THE SECRET OF POWER.
IN the foregoing pages I have done what I can, to make a Kindergarten
Guide; not only for the use of those who undertake the new education,
but in order to give parents a definite idea of the value of the new
education to their children, and how they may aid rather than hinder its
legitimate effect. Parents who live in places so isolated as to make a
Kindergarten impossible, may also get some hints how to supply the want
in some measure, by becoming themselves the playmates of their children.
I think it will be readily inferred, from what I have said, that the
secret of power and success is _gradualism_. Any child can learn
anything, if time and opportunity is given to go step by step. Then
learning becomes as easy and agreeable as eating and drinking. Every
degree of knowledge, also, must be practically used as soon as attained.
It then becomes a power; makes the child a power in nature; and prepares
him, when his spirit shall come into union with the God of Nature, and
Father of Human Spirits, to become a power over Nature--"for the glory
of God and relief of man's estate."
MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY.
LETTER I.
MY DEAR ANNA,--I had heard of your intention of keeping school before
you wrote to me, and had rejoiced for the good cause as only one can do
who knows your peculiar qualifications for it. I have been full of the
purpose of answering your letter, to tell you how joyfully I look
forward to the realization of some of my wishes through your help, such
as that of perfecting some beautiful plan of education, which you and I,
with our faith in perfectibility, might invent, but which I could not
make alone. When we parted many years since, in one of those beautiful
porticos of the temple of knowledge, where we had together been warmed
by the fires of genius, and where our sympathy (perhaps I should say
_yours_) had rekindled a certain torch of enthusiasm that had been long
quenched by adversity--(I sadly fear it is smouldering again under the
ashes of freshly-buried hope)--I little expected to meet you again in my
favorite walk, made fragrant by the breath of little children. If we had
chanced to meet often enough since then, we should have found much to
reunite us, for my best teachers have been certain wise
mothers;--indeed, the only schools in which I have found the instruction
I needed, have been the nurseries and firesides to which I have been
admitted, often through my loving interest in the little flowers that
bloomed around them. I could tell you, if I dared, how many times I have
wished I could be queen of such kingdoms, for the sake of the younger
subjects of those realms, for I have learned quite as much from the
mistakes as from the wisdom I have witnessed.
My desire to gather all I could, from the efforts and experience of
others, once tempted me on an exploring expedition through our much
vaunted Primary Schools. What would you say if I were to tell you that
I met with but one spirit kindred to my own in the whole circuit? Among
all the hard, knotty women, young and old, whom I found presiding over
youthful destinies in this extensive organization, I found one lovely
young creature who _loved_ all her scholars, and who, by the power of
this love, contrived partially to mitigate the horrors of benches
without backs, long rote spelling-lessons, crowded and ill-ventilated
rooms, tedious periods of idleness in which little darlings had to sit
up straight and not speak or fidget (which last I consider one of the
prerogatives of childhood). Her face radiated sunshine, her voice was
music itself, and yet firm, and she often varied her routine of
exercises, prescribed by the primary school committee, with a pleasant
little story to illustrate some principle she wished the children to act
upon. She was the only one who had interpolated a regular entertaining
lesson into the routine, and this she effected by nipping some of the
prescribed lessons five minutes each, so as to save twenty for her
little treatise upon some interesting subject of natural history. I
quite agreed with her that it was a species of petty larceny for which
she would be acquitted in the courts above.
I could describe sad, heart-breaking scenes of youthful misery and
terror, injustice and daily cruelty in these schools. In several cases
my indignation was so much aroused that I was obliged to leave the room
to avoid showing my excited feelings. My sympathy for suppressed yawns,
limbs suddenly outstretched, or wry faces made behind the teachers'
backs; tearful eyes, sleepy little heads nodding on fat shoulders, was
so great, that I often smiled upon them when the teacher did not see
_me_. I returned to my own little free republic, after spending one of
my vacation weeks thus, more resolved than ever not to coerce babes into
the paths of knowledge. Many a spine had its first bend there, I doubt
not, and many a child learned to hate school in such scenes of
discomfort. I have no doubt there were among the teachers many
conscientious ones who did as well as they knew how under such a system.
If such schools could be presided over by genius, and such geniuses
could be left to their own judgment about what to teach and how to teach
it, the experience of Mr. Alcott in his first Infant School among the
poor of the North End proves that primary Education can be made for all,
what we can make it who have the advantage of teaching in our own
parlors.
It is astonishing to me that greater improvements have not already been
made in this public school education. Often when I am sitting in my
pleasant school-room with these favored children of wealthy parents
around me, my thoughts recur to those crowded rooms, and the only remedy
I see is, that school committees shall be formed of _women_. I believe
many of the women I saw teaching in those primary schools would do
better if left to their own instincts about the children. They have no
liberty whatever, except such stolen liberty as I mentioned in the case
of Miss E. What do _men_ know about the needs of little children just
out of nurseries? If I were one of the school committee, with _carte
blanche_, I would have "stir-the-mush" or "puss-in-the-corner" among the
exercises, with singing every hour, and marching and clapping of hands.
And I would have well-ventilated rooms instead of such hot, suffocating
places, warmed by large iron stoves.
And as I see the poor and neglected children in the streets, or in their
own wretched houses, and how they live and grovel in low practices,
gradually losing the sweet innocence of infantile expression, and
becoming coarse and violent, even brutal, I wonder still more at the
torpidity of society upon this subject. Nothing is such a proof of its
selfishness as this neglect. Nothing makes me feel so keenly the need of
a new organization of things. I do not like the thought of merging the
sacred family relation in communities where all live together in public
as it were, but it seems as if something might be done for the children
of the needy that is not yet done. These poor city children are
sequestered even from the influences of Nature. How strange that the
more favored individuals should not seek every means to give them what
culture they can have amid these brick walls. So much might be done by
the help of the salient imagination of childhood, that we should be
helped more than half way by blessed Nature herself. I often take an
unfashionable walk inside the Mall on Sunday afternoon, when the Irish
people bring their babes to play upon the green. I think it is the best
institution in the city, and it would be a good idea to appoint a
Commissioner in each ward to bring all the street children there every
day and watch them while they play, and see that all have fair play. If
school committees were formed of women, I think such an office might be
created.
What faith we need to forgive heaven for the things that are! "How much
that is, is _not_ right," I am sometimes tempted to exclaim. I have no
idea, however, that Pope meant anything but the eternal IS, when he
wrote "Whatever is, is right." It would have been better for superficial
thinkers, if he had never said it however, for I often hear it quoted to
defend what I consider the marring, not the making of God's plans. I
have no doubt there is a remedy for every individual case of misery in
this world, if eyes were only open to see it, but this couching process
is the needful thing, and _that_ God has left us to think out for
ourselves. We know that there are millions who live and die in ignorance
of all that makes God _God_, or a Father. To these he is only the being
that created them, and they may well ask, "Why did he make us? to
suffer? to sin?"--for they are conscious only of the irregularities of
that creation by which they are tortured. They never see the wonderful
adaptation of things to each other;--they know nothing of the harmonies
of their being with the being of others, or with Nature. The sort of
education they get in cities, where life is stirring briskly around
them, and each one seems scrambling to get the best morsel for himself,
only makes them worse, unless something is done to evoke order for them
out of this chaos. Their belief in Deity is a superstitious feeling
about some supernatural power that exercises dominion over them, and
subjects them to an imperious necessity. In the agony of death they cry
aloud for fear; for they know they have made their fellow-men suffer,
and death is a mirror that holds them up to themselves. Conscience
breathes upon the glass, and in the dissolving picture its countenance
is recognized,--but this is a base fear, and cannot be called an
aspiration. To make sure the foundations of faith in God, one must know
what God has done for him. Man must be made acquainted with his own
nature before God's benevolence can be realized. If I did not think
ignorance was at the root of all human evil, I should not have any hope;
but though its kingdom is very large, no despot can be so easily driven
from the throne. I hope all this does not seem irrelevant to the matter
we are discussing; it brings me nearer to the point I wished to reach. I
believe in that redemption which knowledge and principle combined bring
to the soul that has slumbered in darkness. Its recuperative power is
its most glorious attribute. The tendency of the character is so often
imparted in earliest youth, that if this is right, if the first
impressions of life and its author are the true ones, the rest of the
education may almost with impunity be left to what is called chance. But
if a child lives to the age of eight or ten years, without a ray of
light which will explain his existence and position to himself; or lead
him through Nature up to God; it must be difficult to inspire him
afterwards with the true filial feeling toward his heavenly parent. And
if, by a longer period of darkness, he has found that in a certain sense
he can live without God in the world, he will stand a poor chance of
realizing that he cannot do so in ordinary life after the period of
impressible youth is past. I believe the soul will to all eternity have
renewed chances to redeem itself; but I cannot easily give up this first
life. When I think of the beautiful adaptations of the world to our
wants; of the exquisite gratification the knowledge of these brings to
the mind; of the harmonies of our existence with all other existences;
and of the power of virtue to triumph over the earthward tendencies of
this double human nature, and to sacrifice the present to the future
good;--when I think of what the perfect man can be,--I cannot be
reconciled that one should live and not have the keys to unlock this
part of the universe. Childhood is in our power. The helpless little
beings must be taken care of. The world waits upon the babe, as has
truly been said; and is not this one of those beautiful provisions of
Nature which show us how
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them as we will!"
"The child is father of the man," indeed; and while the heart bounds
lightly, let us teach this youthful father the religion of Nature, which
he can understand. When he comes to riper years he will be ready to
comprehend the religion of the Spirit, without danger of superstition or
bigotry.
One obstacle to such instruction in Christendom is, doubtless, the very
prevalent feeling that the study of Nature leads to scepticism about
revealed religion. This injury has been done to religion's self by the
fact that a few learned men have been scoffers at Christianity, or
rather at what has been accepted as Christianity, and it is the
association of their names which is the foundation of the prejudice. The
discrepancy also between the discoveries of science and the imagery of
the Hebrew poets who _sang_ about creation, is another cause; but since
Mr. Silliman has ventured to say that there probably were a great many
deluges, the ice of that difficulty has been cracked in _our_ community.
I see no reason why simple religious lessons, like those Mr. Waterston
gives in his Sunday-school, may not be given in the public schools. You
will say, we must have Mr. Waterston to do it, (and that is true indeed,
now,) but when the public mind is ready for such instruction, such
teachers will come up to supply the demand.
My first introduction to natural science was in listening to
instruction of this kind given to children older than myself, under the
sanction of a mother's authority. They were lessons in Astronomy and
Chemistry, given before there were any elementary books upon such
subjects; and they so kindled my imagination, when a very young child,
and gave me such a realizing sense of the presence of God around me,
whom I had already known as a Heavenly Father, who took care of me and
of all men, by night as well as by day, that from that time I never lost
the child's sense of nearness, or felt any of those fears of the
supernatural which haunt the imagination of uninstructed childhood. And
yet I was in the habit of listening to the stories of an old crone who
believed in the witches of Salem, where she had always resided, as
firmly as she believed in the God that made her. When I first heard the
remark that the study of Nature tended to make men atheistic, I resented
it with indignation, though but a child.
This, then, is the kind of teaching that I think adapted to childhood.
