When a boy has learned that in the genitive plural of the first
declension of Greek nouns the final syllable is circumflexed, but to
this there are the following exceptions: 1. That feminine adjectives and
participles in [Greek: -os, -e, -on] are accented like the genitive
masculine, but other feminine adjectives and participles are perispomena
in the genitive plural; 2. That the substantives _chrestes_, _aphue_,
_etesiai_, and _chlounes_ in the genitive plural remain paroxytones,
(Kuehner's _Elementary Greek Grammar_, page 22,)--I say, when a boy has
learned this and twenty other things just like it, his mind has not been
one whit more disciplined than if he had learned the list of the old
thirteen States, the number and names of the newly adopted ones, the
times of their adoption, and the population, commerce, mineral and
agricultural wealth of each. These, too, are merely exercises of memory,
but they are exercises in what is of some interest and some use.
The particulars above cited are of so little use in understanding the
Greek classics that I will venture to say that there are intelligent
English scholars, who have never read anything but Bohn's translations,
who have more genuine knowledge of the spirit of the Greek mind, and the
peculiar idioms of the language, and more enthusiasm for it, than many a
poor fellow who has stumbled blindly through the originals with the
bayonet of the tutor at his heels, and his eyes and ears full of the
Scotch snuff of the Greek Grammar.
What then? Shall we not learn these ancient tongues? By all means. "So
many times as I learn a language, so many times I become a man," said
Charles V.; and he said rightly. Latin and Greek are foully belied by
the prejudices created by this technical, pedantic mode of teaching
them, which makes one ragged, prickly bundle of all the dry facts of the
language, and insists upon it that the boy shall not see one glimpse of
its beauty, glory, or interest, till he has swallowed and digested the
whole mass. Many die in this wilderness with their shoes worn out before
reaching the Promised Land of Plato and the Tragedians.
"But," say our college authorities, "look at England. An English
schoolboy learns three times the Latin and Greek that our boys learn,
and has them well drubbed in."
And English boys have three times more beef and pudding in their
constitution than American boys have, and three times less of nerves.
The difference of nature must be considered here; and the constant
influence flowing from English schools and universities must be tempered
by considering who we are, what sort of boys we have to deal with, what
treatment they can bear, and what are the needs of our growing American
society.
The demands of actual life, the living, visible facts of practical
science, in so large and new a country as ours, require that the ideas
of the ancients should be given us in the shortest and most economical
way possible, and that scholastic technicalities should be reserved to
those whom Nature made with especial reference to their preservation.
On no subject is there more intolerant judgment, and more suffering from
such intolerance, than on the much mooted one of the education of
children.
Treatises on education require altogether too much of parents, and
impose burdens of responsibility on tender spirits which crush the life
and strength out of them. Parents have been talked to as if each child
came to them a soft, pulpy mass, which they were to pinch and pull and
pat and stroke into shape quite at their leisure,--and a good pattern
being placed before them, they were to proceed immediately to set up and
construct a good human being in conformity therewith.
It is strange that believers in the divine inspiration of the Bible
should have entertained this idea, overlooking the constant and
affecting declaration of the great Heavenly Father that _He_ has
nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against Him,
together with His constant appeals,--"What could have been done more to
my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it
should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" If even God,
wiser, better, purer, more loving, admits Himself baffled in this great
work, is it expedient to say to human beings that the forming power, the
deciding force, of a child's character is in their hands?
Many a poor feeble woman's health has been strained to breaking, and her
life darkened, by the laying on her shoulders of a burden of
responsibility that never ought to have been placed there; and many a
mother has been hindered from using such powers as God has given her,
because some preconceived mode of operation has been set up before her
which she could no more make effectual than David could wear the armor
of Saul.
A gentle, loving, fragile creature marries a strong-willed, energetic
man, and by the laws of natural descent has a boy given to her of twice
her amount of will and energy. She is just as helpless, in the mere
struggle of will and authority with such a child, as she would be in a
physical wrestle with a six-foot man.
What then? Has Nature left her helpless for her duties? Not if she
understands her nature, and acts in the line of it. She has no power of
command, but she has power of persuasion. She can neither bend nor break
the boy's iron will, but she can melt it. She has tact to avoid the
conflict in which she would be worsted. She can charm, amuse, please,
and make willing; and her fine and subtile influences, weaving
themselves about him day after day, become more and more powerful. Let
her alone, and she will have her boy yet.
