AMUSEMENTS.
Universal need of amusements. Why so necessary. Error of schools. Error
of families. Infant schools, as often conducted, particularly injurious.
Lessons, or tasks, should be short. Mistakes of some manual labor
schools. Of particular amusements in the nursery. With small wooden
cubes--pictures--shuttlecock--the rocking horse--tops and
marbles--backgammon--checkers--morrice--dice--nine-pins--skipping the
rope--trundling the hoop--playing at ball--kites--skating and
swimming--dissected maps--black boards--elements of letters--dissected
pictures.
However heterodox the concession may be, I am one of those who believe
amusements of some sort or other to be universally necessary. Indeed I
cannot possibly conceive of an individual in health, whatever may be the
age, sex, condition, or employment, who does not need them, in a greater
or less degree.
Now if by the term amusement, I merely meant employment, nobody would
probably differ from me--at least in theory. Every one is ready to admit
the importance of being constantly employed. A mind unemployed is a
VACANT mind. And a vacant or idle mind is "the devil's work-shop;" so
says the proverb.
By amusement, however, I mean something more than mere employment; for
the more constantly an adult individual is employed, the greater,
generally, is his demand for amusement. Indolent persons have less need
of being amused than others; but perhaps there are few if any persons to
be found, who are so indolent as not to think continually, on one
subject or another. And it is this constant thinking, more than anything
else, that creates the necessity of which I am speaking. The mere
drudge, whether biped or quadruped--he, I mean, whose thinking powers
are scarcely alive--has little need of the relief which is afforded by
amusement.
The young of all animals--man among the rest--appear to have such an
instinctive fondness for amusement, that so long as they are
unrestrained, they seldom need any urging on this point. In regard to
_quality_, the case is somewhat different. In this respect, most
children require attention and restraint; and some of them a great deal
of it.
But what is the nature of the amusement which adults--nay, mankind
generally--require? I answer, it is relief from the employment of
thinking. For it is not that mankind do not really think at all, that
moralists complain so loudly. When they tell us that men will not
think, they mean that they will not think as rational beings. They
think, indeed; and so do the ox, and the horse, and the dog, and the
elephant--but not as rational men ought to do; and this it is that
constitutes the burden of complaint. But you will probably find few
persons belonging to the human species who do not think constantly, at
least while awake; and whose mental powers do not become fatigued, and
demand relief in amusement.
Children's minds are so soon wearied by a continuous train of thinking,
even on topics which are pleasing to them, that they can seldom he
brought to give their attention to a single subject long at once. They
require almost incessant change; both for the sake of relief, and to
amuse for the _sake_ of amusement. And it is, to my own mind, one of
the most striking proofs of Infinite Wisdom in the creation of the human
mind, that it has, during infancy, such an irresistible tendency to
amusement.
How greatly do they err, who grudge children, especially very young
children, the time which, in obedience to the dictates of their nature,
they are so fond of spending in sports and gambols! How much more
rational would it be to encourage and direct them in their amusements!
And how exceedingly unwise is the practice, whenever and wherever it
exists, of confining them to school rooms and benches, not only for
hours, but for whole half days at once.
If individuals and circumstances were everywhere combined, with the
special purpose to oppose the intentions of nature respecting the human
being, at every step of his progress from the cradle to maturity, and
from maturity to the grave, I hardly know how they could contrive to
accomplish such a purpose more effectually than it is at present
accomplished. But it is proper that I should here explain a little.
All our family arrangements tend to repress amusement. Everything is
contrived to facilitate business--especially the business or employments
of adults. The child is hardly regarded as a human being,--certainly not
as a _perfect_ being. He is considered as a mere fragment; or to change
the figure, as a plant too young to be of any real service to mankind,
because too young to bear any of its appropriate fruits. Whereas, in my
opinion, both infancy and childhood, at every stage, should bring forth
their appropriate fruits. In other words, the child of the most tender
years should be regarded as a whole, and not as the mere fragment of a
being; as a perfect member of a family--occupying a full and complete,
only a more limited sphere than older members: and all the rules and
regulations and arrangements of the family should have a reference to
this point. So long as a child is reckoned to be a mere cipher in
creation, or at most, as of no more practical importance, till the
arrival of his twenty-first birth day, or some other equally arbitrary
period, than our domestic animals--that is, of just sufficient
consequence to be fed, and caressed, and fondled, and made a pet of--so
long will our arrangements be made with reference to the comfort and
happiness of adults. There may indeed be here and there a child's chair,
or a child's carriage, or newspaper, or book; but there will seldom be,
except by stealth, any free juvenile conversation at the table or the
fireside. Here the child must sit as a blank or cypher, to ruminate on
the past, or to receive half formed and passive impressions from the
present.