It need not be exclusive, but let it predominate. Other faculties,
beside the emotions of wonder and veneration, may be cultivated side by
side with these. Memory, comparison, judgment, and calculation may be
strengthened by a judicious and well-proportioned teaching of the
elements of languages and numbers, thus insuring the tools for future
acquisition. But this is not direct food for the soul. The young heart
is full of love for its parents, of delight at the knowledge of new
things, and these affections may be guided into adoration of Supreme
Intelligence; this love of knowledge turned to its source, as easily and
naturally as the stream flows from the mountain to the sea.
Side by side with this higher cultivation I would teach the eye, the
hand, and the ear to practise, and to work readily. The pencil should
ever be in the hand, the picture before the eye,--especially when the
objects of Nature cannot be, and sweet sounds in the ear. The love of
activity is sufficient aid without the debasing influence of emulation.
Facts are divine teaching, and a clear perception of them the basis of
all theories; therefore they should be clearly and sharply presented and
discriminated. When children are led to see their own ignorance, let
them understand that we, who appear to them the concentration of all
wisdom, ("Pallas-Minervas," as one of my little readers of Homer called
me one day), are also ignorant in presence of the universe, which is
full of things to be known, and they will not be discouraged, but only
more eager to learn what they can of these worlds of knowledge; and will
think of those still to be conquered rather than of any little
acquirements of their own, thus escaping the dangers both of despondency
and vanity. Let children lead this happy life till they are eight or
nine, and let it be so full and blessed by love, sympathy, and the play
of the creative imagination, that it will lift them over the rough
places for many more years, while they shall build stone walls and
towers of facts, as starting-places for future flights. It is the
observation of every experienced heart that the most hardened sinner may
be more easily redeemed, if he can be reminded of an infancy of purity
and golden sunshine. If true, it is an argument for prolonging that
infancy as far as possible, that the recollection of it, if
unfortunately dimmed, may the more surely revive in those deep moments
of existence, when the soul is thrown back upon itself for support and
consolation; whether they be moments of guilt or of sorrow, of
disappointed ambition or disappointed hope, of wounded pride, or wounded
faith.
I am aware that the public schools are the hope of our land and its
glory, and schools are the best world for children to grow up in when
properly regulated; but I wish they need not be so large, so that there
need be but one sovereign in each. Still more desirable is it, however,
that none but living souls should ever have the privilege of unlocking
the treasures of knowledge and thought for children. It is not enough to
have deep and varied acquirements, but there must be a native delight in
communicating, and a sympathy--a living sympathy--with every human
being. These alone will awaken the love of excellence and call forth the
powers of the mind. No one should ever have the care of children who
does not love them because they _are_ children, or who can ever feel the
undertaking an irksome task. I always regret to see the occupation
entered upon as a last resort for a livelihood, or by those whose
spirits can no longer respond to the touch of childhood. It must be a
strong spirit that, in such instances, can rise again to meet the
bounding hopes of fresh being. It is like going back to principles, when
our experience fails to answer our just demands for highest happiness.
In the faith of childhood, which knows no doubt, we can see that one
experience is not the test of what our birthright is; and while we do
not neglect the warnings we have had, we must never think that our
single experience has exhausted the source whence truth flows.
I believe, too, that the germ of everything is in the human soul; and
this faith seems to me essential to a teacher. Education is not the
creation, but only the bringing forth of these germs, and that alone is
a true education which brings them forth in fair proportions. To make
children learn something tangible, if I may so speak, and to keep them
quiet, are the usual aims of a teacher, and success in these is the
usual test of his value; but they seem to me not to be his highest
merit. I have often waited long, and I have learned to wait patiently,
for anything like _results_. There is a certain harmonious play of the
faculties, to the production of which I direct my efforts, and which I
watch for with intense interest in my children, (for they seem to me
mine,) and this can never be cultivated if one is bound by any formulas.
I consider myself fortunate that my own mind has always enjoyed its
birthright of freedom; that no iron habits have bound me to any
mechanical system. My advantage is a negative one, perhaps, for I never
had much training of an intellectual kind, my physical education being
the chief object in my childhood. I was at least saved from such
formality as enabled the teacher of a distinguished school to say in my
presence, that "the less boys understood or were interested in their
lessons, the better the discipline of study." This was surely making the
process as mechanical a one as the motions of a trip-hammer. But there
you have an immense advantage over me. You have been well trained, and
yet measured by no Procrustean bed, for your most living teacher never
wore any fetters herself, and could not impose any. Am I not right? Your
summer retreat has been "twice blessed" in having such advantages of
highest education, added to the influences of Nature, which you so
dearly love. You are bound to open your eyes as beamingly as she does,
upon all who come under their glance, to show your gratitude for such
teachings. I well remember your frequent descriptions of those "large
orbs" that presided over the most interesting part of your youthful
training. I have seen those eloquent eyes myself, and can conceive their
power when animated with the inspiring pleasure of pouring the treasures
of thought into a receiving soil. And you are not the only one whom I
have heard discourse of this source of inspiration. Your best study,
too, was in the season when the reins are generally relaxed. The time
when I received most benefit from study, solitary and unaided, and even
_stolen_ as it was, (for the family decree was that, I being an invalid,
must not study,) was when I pursued my lessons in an orchard, and
generally in a tree, or sitting in the baby's breakfast-chair, in the
midst of a shallow, rushing river, under a sweeping willow. I was
brought up so much out of doors, that walls were oppressive to me.
Indeed, I look back upon it as the only time of my childhood when any
variety of influences acted upon me at once; and one which I ought not
to omit to mention, was a much admired friend, who knew how to point out
to me, leaf and flower in hand, what riches of knowledge were stored up
in Nature for her children. I do not know but what my love of these
hidden treasures was stimulated by the fear of being deprived of them.
Owing to this fear I probably arrived earlier in life at that point
which I have always contended was the great point in education,--the
time when one takes it into one's own hands. But I do not think that
your "two outward advantages" of motherhood and education, constitute
all your qualifications for the task you have undertaken. I know what
soil was warmed into fruitfulness by the rays shed from the sun of
genius. Now, you are bound to fulfil my hopes, and if my own path is not
smoothed by your help, I shall call you to account for my
disappointment. I will give you my small experience, and tell you how I
found out methods, because they were _not_ practised upon me; and I bid
forth your power of deducing theories and improvements that will cheer
us both onward. For want of more interested auditors, I often pour out
my plans for educing order out of the little chaoses committed to my
care, to ears that stretch to their utmost for politeness' sake, and for
my sake, perhaps; but not for the thing I wish to impart.
LETTER II.
MY DEAR ANNA,--I will begin by telling you that I can do the thing
better than I can describe it. You must let me tell you stories out of
my school-room to illustrate the wisdom of my proceedings. I can hardly
tell you my enjoyment of the fresh affections of children, of their love
of knowledge (of _new things_, as it always is to them), of their ready
apprehension of principles, of their quick response to truth, their
activity and buoyancy, their individuality, their promise. Sometimes I
look forward for them, and tremble at what awaits them, when I see
tendencies to evil or weakness. I know that every ill in their various
paths may be made stepping-stones to highest good; but the doubt whether
they will be made so, the certainty of the long and sharp pains of
conflict, the dying down of hope, (that happily, I know, can yet rise
Phoenix-like from its own ashes,) these, and many perils by the way,
that my brooding heart points out to me, often oppress me, and I could
wish them spared. When it is remembered how man has marred the work of
God, how different his part ought to be from what it is, and how long it
must be before the individuals of the race can work themselves free from
the crust of evil that has grown over the whole, I think I may be
pardoned for these heart aches; but I know they are not my highest
moments. It has been deeply said that pain is the secret of Nature. I
have that within me which responds to it. I must feel it for others as
well as for myself, and shall constantly do so when my faith is
perfected. I am grateful that I exist, for I can look upon what we call
_this life_ as only the beginning of a long career, in which I shall
ever look back and rejoice that I have been a human being, whatever may
be the ills that I suffer from just now. The consciousness of the
capacities of expanding intellect and of glorious affections, assure me
that the destiny of the soul will compensate for the heritage of woe,
which this life is to many of us. Thus I try to look beyond the
conflicts I see in the future of these little beings who now dance
joyfully around me.
You will wonder, perhaps, that one can conceive such a personal interest
in the children of others; but it will come to you in time. You have
truly said, that it needs all the tenderness of a mother, and her vital
self-forgetting interest in the result, to enable her to find the true
path of Nature from the beginning, and remove all obstacles to free
unfolding. But many a mother sacrifices her elder children, as it were,
to this discovery. As the germ of the maternal sentiment is in all
women, relations may be established between teacher and child that may
take the place of the natural one, so far as to answer all the purposes
required. Such a relation is the only foundation upon which a true
education can go on. It leaves no room for a division of interests
between child and teacher, which division alone has the power forever
to destroy all the best benefits of the communication of mind, and is
generally, indeed, an effectual barrier against any _communication_ at
all. Such a relation as I would have does away with every feeling of
reserve that might check the full and free expression of thought and
feeling. A young child should turn to its teacher, as well as to its
mother, with the undoubting confidence that _there_ is a wealth of love
equal to all occasions. When my little scholars call me "mother," which
they often do from inadvertence, I feel most that I am in the true
relation to them. I have in some instances been preferred before the
mother, because I was the fountain of knowledge and even of tenderness
to starved and neglected little souls. A very sensitive child of seven
years old, who always said "can't," when any task, even the simplest,
was set before her, but who was, nevertheless, so morbidly conscientious
that she was miserable not to be able to accomplish anything that she
thought her duty, took an opportunity one day, when she was alone with
me, to make me the confidant of her domestic sorrows, asking me to
promise I would not tell "mother." This was rather dangerous ground; but
I knew something of the domestic life of the family, and that the tender
mother of it was often exasperated almost to madness by the cruel
tyranny and exactions of the father, and I promised. Then, with burning
cheeks and trembling voice she told me that they did not love her at
home; that her father despised her; that her mother urged her beyond her
strength to meet his requirements; that her eldest sister treated her
with harshness and ridicule because she was so "stupid," and that her
younger sisters did not like to play with her because she was cross. I
saw at a glance why she always said and felt "can't," and I stood
awe-struck before the endowment of conscience in the child which had
stood the test of such trials as these, and made duty the central point
of her being, for that I had already known to be the case. I sympathized
with her, as you may well imagine. I told her what I knew of the
virtues of her mother, whom she tenderly loved, and whose love for
herself she felt, but could not enjoy, because its natural expression
was lost in the impatient endeavor to hold her up to her father's
unreasonable requisitions. From that hour she was my child, and could
work happily in my presence. I told her that I knew she always wished to
do right, and that I should always be satisfied with whatever she could
accomplish; that if I required too much of her, she only need to say so;
that she must not try to do anything more than was pleasant and
comfortable, for only thus could she preserve her powers of mind, which
were good, and which would work well if they could work happily. Through
my influence she passed much time away from her ungenial home, with
friends in whose society she could be happy and unrestrained, and the
burden was lightened so far that she was in the end able to justify
herself, and take a happier place in the family circle; but she was
irretrievably injured both mentally and morally, learning to become
indifferent where she could not assert herself, and the battle of life
will, I fear, ever be a hard one to her.
In such cases one feels the true spirit of adoption, and this should be
the standard for the general relation. I do not feel satisfied till the
most timid and reserved are confiding to me, smile when they meet my
eye, and come to me in the hour of trouble; nor till the most perverse
and reckless take my reproofs in sorrow and not in anger, and return to
me for sympathy when they are good.
