How our hearts bound to the spirited strains of martial music! how we
thrill to the shout of the multitude! and how many a David has charmed
away evil spirits by the melody of beautiful sounds! Neither is it a
passing emotion of little moment in our lives we receive from the
senses, for they are our perpetual body-guards, surrounding us
unceasingly; and these constantly repeated impressions become powerful
agents in life; they refine or beautify our souls, they ennoble or
degrade them, according to the beautiful or mean objects which
surround us. A dirty, slovenly dress will exert an evil moral
influence upon the child; it will aid in destroying its self-respect;
it will incline it to habits which correspond with such a garment. The
beautiful scenes through which a child wanders, playing by the
sea-shore, or on the mountain-side, will always be remembered; the
treasures of shell and seaweed, brought from wonderful ocean caverns,
the soft green moss, where the fairies have danced, and the flowers
that have sprung up under their footsteps, will leave a trace of
beauty, of mystery, and strange happiness wherever its later life may
be cast. The senses mingle powerfully in all the influences of
childhood. It is not merely the loving of parents, the purity and
truthfulness of the family relations, that make home so precious a
recollection; there are visions of winter evenings, with the curtains
drawn, the fire blazing, and gay voices or wonderful picture-books;
there are summer rambles in the cool evening, when the delicious
night-breeze fanned the cheek, and we gazed into the heavens to search
out the bright stars. It is, then, most important in educating
children to guard the senses from evil influences, to furnish them
with pure and beautiful objects. Each separate sense should preserve
its acuteness of faculty: the eye should not be injured by resting on
a vulgar confusion of colours, or clumsy, ill-proportioned forms; the
ear should not be falsified by discordant sounds, and harsh, unloving
voices; the nose should not be a receptacle for impure odours: each
sense should be preserved in its purity, and the objects supplied to
them should be filled with moral suggestion and true sentiment; the
house, the dress, the food, may preach to the child through its
senses, and aid its growth in quite another way from the protection
afforded, or the good blood which feeds its organs.--_Blackwell's Laws
of Life._