moral life, 16.
_Laws of Thought_, Thompson’s, 150.
Lesson,
must recall the last, each, 156;
books, 229.
Lessons,
attractive, 141;
as instruments of education, 169-316;
must furnish ideas, 174.
_Life of Wesley_, Southey’s, 200.
Life,
out-of-door, 92-95;
the divine, in the child, 341-353.
Light, solar, 94.
Literature, proper for children, 176.
Lives, law-abiding, often more blameless than pious, 38.
Livingstone, Dr, 101, 274, 275.
_Logic_, J. S. Mill’s, 261.
_Lucy_, Wordsworth’s, 33.
_Lycidas_, 225.
Lying, three causes of, 164, 165.
Macaulay’s schoolboy, 30.
Magnetism in the teacher, personal, 188.
Malmesbury, William of, 283.
Manners, good, 132.
Mansoul, the government of, 317.
Maps, 275;
the meaning of, 278.
Mark, Mr Thistleton, 197.
Marlowe, 119.
Masterly inactivity, 5, 134, 192.
Mathematics, the preparation for, 263.
Maurice, F. D., 341, 342.
Meals,
concerning, 25;
talk at, 26;
variety in, 27;
out of doors, 42.
Memorising, 224.
Memory,
a ‘spurious,’ 155;
a record in the brain substance, 155.
Men,
grown, lose habit of observation, 69;
power will pass into the hands of scientific, 71.
Mental effort, rapid, 149.
_Mental Physiology_, Dr Carpenter’s, 68, 111, 112, 116, 131.
Method,
a way to an end, 8;
kindergarten, 8;
a system easier than a, 9.
Methods, traditional, of education, 6.
Mill, J. S., 261, 323.
Miller, Miss, 217.
Mind,
labour means wear of brain, 21;
and matter equally governed by law, 39.
Modesty, 128.
Modifications, acquired, of brain tissue, 118.
Monmouth, Geoffrey of, 285.
‘Mooning,’ 147.
Moore, the Rev. H. A., 270.
Morell’s _Introduction to Mental Philosophy_, 68, 329.
Morley, Professor, 283.
‘Mother-games’ too strenuous for children, 190.
Mother, the, the best kindergärtnerin, 178.
Mothers,
owe a ‘thinking’ love to their children, 2;
form their children’s habits involuntarily, 105;
and teachers should know about
nature, 64;
must refrain from too much talk, 78.
Music, the habit of, 133, 314.
Narrating, the art of, 231-233.
Natural philosophy, 264-271.
Naturalist, mental training of a child, 61.
Naturalists’ books, 64.
Nature,
diaries, 54, 62, 65;
work most important for young children, 61;
especially valuable for girls, 62;
mothers and teachers should know about, 64;
the teaching of, 65;
intimacy with, makes for personal well-being, 71;
what is, 100;
_plus_ heredity, 101;
elemental notion of human, 101;
_plus_ physical conditions, 102;
human, the sum of certain attributes, 102;
as an educator, 186;
danger of supplanting, 191.
Neatness akin to order, 130.
Newton, Sir Isaac, 54.
Nightingale, Florence, 322.
Nose, a sensitive, 125.
Notation, 257.
Nourishment, mental, 24.
‘Nurse,’ 18.
Obedience,
habit of, 128, 160;
no accidental duty, 161;
must be expected, 162.
Object lessons, 67.
Observation,
discriminating, 47;
grown men lose habit of, 69;
in winter, 85.
Occupation, change of, 23.
Offending the children, 13-17.
Opinion, the force of public, in the home, 58.
Order, habit of, 129.
Overpressure, 66, 146.
Osborne, George, 243.
Othello, 4.
Out-of-door life for the children, 43-45.
Oxygen,
has its limitation, 30;
the essential proportion of, 92.
‘Pacing,’ 73.
_Palace Tales_, by H. Fielding, 296.
_Paradise Lost_, 24, 226.
Parents,
may _offend_ by disregarding laws of health and of the intellectual
and moral life, 16;
must acquaint themselves with principles of physiology and moral
science, 40;
the trust of, must not be supine, 104;
must lay down laws of habit, 107;
must expect obedience, 162;
must reflect on subject-matter of instruction, 169;
must sow opportunities, 192;
inertness of, 331;
have some power to enthrone the King, 341;
must present idea of God to children, 343;
must not make blundering efforts, 344;
must select inspiring ideas, 346;
must teach only what they know, 346.
_Parents’ Review_, the, 270.
Paul, St, 322.
Persistence, 122.
Persons,
born with the same primary desires and affections, all, 100, 101;
the requirements of, 186.
Perspiration, free, 35;
insensible, 35.
Pestalozzi, 2.
‘Picture-painting,’ 48-51;
method of, 48;
a strain on the attention, 48;
fully and in detail, 49;
the mother’s part in, 49;
a means of after solace, 50.
Picture-talk, 309.
‘Plans’ in teaching geography, 77.
Plato, 185.
Pleasures connected with frost and snow, 85.
Plutarch’s _Lives_, 233, 286.
Possibilities of a day in the open, 43.
Power, no limit to the recording, of the brain, 158.
Priestley’s, Dr, _Lectures on History_, 176.
Printing, 234.
Problems in arithmetic, 257.
Pronunciation, careful, 206.
Prospero, 30.
_Punch_, 94.
Punishments, 148.
Purity, 128.
_Pussy Box_, 222.