Nor am I willing to have anything to do with the education of a child
whose parents I am unable to convince of my vital interest in its
welfare, and into whose heart I cannot find an entering place, while at
the same time I speak candidly of faults; for there is a sort of
magnetism in the coöperation of mother and teacher; and its subtle
influence, or the reverse, is distilled into every detail of the
relation. Sometimes I find parents who do not know enough of their
children to interfere at all, and then I am willing to do what I can to
supply the deficiency. The school should only be the larger family for
them, and the lessons learned should be the least good they receive from
the daily routine. Still worse off are those who are educated at home by
servants who rule in nurseries, and so long as they keep the children
quiet are not questioned much as to the means by which they do it. Quite
aggravated cases of oppression have come under my observation, which I
have discovered by noticing the sway held over children by these
hirelings, who bring them to and from school. I _think_ I should never
risk this evil in a family of my own.
To seize every opportunity to unfold thought in a natural way, to
consider duty, to awaken and keep alive conscience, and cultivate a
mutual confidence and forbearance between the young, should be the aim
in such a little world as a school. The flow of happy spirits should be
unchecked, and no deep memory of faults should remain with a child,
unless they are of the deepest dye, such as falsehood and selfishness. A
serious invasion of each other's rights should be made a prominent
subject of blame, but the only retribution of which a child should be
made to have a permanent consciousness, is that of the injury, or the
danger of injury to _itself_, and I firmly believe if this can be made
apparent to a child, it may be the strongest possible motive to keep it
in the path of rectitude. It seems to me indeed the only legitimate
motive to present to a human soul. I do not mean a selfish regard to the
welfare even of one's own soul, but that regard which includes the
welfare of others as well as of one's own. I do not like to say to a
child, "do not so because if you do I cannot love you," for that is an
outside motive, but rather "because you cannot grow any better if you do
so and then you cannot respect yourself or be worthy of any one's love."
"Do not grieve dear mother by doing wrong, for then she cannot be
happy." "Are you not afraid if you do so, that by and by you can do
something more naughty?" "Is there not something in you, that makes you
feel very uncomfortable when you have done wrong? That is the way God
has made us, so that we may grow better and not worse." I have arrested
_very_ naughty doings by such remarks, where defiance of human authority
was very strong and determined. I have awakened a similar fear in many a
child by relating what a dread I had in my own childhood of growing
worse. Nothing is easier than to make a child false by frightening it or
blaming it too much; but nothing will make a child so ingenuous as to
convince it that you are interested in its progress, and would like to
help it cure its own faults. But we must often wait long before a child
is capable of taking this view so fully as to be influenced by it, in
opposition to the dictates of passion and the weakness or immaturity of
intellect; experience teaches us that the volatile, the obstinate, the
self-indulgent, the crafty, and even the indolent must be influenced by
the apprehension of a nearer penalty or the power of a more direct
authority than that can always be understood to be. Self-control is
often the first virtue to be cultivated, and a fear of present evil must
sometimes be the instrument of its cultivation. A distinguished and most
successful superintendent of an insane hospital once assured me, that in
the majority of cases, self-control was all that was needed as a remedy
for insanity. I asked him if he had ever known of insane children? He
said he had known many; and that it usually appeared in the form of
_unmanageableness_. If we concede that all evil in our race is partial
insanity (and if we believe in the soul, we must finally think that the
crust of organization into which it is built for a time is the only
obstacle to its right action, and to put one parenthesis within another,
which I know is not canonical, does not this point to the duty of
providing against evil organizations?), why should we not treat all evil
as insanity should be treated, and believe that if the power of
self-government is cultivated, the soul will take care of itself? In
this connection I always take health into consideration; for one wise
mother of my acquaintance suggested a new idea to me by once telling me
that for certain faults in her children she always gave medicine, being
convinced that the difficulty lay in the stomach.
I am always very careful to disarm all fear before I use any authority.
I find much timidity in children, as if they had been harshly dealt
with. I have seen fearful looks of terror in little faces when I have
approached them to enforce a request, and in such cases I either take
them gently in my arms or draw them close to me with a caressing motion,
which is sometimes all the punishment they need, if you will allow me
such an Irishism. They are at the same time convinced of my earnestness,
and disarmed of all opposition, and when I approach another time, if
occasion requires, I can lead them to another seat or even out of the
room, and enjoin obedience without exciting either fear or opposition. I
never threaten any penalties, but execute my own requisitions decidedly
at the moment, "because this is the right thing to be done." I think it
is not well to threaten for _next time_; and where punishments are mild,
such as changing a child's seat, or putting it into a room alone, or
going to its mother and talking the matter over in presence of the
child, a repetition of the offence may be avoided. I have one child in
my school who would crouch down upon the floor, if opposed, or required
to do any thing she did not wish to, and go into a sort of hysteric,
protesting that she was dying. I laughed at her a little at first, but I
soon saw she was very obstinate and very passionate, and several times
on such occasions I took her up in my arms, though she was pretty heavy,
and carried her to a bed, where I laid her down and left her to enjoy
her performance alone. After a while she would sneak down into the
school-room again looking very much ashamed, but I took no notice of
this, and after two or three experiments she was entirely cured. I
learned afterward that she had practised this device successfully upon a
doting mother and her nursery-maid, who really feared she would die.
They were much obliged to me for having the courage to meet it
resolutely. She has become a charming little scholar, for she is as full
of talent and affection as of self-will, and has been sent, by my urgent
entreaty, to learn calisthenic exercises, where she expends the extra
fluid which, when bottled up by inaction, works mischief in her. She was
formerly unable to tie her own bonnet or draw on her own gloves, but in
six months she has so changed that she can dress other children as well
as herself, and climbs the banisters and perches herself fearlessly upon
the tops of the doors, greatly to the terror of other little children of
luxury like herself.
We should never prevaricate or in any way deceive a child for the sake
of an immediate result, for that is not being true to principle, but we
may be allowed sometimes, in our characters of mothers and teachers, to
act as that "near Providence," which the mother has so happily been said
to be. In God's government, some penalty, though often a hidden one, is
the consequence of every transgression of law; and do we not in a small
measure act to the child as his representatives? It is a dangerous power
to have dominion over another soul, even for a time; but since it is
actually given to us, are we not bound to make use of it,
conscientiously and tenderly, but still to make use of it? I once knew a
father who thought, because he was not himself perfect, that he had no
right to exact obedience from his children. His retribution for this
morbid conscientiousness was most deplorable. One child became insane
from want of self-control, which he would not allow her to be taught;
and another failed to have any sentiment of duty toward God or man, but
passed many years of life without apparently knowing that any duty was
required of him. Worldly prosperity in his case only increased the evil,
for he was never obliged to make an exertion for himself or others. I
have never heard that he was vicious, but he could not live even with
the parent who had allowed him to grow up unrestrained. The parents
surely are designed to represent to the child the Heavenly Father whom
they cannot see, and who must later become an object of faith through
that beautiful analogy of parental love and care.
I agree too with one of the best and wisest, who has said that it is not
necessary to reward children for doing right, since God has so made man
that doing right is, like loving, its own reward. Only those who have
thought deeply can make such discriminations as these, yet to what noble
mind, when the thing is once said, does it not seem base to give an
outward reward for a lofty action? And is it not a brotherly act to help
our fellow-pilgrims on their way, by giving a friendly warning when a
stumbling-block is in the path? I think children can be made to
understand that a judicious punishment is a friendly warning, if not the
first time we administer it, then the second, or the third, or even the
fiftieth time; for as we should forgive, so we should warn our brother,
"not seven times, but seventy times seven." I learn to feel that if I am
actuated by the right motive in my dealings with their souls, (and one
learns to be very conscientious in meddling with them,) my pupils will
find it out sooner or later; and then they will see all that I have
done, as well as all that I may do, in a new light.
I have a bright little fellow in my school who had acquired a sad habit
of sucking his thumb. I thought he actually began to grow thin upon it.
I had checked him many times, and he was good about it, but the habit
was too strong for him. One day I drew on a little conversation about
helping each other out of difficulties, which all agreed to; and all
professed themselves willing to be helped and to listen to warnings. I
then said there was one in the school whom I wished to cure of a bad
habit, and I had a plan for doing it, but its success must depend upon
whether he was willing, and upon whether the rest would be really
friendly and not laugh at him, or tease him, but help him in every way
they could. They were very desirous to know who and what it was, and
very sure they would do all that was desired. I then spoke to little
W----, who was only six, or at most, seven years old, and asked him if
he was willing to let me tie that hand behind him that he might be cured
of sucking his thumb; for I knew of no other way. I told him it would
try his patience; for it was his right hand, and he would have to be
dependent upon others for many things, and often would find it very
inconvenient and annoying. After I had impressed him fully with the
importance of the matter, he consented, and the rest of the children
promised to be attentive to his wants. I never tied the hand behind him
till he put the thumb into his mouth; but it had to be done every day
for a fortnight. He bore it, and all the inconveniences, like a hero,
and not one child forgot to be considerate and helpful. He was cured of
the trick, and he has been an object of great interest among his
companions ever since, because they helped to do him good.
Perhaps, dear A----, you will think I dwell longer than necessary upon
this subject, knowing as _we_ do that the usual fault of schools is too
much penalty, and too much low motive; but you and I are surrounded by
those who are inclined, by their tendency of thought, to forget
practical wisdom; who, in their lively sense that immortality begins
now, and is not a distant good,--a sort of reward for well-doing, are in
danger of forgetting that we are to be educated by circumstances, and
that circumstances _will_ educate us, whether we direct them or not, in
this beginning of our long career. Those who have most faith in the soul
and its ultimate power to work itself free from all impediments, are
most apt to despise all the minor aids that may help its first steps.
Then there is another class of persons, who do not believe in the soul
enough to think education of any use. They cannot very well tell you
what they do believe; in truth they have no faith in anything, but
finding it hard to control circumstances, and seeing instances of great
failure where there have been most appliances, (they do not consider
whether these appliances were wisely administered,) they give all up to
chance, and believing neither in innate ideas nor in the use of means,
rest satisfied with a low standard of action, and go through life
without ever having a glimpse of anything better than themselves.
Indeed, if they see anything better, they understand it so little, that
they think it must be a delusive appearance, and that an earnest view of
any subject is extravagance, or even insanity. But I do not think so
great a want of faith is very common.
This is too long a letter, so good-by for the present. When I think you
are rested from this, I will write again.
M.
LETTER III.
MY DEAR ANNA,--Let me introduce you to my little family. It consists of
twenty children, some of whom have been under my care for three years.
These latter are eight in number, and from nine to twelve years of age;
then I have six who are not seven years old, who know how to read pretty
well, but who study no lessons more difficult than a simple bit of
poetry, the names of a few places on the map, a list of words from the
black-board of the parts of a flower, or an interlined Latin fable,
which I give them thus early, because Latin is one of the elements of
our language, and its forms are so definite that it gives definiteness
to ideas. These children print, write, draw from outlined forms and
blocks, as well as from their own fancies, and listen to all sorts of
information which I give them orally, and which they recount to me again
when questioned. I tell a great many stories over maps, which are, in my
dominions, not only lines running hither and thither with a few names
interspersed, but real mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, which I
clothe with verdure, and people with all kinds of animate forms, such as
beasts, birds, fishes, and William Tells, or other interesting
individuals and tribes. I have a book, called "Wonders of the World,"
which is my Aladdin's lamp, and when I take it down, little hands are
clapped and bright eyes glisten.
