A CONVERSATION.
After Lucy had been at school for some days, and had learned a little
how to study by herself, and to follow Mary Jay’s directions, Mary Jay
asked her, one day, if she knew what her mother wanted her to study.
She said that she didn’t know. “Then,” said Mary Jay, “I wish that you
would ask your mother, and tell me to-morrow.”
Lucy did ask her mother, and her mother consulted her father. The
result of their conversation was, that they should like to see Mary Jay
about Lucy’s studies; and they concluded to invite her to come that
evening and take tea with them, and then, after tea, they would have
time to talk about it.
Royal wished to go and bring Mary Jay in the chaise, as she couldn’t
walk very well; and his father said that that would be an excellent
plan. Lucy invited her when she went to school that morning; and in the
afternoon, when it was time for her to come, Royal and Lucy went for
her in the chaise.
The first thing, after Mary Jay arrived, was to take her out, and let
her see the duck pond and house. Mary Jay was very much pleased indeed;
and she said that, when her ducklings grew up, she would give them
another, and then they would have a pair.
Royal wished that Mary Jay would give them the other duckling then, so
that they might bring them up together; but he didn’t think that it
would be proper for him to ask it, and so he only said that he and Lucy
would be very glad indeed to have a pair.
After tea that evening, Lucy’s father and mother, and Mary Jay, sat
down to talk about Lucy’s studies.
“I believe,” said Lucy’s father, “that teachers have often very wrong
ideas about the proper studies for children. The question is, not what
studies are the easiest, but what can be pursued to best advantage.
Now, there are some things which children can learn thoroughly, as
far as they learn them at all, and others that they cannot learn
thoroughly.”
“Not if they are thoroughly taught?” said Mary Jay.
“No,” said he, “because they cannot be thoroughly taught; for the very
things that the study relates to, are such that they cannot really
appreciate them. Take history, for example. If a child, like Lucy, is
to study history, she reads, perhaps, in her book, that a rebellion
broke out, and the leaders of it beheaded the king. Now, she may commit
the words to memory, it is true, and recite the lesson fluently; but
she cannot have any adequate idea of the truth, because the elements of
it are beyond her capacity.”
“I don’t understand one word that you say,” said Lucy.
“Why, if you read in a book of history,” said her father, “that a
rebellion broke out, and that the leaders of it beheaded the king,
you cannot really understand it, because you cannot understand what a
rebellion is, or what the leaders are, or even what a king is.”
“Why, father,” said Lucy, “I know what a king is already; and Mary Jay
could tell me the other things.”
“What is a king?” asked her father.
“Why he--he--is a kind of man, and he lives in a great palace;--and he
makes people obey him, I believe,” said Lucy.
Her father did not say any thing in reply to her description of a
king; but Mary Jay saw very clearly, that she could not possibly have
any thing more than a very inadequate and childish idea of a king.
“It is so with all the ideas,” continued her father, addressing
Mary Jay, “which history brings before the mind. They are greatly
complicated, and of very extended and intricate relations, so that
young children cannot possibly appreciate them. If you tell them that
Columbus discovered America in 1492, they can learn the words; but
they are utterly unable to appreciate the truth. They cannot form any
conception of America, or of Columbus, and the date 1492 marks no era
of the world in their minds.”
“Well, sir,” said Mary Jay, “but isn’t it so with all studies?”
“No, by no means,” replied Lucy’s father. “The truths of arithmetic a
child can appreciate as fully and completely as any person. Three from
ten leaves seven. Now, a child may be longer in learning that than a
grown person; but when she once understands it, she understands it as
perfectly as any mind can. The reason is, that the idea of three is a
simple idea, which, if it is formed at all in the mind, is formed fully
at once. But the idea of a rebellion, or of a king, or an army, is a
complicated idea, which can be acquired only slowly, and after some
years of experience of life, of reading and observation.”
“What are some of the other studies,” asked Mary Jay, “besides
arithmetic, which children can learn to advantage?”
“Reading is one. A child who learns what the sound is, that is
represented by the character S, knows the truth as completely and
thoroughly as Sir Isaac Newton could have known it. Then there is
writing, including spelling.”
“Spelling belongs to reading, father,” said Lucy.
“You _learn_ the art of spelling, generally, with reading; but we _use_
it only with writing,” replied her father.
“How?” said Lucy.
