Household Education Part 6

It does not follow from this that to be very good a child must be exceedingly clever and "highly educated," as we call it. There are plenty of highly-educated people who are not morally good; and there are many honest and amiable and industrious people who cannot read and write. The thing is, we misuse the word "Education." Book-learning is compatible with great poverty of intellect; and there may be a very fine understanding, great power of attention and observation, and possibly, though rarely, of reflection, in a person who has never learned to read,--if the moral goodness of that person has put his mind into a calm and teachable and happy state, and his powers of thought have been stimulated by active affections; if, as we say, his heart has quickened his head. These are truths very important to know; and they ought to be consolatory to parents who are grieved and alarmed because they cannot send their children to school,--supposing that their intellectual part must suffer and go to waste for want of school training and instruction from books. I will say simply and openly what I think about this.

I think that no children, in any rank of life, can acquire so much book-knowledge at home as at a good school, or have their intellectual faculties so well roused and trained. I have never seen an instance of such high attainment in languages, mathematics, history, or philosophy in young people taught at home,--even by the best masters,--as in those who have been in a good school. Without going into the reasons of this, which would lend us out of our way here, I would fully admit the fact.

There are two ways of taking it. First, it cannot be helped. A much larger number of people are unable to send their children to school than can do so. The queen cannot send her children to school: and the children of the peerage are under great disadvantage. The girls cannot, or do not, go from home; and the boys go only to one or another of a very small choice of public schools, where they must run tremendous risks to both morals and intellect. Then there are mult.i.tudes of families, in town and country, among rich and poor, where the children must be taught at home. The number is much larger of the children who do not go to school than of those who do. If we consider, again, how large a proportion of schools, taking them from the highest to the lowest, are so bad that children learn little in them, it is clear that the home-trained intellects are out of all proportion more numerous than the school-trained.

The other way of looking at the matter is in order to inquire what school advantages may be brought home--what there is in the school that children may have the benefit of at home.

The fundamental difference between school and home is clear enough. At school, everything is done by rule; by a law which was made without a view to any particular child, and which governs all alike: whereas, at home, the government is not one of law, working on from year to year without change, but of love, or, at least, of the mind of the parents, varying with circ.u.mstances, and with the ages and dispositions of the children. There is no occasion to point out here how great are the moral advantages of a good home in comparison with the best of schools. Our business now is with the intellectual training. Can the advantages of school law be brought into the home?

I think they may, to a certain extent: and I think it of great importance that they should. Law will not do all at home that it does at school. It is known to be new made, for the sake of the parties under it; and it cannot possibly work so undeviatingly in a family as in a school; and the children of a family, no two of whom are of the same age, cannot have their faculties so stimulated to achieve irksome labour as in a large cla.s.s of comrades of the same age and standing. But still, rule and regularity will do much: and when we consider the amount of drudgery that children have to get through in acquiring the elements of knowledge, we shall feel it to be only humane and fair to give them any aid that can be afforded through the plans of the household.

Those kinds and parts of knowledge which interest the reasoning faculties and the imagination are not in question just now. They come by and by, and can better take care of themselves, or are more sure to be taken care of by others, than the drudgery which is the first stage in all learning. The drudgery comes first; and it is wise and kind to let it come soon enough. The quickness of eye, and tenacity and readiness of memory, which belong to infancy should be made use of while at their brightest, for gaining such knowledge as is to be had by the mere eye, ear, and memory. How easily can the most ordinary child learn a hymn or other piece of poetry by heart;--sometimes before it can speak plain, and very often indeed before it can understand the meaning! What a pity that this readiness should not be used,--that the child, for instance, should not learn to count, and to read, and to say the multiplication table, while it can learn these things with the least trouble! We must remember that while we see the child to be about a great and heavy work, the child himself does not know this, and cannot be oppressed by the thought. All he knows about is the little bit he learns every day. And that little bit is easy to him, if the support of law be given him. It is here that law must come in to help him. He should, if possible, be saved all uncertainty, all conflict in his little mind, as to his daily business. If there is a want of certainty and punctuality about his lessons, there will be room for the thought of something which, for the moment, he would like better; and again, his young faculties will become confused and irregular in their working from uncertainty of seasons and of plans. If there can be a particular place, and a particular time for him, every day but Sundays, and he is never put off, his faculties will come to their work with a freshness and steadiness which nothing but habit will secure. A law of work which leaves him no choice, but sets all his faculties free for his business, saves him half the labour of it; as it does in after life to those who are so blessed as to be destined to necessary, and not voluntary labour. In houses where there cannot be a room set apart for the lessons, perhaps there may be a corner. If there cannot be any place, perhaps there may be a time: and the time should be that which can best be secured from interruption.

Where the father is so fond of his children, and so capable of self-denial for their sakes as to devote an hour or two of his evenings to the instruction of his children, he may rely upon it that he is heaping up blessings for himself with every minute of those hours. His presence, the presence of the worker of the household, is equal to school and home influence together. The scantiness of his leisure makes the law; and his devotedness in using it thus makes the inestimable home influence. Under his teaching, if it be regular and intelligent, head and heart will come on together, to his encouragement now, and his great future satisfaction.

When I come to speak of habits, by and by, it will be seen that this introduction of law at home is to relate only to affairs of habit, and intellectual attainment. The misfortune of school is that the affections and feelings must come under the control of law, instead of the guidance of domestic love. It would be a wanton mischief indeed to spoil the freedom of home by stretching rule and law there beyond their proper province.