But I must not forget to mention my other six, who are sweet little buds
of promise as one can well imagine; who love to hear stories about all
living things, from oysters up through the more intelligent shell-fish
that have heads as well as a foot, to small pink pigs and their mothers,
butterflies, birds, dogs, horses, cows, and fellow-children; and to
learn that their stockings are made of wool that grew on the back of a
lamb, their shoes of the skin of a calf, their ribbons from the cocoons
of a moth, the table of a tree, &c., &c. These little people were
committed to my keeping directly out of their mothers' or their nurses'
arms. I am always diffident about taking the place of the former, but
rejoice to rescue babes from the care of the latter.
The first thing to be taught these, is how to live happily with each
other; the next, how to use language. It is not necessary to wait till
they can read before we begin this last instruction. They love dearly to
repeat the words of simple poetry or of poetic prose, (Mrs. Barbauld is
my classic for babes,) and it is curious to see how synthetical are
their first mental operations, and how difficult they find it to
disentangle the words of a short sentence, which evidently has hitherto
been but one word of many syllables. Names of things can be made to
stand forth distinctly before other words, because the objects of the
senses do; but when I first ask children of three or four years old to
make sentences and put in _the_ and _and_, their pleasure in recognizing
the single word is even greater, and they will amuse themselves a great
deal with the exercise, running to me to whisper, "just now I said
_the_;" or, "Charley said _and_." If the printed word is pointed out at
the same time, it is still more interesting, because then it becomes an
object of the senses, a real thing, just as much as the book it is
printed in. You know I take the royal road to the attainment of this
art, and teach _words_ first, not letters. I find this a much better as
well as happier way, for a word is a whole host of thoughts to a young
child, and three words in a row a whole gallery of pictures. Bird, nest,
tree! If a child has ever played in a meadow, or even in a garden, or
sat on a grassy bank under the window, or has seen pigeons fly down into
a city street, what subject of endless conversation does this
combination of things present! The book that contains such words, and
perhaps a story, of which they form a part, is itself an illuminated
volume, and is immediately invested with a charm it cannot lose, for
what child (or man) was ever tired of the thought of a bird, or a tree,
to say nothing of that more rare and mysterious object, a nest? The
warbled song, the downy breast, the sheltering wing, the snug retreat,
have such an analogy with the mother's carol or lullaby, the brooding
bosom, and the beloved arms, a child's dearest home, that every
sentiment is enlisted, and a thousand things, never to be forgotten, may
be said. There is no need of pictures on such a page as this. I well
remember the shining pages of my childhood's books,--a lustre never
emitted by white paper alone. I doubt not the ancient fancy of
illuminating the works of great minds with gilded and scarlet letters
grew out of some such early association with printed, or rather written
thoughts;--for printing was not known then.
I believe you do not approve of this method of teaching to read; but I
cannot help thinking a variety of experience like mine would make you a
convert to my mode. I claim to have discovered it, and the bright little
six years old rogue, upon whom I tried my first experiment, learned to
read in six weeks, and every word was an experience to him, for I made
up the lessons as we went on from day to day right out of his little
life. He would scream with delight to see what he called _his_ words on
the sheet upon which I daily printed a new lesson. I have no doubt every
name of a thing looked to him like the thing itself, for his
imagination was a very transmuting one. You would have been as amused
at his antics over the word "and" as I was. I only introduced such
oysters of words occasionally into my gallery of pictures, but he never
forgot any such useful members of society, though I think he could not
have made pictures of them. One great point is, that children are always
happy to read in this way; and to work their little brains against their
will, seems to me cruel. It is quite an effort for them to learn to
observe closely enough to distinguish such small particulars even as
words, with which they have such vivid associations, and altogether an
unnatural one to learn arbitrary signs, to which nothing already known
_can_ be attached. Until I was convinced that this was the best method,
I always found myself instinctively helping innocent children along,
through their first steps in reading, by means which, at the time, I
half thought were tricks, and unsafe indulgences. I feared that I was
depriving them of some desirable and wholesome discipline, such as we
often hear of in our extreme youth from nursery-maids, who tell stories
of parents who whip their children every morning that they may be good
all day. But I will never again force helpless little ones, of three or
four years old, to learn the alphabet and the abs, until every letter is
interesting to them from the position it holds in some symbolic word.
When letters are learned in the ordinary way, they are often associated
with some image, as _a_ stands for _apple_, _b_ for _boy_, _c_ for
_cat_; and these associations may be so many hindrances (certainly in
the case of the vowels) to the next step in the process, because they
must all be unlearned before the letters can be applied to other words.
In our language there are so many silent letters in words, so many
sounds for each vowel, and the alphabetic sound of the consonants is so
different from their sound in words, that I do not care how late the
analysis is put off.
After a while, I string columns of little words together, in which the
vowel has the same sound, as _can_, _man_, _pan_, _tan_, and let these
be the first spelling-lessons; but I prefer, even to this mode, that of
letting children write from dictation the words they are familiar with
on a page. One dear little boy came to school three months before he
wished to read, or to look at a book, except for the pictures. At last
he came into the class without an invitation, and has learned very fast,
and can read better than some children who have read longer. He is a
perfect little dumpling, as gay and happy as a lark all day, and I would
not for the world make it a task for him to use his brain, thus risking
the diminution of his rotundity. He is as wise as a judge, though he has
not lost his baby looks; and he might be made to reason subtly at an
early age I doubt not; but I hope all such powers will be allowed to
slumber peacefully as yet. He is in the mean time learning to read
slowly; to print, to draw houses, to repeat poetry, to sing songs about
birds, bees, and lambs, and to have as much fun between these exercises
as I can furnish him with,--the latter in another apartment, of course.
I have taken no pains to teach him his letters. I have a great
repugnance to _letters_, with their many different sounds, so puzzling
to the brain;--but one day, finding he knew some of them, I pointed to
_g_, and asked him if he knew the name of it. He said "grass," which was
the first word in which he had seen _g_. So _w_ he first called "water,"
for the same reason. I gave him their sounds, but not their alphabetical
names. I was obliged to give him two sounds for _g_, one hard, one soft,
and he soon knew all the consonants by their powers. I hope he will not
ask me anything about the vowels at present.[I]
I also cut out the words children first learn, as soon as they can put
together a few in short sentences, and let them arrange them to
correspond with the sentences in the book. I have devoted one copy of my
Primer to this purpose, and keep the words thus separated, and pasted
upon card-board, for such use.
I know all children learn to read, and some children learn rapidly, but
I am always interested to know at what cost. It is a very important
question, I assure you. One may not realize, at the time, the evils
consequent upon the difficulties first encountered. The actual injury to
the brain stands first among these. We grown people know the painful
sensation consequent upon too long and too fixed attention to one
subject, even in the arranging of piles of pamphlets which we are
endeavoring to classify. The brain whirls and experiences chills, and
the whole body feels it. So with children, when made to read too long,
before the eye has learned to discriminate words easily. The child is
told that it is naughty, if it does not continue as long as the
teacher's or the mother's patience holds out (as soon as that is
exhausted, the lesson is sure to be over). How false this is! A little
child should never be required to do anything intellectual as a duty. It
should not be required even to _love_ as a duty, much less to think.
Both should be made inevitable by the interest inspired; its mental
efforts should only be sports. Its habits of self-control, its kindness,
its affection, should be cultivated, and this rather by example than by
precept. When mothers do not succeed in teaching their children to read,
because they have not the resolution to force them to it, they often say
to me, "Do teach the child to read, it will be a great resource;" I
reply, if I think they will believe me, that their instincts have
perhaps been wiser than their understanding; but if I see that they are
unreasonable, I reply that I will try, reserving to myself the privilege
of trying just as much as I please, and no more. I can generally make
the effort to read a voluntary one, if I do not find any previous
painful associations to do away. If I do, I wait patiently till I can
replace them by others, and in the mean time make books vocal of such
enchanting things that the desire will bubble up in the little mind,
through all the rubbish that has gathered over it. The pleasure of
reading together from a black-board, on which the letters should be
printed with great exactness and perfection of form, in order to
resemble those in the book, often gives this desire.
One little fellow, whose perceptive powers are sharper than those of my
dumpling, reflects upon himself more, and although equally fat, appears,
from a certain anxious expression on his face, to have had some trials.
He says his sister sometimes "hurts his feelings." He thinks some words
are beautiful and "full of pictures." He tells very small fibs, such as
"Mother says I must read those words, and those." Do not suppose I let
this fibbing pass. I make a great point of not believing it, and of
comparing it with truth, and of proving to him that his mother knows
nothing about it.
Another little darling, who cannot speak plain, says, "Oh, is 'at
_feathers_? Why! is it _feathers_? Oh, now tell me where _wings_ is! Oh!
is 'at _wings_? Oh! I want to kiss oo."
I hear these little ones read four or five times a day. The lesson
occupies about fifteen minutes each time. All "study" together, as they
call it. I put my pointer on the book of each in turn, making it a habit
that they shall not look off the book for the space of three minutes,
perhaps, during which each reads. They keep within a few sentences of
each other, near enough to think they read together, as I detain them
long upon the repetition of all they know; but I see very clearly which
will start off soon and outstrip the rest. I say nothing of which reads
the best, but sometimes make such remarks as, "L---- will learn to read
very fast, I think, he is so attentive." This makes L---- all the more
attentive, and helps the others to make the effort; for with these four,
to be able to read is the most charming of prospects. I am determined
that no touch of weariness shall break the charm. In three months they
will be able to read the two first stories in the Primer, which occupy
about two pages. Their eyes will by that time become so accustomed to
analyzing the looks of the words, that they will be able to print them
without the book, and soon new words will be learned very rapidly. I
stave off the spelling as long as possible, but you may be sure that
these children will spell well by and by. I am convinced of this by
experience, for the next class above these in age have begun within a
few weeks to write stories of their own, composing instead of copying
them from books, as they have done for two years, and I am myself quite
astonished at their spelling. They have never spelled a word they did
not understand, and their spelling in composition is better than that of
some children still older who learned to spell elsewhere, and who hate
spelling-books.
One of my exercises in thinking is to ask the children to tell me the
names of all the actions they can think of; and to help them I say, for
instance, "What can the bird do?" "What can the fly do?" "How many
things can the fly do?" Another is to ask them what things are made of,
and where they are found, "Are they vegetables, or are they from
animals, or are they minerals?" They are vastly entertained by this, and
one little fellow became so much excited, and wearied himself so much
with his investigations at home, that his mother begged me to suspend
the exercise for a time. Jemmy's head is a little too big for his body;
and the look of research in his great eyes gives evidence of precocity,
the thing of all others to be shunned. His mother has put thick boots
upon him lately, and turned him out into the snow, and he looks like a
butterfly in boots, with his ethereal head and spiritual orbs.
