INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. ORDER OF DEVELOPMENT. THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES.
In beginning a child's intellectual education, the parent must
constantly remember to carry on his care of the frame, spoken of in a
former chapter. The most irritable and tender part of a child's frame is
its brain; and on the welfare of its brain every thing else depends. It
should not be forgotten that the little creature was born with a soft
head; and that it takes years for the contents of that skull to become
completely guarded by the external bones, and sufficiently grown and
strengthened to bear much stress. Nature points out what the infant's
brain requires, and what it can bear; and if the parents are able to
discern and follow the leadings of nature, all will be well. The most
certain thing is that there is no safety in any other course.
In their anxiety to bring up any lagging faculty,--to cherish any weak
power,--parents are apt to suppose those faculties weak, for whose
development they are looking too soon. It grieves me to see
conscientious parents, who govern their own lives by reasoning,
stimulating a young child to reason long before the proper time. The
reflective and reasoning faculties are among the last that should
naturally come into use; and the only safe way is to watch for their
first activity, and then let it have scope. One of the finest children I
ever saw,--a stout handsome boy, with a full set of vigorous faculties,
was, at five years old, in danger of being spoiled in a strange sort of
way. The process was stopped in time to save his intellect and his
morals; but not before it had strewn his youthful life with difficulties
from which he need never have suffered. This boy heard a great deal of
reasoning always going on; and he seldom or never saw any children,
except in parties, or in the street. His natural imitation of the talk
of grown up people was encouraged; and from the time he could speak, he
saw in the whole world,--in all the objects that met his senses,--only
things to reason about. He gathered flowers, not so much because he
liked them as because they might be discoursed about. He could not shut
the door, or put on his pinafore when bid, till the matter was argued,
and the desired act proved to be reasonable. The check was, as I have
said, given in time: but he had much to do to bring up his perceptive
faculties and his mechanical habits to the point required in even a
decent education. He had infinite trouble in learning to spell, and in
mastering all the elements of knowledge which are acquired by the
memory: and his writing a good hand, and being ready at figures, or apt
at learning a modern language by the ear, was hopeless. He would
doubtless have done all these well, if his faculties had been exercised
in their proper order;--that is, in the order which nature
indicates,--and vindicates.
And now,--what is that order?
The Perceptive faculties come first, into activity. Do we not all
remember that colours gave us more intense pleasure in our early
childhood than they have ever done since? Most of us can remember back
to the time when we were four years old,--or three; and some even two.
What is it that we remember? With one, it is a piece of gay silk, or
printed cotton or china; or a bed of crocuses;--or we remember the feel
of a piece of velvet or fur, or something rough;--or the particular
shape of some leaf;--or the amazing weight of a globule of
quicksilver;--or the immense distance from one end of the room to the
other. I, for one, remember several things that happened when I was
between two and three years old: and most of these were sensations,
exciting passions. I doubt whether I ever felt keener delight than in
passing my fingers round a flat button, covered with black velvet, on
the top of a sister's bonnet. I remember lighting upon the sensation, if
one may say so; and the intense desire afterwards to be feeling the
button. And just at that time I was sent into the country for my health;
and I can now tell things about the first day in the cottage which no
one can ever have told to me. I tried to walk round a tree (an elm, I
believe), clasping the tree with both arms: and nothing that has
happened to-day is more vivid to me than the feel of the rough bark to
the palms of my hands, and the entanglement of the grass to my feet. And
then at night there was the fearful wonder at the feel of the coarse
calico sheets, and at the creaking of the turn-up bedstead when I
moved.--After I came home, when I was two years and nine months old, I
saw, one day, the door of the spare bed-room ajar, and I pushed it open
and went in. I was walking about the house because I had a pair of new
shoes on, and I liked to hear their pit-pat, and to make sure that I
could walk in them, though they were slippery. The floor of the
spareroom was smooth and somewhat polished; and it was--(at least to my
eyes--) a large room. I was half-frightened when I saw that the blinds
were down. But there was a fire; and standing by the fire, at the
further end, was an old woman--(or to me she looked old)--with a muslin
handkerchief crossed over her gown: and in her arms she held a bundle of
flannel. The curtains of the bed were drawn;--the fawn-coloured moreen
curtains with a black velvet edge, which I sometimes stroked for a
treat. The old woman beckoned to me; and I wished to go; but I thought I
could never walk all that way on the polished floor without a tumble. I
remember how wide I stretched out my arms, and how far apart I set my
feet, and how I got to the old woman at last. With her foot she pushed
forwards a tiny chair, used as a footstool, embroidered over with
sprawling green leaves; and there I sat down: and the old woman laid the
bundle of flannel across my lap. With one hand she held it there safe,
and with the other she uncovered the little red face of a baby. Though
the sight set every pulse in my body beating, I do not remember feeling
any fear,--though I was always afraid of everything. It was a passionate
feeling of wonder, and a sort of tender delight;--delight at being
noticed and having it on my lap, perhaps, as much as at the thing
itself. How it ended, I do not know. I only remember further seeing with
amazement, that somebody was in the bed,--that there was a nightcap on
the pillow,--though it was day-time. These details may seem trifling:
but, if we want to know what faculties are vigorous in infancy, it is as
well to learn, in any way we can, what children feel and think at the
earliest age we can arrive at. One other instance of vivid perception
stands out among many in my childhood so remarkably as to be perhaps
instructive: and the more so because I was not endowed with quick
senses, or strong perceptive powers, but, on the contrary, discouraged
my teachers by dullness and inattention, and a constant tendency to
reverie. I was always considered a remarkably unobservant child.