There are houses, many houses, and not always very poor ones, where the parents think they cannot provide for the intellectual improvement of their children, and mourn daily over the thought. I wish such parents could be induced to consider well what intellectual improvement is, and then they would see how much they may do for their children's minds without book, pen, or paper. It goes against me to suppose children brought up without knowledge of reading and writing; and I trust this is not likely to be the fate of any children of the parents who read this.

But it is as well to suppose the extreme case, in order to see whether even people who cannot read and write must remain ignorant and debarred from the privileges of mind.

In America I saw many families of settlers, where the children were strangely circ.u.mstanced. There was always plenty to eat and drink; the barns were full of produce, and there were horses in the meadow; and every child would have hereafter a goodly portion of land: but there were no servants, and there could be no "education," because the mother and children had to do all the work of the house. In one of these homes the day was spent thus.--The father (a man of great property) went out upon his land, before daylight, taking with him his little sons of six and seven years old, who earned their breakfasts by leading the horses down to water, and turning out the cows, and sweeping the stable: and, when the milking was done (by a man on the farm, I think), they brought up the milk. Meantime, their mother, an educated English lady, took up the younger children, and swept the kitchen, lighted the fire, and cooked the beef-steak for her husband's breakfast, and boiled the eggs which the little ones brought in from the paddock. Soon after seven, the farmer and boys were gone again: and then the mother set down in the middle of the kitchen floor a large bowl of hot water and the breakfast things: and the little girl of _four_, and her sister of _two_, set to work. The elder washed the cups and dishes, and the younger wiped them, as carefully and delicately as if she had been ten years older. She never broke anything, or failed to make all bright and dry. Then they went to make their own little beds: they could just manage that, but not the larger ones. Meantime, their mother was baking, or was.h.i.+ng, or brewing, or making soap,--boiling it in a cauldron over a fire in the wood. There were no grocers' shops within scores of miles. In the season, the family had to make sugar in the forest from their maple trees; and wine from the fruit they grew: and there were the apples, in immense quant.i.ties, to be split and cored, and hung up in strings for winter use. Every morning in the week was occupied with one or another of these employments; and in the midst of them, dinner had to be cooked, and ready by noon: another beef-steak, with apple-sauce or onions, and hot "corn" bread (made of Indian meal), and a squash pie, or something of the sort. There was enough to do, all the afternoon, in finis.h.i.+ng off the morning's work: and there must be another steak for tea or supper.--The children had been helping all day: and now their parents wished to devote this time,--after six p.m.--to their benefit. It is true, the mother had now to sew; this being her only time for making and mending: but she got out the slates and lesson-books, and put one little girl and boy before her, while their father took the other two, and set them a sum and a copy on the slate. But alas! by this time, no one of the party could keep awake. They did try. The parents were so extremely anxious for their children that they did strive: but nature was overpowered. After a few struggles, the children were sent to bed; and in the very midst of a sentence, the mother's head would sink over her work, and the father's down upon the table, in irresistible sleep. Both had been very fond of chess, in former days: and the husband bade his wife put away her work, and try a game of chess. But down went the board, and off slid the men, in the middle of a game! Now,--what could be done for the children's education here? In time, there was hope that roads and markets would be opened where the produce of the farm might be sold, and money obtained to send the children to schools, some hundreds of miles off: or, at least, that neighbours enough might settle round about to enable the towns.h.i.+p to invite a school-master. But what could be done meantime?

So much might be, and was, done as would astonish people who think that intellectual education means school learning. I do not at all wish to extenuate the misfortune of these children in being doomed to write a bad hand, if any; to be slow at accounts; to have probably no taste for reading; and no knowledge, except by hearsay, of the treasures of literature. But I do say that they were not likely to grow up ignorant and stupid. They knew every tree in the forest, and every bird, and every weed. They knew the habits of all domestic animals. They could tell at a glance how many scores of pigeons there were in a flock, when clouds of these birds came sailing towards the wood. They did not want to measure distances, for they knew them by the eye. They could give their minds earnestly to what they were about; and ponder, and plan, and imagine, and contrive. Their faculties were all awake. And they obtained s.n.a.t.c.hes of stories from father and mother, about the heroes of old times, and the history of England and America. They wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d, and loved Christ, and were familiar with the Bible. Now, there are some things here that very highly educated people among us might be glad to be equal to: and the very busiest father, the hardest-driven mother in England may be able, in the course of daily business, to rouse and employ the faculties of their children,--their attention, understanding, reflection, memory and imagination,--so as to make their intellects worth more than those of many children who are successful at school.

Their chance is doubled if books are opened to them: but if not, there is nothing to despair about.

I was much struck by a day's intellectual education of a little boy of seven who was thrown out of his usual course of study and play. The family were in the country,--in a house which they had to themselves for a month, in beautiful scenery, where they expected to be so continually out of doors that the children's toys were left at home. Some days of unintermitting, drenching rain came; and on one of these days, the little fellow looked round him, after breakfast, and said, "Papa, I don't exactly see what I can do." He would have been thankful to say his lessons: but papa was absolutely obliged to write the whole day; and mama was up-stairs nursing his little sister, who had met with an accident. His papa knew well how to make him happy. He set him to find out the area of the house, and of every room in it. He lent him a three-foot rule, showed him how he might find the thickness of the walls, and gave him a slate and pencil. This was enough. All day, he troubled n.o.body, but went quietly about, measuring and calculating, and writing down;--from morning till dinner,--from dinner till supper: and by that time he had done. When they could go out to measure the outside, they found him right to an inch: and the same with every room in the house.--This boy was no genius. He was an earnest, well-trained boy: and who does not see that if he and his parents had lived in an American forest, or in the severest poverty at home, he would have been, in the best sense, an educated boy! He would not have understood several languages, as he does now: but his faculties would have been busy and cultivated, if he had never in his life seen any book but the Bible.--Anxious parents may take comfort from the thought that nothing ever exists or occurs which may not be made matter of instruction to the mind of man. The mind and the material being furnished to the parents'

hands, it is their business to bring them together, whether books be among the material or not.

