(Translated from the German.)
We have often put the question to parents, at what period of infancy
moral discipline should begin, and we have heard various ages assigned,
from six months to a year. But in watching the management of early
infancy, in observing one child incessantly fed and dandled, and yet
incessantly fretful, in seeing another burst into distressing outcries,
if its wants were not gratified at the instant, in remarking how
another would submit, with comparative quiet, to be laid down when it
desired to move, and suppress its cries when its gratification was
delayed,--above all, in seeing how the infant of poverty, or of savage
life, submits to be left unnoticed and unattended, while its mother
toils the livelong day for a subsistence, and can only snatch a few
moments of repose to feed and fondle her nursling, we could not but
ask, whether the _first want_ and the _first gratification_ do not in
fact commence the course of moral discipline. Is not the question
often, if not always, settled in early infancy, whether the appetites
and passions shall be established with uncontrollable despotism before
the dawn of reason, or whether they shall be kept in their appropriate
and subordinate place, until reason assumes the throne? On points like
this, we are anxious to present the results of wider experience and
deeper research than our own; and we have been gratified to find in a
work of Heinroth, Professor of Medicine in the University of Leipzig,
opinions expressed which entirely accord with those which observation
and reflection have led us to form. We present our readers with a
translation of the passage, and earnestly recommend it to the attention
of mothers especially, as containing the results derived from extensive
experience, by a man whose medical knowledge, and whose reputation as a
writer on education, give his opinion high authority.
"When a child enters the world, its education is commenced by its
physical treatment,--by the manner in which its bodily wants are
provided for. As it is the offspring of love, so it should be cherished
in the arms of love, from the first moments of its life. We take it for
granted that it is blessed with a healthful, virtuous, and affectionate
mother. She is the angel who is to watch over that frail existence, and
guard it from accident; she should suffer nothing in the elements of
nature, nor surrounding circumstances, neither cold air, dazzling
light, excessive heat, or oppressive clothing, to excite the child to
pain. Even its first nourishment should not be given till the want
begins, lest injurious excitement be the consequence; and it should not
be given more freely, or more frequently than this want absolutely
requires.
"The _first day_ of the infant's life must be greeted with _order_ and
_temperance_; and both must preside over its whole future management.
As one sense after another developes itself, each should be supplied
with agreeable objects; for cheerful circumstances produce cheerful
dispositions. No obstacle should be allowed to the free play of all the
limbs and muscles--nothing which will hinder the development of life
and strength--and no undue pains must be taken to excite even these;
let them advance quietly and naturally.
"The look and voice of the mother's love should be the first food of
the infant soul. Life itself is joy; let joy cherish the germs of life.
The sight and the touch soon find appropriate objects; but even now
must the spirit of education watch over the child. It must not grasp
all in its reach; it must not touch the flame, or the knife, or in
short, any thing injurious to it. As soon as it learns to hear, it
learns to listen to its mother's voice, that is, to obey. The ear
gradually becomes the spiritual leading-string of the growing man. The
child cannot see and touch, without _desiring_, and does not desire,
without exercising _the will_. His first will is _self-will_, and it
soon takes root and strengthens, if the will of the mother does not
promptly meet, and gently, but firmly check it.
"Here then, education must begin,--with the first want, and its supply.
It begins, therefore, immediately, with the physical treatment of the
child, for its first wants are only physical. Every mode of treating an
infant is wrong which does not satisfy its wants in the right way, and
peculiarly wrong is every unseasonable or excessive supply. The first
wants of infancy are food, warmth, air, motion and sleep. A greater
number of children suffer from an excess of these comforts, than from
too scanty a portion of them. It is true, bad nourishment, confined
air, want of cleanliness and of free exercise, and unquiet sleep
arising from these causes, destroy many children who are left to the
care of hireling nurses. But on the other hand, a greater number suffer
from the peculiar care of an over-anxious mother, from superfluous
nourishment, and excessive wrapping, from guarding against all those
influences of air, deemed pernicious, from artificial motion, and from
the sleep thus artificially produced and maintained. In this way, many
of the most favored nurslings leave the world when they have scarcely
entered it. It is not however with the dead, but with the living that
we have to do. Few mothers will allow themselves to be charged with too
little care or indulgence; and even experienced nurses avoid it from
prejudice and disposition. Let us then examine the errors in physical
treatment, arising from excess, and particularly from excess in food.
"It is a most pernicious custom to stop every cry of a child with food,
whether it is done from the idea that it needs so frequent nourishment,
or to make it quiet. Inquire why the infant cries, and remove the
cause, if it can be discovered. It will be more rarely the want of
food, in proportion as it has been accustomed to regularity. If the
child is irregularly fed, it acquires bad habits, it departs from
_order_, ('Heaven's first law,') whose first principles should be
implanted in man while instinct still governs him. But the infant who
is thus accustomed to excess, soon becomes _inordinate_ in its demands,
and TEMPERANCE and ORDER, the great pillars of life, are both
overthrown. It will become greedy when it is unseasonably fed, even
with simple food, and the evil becomes still greater when it is
pampered with delicacies. An artificial necessity is produced for
continual gratification of the palate, so that it will often not be
pacified without having something pleasant to the taste constantly in
its mouth; and upon this, the whole enjoyment of its young life
depends. The sense of taste checks the progress of every noble sense;
the child concentrates its whole thoughts on the enjoyment of this
single appetite. In this way, it is prepared to become, not only an
epicurean, but a sensualist; and the obvious evils of overloading the
stomach and producing disease are not the only evils arising from this
treatment. The _moral character_ is also injured before it is fairly
developed. The child thus miseducated, becomes obstinate and
self-willed. If its demands are not satisfied, (and its cries are
demands,) it will soon learn to fret itself, almost into childish
insanity. See now the seeds of moral corruption implanted in the
physical soil, whose roots strike deeper in proportion as they are sown
earlier!
"Whence is it that we so frequently see this pernicious physical
treatment, and its natural fruits? Why do we see so many over-fed,
gormandizing, ill-humored, selfish and self-willed children? The
combined power of three great causes are at work: _maternal love_,
_vanity_ and _ignorance_. We may venture to say, every mother in her
senses loves her child more than she loves herself. How can she then
refuse to give him any thing! Food is the most obvious comfort, the
greatest pleasure he enjoys, and she gives it freely. She wishes her
child to _thrive_, to become strong, vigorous and fleshy. And now
_vanity_ comes in play. Every mother is vain of her child, and would
fain have it the finest, and for this purpose also it is excessively
fed. Yet this does not happen without the third cause,--_ignorance_.
Ignorance does not perceive that the thriving of the child depends upon
the quantity which it digests, rather than upon the quantity it
swallows, and overlooks the great medium, which it does not understand,
the organs of nourishment, whose office it is to prepare _nourishment_
for the body from the food which enters the stomach. Only so much food
as the child really digests does it any good; what remains undigested
is a source of evil.
"As these bad habits began with blind and injudicious affection, so
they end with the same. How can one who loves a child so much, give it
pain! When the necessary consequences of this treatment appear, and the
child becomes ill-humored, selfish and self-willed, and beginning very
early, to worry its mother; this blind and weak love, incapable of
resistance, pleads, '_The poor child cannot understand yet._ The
understanding is not developed the first year. Let it grow older, and
then I will educate it.' In the meantime, before the understanding is
developed, the child is _miseducated_ and _spoiled_. The first use it
makes of the understanding, is in tormenting the mother; and it soon
becomes a little tyrant. There are too many mothers of this sort, who
are slaves to their children. They reap only what they have sown."
* * * * *