I slept with the nursemaid in a room at the top of the house which
looked eastwards: and the baby brother mentioned above, now just able to
walk, slept in a crib by the bedside. One summer morning I happened to
wake before sunrise, and thought it very strange to see the maid asleep;
the next thing I remember was walking over the boards with bare feet,
and seeing some little pink toes peeping out through the rails of the
crib. I gently pinched them, and somehow managed to keep the child quiet
when he reared himself up from his pillow; he must have caught some of
the spirit of the prank, for he made no noise. I helped him to scramble
down from the crib, and led him to the window, and helped him to
scramble upon a chair: and then I got up beside him; and, by using all
my strength, I opened the window. How chill the air was! and how hard
and sharp the window-sill felt to my arms! We were so high above the
street that I dared not look down; but oh! what a sight we saw by
looking abroad over the tops of the houses to the rising ground beyond!
The sun must have been coming up, for the night-clouds were of the
richest purple, turning to crimson; and in one part there seemed to be a
solid edge of gold. I have seen the morning and evening skies of all the
four quarters of the world, but this is, in my memory, the most gorgeous
of all, though it could not in fact have been so. I whispered all I
knew about God making the sun come up every morning; and I certainly
supposed the child to sympathise with me in the thrilling awe of the
moment: but it could not have been so. I have some remembrance of the
horrible difficulty of getting the window down again, and of hoisting up
my companion into his crib: and I can distinctly recal the feelings of
mingled contempt and fear with which I looked upon the maid, who had
slept through all this; and how cold my feet were when I crept into bed
again.
Now, if this is what children are, it seems plain that the faculties by
which they perceive objects so vividly should be simply trained to a
good use. The parent has little more to do than to see that Nature is
not hindered in her working: to see that the faculties are awake, and
that a sufficient variety is offered for them to employ themselves upon.
Nothing like what is commonly called teaching is required here, or can
do anything but harm at present. If the mother is at work, and the
children are running in and out of the garden, it is only saying to the
little toddler, "Now bring me a blue flower;--now bring me a yellow
flower;--now bring me a green leaf." At another time, she will ask for a
round stone; or a thick stick; or a thin stick. And sometimes she will
blow a feather, and let it fall again: or she will blow a dandelion-head
all to pieces, and quite away. If she is wise, she will let the child
alone, to try its own little experiments, and learn for itself what is
hard and what is soft; what is heavy and light; hot and cold; and what
it can do with its little limbs and quick senses. Taking care, of
course, that it does not injure itself, and that it has objects within
reach in sufficient variety, she cannot do better, at this season of its
life, than let it be busy in its own way. I saw a little fellow, one
day, intently occupied for a whole breakfast-time, and some time
afterwards, in trying to put the key of the house-door into the key-hole
of the tea-caddy. When he gave the matter up, and not before, his mother
helped him to see why he could not do it. If she had taken the door-key
from him at first, he would have missed a valuable lesson. At this
period of existence, the children of rich and poor have, or may have,
about equal advantages, under the care of sensible parents. They can be
busy about anything. There is nothing that cannot be made a plaything
of, and a certain means of knowledge, if the faculties be awake. If the
child be dull, it must, of course, be tempted to play. If the faculties
be in their natural state of liveliness, the mother has only to be aware
that the little creature must be busy while it is awake, and to see that
it has variety enough of things (the simpler the better) to handle, and
look at, and listen to, and experiment upon.
The perceptive faculties have a relation to other objects than those
which are presented to the five senses. It is very well for children to
be picking up from day to day knowledge about colours and forms, and the
hardness and weight of substances, and the habits of animals, and the
growth of plants;--the great story, in short, of what passes before
their eyes, and appeals to their ears, and impresses them through the
touch: but there is another range of knowledge appropriate to the
perceptive faculties. There are many facts that can be perceived through
another medium than the eye, the ear, or the hand. Facts of number and
quantity, for instance, are perceived (after a time, if not at first)
without illustration by objects of sight or sound: and it is right, and
kind to the child, to help him to a perception of these facts early,
while the perceiving faculties are in their first vigour. There is no
hardship in this, if the thing is done in moderation: and in many cases,
this exertion of the perceptive faculties is attended with a keen
satisfaction. I have known an idiot child, perfectly infantine in his
general ways, amuse himself half the day long with employing his
perceptions of number and quantity. He, poor child, was incapable of
being taught anything as a lesson: he did not understand speech,--beyond
a very few words: but the exercise of such faculties as he had--(and the
strongest he had were those of Order, and Perception of number, quantity
and symmetry) was the happiness of his short and imperfect life: and
the exercise of the same faculties,--moderate and natural
exercise,--may make part of the happiness of every child's life.