Reading, 199-222;
at sight, 204;
the, of prose, 204;
ordinary method of teaching, 206;
the first, lessons, 207-222;
by sight and by sound, 214;
handwriting, 214;
arbitrary symbols, 215;
sentences, 218;
moral training in, lessons, 221;
for older children, 226-230;
the habit of, 227;
aloud to children, 227.
Recitation, 222-226.
Recollection, 154;
and the law of association, 157.
‘Red Indian’ life, 88.
Reflex actions may be acquired, artificial, 116.
Regularity in infant education, 131.
Religion as an educational force, 99.
Religious instruction, 347.
Remembering, 154.
Rest, 22;
after meals, 22.
Reverence, for life, 62, 166.
Rewards, 148.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 314.
Richter, J. Paul, 88.
_Robinson Crusoe_, 152, 187, 232.
_Rondes_, 82.
_Rosamund and the Purple Jar_, 148.
Ruskin, 155, 263, 312.
Scott and Stevenson worked with ideas, 174.
Scott, Sir Walter, 223.
‘Sight-seeing,’ 45-48;
how to do, 46;
educational uses of, 46.
Simpson, Sir James, 185.
Singing, 314.
Skipping-rope and shuttlecock, 83.
Smith, Adam, 333.
Smollett’s _History of England_, 175.
Soul,
the functions and life of the, 342;
what is the life of the?, 343.
Southey’s _Life of Wesley_, 200.
Spelling, early, 203;
bad, 240;
the rationale of, 241;
causes of illiterate, 243.
Spencer, Herbert, 3, 4, 265.
Steele, Richard, 223.
Sullivan, Miss, 195.
Sun, the, 73.
Sunshine, 34.
Swanwick, Miss Anna, 225.
System easier than a method, A, 9.
Table for little children, a, 240.
Tact, 122.
Teachers,
should know about nature, 64;
must lay down laws of habit, 107;
mediate too much, 188;
must sow opportunities, 192.
Temper, 166;
not, but tendency, 166;
new habit of, 167.
Tennyson, 52, 63, 69, 330.
Tests applied to children’s lessons, four, 177.
Text-hand, 235, 238.
_The Ancient Mariner_, 61.
_The Heir of Redclyffe_, 323.
_The Mill on the Floss_, 69.
Theology, nursery, 20.
Thermopylæ, 187.
_Things_, children learn from, 67.
Thinking comes by practice, 153.
Thompson’s _Laws of Thought_, 150.
Thought, persistent trains of, 114.
Thoughts,
think themselves, 108;
change the child’s, 167.
Time-tables, 142.
_Tintern Abbey_, 50.
Tolstoi, the childhood of, 182.
Tonic Sol-fa, 314.
Training,
of children ‘dreadfully defective,’ 3;
of ear and voice, 133;
mental, of a child naturalist, 61;
of a just eye and faithful hand, 180;
in habits becomes a habit, 136.
Tramps in wet weather, 87.
Transcription, 238-240.
Trees and flowers, 51-56;
the study of, 52.
Trench, Archbishop, 55.
Truth, essential and accidental, 249.
Truthfulness, 164, 165.
Tuileries, The, 59.
Ulysses, 187.
_Vanity Fair_, 243.
Ventilation, 33.
Walks,
in bad weather, 85-88;
winter, 85;
garments for, 87.
Watchfulness, 122.
Weighing and measuring, 259.
Wesley, Mrs, 199.
Wilfulness, what is? 321.
Will, 317-329;
executive power vested in the, 317;
what is the?, 318;
persons may go through life without deliberate act of, 318;
three functions of, 319;
wilfulness indicates want of, power, 320;
the, has superior and inferior functions, 321;
the, is not a moral faculty, 322;
the, must be disciplined, 322;
the sole practical faculty of man, 323;
how the, operates, 323;
the way of the, 324;
power of, implies power of attention, 326;
habit may frustrate the, 326;
how to strengthen the, 327;
education of the, 329.
Word-making, 202, 203.
Words a weariness, 141.
Wordsworth, 11, 12, 33, 50, 69, 79, 188.
Work, definite, in a given time, 142.
Writing, 233-240;
position in, 239.
‘W. V.,’ 188.
Zambesi, the tribes of the, 101.
Zeal must be stimulated, 149.
∵ As allusion has been made to the _Parents’ National Educational
Union_ and its various agencies, especially of the _Parents’
Review School_, it may be well to add that information about
these may be had from the Secretary. The “_Questions for the
Use of Readers_” are inserted with a view to the P.N.E.U.
READING COURSE. Persons who wish to become “Qualified Members”
of the Union by undertaking this course should communicate with the
Secretary, 26 Victoria Street, London, S.W.
PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.
Transcriber’s Note:
This book was written in a period when many words had not become
standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
left unchanged unless indicated below.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_; those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this.=
Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of
each Part. Several footnotes have multiple anchors. Subsequent anchors
are identified with an “a” following the anchor number.
Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, unprinted, or
partially printed letters, were corrected. Final stops missing at the
end of sentences and abbreviations were added.
The following items were changed:
Added missing accents to words in Italian in the poem preceding the
Preface.
Added missing word: Let them once get [in] touch.
Spelling corrections:
They must be bept [kept]
in consequences from certain premisses [premises]
In this connecton [connection]
but thus [this] much is evident
at the royal vill [villa]
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOME EDUCATION ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
United States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you “AS-IS”, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™'s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