CHAPTER XIX.

INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT. THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES.

In beginning a child's intellectual education, the parent must constantly remember to carry on his care of the frame, spoken of in a former chapter. The most irritable and tender part of a child's frame is its brain; and on the welfare of its brain every thing else depends. It should not be forgotten that the little creature was born with a soft head; and that it takes years for the contents of that skull to become completely guarded by the external bones, and sufficiently grown and strengthened to bear much stress. Nature points out what the infant's brain requires, and what it can bear; and if the parents are able to discern and follow the leadings of nature, all will be well. The most certain thing is that there is no safety in any other course.

In their anxiety to bring up any lagging faculty,--to cherish any weak power,--parents are apt to suppose those faculties weak, for whose development they are looking too soon. It grieves me to see conscientious parents, who govern their own lives by reasoning, stimulating a young child to reason long before the proper time. The reflective and reasoning faculties are among the last that should naturally come into use; and the only safe way is to watch for their first activity, and then let it have scope. One of the finest children I ever saw,--a stout handsome boy, with a full set of vigorous faculties, was, at five years old, in danger of being spoiled in a strange sort of way. The process was stopped in time to save his intellect and his morals; but not before it had strewn his youthful life with difficulties from which he need never have suffered. This boy heard a great deal of reasoning always going on; and he seldom or never saw any children, except in parties, or in the street. His natural imitation of the talk of grown up people was encouraged; and from the time he could speak, he saw in the whole world,--in all the objects that met his senses,--only things to reason about. He gathered flowers, not so much because he liked them as because they might be discoursed about. He could not shut the door, or put on his pinafore when bid, till the matter was argued, and the desired act proved to be reasonable. The check was, as I have said, given in time: but he had much to do to bring up his perceptive faculties and his mechanical habits to the point required in even a decent education. He had infinite trouble in learning to spell, and in mastering all the elements of knowledge which are acquired by the memory: and his writing a good hand, and being ready at figures, or apt at learning a modern language by the ear, was hopeless. He would doubtless have done all these well, if his faculties had been exercised in their proper order;--that is, in the order which nature indicates,--and vindicates.

And now,--what is that order?

The Perceptive faculties come first, into activity. Do we not all remember that colours gave us more intense pleasure in our early childhood than they have ever done since? Most of us can remember back to the time when we were four years old,--or three; and some even two.

What is it that we remember? With one, it is a piece of gay silk, or printed cotton or china; or a bed of crocuses;--or we remember the feel of a piece of velvet or fur, or something rough;--or the particular shape of some leaf;--or the amazing weight of a globule of quicksilver;--or the immense distance from one end of the room to the other. I, for one, remember several things that happened when I was between two and three years old: and most of these were sensations, exciting pa.s.sions. I doubt whether I ever felt keener delight than in pa.s.sing my fingers round a flat b.u.t.ton, covered with black velvet, on the top of a sister's bonnet. I remember lighting upon the sensation, if one may say so; and the intense desire afterwards to be feeling the b.u.t.ton. And just at that time I was sent into the country for my health; and I can now tell things about the first day in the cottage which no one can ever have told to me. I tried to walk round a tree (an elm, I believe), clasping the tree with both arms: and nothing that has happened to-day is more vivid to me than the feel of the rough bark to the palms of my hands, and the entanglement of the gra.s.s to my feet. And then at night there was the fearful wonder at the feel of the coa.r.s.e calico sheets, and at the creaking of the turn-up bedstead when I moved.--After I came home, when I was two years and nine months old, I saw, one day, the door of the spare bed-room ajar, and I pushed it open and went in. I was walking about the house because I had a pair of new shoes on, and I liked to hear their pit-pat, and to make sure that I could walk in them, though they were slippery. The floor of the spareroom was smooth and somewhat polished; and it was--(at least to my eyes--) a large room. I was half-frightened when I saw that the blinds were down. But there was a fire; and standing by the fire, at the further end, was an old woman--(or to me she looked old)--with a muslin handkerchief crossed over her gown: and in her arms she held a bundle of flannel. The curtains of the bed were drawn;--the fawn-coloured moreen curtains with a black velvet edge, which I sometimes stroked for a treat. The old woman beckoned to me; and I wished to go; but I thought I could never walk all that way on the polished floor without a tumble. I remember how wide I stretched out my arms, and how far apart I set my feet, and how I got to the old woman at last. With her foot she pushed forwards a tiny chair, used as a footstool, embroidered over with sprawling green leaves; and there I sat down: and the old woman laid the bundle of flannel across my lap. With one hand she held it there safe, and with the other she uncovered the little red face of a baby. Though the sight set every pulse in my body beating, I do not remember feeling any fear,--though I was always afraid of everything. It was a pa.s.sionate feeling of wonder, and a sort of tender delight;--delight at being noticed and having it on my lap, perhaps, as much as at the thing itself. How it ended, I do not know. I only remember further seeing with amazement, that somebody was in the bed,--that there was a nightcap on the pillow,--though it was day-time. These details may seem trifling: but, if we want to know what faculties are vigorous in infancy, it is as well to learn, in any way we can, what children feel and think at the earliest age we can arrive at. One other instance of vivid perception stands out among many in my childhood so remarkably as to be perhaps instructive: and the more so because I was not endowed with quick senses, or strong perceptive powers, but, on the contrary, discouraged my teachers by dullness and inattention, and a constant tendency to reverie. I was always considered a remarkably un.o.bservant child.