“Why, the chief reason why we learn to spell is, so as to be able to
spell the words correctly when we are writing. We do not spell the
words when we read. Therefore, to be able to spell is rather a part of
the art of writing, than of reading. In reading, the scholar must be
able to pronounce all the words which she finds already spelt; and in
writing, she must be able to spell them again.”
“Is geography another study?” said Mary Jay.
“Geography, one would at first think, would be one of the studies
which a child could learn thoroughly; but, on reflection, we shall
see that the elementary ideas, which that study brings to the mind,
are beyond the grasp of very young children. They have no ideas of
distance, and of course can have no adequate conception of the earth,
or of continents, oceans, mountains. It is impossible to carry the
mind of a very young child away from the lines, and dots, and crooked
configurations of the map, to the vast forms of real land and water,
represented by them. We all carry with us to the end of life absurd
and ridiculous ideas of some regions of the earth’s surface, which we
obtained from our maps, when we were children. But a child cannot very
well form an absurd or ridiculous idea of the number _ten_, or of the
letter _s_, or of the mode of spelling _until_.”
“Well, father,” said Lucy, “I know what a mountain is, at any rate.”
“What is it?” said her father.
“It is a great, high hill.”
“How high is it?” said her father.
“O, it is very high,” said Lucy, reaching up with her hand; “very
high, indeed. Higher than this house.”
“Is it as high as a tree?” said her father.
“Yes,” said Lucy, “a great deal higher than a tree.”
“Is it as high as the steeple of a church?” asked her father.
“Why, I don’t know,” answered Lucy. “I don’t know that it is quite so
high as the steeple of a church.”
Mary Jay smiled; but Lucy’s father only said that it was true that
church steeples were sometimes very high. Mary Jay saw how inadequate
all Lucy’s ideas of the magnitude of mountains were; for, in fact, the
principal mountains of the world are as much higher than the steeple
of a church, as the house that Lucy lived in was higher than her duck
house. In fact, Lucy was entirely unable to form any conception,
when she heard the word _mountain_, of the vast and complicated idea
expressed by it,--including the immense and towering elevations, the
forests, the rocks, and the glaciers,--the broken ranges, the chasms
and valleys, and the lofty summits, bare, and desolate, and cold. Her
idea of a mountain was only that of a great green hill.
“Then,” said Mary Jay, “you would rather have Lucy not study any
thing, but what she can learn thoroughly--reading, spelling, writing,
and arithmetic.”
“No,” replied Lucy’s father, “I did not say exactly that; I wouldn’t
forbid her making a beginning upon geography or history,--if we can
get some suitable book,--by way of variety, and to give her a little
introduction to these studies. But I want her main time and attention,
for several years, to be directed to the other studies, which she can
pursue to advantage. Remember that every step she takes in learning
the three great arts, of reading, writing, and arithmetic, is a step
taken well and thoroughly,--but that whatever ground she goes over in
history, geography, or philosophy, or any such study, is gone over in a
very superficial manner; and that all the ideas she forms are childish,
inadequate, and oftentimes entirely incorrect or absurd.”
Mary Jay was very much interested in what Lucy’s father had been
saying; but Lucy did not understand it very well, and, as she could not
understand, she had gradually ceased to pay any attention, and was now
thinking of a plan of getting Royal to carry Diver down to the brook,
which was at some distance behind the house, the next day, and let him
swim there; and just as her father had finished the last remark, she
said,--
“Father, may Royal and I carry Diver down to the brook to-morrow?”
“Diver?” repeated her father; “who is Diver?”
“O, haven’t you seen Diver yet, father?--Come out then, and see him.
Mary Jay gave him to us.”
This was the first time that her father had heard of Diver. He allowed
Lucy to take him by the hand, and to lead him out to Royal’s duck pond.
He was very much pleased with it, indeed, and with Diver’s motions and
frolics in the water. He said that he did not know before that a young
duck was such a pretty thing. He took it up, and looked at its little
web feet, which he admired exceedingly, and said that, if he was an
engineer, he would attempt to construct paddles for a steamboat on the
same principle.
“I should think that they would strike the bottom in shallow water,”
said Mary Jay.
“And get broken,” said Lucy.
“So they would,” replied her father. “I didn’t think of that; did I?”
Mary Jay got into the chaise again, and Royal drove her home; and on
the way, she determined to devote nearly all Lucy’s time in school to
making as much, and as thorough progress as possible, in the great
fundamental branches of reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic.