PART VI_Home education

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.

+-----+---------------------------+---------------+-------------+----------+

+-----+---------------------------+---------------+-------------+----------+

| | | | | |

| | | | 26 Victoria| 1s. 6d. |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

| ” |Madam How and Lady Why. | ” | ” |2s. 6d. |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

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| | | | | |

| ” |Life and Her Children. | ” |Stanford. |6s. |

| | | | | |

| ” |The Fairy-land of | ” | ” | ” |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

| ” |The Little Brother of | ” | ” ” | ” |

| | | | | |

| | | | | |

| ” |Living Animals of the | |Hutchinson. |10s. 6d. |

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| ” |The Biography o f | ” |Hodder & | ” |

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| 152 |The Swiss Family | |Routledge. |2s. |

| | | | | |

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| 194 |Helen Keller. |An |Hodder & |7s. 6d. |

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| 196{|Special Reports on | |Eyre & |2s. 6d. |

| 263{| Educational Subjects, | |Spotiswoode. |3s. 2d. |

| {| vol. ii., vol. viii. | | | |

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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?