I slept with the nursemaid in a room at the top of the house which looked eastwards: and the baby brother mentioned above, now just able to walk, slept in a crib by the bedside. One summer morning I happened to wake before sunrise, and thought it very strange to see the maid asleep; the next thing I remember was walking over the boards with bare feet, and seeing some little pink toes peeping out through the rails of the crib. I gently pinched them, and somehow managed to keep the child quiet when he reared himself up from his pillow; he must have caught some of the spirit of the prank, for he made no noise. I helped him to scramble down from the crib, and led him to the window, and helped him to scramble upon a chair: and then I got up beside him; and, by using all my strength, I opened the window. How chill the air was! and how hard and sharp the window-sill felt to my arms! We were so high above the street that I dared not look down; but oh! what a sight we saw by looking abroad over the tops of the houses to the rising ground beyond!

The sun must have been coming up, for the night-clouds were of the richest purple, turning to crimson; and in one part there seemed to be a solid edge of gold. I have seen the morning and evening skies of all the four quarters of the world, but this is, in my memory, the most gorgeous of all, though it could not in fact have been so. I whispered all I knew about G.o.d making the sun come up every morning; and I certainly supposed the child to sympathise with me in the thrilling awe of the moment: but it could not have been so. I have some remembrance of the horrible difficulty of getting the window down again, and of hoisting up my companion into his crib: and I can distinctly recal the feelings of mingled contempt and fear with which I looked upon the maid, who had slept through all this; and how cold my feet were when I crept into bed again.

Now, if this is what children are, it seems plain that the faculties by which they perceive objects so vividly should be simply trained to a good use. The parent has little more to do than to see that Nature is not hindered in her working: to see that the faculties are awake, and that a sufficient variety is offered for them to employ themselves upon.

Nothing like what is commonly called teaching is required here, or can do anything but harm at present. If the mother is at work, and the children are running in and out of the garden, it is only saying to the little toddler, "Now bring me a blue flower;--now bring me a yellow flower;--now bring me a green leaf." At another time, she will ask for a round stone; or a thick stick; or a thin stick. And sometimes she will blow a feather, and let it fall again: or she will blow a dandelion-head all to pieces, and quite away. If she is wise, she will let the child alone, to try its own little experiments, and learn for itself what is hard and what is soft; what is heavy and light; hot and cold; and what it can do with its little limbs and quick senses. Taking care, of course, that it does not injure itself, and that it has objects within reach in sufficient variety, she cannot do better, at this season of its life, than let it be busy in its own way. I saw a little fellow, one day, intently occupied for a whole breakfast-time, and some time afterwards, in trying to put the key of the house-door into the key-hole of the tea-caddy. When he gave the matter up, and not before, his mother helped him to see why he could not do it. If she had taken the door-key from him at first, he would have missed a valuable lesson. At this period of existence, the children of rich and poor have, or may have, about equal advantages, under the care of sensible parents. They can be busy about anything. There is nothing that cannot be made a plaything of, and a certain means of knowledge, if the faculties be awake. If the child be dull, it must, of course, be tempted to play. If the faculties be in their natural state of liveliness, the mother has only to be aware that the little creature must be busy while it is awake, and to see that it has variety enough of things (the simpler the better) to handle, and look at, and listen to, and experiment upon.

The perceptive faculties have a relation to other objects than those which are presented to the five senses. It is very well for children to be picking up from day to day knowledge about colours and forms, and the hardness and weight of substances, and the habits of animals, and the growth of plants;--the great story, in short, of what pa.s.ses before their eyes, and appeals to their ears, and impresses them through the touch: but there is another range of knowledge appropriate to the perceptive faculties. There are many facts that can be perceived through another medium than the eye, the ear, or the hand. Facts of number and quant.i.ty, for instance, are perceived (after a time, if not at first) without ill.u.s.tration by objects of sight or sound: and it is right, and kind to the child, to help him to a perception of these facts early, while the perceiving faculties are in their first vigour. There is no hards.h.i.+p in this, if the thing is done in moderation: and in many cases, this exertion of the perceptive faculties is attended with a keen satisfaction. I have known an idiot child, perfectly infantine in his general ways, amuse himself half the day long with employing his perceptions of number and quant.i.ty. He, poor child, was incapable of being taught anything as a lesson: he did not understand speech,--beyond a very few words: but the exercise of such faculties as he had--(and the strongest he had were those of Order, and Perception of number, quant.i.ty and symmetry) was the happiness of his short and imperfect life: and the exercise of the same faculties,--moderate and natural exercise,--may make part of the happiness of every child's life.

It is very well to use the faculty of eye and ear as an introduction to the use of the inner perceptions,--so to speak. For instance, it is well to teach a child the multiplication-table, by the ear as well as the understanding:--to teach it by rote, (as one teaches a tune without words), as an avenue to the mystery of numbers: but the pleasure to the pupil is in perceiving the relations of numbers. In the same manner, the eye may be used for the same purpose; as when the mother teaches by pins on the table, or by peas, or peppercorns, that two and two make four; and that three fours, or two sixes, or four threes, all make twelve: but the pleasure to the pupil is in perceiving the relations of these numbers without pins or peppercorns,--in the head; and in going on till he has mastered all the numbers in the multiplication-table,--perceiving them in the depths of his mind, without light or sound,--without images or words. Children who are capable of mental arithmetic delight in it, before their minds are tired:--and the moment the mind is tired, the exercise should stop.

About quant.i.ty, the same methods may be used. At first, there must be measurement, to prove to the child the relation of quant.i.ties: but to what a point of precision the mind may arrive, after having once perceived the truth of quant.i.ties and s.p.a.ces, is seen in the fact that astronomers can infallibly predict eclipses centuries before they happen. Another department of what is called exact knowledge comprehends the relations of time. This is another case in which idiots have proved to us that there is an inner perception of time,--a faculty which works pleasurably when once set to work. One idiot who had lived near a striking clock, and was afterwards removed from all clocks, and did not know a watch by sight, went on to the end of his life imitating the striking of the hour regularly, with as much precision as the sun marks it upon the dial. Another who never had sense enough to know of the existence of clock or watch, could never be deceived about the precise time of day. Under all changes of place and households with their habits, he did and looked for the same things at exactly the same moment of every day. And by this faculty it is that even little children learn the clock;--a process which, from its very nature, could never be learned by rote. In these matters, again, the children of the poor can be as well trained as those of the rich. Every where, and under all circ.u.mstances, people can measure and compute. The boy must do it if he is to practise any art or trade whatever; and in every household, there is, or ought to be, enough of economy,--of measuring, and cutting out, and counting and calculating, for the girl to exercise her faculty of perception of number and quant.i.ty. The understanding of money is no mean exercise, in itself. In one rank, we see the able builder, carpenter, and mechanician, practised in these departments of perception: and in another we see the astronomer detecting and marking out the courses of the stars, and understanding the mighty mechanism of the heavens, as if he had himself trodden all the pathways of the sky. It is wise and kind to use the early vigour of these faculties--the powers which perceive facts,--up to the limit of satisfaction, stopping short always of fatigue.

This is the season too, and these are the faculties, to be employed in learning by rote. Learning by rote is nothing of a drudgery now compared with what it is afterwards;--for the ear is quick, the eye is free and at liberty; the memory is retentive, and the understanding is not yet pressing for its gratification. At this season too, as has been before observed, the child does not look forward, nor comprehend what it is attempting. The present hour, with its little portion of occupation, is all that it sees: and it accomplishes vast things, bit by bit, which it would never attempt if it knew the sum of the matter. No one would learn to speak if he knew all that speech comprehends: yet every child learns to speak, easily and naturally. Thus it is with every art, every science, every department of action and knowledge. The beginning,--the drudgery--should be got over at the time when it costs least fatigue.

And this is why we teach children early to read;--so early that, but for this consideration, it is of no consequence whether they can read or not. We do it while the eye is quick to notice the form of the letters, and while the ear is apt to catch their sound, and before the higher faculties come in with any disturbing considerations. My own opinion is that, on account of the feebleness and uncertainty of the hand, writing had better be taught later than it usually is;--that is, when the child shows an inclination to draw or scribble,--to describe any forms on slate or paper, or on walls or sand. But whatever depends mainly on eye, ear, and memory, should be taught early, when the learning causes the most gratification and the least pain. The help that this arrangement gives to, and receives from, the formation of habits of regularity and industry will come under notice when I speak hereafter of the Care of the Habits.

According to what has been said, a child's first intellectual education lies in varied amus.e.m.e.nt, without express teaching. This is while its brain is infantine and tender, and its nature restless and altogether sensitive. When it shows itself quieter and more thoughtful, it may be expressly taught, a little at a time, with cheerful steadiness and tender encouragement. What it should learn, a healthy well-trained child will, for the most part, indicate for itself, by its inquiries, and its pleasure in learning. What the parent has to impose upon it is that which, being artificial, it cannot indicate for itself,--the art of reading, and the names and forms of numbers, and such arrangements of language as are found in simple poetry, or other useful forms which may be committed to memory. It is impossible to lay down any rule as to the age to be comprehended in this period; and it might be dangerous to do so;--so various are the capacities and temperaments of children; but, speaking quite indeterminately, I may say that I have had in view the period, for ordinary children, from the opening of the faculties to about seven years old.

CHAPTER XX.

INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.--THE CONCEPTIVE FACULTIES.

Up to this point, and for some way beyond it, children are better off at home than at school; and no parent should be induced to think otherwise by what is seen to be achieved at Infant Schools. At some Infant Schools, little children who can scarcely speak, are found able to say and do many wonderful things which might make inexperienced mothers fear that their little ones at home had not been done justice to, and must be sadly backward in their education: but if the anxious mother will consider a little, and keep on the watch, she will perceive that her children are better at home. These Infant Schools were set on foot with the most benevolent of intentions; and they are really a vast benefit to a large cla.s.s in society: but it does not follow that they afford the best training for infants. In their very nature they cannot do so. When we stand in the midst of such an a.s.semblage, we feel what a blessing it is that little creatures who would be locked up in garrets all day while the parents were at work, liable to falls or fire, or who would be tumbling about in the streets or roads, dirty, quarrelsome, and exposed to bad company, should be collected here under safe guardians.h.i.+p, and taught, and kept clean, and amused with harmless play: but we cannot help seeing, at the same time, that there is something unnatural in the method; and whatever is unnatural is always radically bad. Nature makes households, family groups where no two children are of the same age, and where, with the utmost activity, there is a certain degree of quietness, retirement, and repose; whereas, in the Infant School there is a crowd of little creatures, dozens of whom are of the same age; and quietness can be obtained only by drilling, while play occasions an uproar which no nerves can easily bear. The brain and nerves of infants are tender and irritable; and in the quietest home, a sensible mother takes care that the little creature is protected from hurry, and loud noises, and fear, and fatigue of its faculties. She sees when it begins to look pale, or turns cross or sick, and instantly removes it from excitement.

But it is impossible thus to protect each child in a school: and the consequence is that the amount of mortality in Infant Schools, as in every large a.s.semblage of infants, is very great. There is no saying whether as many might not perish from accident and some kind of misery, if they were left in their garrets and street haunts; but the facts show that home is the proper place for little children whose parents make a real home for them; and no apparent forwardness of school infants can alter the case.

In truth, school is no place of education for any children whatever till their minds are well put in action. This is the work which has to be done at home, and which may be done in all homes where the mother is a sensible woman. This done, a good school is a resource of inestimable advantage for cultivating the intellect, and aiding the acquisition of knowledge: but it is of little or no use without preparation at home. So at the age of which we speak, parents may be satisfied that they have the matter in their own hands.

We have seen that the Perceptive faculties are the first of the intellectual powers which act: and that there is plenty of material for their exercise everywhere, and all day long.

The next set of faculties comes pretty early into operation, and so much of the future wealth of the mind depends on their cultivation that they ought to have the serious attention of parents. I refer to the Conceptive faculties. The time has come when the child is perhaps less intensely impressed by actual objects, while it becomes capable of conceiving of something that it does not see. At this period, the little boy drags about the horse that has lost head and tail and a leg or two: and the little girl hugs a rag bundle which she calls her doll. The boy does not want a better horse, nor the girl a real doll. The idea is everything to them, by virtue of their conceptive faculty. Staring, meagre pictures please them now,--better than the finest; and stories, with few incidents and no filling up. The faculty is so vigorous, while, of course, very narrow in its range, from the scantiness of the child's knowledge, that the merest sketch is enough to stimulate it to action; the rudest toys, the most meagre drawing, the baldest story. The mother's business is now clear and easy. Her business is to supply more and more material for these faculties to work upon:--to give, as occasion arises, more and more knowledge of actual things, and furnish representations or suggestions in the course of her intercourse with the child. Nothing is easier; for in fact she has only to make herself the child's cheerful companion: and in a manner which can go on while she is employed in her household occupations, or walking in the fields or the streets. The child asks a myriad of questions; and she must make some kind of cheerful answer to them all, if she lets him talk at all. She will often have to tell him that she does not know this or that; for a child's questions reach far beyond the bounds of our knowledge: but she must not leave him without some sort of answer to appease his restless faculties. And his questions will suggest to her a mult.i.tude of things to tell him which he will be eager to hear, as long as they hang upon any thing real which he knows already. Stories and pictures (including toys, which to him are pictures) are what he likes best; and she will make either stories or pictures,--short and vivid,--of what she tells him. The stories and pictures of her conversation must be simple and literal; and so must any sketches she may make for him with pencil and paper, or a bit of chalk upon the pavement. She may make four straight strokes, with two horizontal lines above, and a circle for a head, and call it a horse; and a horse it will be to him, because it calls up the image of a horse in his mind. But if she draws it ever so well, and puts wings to it, he will not like it half so much, even if she tells him that its name is Pegasus, and there are some pretty stories about such a horse. Perhaps he will be afraid of it.

There can scarcely be a stronger instance of the power of such a child's conceptive faculty than in his own attempts to draw. He draws the cat, or a soldier, and is in raptures with it. Mark his surprise when his mother points out to him that the cat's head is bigger than her body, and that the soldier is all legs and arms and gun, and has no body at all. He sees this, and admits it, and draws a better one: but he would not have found out for himself that there was anything amiss the first time. The idea was complete in his mind; and he thought he saw its representation on the paper, till his mother roused his perceptive powers by making him observe the real cat and soldier, and their proportions. I remember once being amused at seeing how very short a time was necessary to bring the perceptive faculties into their due relation to the conceptive. A little boy who had taken a journey, was exceedingly delighted with the river-side inn at Ferry-bridge in Yorks.h.i.+re; and he must draw it. When he was a hundred miles further north, he must draw it again: and diligently enough he persevered, kneeling on a chair,--drawing the river and the bridge, and a house, and a heap of coals,--each coal being round, and almost as big as the house.

When his paper was nearly all scrawled over, he went unwillingly away to his dinner, from which he hastened back to his drawing. But O! what consternation there was in his face, and what large tears rolled down his cheeks, till he hid his face with his pinafore. He wailed and sobbed:--"somebody had spoiled his drawing." When asked what made him think so, and a.s.sured that n.o.body had touched it, he sobbed out "I'm sure I never made it such a muddle." Before dinner, he saw his work with the conceptive,--after dinner with the perceptive faculties; and it is no wonder that he thought two persons had been at it.