It is very well to use the faculty of eye and ear as an introduction to
the use of the inner perceptions,--so to speak. For instance, it is well
to teach a child the multiplication-table, by the ear as well as the
understanding:--to teach it by rote, (as one teaches a tune without
words), as an avenue to the mystery of numbers: but the pleasure to the
pupil is in perceiving the relations of numbers. In the same manner, the
eye may be used for the same purpose; as when the mother teaches by pins
on the table, or by peas, or peppercorns, that two and two make four;
and that three fours, or two sixes, or four threes, all make twelve: but
the pleasure to the pupil is in perceiving the relations of these
numbers without pins or peppercorns,--in the head; and in going on till
he has mastered all the numbers in the multiplication-table,--perceiving
them in the depths of his mind, without light or sound,--without images
or words. Children who are capable of mental arithmetic delight in it,
before their minds are tired:--and the moment the mind is tired, the
exercise should stop.
About quantity, the same methods may be used. At first, there must be
measurement, to prove to the child the relation of quantities: but to
what a point of precision the mind may arrive, after having once
perceived the truth of quantities and spaces, is seen in the fact that
astronomers can infallibly predict eclipses centuries before they
happen. Another department of what is called exact knowledge comprehends
the relations of time. This is another case in which idiots have proved
to us that there is an inner perception of time,--a faculty which works
pleasurably when once set to work. One idiot who had lived near a
striking clock, and was afterwards removed from all clocks, and did not
know a watch by sight, went on to the end of his life imitating the
striking of the hour regularly, with as much precision as the sun marks
it upon the dial. Another who never had sense enough to know of the
existence of clock or watch, could never be deceived about the precise
time of day. Under all changes of place and households with their
habits, he did and looked for the same things at exactly the same moment
of every day. And by this faculty it is that even little children learn
the clock;--a process which, from its very nature, could never be
learned by rote. In these matters, again, the children of the poor can
be as well trained as those of the rich. Every where, and under all
circumstances, people can measure and compute. The boy must do it if he
is to practise any art or trade whatever; and in every household, there
is, or ought to be, enough of economy,--of measuring, and cutting out,
and counting and calculating, for the girl to exercise her faculty of
perception of number and quantity. The understanding of money is no mean
exercise, in itself. In one rank, we see the able builder, carpenter,
and mechanician, practised in these departments of perception: and in
another we see the astronomer detecting and marking out the courses of
the stars, and understanding the mighty mechanism of the heavens, as if
he had himself trodden all the pathways of the sky. It is wise and kind
to use the early vigour of these faculties--the powers which perceive
facts,--up to the limit of satisfaction, stopping short always of
fatigue.
This is the season too, and these are the faculties, to be employed in
learning by rote. Learning by rote is nothing of a drudgery now compared
with what it is afterwards;--for the ear is quick, the eye is free and
at liberty; the memory is retentive, and the understanding is not yet
pressing for its gratification. At this season too, as has been before
observed, the child does not look forward, nor comprehend what it is
attempting. The present hour, with its little portion of occupation, is
all that it sees: and it accomplishes vast things, bit by bit, which it
would never attempt if it knew the sum of the matter. No one would learn
to speak if he knew all that speech comprehends: yet every child learns
to speak, easily and naturally. Thus it is with every art, every
science, every department of action and knowledge. The beginning,--the
drudgery--should be got over at the time when it costs least fatigue.
And this is why we teach children early to read;--so early that, but for
this consideration, it is of no consequence whether they can read or
not. We do it while the eye is quick to notice the form of the letters,
and while the ear is apt to catch their sound, and before the higher
faculties come in with any disturbing considerations. My own opinion is
that, on account of the feebleness and uncertainty of the hand, writing
had better be taught later than it usually is;--that is, when the child
shows an inclination to draw or scribble,--to describe any forms on
slate or paper, or on walls or sand. But whatever depends mainly on eye,
ear, and memory, should be taught early, when the learning causes the
most gratification and the least pain. The help that this arrangement
gives to, and receives from, the formation of habits of regularity and
industry will come under notice when I speak hereafter of the Care of
the Habits.
According to what has been said, a child's first intellectual education
lies in varied amusement, without express teaching. This is while its
brain is infantine and tender, and its nature restless and altogether
sensitive. When it shows itself quieter and more thoughtful, it may be
expressly taught, a little at a time, with cheerful steadiness and
tender encouragement. What it should learn, a healthy well-trained child
will, for the most part, indicate for itself, by its inquiries, and its
pleasure in learning. What the parent has to impose upon it is that
which, being artificial, it cannot indicate for itself,--the art of
reading, and the names and forms of numbers, and such arrangements of
language as are found in simple poetry, or other useful forms which may
be committed to memory. It is impossible to lay down any rule as to the
age to be comprehended in this period; and it might be dangerous to do
so;--so various are the capacities and temperaments of children; but,
speaking quite indeterminately, I may say that I have had in view the
period, for ordinary children, from the opening of the faculties to
about seven years old.