I have but one child under my care that I call a prodigy; and my
influence has not yet been strong enough to check her ardor as it ought
to be checked. She is sent to school because she is happier at school
than in the nursery, to which rich people's children are so often
banished. (I never intend to have a nursery in my house.) This child has
been with me three years, and is but six now. She might be made one of
those wonders of learning that occasionally astonish the world, if the
plan of her education had not been to supply as little food as possible
for her cravings. Fortunately she did not ask to read for a long time,
but I have not a scholar so perseveringly industrious, so absorbed in
whatever she is doing, so full of nervous energy. She is as
conscientious as she is intellectual. I have never had to repeat a
request to her, or to subject her to a rule. She always sees and does
the fitting and the lovely thing. Before she learned to read she would
sit for the hour together with a book in hand, (upside down, perhaps,)
and improvisate stories wonderful to hear, in which the characters
preserved their individuality, and the descriptions of nature were as
vivid as those of a poet of many years. She was quite lost to outward
things while improvisating thus. One day after school, the maid who came
for her not having arrived, she threw herself on the floor, and began a
story about a naughty child. I cannot now remember all the very words,
for it was a year ago; but the qualities of the heroine were a
combination of all the faults she knew anything about. "If people were
ill, she always made a noise; she would shut the door hard if told that
it would make people's heads ache. She hid other people's things, and
would not tell where she had put them. She was very cross to her little
brother, and often hurt the baby. She cut valuable things with the
scissors, tore up her books, and left the pieces of paper on the parlor
carpet. One day it rained very hard, and her mother told her not to go
out, lest she should take cold. She was always disobedient, so she went
up-stairs and put on a very nice dress and her best bonnet, with blue
ribbons, and thin stockings and shoes, and nothing to keep herself warm,
but went out in the rain, and paddled and paddled about, and wet her
dress, and spoilt the blue ribbons on her bonnet; and when she came in
she was very, very sick indeed, and had a dreadful fever, and people
slammed the doors and made a great noise, and she had dreadful, oh,
dreadful pains in her head and her side, and she could not eat or drink
anything; and at last she died and did not go to heaven!" She stopped,
completely out of breath. After a few moments' pause, I said, "Oh, I am
sorry for the poor little girl that was punished so much. Was she so
very naughty she could not go to heaven?"
She made no reply for some time, and then recommenced in a low, solemn
voice: "When she was lying in her bed, she was very sorry she had not
obeyed her mother, and a heavenly angel came down out of the heavenly
sky and took her up into heaven." After a short pause she burst out
again very energetically--"Then how she ramped! She trampled on the
clouds, and put her foot in the sun, moon, and stars!" I made no further
comment. I rarely interrupted her utterances, for they never were
addressed to any one, and seldom indulged in, unless she thought herself
alone. They were picturesque and symbolical, but never vague. The moral
was always very apparent. But her imagination sometimes clothes objects
with a light of its own. I was leading her up-stairs the other day, and
as we stepped into the hall, we saw a large spider running before us.
She dropped my hand and bounded forward, "Oh, you beautiful, smiling
creature!" was her exclamation.
Would not a bird have been her passport into paradise at that moment?
Another of these children was walking in the mall with me one day, when
the sun was shining with an afternoon light upon the bare trees, over
rather a dreary landscape of snow and ice. "Oh, the trees look like
golden twigs," said my little poetess, so full of joy that I could
hardly hold her.
This, dear A----, is the
"time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth and every common sight,
To us do seem,
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream."
To return a moment to my little prodigy. When she did not for a long
time ask to read, she wished to print, and it must have been this
practice which gradually so accustomed her eye to the shapes of words,
that when she suddenly conceived the desire to read, she remembered them
with marvellous rapidity. Everything else was abandoned for the time,
and in the course of two or three weeks she could read very well. I had
often seen her take up the books which contained the stories she liked,
and I supposed, at first, that she must have learned to read them
herself in some unaccountable way. She had often repeated such stories
from the book from beginning to end, word for word. But I found it was
not the case,--that she had never actually read them before. However, I
never could trace the steps. Spelling she does not find easy. Even now,
several months after she has been able to read currently, if, when she
comes to a new word, I propose to her to spell it, she will mention the
letters (I never taught her their names, but she doubtless learned them
while printing so industriously), and then say again, "What is it?" as
if that had not helped her at all. But she never forgets a word after it
is once told her. She joins in an exercise I frequently practise with
older scholars, of spelling a few lines of the reading lesson, but she
is not so ready as the others, although none read better, and few as
well. She now composes stories on the slate instead of improvisating
aloud so much; and I am surprised to find how many words she spells
aright. But I try no experiments upon her, as my plan is to clip her
wings. If she was enshrined in as rotund a body as some of the other
children, I might venture a little, but she already looks too
ethereal;--one sees at a glance that the sword of her fervent little
spirit might easily be made to cut its sheath.
Children love to use their fingers, and I give them a slate when they
come to school, and teach them to print, which accelerates the learning
to read. I encourage them also to draw from beautiful outlines, from
things they see in the room, and also from their own fancies. I draw
upon the black-board before them, very slowly, giving directions for
imitation. I never criticise their productions, whether successful or
not. I often see a promise in the freedom of a stroke, or in the child's
appreciation of his own drawing, which an unpractised eye could scarcely
detect. If a little child brings me a slate with three marks drawn upon
it which he calls a horse, or a dog, can I be so unsympathizing as to
question it? Perhaps I add ears, legs or a tail, and my little disciple
does not know the next moment whether he or I completed the picture, but
the next specimen of his art will probably have at least one of these
appendages.
I drew on the black-board to-day, a square house, with a door in the
middle of the front, a window on each side the door, and one in each
chamber over the parlors. Two chimneys surmounted the house, and the
windows were divided each into six panes of glass. These things I
mentioned as I drew them. It was not many minutes before I was called to
look at two houses of four times the size of mine, with the additional
embellishments of stairs to go up into the chambers, one of the windows
open (which I thought decidedly the stroke of genius in this artist),
smoke from the chimneys, steps to the doors (my house had been left
hanging in mid air), pumps with individuals, I cannot call them men,
suspended to their handles, and various other hieroglyphics which I
could not stay to hear explained. These limners are four years old,
their faith in themselves and others yet unshaken, and I should be the
last one to suggest that stairs could not be seen through the walls of a
house, or that men were not lines and dots, or birds as large as
houses, for I have known children to cry at such criticisms, and to be
quite checked in their artistic exploits by a laugh.
After such rude practice as this, the child, by imperceptible advances,
begins at last to see things more as they are, and then a little
criticism is safe, but it must still be guarded, sympathizing, and
helpful. The next thing to be inculcated after this is that objects must
_not_ be drawn just as they are, but only as they appear. I made this
remark to a child of seven to-day for the first time. He had learned too
much to make similar mistakes to those of the little people lately
mentioned, but in attempting to copy the drawing of a stool, he could
not comprehend how the rungs that joined the legs of the stool could be
drawn so as to look right, because one of them could not _really_ be
made to pass behind the leg. I pointed to a chair and told him to
suppose he was drawing it upon the wall near which it stood, for his
paper represented that wall, though for convenience sake it was laid
flat upon the table. I asked him if he could see the whole of the legs
farthest from him, and if the rungs of those legs did not pass behind
the front legs. He saw it clearly. Then I told him we must draw things
as they appeared, not as they really were. Nothing must be drawn which
cannot be seen, although we know more is there than we can see without
going behind it. He was delighted with this discovery. Now he understood
about the rungs of the stool, and also why two legs appeared longer than
the other two. The stool was finished intelligently, though not with
elegance, and the paper was sprinkled with attempts at various chairs
which he could see from his seat, some of which really looked as if one
could sit down in them, and not as if they were flattened out and
hanging against the wall. Some of the legs would have gone through the
floor, to be sure, if they had been real chairs, in order to afford a
comfortable and even seat, but I saw that the idea was seized, which was
quite enough for my unexacting demands. A child much younger and less
practised, drew the same stool right, without a word from me, and
probably would be completely puzzled were I to give her the same
explanation, for art speaks to her without articulate voice. I have one
little girl with eyes which she seems scarcely yet to have used. I took
a great deal of pains to teach her to draw a little upon the black-board
last winter, but if I drew a perpendicular, she thought she imitated me
by drawing a horizontal line. I endeavored to wake up the love and
perception of form by hanging upon the board various exquisitely shaped
vases and leaves, but neither these nor rectangular forms aroused her
imitative powers. I never ceased to make these trials, for I remembered
that a genius in that line once said to me, "the art of seeing must
precede the art of drawing." During the long vacation she resided in the
country, and nature must have opened her eyes, for since she came back
to school (about two months ago), she has actually been able to imitate
quite intelligibly some of those very forms, and prefers some of them to
others. I assure you I enjoy her imperfect performances far more than I
do the successful efforts of many others. A German friend gave me a book
the other day which promises to pour a flood of light upon what I now
look upon as my benighted efforts to simplify to children the art of
drawing. It is the method of a man of genius, discovered after much
groping. He, too, had wooden models made, and stood by them, and pointed
out to his pupils which part to draw first, as I have done, but at last
he has reduced the whole thing to a few lessons upon some rectilinear
blocks, a niche, a cylinder, a grindstone, and a ball. I am revelling in
the perfect adaptation I see in it to the end proposed, which is
practical teaching of perspective without a word being said about
vanishing points, aerial perspective, or any of those technicalities
which weary my unmathematical brain, and which I have faithfully
administered to myself from time to time.[J]
To vary the occupations of my cherubs, I let them write Foster's
prepared copies with a pencil, which helps very much to regulate the
motions of the hand, as there is a great interest felt in tracing each
mark upon the blue line. They also look at pictures in books and on the
wall, where I hang all the pretty things I can find, and tell me what is
in them; and sometimes amuse themselves at a table of shells, where I
hear them recounting in low voices the histories I have given them of
these little tenants of the seas. When I kept caterpillars, or rather
raised butterflies, they never were tired of watching the chrysalides,
hoping to see the expected butterflies. After these came forth in their
glory, we were all poisoned by handling the cocoons, and since that
experience of itching hands, and arms, and swollen eyes, I have been
afraid to venture upon that branch of natural history. Shells are the
most convenient natural objects for children to handle. We talk over
flowers often, and I teach the names of their different parts, and
encourage the children to make collections of leaves, and learn the
names of their shapes, preparatory to learning the art of analyzing them
thoroughly. For this purpose I have drawn all the shapes I can find
named in botanies, into a book, from which I teach them. Flowers are
better for teaching beauty than botany, to little children, as they
object particularly to tearing them to pieces.
I have not said one word about my little Robin, who stands most of the
time at the window watching the horses in the stable opposite, the scene
being often spiritualized by the descent of a flight of pigeons, which
he generally apprises us of by a shout. Occasionally he turns round and
sits down, and watches inside proceedings, and when an interesting story
about living things is in progress, I sometimes find him in my lap, or
behind me in the chair I am sitting in. His eyes are blue, and his long
golden straight hair hangs down from his tall forehead like a cleft
banner of light. Robin will not look inside of a book yet. He is like a
caged bird in the city where he is imprisoned in winter. In summer he
lives out of doors, and rides on horseback on his father's knee, and
holds the reins in driving. His mother says horses are the predominating
idea, and also sentiment of his life, at present, and this stable-peep
into their city life is duly recounted every day at home. I often mourn
over my lost residence by the Common, where the children who looked out
of window could see trees and a lovely landscape, but you must not think
I allow my scholars to be pent up five hours in the house. Twice a day,
I array them all, summer and winter, and take them to our city paradise,
which happily is very near. There we actually see a squirrel once in a
while. One day we saw a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, and
always the sparkling water and waving trees. And we have clear space and
fresh air for half an hour. If you will not tell, I will confess that I
have sometimes coasted down the least public side of Fox-hill with a
babe in my lap, and I find I have not forgotten how to slide,--an
accomplishment in which I excelled in my youth. In wet weather, I put on
some of the out-door garments, open a window, and have a merry dance or
play. The material for the early cultivation I would give is all nature,
and art taken picturesquely. The nomenclatures of science are not for
children, but its beauties and wonders are, and may be culled for them
by a skilful hand till they have had a peep at the wide range of the
universe. I believe you think it best not to open these store-houses
until the mind is capable of comprehending them more fully, but I cannot
think so, dear Anna. Children's love of nature forbids me to think so. I
once opened a little soul's eyes with a bunch of flowers. It was a child
who had never been to school before, but who had not been cultivated at
home, because her mother had suffered from being over-educated, and
wished to try the experiment of _nature_, as she called it,--by which
she meant, I perceived, total neglect. She had allowed her, therefore,
to grow up in the nursery and in the care of servants, both of which I
consider as far from _nature's_ teachings as possible.
