Coleridge relates that Thelwall thought it very unfair to influence a
child’s mind by inculcating any opinions before it should have come to
years of discretion, and be able to choose for itself. “I showed him my
garden,” says Coleridge, “and told him it was my botanical garden.” “How
so?” said he; “it is covered with weeds.” “Oh!” I replied, “that is only
because it has not yet come to its age of discretion and choice. The
weeds you see have taken the liberty to grow, and I thought it unfair in
me to prejudice the soil towards roses and strawberries.”
Madame de Lambert, in her work _Sur l’Education d’une jeune Demoiselle_,
says: “The greatest enemy that we have to combat in the education of
children is self-love; and to this enemy we cannot give attention too
early. Our business is to weaken it, and we must be careful not to
strengthen it by indiscriminate praise. Frequent praise encourages
pride, induces a child to value herself as superior to her companions,
and renders her unable to bear any reproach or objection however mild.
We should be cautious, even in the expression of affection, not to lead
children to suppose that we are constantly occupied with them. Timid
children may be encouraged by praise; but it must be judiciously
bestowed, and for their good conduct, not for personal graces. Above all
things, it is necessary to inspire them with a love of truth; to teach
them to practise it at their own expense; and to impress it upon their
minds that there is nothing so truly great as the frank acknowledgment,
‘I am wrong.’”
Harriet Martineau observes: “It is a matter of course that no mother
will allow any ignorant person to have access to her child who will
frighten it with goblin stories or threats of the old black man. She
might as well throw up her charge at once, and leave off thinking of
household education altogether, as permit her child to be exposed to
such maddening inhumanity as this. The instances are not few of idiotcy
or death from terror so caused.”
Children should not be hedged-in with any great number of rules and
regulations. Such as are necessary to be established, they should be
required implicitly to observe. But there should be none that are
superfluous. It is only in rich families, where there is a plentiful
attendance of governors and nurses, that many rules can be enforced; and
it is believed that the constant attention of governors and nurses is
one of the greatest moral disadvantages to which the children of the
rich are exposed.
Coleridge has well said: “The most graceful objects in nature are little
children—before they have learned to dance.”
“Grace,” says Archbishop Whately, “is in a great measure a natural gift;
elegance implies cultivation, or something of more artificial character.
A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be
accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with
persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other
building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The
movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call
them ‘elegant’ animals would be absurd. Lastly, ‘elegant’ may be applied
to mental qualifications, which ‘graceful’ never can. Elegance must
always imply something that is made or invented by man. An imitation of
nature is not so; therefore we do not speak of an ‘elegant picture,’
though we do of an elegant pattern for a gown, an elegant piece of work.
The general rule is, that elegance is the characteristic of art, and
grace of nature.”