Without going over again any of the ground traversed in the chapter on Fear, I may just observe that at this period children are particularly liable to fear. Almost any appearance suffices to suggest images; and the repet.i.tion of any image invariably, at any time or place, is in itself terrifying to those of older nerves than the children we are thinking of. Now is the time when portraits seem to stare at the gazer, and to turn their eyes wherever he moves. Now is the time when a crack in the plaster of a wall, or an outline in a chintz pattern or a paper-hanging, suggests the image of some monster, and perhaps makes the child afraid of his room or his bed, while his mother has no perception of the fact. The mother should be on the watch, without any appearance of being so.

I have spoken of only the early stage of the activity of the conceptive faculties. We see how it goes on in the appet.i.te for fiction which is common to all children,--in the eagerness of boys for books of voyages and travels, and for playing soldiers, and school-master, and making processions, while the girls are playing school-mistress, and dressing up, and pretending to be the queen. The whole period is, or ought to be, very precious to the parents; for it is the time for storing their children's minds with images and ideas, which are the materials for the exercise of the higher faculties at a later time. The simple method of management is to practise the old maxim "Live and let live." The mother's mind must be awake, to meet the vivacious mind of the child: and she must see that the child's is lively and natural, and be careful neither to over-excite it by her anxiety to be always teaching, nor to baulk and depress it by discouraging too much its sometimes inconvenient loquacity and curiosity. It is well that there should be times when children of six and upwards should amuse themselves and one another without troubling their elders; but a vivacious child must talk and inquire a great deal every day, or, if repressed, suffer from some undue exercise of its mental activity.

It should never be forgotten that the happier a child is, the cleverer he will be. This is not only because, in a state of happiness, the mind is free, and at liberty for the exercise of its faculties, instead of spending its thoughts and energy in brooding over troubles; but also because the action of the brain is stronger when the frame is in a state of hilarity: the ideas are more clear; impressions of outward objects are more vivid; and the memory will not let them slip. This is reason enough for the mother to take some care that she is the cheerful guide and comforter that her child needs. If she is anxious or fatigued she will exercise some control over herself, and speak cheerfully, and try to enter freely into the subject of the moment;--to meet the child's mind, in short, instead of making his sink for want of companions.h.i.+p. A rather low instance of the effect of the stimulus of joy in quickening the powers occurred within my knowledge;--a rather low one, but ill.u.s.trative enough. A little girl, the youngest of her cla.s.s at school, did her French lessons fairly; but, as a matter of course, was always at or near the bottom, while a tall girl, five years older, clever and industrious, was always, as a matter of course, at the top.

One day, there happened to be a long word in question in the vocabulary, which n.o.body knew but the little girl; so she went to the top. There was not much excitement of ambition in the case: she felt it to be an accident merely, and the tall girl was very kind to her;--there could hardly be less of the spirit of rivalry in such a case than there was here. But the joy of the child was great; and her surprise,--both at the fact of her position, and at the power she found in herself to keep it;--and keep it she did for many weeks, though the tall girl never missed a word in all that time. The dull French vocabulary suddenly became to the child a book of living imagery. The very letters of the words impressed themselves like pictures upon her memory; and each word, becoming suddenly interesting of itself, called up some imagery, which prevented its being forgotten. All this was pleasant; and then there was the comfort and security about the lesson being perfect. The child not only hoped every day that she should get well through, but felt it impossible that she should ever forget a word of it. When at last she failed, it was through depression of spirits. While she was learning her lesson at home, her baby-sister was ill, and crying sadly. It was impossible to get any impression out of the book:--the page turned into common French vocabulary again; and the next morning, not only the tall girl stepped into her proper place, but the little one rapidly pa.s.sed down to her old stand at the bottom.

Children who read from the love of reading are usually supremely happy over their book. A wise parent will indulge the love of reading, not only from kindness in permitting the child to do what it likes best, but because what is read with enjoyment has intense effect upon the intellect. The practice of reading for amus.e.m.e.nt must not begin too soon: and it must be permitted by very slow degrees, till the child is so practised in the art of reading as to have its whole mind at liberty for the subject, without having to think about the lines or the words.

Till he is sufficiently practised for this, he should be read to: and it will then soon appear whether he is likely to be moderate when he gets a book into his own hands.--My own opinion is that it is better to leave him to his natural tastes,--to his instincts,--when that important period of his life arrives which makes him an independent reader. Of course, his proper duty must be done;--his lessons, or work of other kinds, and his daily exercise. But it seems to me better to abstain from interfering with that kind of strong inclination than to risk the evils of thwarting it. Perhaps scarcely any person of mature years can conceive what the appet.i.te for reading is to a child. It goes off, or becomes changed in mature years, to such a degree as to make the facts of a reading childhood scarcely credible in remembrance, or even when before the eyes. But it is all right; and the process had better not be disturbed. The apprehension of a child is so quick, his conceptive faculty is so ravenous for facts and pictures, or the merest suggestions, and he is so entirely free from those philosophical checks which r.e.t.a.r.d in adults the process of reception from books, that he can, at ten years old, read the same book twice as fast as he can,--if he duly improves meanwhile,--twenty years later. I have seen a young girl read Moore's Lalla Rookh through, except a very few pages, before breakfast,--and not a late breakfast; and not a pa.s.sage of the poem was ever forgotten. When she had done, the Arabian scenes appeared to be the reality, and the breakfast table and brothers and sisters the dream: but that was sure to come right; and all the ideas of the thick volume were added to her store. I have seen a school-boy of ten lay himself down, back uppermost, with the quarto edition of "Thalaba" before him, on the first day of the Easter holidays, and turn over the leaves, notwithstanding his inconvenient position, as fast as if he was looking for something, till, in a very few hours it was done, and he was off with it to the public library, bringing back the "Curse of Kehama."

Thus he went on with all Southey's poems, and some others, through his short holidays,--scarcely moving voluntarily all those days except to run to the library. He came out of the process so changed, that none of his family could help being struck by it. The expression of his eye, the cast of his countenance, his use of words, and his very gait were changed. In ten days, he had advanced years in intelligence: and I have always thought that this was the turning-point of his life. His parents wisely and kindly let him alone,--aware that school would presently put an end to all excess in the new indulgence. I can speak from experience of what children feel towards parents who mercifully leave them to their own propensities,--forbearing all reproach about the ill manners and the selfishness of which the sinners are keenly conscious all the while.

Some children's greediness for books is like a drunkard's for wine. They can no more keep their hands off a beloved book than the tippler from the bottle before him. The great difference as to the safety of the case is that the child's greediness is sure to subside into moderation in time, from the development of new faculties, while the drunkard's is sure to go on increasing till all is over with him. If parents would regard the matter in this way, they would neither be annoyed at the excess of the inconvenient propensity, nor proud of any child who has it. It is no sign yet of a superiority of intellect; much less of that wisdom which in adults is commonly supposed to arise from large book-knowledge. It is simply a natural appet.i.te for that provision of ideas and images which should, at this season, be laid in for the exercise of the higher faculties which have yet to come into use.--As I have said, I know from experience the state of things which exists when a child cannot help reading to an amount which the parents think excessive, and yet are unwilling, for good reasons, to prohibit. One Sunday afternoon, when I was seven years old, I was prevented by illness from going to chapel;--a circ.u.mstance so rare that I felt very strange and listless. I did not go to the maid who was left in the house, but lounged about the drawing-room, where, among other books which the family had been reading, was one turned down upon its face. It was a dull-looking octavo volume, thick, and bound in calf, as untempting a book to the eyes of a child as could well be seen: but, because it happened to be open, I took it up. The paper was like skim milk,--thin and blue, and the printing very ordinary. Moreover, I saw the word Argument,--a very repulsive word to a child. But my eye caught the word "Satan;" and I instantly wanted to know how anybody could argue about Satan. I saw that he fell through chaos, found the place in the poetry;--and lived heart, mind, and soul in Milton from that day till I was fourteen. I remember nothing more of that Sunday, vivid as is my recollection of the moment of plunging into chaos: but I remember that from that time till a young friend gave me a pocket edition of Milton, the calf-bound volume was never to be found because I had got it somewhere; and that, for all those years, to me the universe moved to Milton's music. I wonder how much of it I knew by heart--enough to be always repeating some of it to myself, with every change of light and darkness, and sound and silence,--the moods of the day, and the seasons of the year. It was not my love of Milton which required the forbearance of my parents,--except for my hiding the book, and being often in an absent fit. It was because this luxury had made me ravenous for more. I had a book in my pocket,--a book under my pillow; and in my lap as I sat at meals: or rather, on this last occasion it was a newspaper. I used to purloin the daily London paper before dinner, and keep possession of it,--with a painful sense of the selfishness of the act; and with a daily pang of shame and self-reproach, I slipped away from the table when the dessert was set on, to read in another room. I devoured all Shakspere, sitting on a footstool, and reading by firelight, while the rest of the family were still at table. I was incessantly wondering that this was permitted; and intensely, though silently grateful I was for the impunity and the indulgence. It never extended to the omission of any of my proper business. I learned my lessons; but it was with the prospect of reading while I was brus.h.i.+ng my hair at bedtime; and many a time have I stood reading, with the brush suspended, till I was far too cold to sleep. I made s.h.i.+rts with due diligence,--being fond of sewing; but it was with Goldsmith, or Thomson, or Milton open on my lap, under my work, or hidden by the table, that I might learn pages and cantos by heart. The event justified my parents in their indulgence. I read more and more slowly, fewer and fewer authors, and with ever-increasing seriousness and reflexion, till I became one of the slowest of readers, and a comparatively sparing one.--Of course, one example is not a rule for all; but the number of ravenous readers among children is so large, and among adults so small in comparison, that I am disposed to consider it a general fact that when the faculties, naturally developed, reach a certain point of forwardness, it is the time for laying in a store of facts and impressions from books which are needed for ulterior purposes.

The parents' main business during this process is to look to the quality of the books read:--I mean merely to see that the child has the freest access to those of the best quality. Nor do I mean only to such as the parent may think good for a child of such and such an age. The child's own mind is a truer judge in this case than the parents' suppositions.

Let but n.o.ble books be on the shelf,--the cla.s.sics of our language,--and the child will get nothing but good.

The last thing that parents need fear is that the young reader will be hurt by pa.s.sages in really good authors which might raise a blush a few years later. Whatever children do not understand slips through the mind, and leaves no trace; and what they do understand of matters of pa.s.sion is to them divested of its mischief. Purified editions of n.o.ble books are monuments of wasted labour: for it ought to be with adults as it is with children;--their purity should be an all-sufficient purifier.