The child was afraid of me and of the children. She looked at us for
about three weeks with a fixed gaze as if we were not living beings, but
perhaps walking pictures, her features only occasionally relaxing, I
should rather say puckering into a woful wail, which expressed utter
desolation and want of comprehension of our natures. She was impervious
to all my blandishments, which I lavished more bountifully than usual to
meet the case. When spoken to, she answered in a monosyllable, or not at
all. When she wanted anything, she spoke one word to convey the idea, as
a savage would, (she was five years old), and these utterances were
never voluntary. She liked to sit close by her brother, who was two
years older than herself, and who treated her with great tenderness and
gentleness, though every manifestation from her was of the roughest
kind. I was sure, however, that I did not see the whole, for his manner
of taking her hand and saying "little sister" was so peculiar, that I
did not doubt she was genial to him when not in this purgatory of
people.
One day I had a beautiful bunch of flowers from a greenhouse on my
table. This child's grandfather owned a greenhouse, but perhaps she had
never been allowed to handle the flowers, which were altogether too
precious for children, and wild pinks and violets had not been
accessible to her. I had been trying many days in vain to interest her
about a bee of which I had a picture. I had told her the bee made honey
out of flowers. On that day I drew the tumbler that contained these
splendid denizens of the greenhouse to the edge of the table, and
said,--
"Did you ever see a little bee making honey?"
"No."
"Did you ever go into the country in summer when the grass is all
green?"
"No."--(I knew she had.)
"Did you ever see pretty flowers growing?"
"No."
"I will tell you how little bees make honey--did you ever eat any
honey?"
"Yes."
"They have a long hair sticking out of their heads, and they put it in
there, where that yellow dust is, and there they find a little sweet
drop that tastes like sugar, and they carry it home, and put it into a
little hole, and then they come and get more, and carry that home, and
they put that yellow dust into a little pocket by the side of their
little leg, and by and by they get enough to make a great deal of
honey."
"Do the bees make it all themselves?" said she, with a brightening look
(the first look of intelligence I had seen), and at the same time making
a plunge at the flowers.
"Yes," I said, and taking them out of the glass I put them all into her
hand, for I did not even know that she could speak plain. She seized
them eagerly, and without taking her eyes from them went on volubly
asking a great many questions. I described the hive and how they all
lived together, and told her God must have taught them how to make
honey, for they could not speak or understand anybody's words, and that
if they wandered ever so far away from their hive, they always knew the
way back again. She held the flowers all the rest of the morning. When
school was done, I told her to put them into the glass, and she should
have them again in the afternoon. As soon as she returned, she very
unceremoniously took possession of them,--the first act of volition she
had ever ventured upon in my presence,--and nestling close to me asked
me the same questions she had asked before, over and over again, and
repeating them, and hearing my answers again and again, whenever she
could secure my attention. As long as the flowers lasted, she seized
upon them every day, and after they were withered to all other eyes,
they retained their charm in hers. I varied the lesson often, by telling
her of the silkworm, of the butterflies, and of many varieties of the
bee family, and from that time a communication was established between
us. She was never afraid of me any more; liked to sit near me; and have
my sympathy in all things, provided I did not express it too openly. It
was curious to see such _mauvaise honte_ in such a tiny thing, for she
was always reserved, and often relapsed into long silences, and was
wholly without enterprise in matters in which the other children were
very active, such as drawing, making block-houses, and even playing. But
I could catch her eye at any time by a story of any living thing, and
she would sometimes surprise me by the intelligence of her questions.
For a long time she could not learn to read, or rather would not. Every
new attempt at anything was begun in tears and despair, not from
weakness, but from pride apparently. Her mother had begun to think it
time to attend to her poor hidden soul a little; and after a long summer
vacation which she passed in the country, she came back to school with
pleasure and with a new face, and though always backward in comparison
with children who had had motherly intercourse, and been taught early to
use their faculties, she went steadily on. There was no competition to
discourage her, and she learned to read immediately when she once wished
to. None but mothers can do justice to little children. She sometimes
made me think of your remark that every child needs _four_ mothers. But
I think the two heaven-appointed parents will do, if they see their
duties and fulfil them.
To disarm your opposition about sending such little tots to school, I
assure you that many of my mothers tell me that the transition from
nursery life to my little community has cured children of fretting and
other faults, and that they repeat the occupations of the school-room in
their home plays.--Read "Christian Nurture," by Dr. Bushnell.
LETTER IV.
DEAR A.,--When I have a collection of children around me to whom I am to
teach things and morals, I always begin by making a simple statement of
the footing on which I wish we shall live together. Prevention is better
than cure, and much is gained with children, as with grown men, by
expecting from them the best and noblest action.
In a school or in a family, I do not like any government but
self-government, yet I wish my scholars to know that I often help the
growth of the latter by interposing my authority when that of the inner
law fails. When I commenced my present school, I had such a conversation
with the children on the first day they were assembled, before there had
been time for any overt acts upon a lower principle than the one I
wished to inculcate.
My school consists of children belonging to one class in a certain sense
of the word, that is, to families of the highest general cultivation
amongst us, and what is still more important, to families in which there
is a general if not well digested belief in the divinity of human
nature. Yet there is a great diversity in the influences upon them. Even
among people of the most liberal views there still lurks a sediment of
the feeling that there is a principle of evil as well as of good in the
human soul, and so people expect their children to be naughty on that
ground. Now I do not believe in this. I think all evil is imperfection.
It is sometimes very bad imperfection, I allow, and I am sometimes
tempted to say poetically, though never literally, that it looks like
innate depravity. But I do really believe in individual perfectibility,
and that "circumstance, that unspiritual god and miscreator," is our
great enemy. Circumstance is a very important personage in my calendar,
and a perfect Proteus in the shapes he takes, for he covers not only the
common surroundings we call circumstances, but organization itself.
Perfection _must_ be in the reach of every one by God's original design,
and it is only man's marring that hinders its progress, and that
temporarily. I hope you have the same instinct about this that I have. I
can remember, even when I was not ten years old, hearing some one very
severely criticised, who I happened to know had had the worst of moral
educations, and I resented the criticism, not because the subject of it
was any friend of mine, for it was a person in whom I had no particular
interest, but I remember the feeling was a sort of vindication of God's
goodness, an _assurance_ that he would not judge that unfortunate person
harshly or unforgivingly, but that the misfortunes she had brought upon
herself, would teach her what her life at home had failed to teach her.
How often I have thought of that poor woman in my life!
To go back to my school. I knew many of the families, some intimately
enough to know the very peculiarities of the children, others only
enough to be able to anticipate the little characters; others were
perfect strangers, whom I was yet to study. Many of them had never been
to school before, and I knew enough of the usual method of governing
schools to be aware that the associations of those who had been in such
scenes, were likely to be those of contention for power, the memory of
penalties, and a division of interests between teachers and taught. Even
at home some of these children had been governed by fixed rules, instead
of the instincts of love, and had never been addressed as if they had
any sense of right and wrong; others had been weakly indulged, others
mostly if not wholly neglected, and left to the care of servants. One
little boy and girl, children of wealthy parents, scarcely saw their
father from one month's end to another, for he never rose till they went
to school; they dined at two and he at five, and before his dinner was
done, to which he never returned till the last moment, these little ones
were put to bed. Even the elder children who also went to school, saw
him only at dinner, for his evenings were usually spent in company, or
at some club. I hope this is an extreme case. I should say that the
mother in this family was an amiable woman, but not sufficiently like
the "near Providence" to counteract the effects of such fatherly
neglect.
There was one child, of truly religious and conscientious parents, whose
moral influence was null, except indirectly, because they really
believed that the human heart was originally depraved, and waited to be
saved by special grace from God, irrespective of the conscience; and
this girl, who was the oldest of my scholars, had less principle to work
upon than any one, and when I first spoke of the cultivation of the mind
as a religious duty, she told me very ingenuously that it was the first
time she had ever heard such a thought, although she was considered
quite remarkable at home for her religious sensibility, and really
prayed aloud sometimes like a little seraph, in imitation of her truly
devout parents; but she was very untruthful.
A few of the children had been made to feel that every human being has a
conscience, which, when enlightened, will guide him right. In these
latter the work of growth had already begun, and to them I looked for my
allies in the work I was about to undertake. I knew that the best I
could do would only come up to the standard that had ever been held up
before them.
I seated them all around me and began by telling them how much I loved
to keep school for little children, when they were good. But children
were not always good, and I was glad to help them cure their little
faults before they grew to be great ones, which was the thing most to be
feared in the world. I hoped the good children here would help me make
the others better, if there were any naughty ones. We must all be
patient with naughty people, just as God was. It took naughty people a
long time to grow better again. If each child would think about himself
a moment, he would remember that he did not always do perfectly right;
but God had given everybody a conscience which was sometimes called "the
voice of God within us," so every one could improve who would listen to
that voice.
There was a right thing to be done in every place. In school it would be
necessary for all to keep good order, else it would be impossible to
study, where there were so many persons; it was just as necessary too
that all should be polite and kind to each other, else there could be no
happiness. One unkind person could make all the rest uncomfortable.
After dwelling upon these points till all seemed to recognize their
importance, I told them that some people kept order in schools by rigid
rules and penalties; for instance, there would be a rule that every
scholar who spoke aloud should have a mark for bad conduct, every one
that kept order, a mark for good conduct; another rule would be, that
every lesson learned well should have a mark of approbation, every
lesson learned ill, a mark of disapprobation. The penalties for
transgressing rules were floggings, bad reports written for parents to
see, keeping lag after school, &c. &c.; the recompense for good marks,
either a good report, or a present,--the handsomest prize being given to
the one who learned lessons best.
But I did not wish to keep school thus. I had no respect for people who
did right only because they feared punishment or hoped for a reward.
Such motives made people selfish. I had known of children who would deny
having done something they had really done, and try to make a teacher
suppose some one else did it; and also of other children who were sorry
when some one else got the present. All these things made people
selfish, and tempted them to be false. We should do right because it was
right, whether it were to bring us pleasure or pain. It was the duty of
all to improve their faculties, because God had given them to us for
that purpose, and had put us into a beautiful world, and given us
parents and teachers to help us prepare for a long existence of which
this life is but a small part,--a kind of school in which we are
educated for another world.
I wished to have but one rule in my school, and that was the Golden
Rule: "do unto others as you wish others to do unto you."