But now some bustling mother-in-law or other privileged expounder says
to her,--
"My dear, it's your solemn duty to break that boy's will. I broke my
boy's will short off. Keep your whip in sight, meet him at every turn,
fight him whenever he crosses you, never let him get one victory, and
finally his will will be wholly subdued."
Such advice is mischievous, because what it proposes is as utter an
impossibility to the woman's nature as for a cow to scratch up worms for
her calf, or a hen to suckle her chickens.
There are men and women of strong, resolute will who are gifted with the
power of governing the wills of others. Such persons can govern in this
way,--and their government, being in the line of their nature, acting
strongly, consistently, naturally, makes everything move harmoniously.
Let them be content with their own success, but let them not set up as
general education-doctors, or apply their experience to all possible
cases.
Again, there are others, and among some of the loveliest and purest
natures, who have no power of command. They have sufficient tenacity of
will as respects their own course, but have no compulsory power over the
wills of others. Many such women have been most successful mothers, when
they followed the line of their own natures, and did not undertake what
they never could do.
_Influence_ is a slower acting force than authority. It seems weaker,
but in the long run it often effects more. It always does better than
mere force and authority without its gentle modifying power.
If a mother is high-principled, religious, affectionate, if she never
uses craft or deception, if she governs her temper and sets a good
example, let her hold on in good hope, though she cannot produce the
discipline of a man-of-war in her noisy little flock, or make all move
as smoothly as some other women to whom God has given another and
different talent; and let her not be discouraged, if she seem often to
accomplish but little in that great work of forming human character
wherein the great Creator of the world has declared Himself at times
baffled.
Family tolerance must take great account of the stages and periods of
development and growth in children.
The passage of a human being from one stage of development to another,
like the sun's passage across the equator, frequently has its storms and
tempests. The change to manhood and womanhood often involves brain,
nerves, body, and soul in confusion; the child sometimes seems lost to
himself and his parents,--his very nature changing. In this sensitive
state come restless desires, unreasonable longings, unsettled purposes;
and the fatal habit of indulgence in deadly stimulants, ruining all the
life, often springs form the cravings of this transition period.
Here must come in the patience of the saints. The restlessness must be
soothed, the family hearth must be tolerant enough to keep there the
boy, whom Satan will receive and cherish, them if his mother does not.
The male element sometimes pours into a boy, like the tides in the Bay
of Fundy, with tumult and tossing. He is noisy, vociferous, uproarious,
and seems bent only on disturbance; he despises conventionalities, he
hates parlors, he longs for the woods, the sea, the converse of rough
men, and kicks at constraint of all kinds. Have patience now, let love
have its perfect work, and in a year or two, if no deadly physical
habits set in, a quiet, well-mannered gentleman will be evolved.
Meanwhile, if he does not wipe his shoes, and if he will fling his hat
upon the floor, and tear his clothes, and bang and hammer and shout, and
cause general confusion in his belongings, do not despair; if you only
get your son, the hat and clothes and shoes and noise and confusion do
not matter. Any amount of toleration that keeps a boy contented at home
is treasure well expended at this time of life.
One thing not enough reflected on is, that in this transition period
between childhood and maturity the heaviest draft and strain of school
education occurs. The boy is fitting for the university, the girl going
through the studies of the college senior year, and the brain-power,
which is working almost to the breaking-point to perfect the physical
change, has the additional labor of all the drill and discipline of
school.
The girl is growing into a tall and shapely woman, and the poor brain is
put to it to find enough phosphate of lime, carbon, and other what not,
to build her fair edifice. The bills flow in upon her thick and fast;
she pays out hand over hand: if she had only her woman to build, she
might get along, but now come in demands for algebra, geometry, music,
language, and the poor brain-bank stops payment; some part of the work
is shabbily done, and a crooked spine or weakened lungs are the result.
Boarding-schools, both for boys and girls, are for the most part
composed of young people in this most delicate, critical portion of
their physical, mental, and moral development, whose teachers are
expected to put them through one straight, severe course of drill,
without the slightest allowance for the great physical facts of their
being. No wonder they are difficult to manage, and that so many of them
drop, physically, mentally, and morally halt and maimed. It is not the
teacher's fault; he but fulfils the parent's requisition, which dooms
his child without appeal to a certain course, simply because others have
gone through it.
Finally, as my sermon is too long already, let me end with a single
reflection. Every human being has some handle by which he may be lifted,
some groove in which he was meant to run; and the great work of life, as
far as our relations with each other are concerned, is to lift each one
by his own proper handle, and run each one in his own proper groove.