The arrangements of the infant school, also, seem designed for the same
purpose--to repress as much as possible the infantile desire for
amusement. Not that this was their original, nor that it now is their
legitimate intention. Their legitimate object is, or should be, not to
develope the intellect by over-working the tender brain, but to promote
cheerfulness and health and love and happiness, by well contrived
amusements, conducted as much as possible in the open air; and by
unremitting efforts to elicit and direct the affections.
Infant schools should repress rather than encourage the hard study of
books. Lessons at this age should be drawn chiefly from objects in the
garden, the field, and the grove; from the flower, the plant, the tree,
the brook, the bird, the beast, the worm, the fly, the human body--the
sun, or the visible heavens. These lessons, whether given by the parent,
as constituting a part of the family arrangements, or by the infant or
primary school teacher, should, it is true, be regarded for the time
being as study, but they should never be long; and they should be
frequently relieved by the most free and unrestrained pastimes and
gambols of the young on the green grass, or beside the rippling stream,
uninfluenced, or at least unrepressed, by those who are set over them.
The public or common school, overlooking as it does any direct attempts
to make provision for the amusement of the pupils, even during the
scanty recess that is afforded them once in three hours, would appear to
a stranger on this planet, at first sight, to be designed as much as
possible to defeat every intention of nature with reference to the
growth of the human frame. For we may often travel many hundred miles
and not see so much as an enclosed play ground; and never perhaps any
direct provision for particular and more favorable amusements.
I might speak of other schools and places of resort for children, and
proceed to show how all our arrangements appear to be the offspring of a
species of utilitarianism which rejects every sport whose value cannot
be estimated in dollars and cents. I might even refer to those schools
of our country where these ultra utilitarian notions are carried to an
extent which excludes amusing conversation or reading even during
meal-time; and devotes the hours which were formerly spent in
recreation, to manual labor of some productive kind or other.--But I
forbear. Enough has been said to illustrate the position I have taken,
that there is in vogue a system which bears the marks of having been
contrived, if not by the enemies of our race, either openly or covertly,
at least by those whom ignorance renders scarcely less at war with the
general happiness.
Now I would not deny nor attempt to deny that change of occupation of
body or mind is of itself an amusement, and one too of great value.
Undoubtedly it is so. To some children, studies of every kind are an
amusement; and there are few indeed to whom none are so. Labor, with
many, when alternated with study, is amusing. And yet, after all, unless
such labors are performed in company, where light and cheerful
conversation is sure to keep the mind away from the subjects about
which it has just been engaged, I am afraid that the purposes for which
amusements were designed, are very far from being _all_ secured.
But perhaps I am dwelling too long on the general principle that people
of every age, and children in particular, need, and must have
amusements, whether they are of a productive kind or not; and that it is
very far from being sufficient, were it either practicable or desirable,
to turn all study and labor into amusement. [Footnote: I will even say,
more distinctly than I have already done, that however popular the
contrary opinion may be, neither study nor work ought to be regarded as
mere amusement. I would, it is true, take every possible pains to render
both work and study agreeable; but I would at the same time have it
distinctly understood, that one of them is by no means the other; that,
on the contrary, work is _work_--study, _study_--and amusement,
_amusement_.] My business is with those who direct the first dawnings
of affection and intellect. Principles are by no means of less importance
on this account; but the limits of a work for young mothers do not admit
of anything more than a brief discussion of their importance.
I will now proceed to speak of some of the more common amusements of the
nursery.
I have seen very young children sit on the floor and amuse themselves
for nearly half an hour together, with piling up and taking down small
wooden cubes, of different sizes. Some of them, instead of being cubes,
however, may be of the shape of bricks. Their ingenuity, while they are
scarcely a year or two old, in erecting houses, temples, churches, &c.,
is sometimes surprising. Girls as well as boys seem to be greatly amused
with this form of exercise; and both seem to be little less gratified in
destroying than in rearing their lilliputian edifices.
Next to the latter kind of amusement, is the viewing of pictures. It is
surprising at what an early age children may be taught to notice
miniature representations of objects; living objects especially.
Representations of the works of art should come in a little later than
those of things in nature. I know a father who prepares volumes of
pictures, solely for this purpose; though he usually regards them not
only as a source of amusement to children, but as a medium of
instruction.
Battledoor or shuttlecock may be taught to children of both sexes very
early; and it affords a healthy and almost untiring source of amusement.