The duty in school was to study well and to keep order, that others
might have a chance to study. It would be necessary for them all to
respect my arrangements, and obey my wishes for the sake of this order,
but they need not think of prizes or marks, for I should give none.
I wished them to govern themselves. This would make it unnecessary for
me to watch them all the time. I should soon learn who was worthy of
being trusted.
Did they not like to be trusted?
They responded warmly to this.
Did they not like to do as they pleased?
There was, of course, but one answer to this question.
I told them none could be allowed to do that in school except those who
pleased to do right, because it was my duty to prevent them from
disturbing each other, or from wasting their own time. But I hoped never
to be obliged to punish any one for doing wrong. I should make no rules
at present, and if I found all were polite, obliging, and industrious, I
should never need to make any; but if there were any in school who did
not obey conscience, and think about other people's convenience, I
should be obliged to make rules for such. I should put the names of such
scholars on a paper, and those children must live by my rules, because
they had none of their own.
I considered proper manners in school to be quietness, no unnecessary
speaking or moving about in study time, politeness to every one, ready
obedience to my wishes and arrangements, and industrious habits of
study.
I should now leave each one to make rules for himself in his own mind;
they might write them down if they pleased. I should like to see what
each one would think it right to do in school. They might imagine
themselves keeping school, and tell how they should govern it, and what
they thought the duties of scholars.
Some of them did this. Their regulations were very strict, their
requisitions very great. Those who were then morally ready to apprehend
my meaning, have never swerved since from the law laid down at that
time.
But it was not long before several names were upon my list. For these I
made specific rules, taking especial pains to say that they were not to
apply to such or such individuals. If E---- or L---- or S----, for
instance, should speak aloud on a pressing occasion, I should not
subject them to the penalty, because I knew their principles were good;
that they thought of the convenience of others, were studious, &c., &c.
I should excuse a particular instance of apparent disorder in them until
I had reason to think they were growing careless or thoughtless.
I made the same remark in regard to an occasional want of success in a
lesson. I might perhaps have erred in judgment by giving too long a
lesson. I might find upon experiment that the mind was not prepared for
a particular thing. I should be inclined to think an industrious and
conscientious scholar did not feel well, rather than to suppose any want
of faithfulness. People must always be judged according to their
characters.
I assure you it was a great punishment to have one's name upon my list.
These children saw the joys of liberty, and that they could be secured
only by doing right. I never saw any system of rewards or punishments
have such a stimulating moral or intellectual effect.
Some of my scholars were too young even to be bound in all cases by this
law of the general convenience, and these I spoke of as children whose
habits were to be formed gradually, and of whom this comprehension of
the convenience of others could not always be expected. I called upon
the rest to help me keep them as quiet as would be consistent with
their good, and took it for granted that none would trouble me by
playing or interfering with them. There must, of course, be exceptions
to all rules.
There were many occasions of recurring to this conversation, and of
repeating its principles. When any overt acts of wrong-doing occurred,
when new scholars came, I called them around me to talk about the
principles on which we must live and act. These conversations were
always interesting to the children, and kept up the government of the
school. When I make rules and penalties for my delinquents, I make the
rules as simple as possible, and the penalties as nearly like the
natural consequences of wrong-doing as is practicable. I never lose an
opportunity of inculcating obedience to the inward law as the only sure
guide of conduct, and if one's eye is fixed upon this point, a thousand
occasions will offer themselves. How can any one who does not believe
this inward law to be the only sure guide of conduct govern children
morally? I have a friend, quite a distinguished teacher, who believes in
original depravity, and that conscience is not an unerring guide, and
therefore that religious principle cannot be made to grow out of a
child's consciousness, but that it is an arbitrary gift of God;
supervened upon the human mind without reference to conscience. He once
asked me if there were any religious exercises in my school; if I ever
presented religious motives, and what they were. I told him I presented
no other, that I made all duty a matter of conscience, and that I never
saw a child who did not understand that motive. He said he had no doubt
it was the noblest way of treating the child, and brought out the
highest morality, but it was not religious education in his opinion!
What an admission! the noblest way, bringing out the highest morality,
and yet not religious education. His school is the constant scene of
religious revivals, and by his own admission the children are told not
to keep company with the children of liberal Christians, or of those who
go to the theatre! I do not believe in a premature Christianity, so
taught as to be able to give an account of itself in early youth.
I once visited an Infant Charity School, composed entirely of children
who were not likely to have any kind of instruction at home, so that
whatever was taught in the school would be likely to make quite an
impression. After a pleasant little exercise in marching and singing,
they were seated for a religious lesson. What do you think of the
following as a basis of Christian charity?--average age of the children,
_eight_.
What are the principles of Christianity?
To love one's neighbor and obey God, to believe in the Bible and the
salvation by Christ.
Who are the heathen?
They are people who never heard of the Christian religion, and who
cannot have salvation by Christ.
Name the heathen nations?
Indians, Hindoos, the people of Asia, Africa, and the islands in the
Pacific Ocean.
What is the difference between Christians and heathen?
Christians serve God, walk humbly, and love their neighbors like
themselves. Heathens lie, steal, commit murder, and are full of revenge.
Are all the people in Christendom true Christians?
No, only those who believe that God the Father took the form of man and
came down to the earth, preached, suffered, and was crucified on the
Cross.
What becomes of all who are not true Christians, and of all the heathen?
They go into everlasting fire.
* * * * *
This was a rote-lesson which the children rattled off glibly.
Modifications of such lessons are given in schools where revivals are
considered religious proceedings.
* * * * *
Is it not fearful to think that there is a child in Christendom who is
not instructed in the great fundamental truth that God has planted in
every human soul a principle of conscience by which it can distinguish
evil from good, and which, if obeyed, will _save_ it, by some natural
process alike applicable to Christian or heathen? The first principle to
which a child should be pointed is the principle of law in the human
breast. God has so made the human soul that this can be taught to young
children if one only knows how to do it. If truly taught, we may safely
trust that they can never so judge the much-abused _heathen_.
One day when I was walking in the mall with my little scholars, at
recess, some of the children cried out to the others that they must not
run upon the banks, or the constable would fine them. The warning was
not received in a good spirit, and I perceived that the constable was
not in good repute among children. I well remembered the "tidy-man," as
our servant called him, of my childish days, and the apprehensions I
used to entertain lest he should hook me up with his long pole into the
gallery of the church, if I made any noise during service time, and I
saw that these children thought it quite desirable to circumvent the
constable, and get as many runs upon the banks as could be snatched
during his absence.
This was an opportunity not to be lost, and when we returned to the
school-room, I asked why they supposed the constable was ordered to let
no one run upon the banks.
They were curious to hear a reason. It had not occurred to them,
apparently, that there was any other reason than a desire to trouble
children. I told them the history of the Boston Common--how much pains
had been taken ever since the days of the Pilgrims (whom they know), to
keep it inviolate, in order that all the citizens might enjoy its
beauties and its advantages; how much money had been expended upon it;
how it had been secured as a perpetual possession to all the citizens,
and how every attempt to build even very near it, had been resisted for
fear of cutting off the fine prospect; that even the cows that used to
pasture there, had been turned away that the children of the city might
play there undisturbed. I then told them why by-laws were made to
preserve the beauty of the banks, particularly just after they were
repaired and newly laid down with turf.
When they acknowledged that all this was reasonable, I told them that
laws were made for the good of society, and that every _good_ citizen
would respect such laws. Whoever understood what law meant, that is,
whoever knew the law within themselves, would respect the laws of a
country or a city that were made for the good of all. I thought my
lesson was successful.
One who has not been a great deal alone with the unsophisticated natures
of children has little idea how early the highest principles of action
can be instilled into them. It does not need many words, as I well
remember from the few indelibly written upon my mind by a religious
mother, who never comforted my timidity, which was excessive, by
anything but principles which my soul responded to: "Do right always,
and then you need not be afraid of anything;" and, "Your Heavenly Father
will take care of you, and will let nothing happen to you but what is
for your good," comprised the religious inculcations of my childhood,
varied according to circumstances. And when I first fully realized that
Christ, who was held up as a model, was "tempted like as we are," my
religious education was complete, except what _practice_ could give me.
The imagination is as boundless in the images it evokes as imagery
itself, and no specific cure for fears of darkness and unmeasured danger
can ever meet the difficulty. If a timid child cannot be taught that he
is under the eye of a tender and watchful Providence, his childhood may
be one long terror, as I have known to be the case. If to this is to be
added everlasting woe for wrong-doing, there is no wonder that God must
come down from heaven to set things right, and invent a scheme which
will virtually annihilate his own original provisions.
Many of my children have been religiously educated in the right way,
have been made to think of God as their creator, benefactor, and
preserver, and the author of all the beauties of nature that they see,
and the powers they possess. When I say "we must return good for evil as
Christ did, who was the most perfect being that ever lived," they
understand me as speaking of a principle which they can apply directly
to themselves; for I often add, "Christ said things when he was very
young that showed he understood all about right and wrong, and in those
years of his life which we are not told anything about in the Bible, he
must always have obeyed his conscience, or he never could have preached
to others as he did afterwards,"--for the only vital use of Christ's
life to others is to make his spirit of action our own, and to believe
that we _can_ do likewise.
I have been led to think much of this in relation to children, by
hearing my orthodox friend talk; for he is a very conscientious man, and
his admission that to address the child's conscience was the _noblest_
way of treating it, though not the canonical one, let in a world of
light upon me touching the unchristian condition of Christendom. How can
truth prevail where the noblest appeal is not considered the religious
appeal? Truly yours,
M.
LETTER V.
MY DEAR ANNA,--If you wish to know the practical difficulties that arise
out of my desire to inculcate self-government, and to keep my own out of
sight as much as possible, I will tell you candidly that liberty is
sometimes abused in my school; but I have never repented of my
principles, and have learned not to be frightened by apparent failures,
for I have never known an instance, where I have had an opportunity to
observe the result, in which my plan has not answered somewhat to my
hopes.
And now I must tell you what are my hopes. They are not to make men and
women of children, or to produce perfect consistency of action in youth.
They are to put the mind in the right attitude so that the education of
life will bring forth the character harmoniously; and to make truth,
sincerity, kindly affections, and a conscientious use of the powers of
the mind the prevailing characteristics. Sometimes I wait long for the
dawning of this hope, but I cannot despair of it as long as I believe in
the soul. I do not mean that I think the soul self-existent, independent
of God, but I believe it so created that it can right itself at last
with due effort to realize His presence in vital laws. To induce it to
make this effort is what education is designed to effect, is it not? I
have had some children under my care who have come to me deceitful,
perverse, without delicacy of sensibility, self-conceited, puffed up
with lofty notions of their own importance and that of all who belonged
to them; and these characteristics so prominent and offensive that our
intercourse was for a long time nothing but war. I had no opportunity to
express approbation or sympathy, for the object with them was to defy or
circumvent me, and to accomplish their lessons by trickery instead of
honest application. These faults were constantly recurring, and I was
often strongly tempted to rid myself of the difficulty by declining to
keep such scholars in school with others. If my operations had
necessarily been confined to one apartment, I should have been obliged
to do this sometimes, but in my father's house I had many facilities,
and I felt it my duty, if possible, to do what I could for such
unfortunate children, as long as I was sure that my influence, and not
theirs, prevailed in the school. I saw that vices were made apparent, of
whose existence I could have wished innocent children never to know, but
I knew it was impossible to sequester them wholly from such contact, and
perhaps it had better be under supervision and thus possibly turned to
account. Sometimes the beauty of virtue is better seen by being
contrasted with its opposite. Had not I a right to think the evil might
be overruled for good, since God permits evil (the negative of good) in
his world? To do this, however, requires the greatest vigilance, and
occasionally I have been obliged to suspend very much the intellectual
training of a school, to gain time to investigate its moral state, and
the degree of evil influence that might tend to counteract mine, for
these interlopers among the innocents sometimes had bright parts, and an
activity that never tired. The faults of such children often brought
them into direct collision with their companions whose peace they
invaded, and thus far I was aided by my scholars in my discipline,
though I have had cases where the outward speciousness was only such as
one would imagine to belong to a matured person. I was obliged to take
the greatest pains, however, in order not to destroy the very germ of
delicacy (which yet bore no fruits), that my admonitions should be in
private, whenever no overt acts made it necessary for me to speak before
others. In private I need not speak in measured terms.
It is frightful to feel one's self so directly in contact with the
wrong-doing of a fellow-being, but at such times I have laid open the
heart as well as I was able, and showed the characteristics in all their
hideousness, taking it for granted that the moral judgment was still
alive.
A great man once said to me that we had no second consciousness by which
we could judge ourselves; and Burns, you know, exclaims,--
"O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"
but I agree neither with the philosopher nor the poet, for conscience is
that second consciousness, which can be evoked if only the right
conjurer speaks. I believe in no other safeguard than that "voice of God
within us" to which I firmly believe no human being is _always_ deaf.
But, dear A----, what is so revolting as a bad child? It seems an
anomaly in nature. I depict no imaginary characters to you. I do not
think I could imagine a bad child. It must be seen and known to be
believed in. I am always inclined to blame the environment of such a
child, but repeated instances that I have known convince me that souls
differ in quality, and that it is unreasonable to expect the loveliest
type of virtue in all. I believe in the remedial power of education, not
that it can change the quality of the soul, but the character of the
individual. A bold, free spirit will not by education be made delicate,
but its boldness may be employed on worthy objects, and so of other
traits. Truth too can be shown to be beautiful to some, but to others to
be only manly, or respectable.
I have known children, who apparently had very little sensibility, to be
touched by the fact of never being unnecessarily exposed to others. This
care awakened in them a perception of delicacy. In one instance, I
learned subsequently that reproof received thus in private made a great
impression, while that administered at the moment of overt acts of
wrong-doing in the presence of the school made very little, or only
provoked defiance. I have sometimes had testimonies of affection from
such naughty children, and have feared they only proved a want of
sensibility, but this instance showed me that my care and painstaking
were appreciated where I least thought of it. I have often realized that
I kept bad manifestations in check, though the frequent outbreaks of
such traits as want of truth, stratagem, attempts at secret influence in
the school, proofs of want of delicacy of taste and of conscience, made
me feel that all I could do in the short period while my influence
lasted, was to hold up my testimony to good principles, and make an
adherence to truth, and sincere and conscientious action in every
particular of life,--the central points round which all other things
must revolve. This I never lose an opportunity of doing by dwelling upon
it to others as well as to the guilty. In a small school like mine--yet
large enough for variety,--I am in such close personal contact with all
my scholars, that the intimacy is nearly as great as in a family;
indeed, my personal intercourse with many of the children includes more
hours and more actual communication of mind than takes place in some
families. It seems to me very important that schools should be of such a
size that this may be the case, if they are to be looked to as a means
of moral, as well as of intellectual culture; and if they are not, I
conceive them to be nurseries of as much evil as good, to say the least.
One of the most melancholy things in life, to me, is seeing children get
used to what is wrong, submitting to it as a necessity of growth; and a
good school, where everything can be talked over, is an immense check
upon this. Happily the world cannot spoil a good soul, but there are
degrees in goodness, and in moral strength, and even good souls get
tarnished by getting used to evil. I would put off the day as long as
possible. In cities, where nearly the whole of youth is passed in
schools, more regard should be had to the moral part of the training.
Knowledge is dangerous power to the unconscientious, and every child
should and can be made to feel it.
In such deplorable instances as I have referred to, every power within
me has been taxed to the utmost to counteract the evil tendencies that
put forth their shoots in every direction. Sometimes a clearness of head
that made it easy for a child to see the bearings of things, or even an
instinctive affectionateness of disposition (not such as would stand the
test of opposition, however), have been the only foundations of my hope.
These do not supply the place of tenderness of conscience, but when one
is endeavoring to help forward that growth, a clear intellect is an
important aid. A natural obtuseness in both departments of the nature
would make one's efforts dark and groping indeed.
Now when I thus confess how small has often been the reward for my
pains, you may smile at my credulity, but I have had some rewards in the
midst of discouragements. I did feel in one instance, before my scholar
was taken from me,--and she was taken away because her mother had not
the moral courage to let her suffer the natural consequences of her
wrong-doing, at a crisis when I felt convinced it might do her radical
good,--that she had a far-off glimpse of what character is; that the
fine saying of Novalis, "character is a well-educated will," had dawned
upon her mind; for she could sometimes tell the truth against her own
interest, and could bear the natural consequences of a fault,
occasionally, without flying into a passion. My "natural consequences"
were, privation from the society of her companions when she had abused
their faith and their peace, &c. The child was _willing_ herself to sit,
for a whole term, in another apartment, and not enter the school-room
except for a recitation, and to have no part in the plays of the school,
but her mother was not willing.
This child I could not call noble-minded, or generous-hearted, or a
lover of truth, or a self-governing being, but I thought she had been
able to discern glimpses of these characteristics in others whom she had
wronged, and that had given me hope. I was thankful that I had given her
principles instead of penalties, and that I had had faith enough to wait
for the dawning of light within herself, without giving her up or
producing a false shine by addressing lower motives. She would have
despised me at that moment, if I had yielded to her mother's wish that I
should reinstate her in school before she had outlived her probation,
which the child and I had agreed to be the best discipline for her. I am
inclined to think she judged her mother unfavorably at that time, for
she often came to see me afterward, to ask me if I thought such and such
things were right--things which she evidently had heard discussed. She
was but eleven, but she had a wonderful power of writing symbolically.
She once wrote a legend in imitation of those of Spenser's "Faëry
Queene," which showed great intellectual insight into the distinctions
between right and wrong, and her sense of her own faults was such that
if anything closely resembling them was read of in school, she would put
her head under the table, as if she knew and felt its application. The
apparent attraction of my society to this child was very significant to
me. She would ask me the most subtle questions in morals, and discourse
as well as I could, so that I felt as if her knowledge of right and
wrong, gained through the intellect, was rather a hinderance than a help
to her moral improvement for she was guilty every day of malicious
falsehoods. Her envy of her companions was sickening to the heart, for
it made her active in injuring them. She had vanity rather than
ambition, for her desire to excel did not spur her to any troublesome
efforts, it only made her hate every pursuit in which others excelled
her, either by natural gift or by conscientious, patient industry. At
such times she would throw her books across the room, and stamp upon the
floor like a little maniac. Her unusual brilliancy of imagination,
unaccompanied by any sedative qualities, was one explanation of her
character. Her wit and fancy gave her great influence over her
companions, by whom she was admired, or feared, or held in great
aversion. She had a passionate attachment to one girl a little older
than herself, who was singularly lovely and delicate in mind and
conscience; but this passionate love alternated with fits of
persecution, arising wholly out of envy, so that I have known her
friend, who was strangely fascinated by her, to be ill for several days,
in consequence of painful scenes of its display. This little Italian
soul, born under our cold skies, was almost a fiend at eleven years old.
Perhaps the intellectual insight she possessed at that early age, will
be useful to her at any period of life when her moral nature shall be
awakened. I have known instances in which the latter slumbered in
childhood, and was roused into vivid action later in life by crushing
and heart-scathing events, consequent upon its early torpor; and I
should not be surprised if she should yet come to me across the wastes
of life for sympathy and help; for she knew I would fain have given her
my time and strength to awaken in her a love of excellence. Such
characters have success in the world from very unscrupulousness, till
they trample too proudly on the rights of others. The charms they do
possess, whether personal or mental, lure them on to greater evils till
they are thrown back suddenly into the presence of eternal truth, and
then what misery must ensue, what a reckoning must come! Do such
children of God see wider and deeper into the eternal truth for having
gone astray? I would fain think so; for in this universe of
compensations we can only _see that one_ for the lost heaven of innocent
childhood. Let those who have not such temptations mourn over, but not
despise the erring!
I would aid many children to conquer temper by a near penalty, or give
courage to confess a fault by taking away the apprehension of all other
punishment than the natural one of self-reproach, reflected from the
mother-confessor; but sometimes I see children who are afraid of nothing
in heaven or earth, the current of whose impertinence I can indeed check
for the moment; the bold, defying glance of whose eye I can quell, but
the coarse texture of whose mind admits none of the more delicate
influences. A large generosity, or a great moral indignation or
self-conquest, may be comprehended by such children, but not a fine
sympathy, or a tender regret.
I have had pupils with as violent passions, as determined will, as much
intellectual insight, and a temperament that made every emotion as keen
as the stroke of a Damascus blade, but a sensibility that would respond
to the gentlest touch, and a conscience whose stings were like a sharp
goad. This keenness of nature made childhood's experience like that of a
matured mind that had seen and felt the consequences of evil; and the
gravity of age took the place of the buoyancy of childhood. A word in
season would bring such a child to repentance and amendment too, for I
think nothing of occasional backsliding, where the desire of
improvement prevails. Such children are subject to abuse of a peculiar
kind, which they seldom escape. This quick sensibility is too often
called forth, and a morbid sensitiveness is produced which too often
takes refuge in recklessness. I have known such instances where the very
words "doing right" became hateful, when uttered by lips that had
invaded too often the sacred sensibility. Such vivid intellects are also
apt to be exercised too strongly for the entertainment of others, and
excited to undue activity by questions of morals which should not be
urged thus early, if we wish for a healthful development. The principle
of self-government is thus impaired, not strengthened. The trial of
strength ought to come later in life; and truthfulness alone will save
one who has such painful associations with virtue. I am thinking now of
a particular child whose peace of mind I have seen thus disturbed
fearfully, and to whom I felt it my duty to secure as much tranquillity
as the hours he passed with me could contain, even if advancement in
literature must be sacrificed to that end.
I know nothing more painful than to see a child of delicate sensibility,
and lively moral sense, growing hardened to the wrong-doing of others,
as it grows older, and even learning to expect it. I have seen this in
more than one child, and it has made me feel that there is a limit
beyond which we should not open the eyes of childhood. Let them live in
happy unconsciousness of all evil but that which is in themselves, as
long as possible, and let the characters of others be mysterious to
them, rather than let them acquire the habit of looking out for
blemishes by hearing low motives attributed to others. I would never
trace out evil in character before children, except where refraining
from doing so might risk the injury of the moral sense. We all know, I
fear, what it is to have our idols cast down, and our ideal desecrated
and sad; bitter indeed is the wakening from our dream of
man-and-woman-worship; but we learn one thing by dwelling upon the
perfection of our ideal, and that is, of what we are capable. No one
can ever realize that who has not worshipped some fellow-mortal, at some
time. I would not forget the passionate loves of my childhood for
anything I have yet realized in life.