It gives activity as well as strength to the muscles or moving powers,
and has many other important advantages. There is some danger, according
to Dr. Pierson [Footnote: See his Lecture before the American Institute
of Instruction] of distorting the spine by playing at shuttlecock too
frequently and too long; but this will seldom be the case with little
children in the nursery. Neither shuttlecock nor any other amusement
will secure their attention long enough to injure them very much.
Perhaps this exercise comes nearer to my ideas of a perfect amusement
than almost any which could be named. The mind is agreeably occupied,
without being fatigued; and if the amusements are proportioned to the
age and strength of the child, there is very little fatigue of the body.
It gives, moreover, great practical accuracy to the eye and to the hand.
A rocking-horse is much recommended for the nursery. I have had no
opportunity for observing the effects of this kind of amusement; but if
it is one half as valuable as some suppose, I should be inclined to
recommend it. But I am opposed to fostering in the rider lessons of
cruelty, by arming him with whips and spurs. If the young are ever to
learn to ride, on a living horse, the exercises of the rocking-horse
will, most certainly, be a sort of preparation for the purpose.
Tops and marbles afford a great deal of rational amusement to the young;
and of a very useful kind, too. Spinning a top is second to no exercise
which I have yet mentioned, unless it is playing at shuttlecock.
Dr. Dewees recommends a small backgammon table, with men, but without
dice. He says, also, that "children, as soon as they are capable of
comprehending the subject, should be taught draughts or checkers. This
game is not only highly amusing, but also very instructive." In another
place he heaps additional encomiums upon the game of checkers. "It
becomes a source of endless amusement," he says, "as it never tires, but
always instructs." Of exercises which instruct, however, as well as
amuse, I shall speak presently.
The amusements called "morrice," "fox and geese," &c., with which some
of the children of almost every neighborhood are more or less
acquainted, are of the same general character and tendency as checkers.
So is a play, sometimes, but very improperly, called dice, in which two
parties play with a small bundle of wooden pins, not unlike knitting
pins in shape, but shorter.
The writer to whom I have referred above recommends nine-pins and balls
of proper size, as highly useful both for diversion and exercise. If
they can be used without leading to bad habits and bad associations, I
think they may be useful.
For girls, who demand a great deal more of exercise, both within doors
and without, skipping the rope is an excellent amusement. So also is
swinging. Both of these exercises may be used either out of doors, or
in the nursery.
Trundling a hoop I have always regarded as an amusing out-of-door
exercise; and I am not sorry when I sometimes see girls, as well as
boys, engaged in it, under the eye of their mothers and teachers.
Playing ball, of which there are many different games, and flying kites,
employ a large proportion if not all of the muscles of the body, in such
a manner as is likely to confirm the strength, and greatly improve the
health. The same may be said of skating in the winter, and swimming in
the summer. But these last are exercises over which the mother cannot,
ordinarily, have very much control.
Under the head of amusements, it only remains for me to speak of a few
juvenile employments of a mixed nature. Of these I shall treat very
briefly, as they are a branch of the subject which does not necessarily
come within the compass of my present plan. They are exercises, too,
which should more properly come under the head of Infantile Instruction.
Dissected maps afford children of every age a great fund of amusement;
but much caution is necessary, with those that are very young, not to
discourage or confound them by showing them too many at once. Thus if
we cut in pieces the map of one of the smaller United States, at the
county lines, or the whole United States, at the state lines, it is
quite as many divisions as they can manage. Cut up as large a state,
even, as Pennsylvania or New York is, into counties, and try to lead
them to amuse themselves by putting together so large a number, many of
which must inevitably very closely resemble each other, and it is ten to
one but you bewilder, and even perplex and discourage them. The same
results would follow from cutting up even the whole of a large county,
or a small state, into towns. I have usually begun with little children,
by requiring them to put together the eight counties of the small state
of Connecticut. In this case the counties are not only few, but there is
a very striking difference in their shape.
A black board and a piece of chalk, along with a little ingenuity on the
part of the mother, will furnish the child with an almost endless
variety of amusement. Let him attempt to imitate almost any object which
interests him, whether among the works of nature or art. However rude
his pictures may be, do not laugh at, but on the contrary, endeavor to
encourage him. He may also be permitted to imitate letters and figures.
The elements of letters, too, both printed and written, may be given
him, and he may be required to put them together. Dissected pictures, as
well as dissected maps and letters, are useful, and to most children,
very acceptable.
In short, the devices of an ingenious, thinking mother, for the
amusement of her very young children, are almost endless; and the great
danger is, that when a mother once enters deeply into the spirit of
these exercises, she will substitute them for those much more healthy
ones which have been already mentioned, such as require muscular
activity, or may be performed in the open air.