Household Education

We come now to consider a moral quality whose importance cannot be overrated, yet about which there is more unsettledness of view and perplexity of heart among parents than about, perhaps, any other. Every parent is anxious about the truthfulness of his child: but whether this virtue is to come by nature, or by gift, or by training, many an one is sorely perplexed to know. So few children are truthful in all respects and without variation, that we may well doubt whether the quality can be inborn. And the cases are so many of children otherwise good—even conscientious in other respects—who talk at random, and say things utterly untrue, that I do not wonder that those who hold low views of human nature consider this a constitutional vice, and a hereditary curse. I am very far from believing this: and I will plainly say what I do believe.

I believe that the requisites of a habit of truthfulness lie in the brain of every child that is born; but that the truthfulness itself has to be taught, as the speech which is to convey it has to be taught; by helping the child to the use of his natural powers. The child has by nature the ear, the lungs, the tongue, the palate, and the various and busy mind,—the requisites for speech: but he does not speak unless incited by hearing it from others, and by being himself led on to attain the power. In a somewhat resembling manner, every child has more or less natural sense of what is just in feeling and action, and what is real in nature, and how to present his ideas to another mind. Here are the requisites to truthfulness of speech: but there is much to be learned, and much to overcome, before the practice of truthfulness can be completely formed, and firmly established. If the case is once understood, we shall know how to set about our work, and may await the event without dismay in the worst cases, though in all with the most careful vigilance.

Is it not true that different nations, even Christian nations, vary more in regard to truthfulness than perhaps any other moral quality? Is it not true that one or two continental nations fall below us in regard to this quality, while they far excel us in kindliness and cheerfulness of temper, and pleasantness of manners? And does not this difference arise from their thinking kindliness and cheerfulness more important than sincerity and accuracy of speech? And is not our national superiority in regard to the practice of truth chiefly owing to its being our national point of honour, and our fixed supposition as a social habit? Do not these facts tend to show that the practice of truthfulness is the result of training? and that we may look for it with confidence as the result of good training?

Now, what are the requisites, and what the difficulties that we have to deal with?

Has not every child a keen sense of right and justice, which he shows from the earliest time that he can manifest any moral judgment at all? He may be injurious and unjust to another, from selfishness and passion: but can he not feel injustice done to himself with the infallibility of an instinct, and claim his rights with the acuteness of a lawyer? Is there anything more surprising to us in the work of education than every child's sense of his rights, and need of unerring justice, till he is far enough advanced generously to dispense with it? Here we have the perception of moral truth for one requisite.

Another requisite is such good perceptive power as informs a child truly of outward facts. There is no natural power which varies more in different subjects than this. One child sees everything as it is, within its range. Another child sees but little, being taken up with what it thinks or imagines. A third sees wrongly, being easily deceived about colours and forms, and the order in which things happen, from its senses being dull, or its faculties of observation being indolent. I have known a child declare an object to be green when it was grey; or a man in a field to be a giant; or a thing to have happened in the morning which took place in the afternoon: and one need but observe how witnesses in a court of justice vary in their testimony about small matters regarding which they are quite disinterested, to see that the same imperfection in the perceptive faculties goes on into mature age. It is plain that these faculties must be exercised and trained very carefully, if the child is to be made accurate in its statements.

Another and most important requisite is that the child should, from the beginning, believe that truthfulness is a duty. This belief must be given on authority: for the obligation to truth is not, as I have said, instinctive, but a matter of reasoning, such as a child is not capable of entering into. He will receive it, easily and permanently, from the assurance and example of his parents; but he does not, in his earliest years, see it for himself. An affectionate child, thinking of a beloved person, will tell his parent that he has just seen and talked with that person, who is known to be a hundred miles off. The parent is shocked: and truly there is cause for distress; for it is plain that the child has as yet no notion of the duty of truthfulness; but the parent must not, in his fear, aggravate the case, and run into the conclusion that the child loves lying. The case probably is that he says what is pleasant to his affections, without being aware that there is a more serious matter to be attended to first: a thing which he may hereafter be shocked not to have known. I happen to remember at this moment, three persons, now conscientiously truthful, who in early childhood were in the habit of telling, not only wonderful dreams, but most wonderful things that they had seen in their walks, on the high-road or the heath; giants, castles, beautiful ladies riding in forests, and so on. In all these cases, the parents were deeply distressed, and applied themselves accordingly, first to check the practice of narration, and next to exercise the perceptive and reflective powers of the children, so as to enable them to distinguish clearly the facts they saw from the visions they called up before their mind's eye. The appeal to conscience they left for cases where their child had clearer notions of right and wrong. Any one of these children would, I believe, at that very time, have suffered much rather than say what he knew to be false, from any motive of personal fear or hope. As I said, all these three are now eminently honourable and trustworthy persons.

The chief final requisite is, of course, conscientiousness. When the child becomes capable of self-knowledge and self-government, this alone can be relied on for such a confirmation of the habit of truth telling, or such a correction of any tendency to inaccuracy, as may carry the young probationer through all temptations from within and from without, steady in the practice of strict truth. When all these requisites are combined,—when the child feels truly, sees truly, and is aware of the duty of speaking truly, the practice of truthfulness becomes as natural and unfailing as if it originated in an instinct.

I remember an instance of the strange, unbalanced, unprincipled state of mind of a child, who was capable of telling a lie, and persisting in it, at the very time that she was conscientious to excess about some of her duties, and her sense of justice (in regard to her own rights) ran riot in her. It is an odd and a sad story; but instructive from its very strangeness. She was asked by her mother one day whether she had not played battledore and shuttlecock before breakfast. From some levity or inattention at the moment, she said "No," and was immediately about to correct herself when her mother's severe countenance roused her pride and obstinacy, and she wickedly repeated her denial. Here it was temper that was the snare. There was nothing to be afraid of in saying the truth, no reason why she should not. But she had a temper of such pride and obstinacy that she was aware of even enjoying being punished, as giving her an opportunity of standing out; while the least word of appeal to her affections or her conscience, if uttered before her temper was roused, would melt her in a moment. The question was repeated in many forms; and still she, with a terrified and miserable conscience, persisted that she had not played battledore that morning; whereas her mother had heard it, and knew from her companion who it was that had played. The lying child was sent to her own room, where she was in consternation enough till a mistake of management was made which spoiled everything, and destroyed the lesson to her. She was sent for to read aloud, before the family, the story of Ananias and Sapphira. She was sobbing so that the reading was scarcely possible, till her thoughts took a turn which speedily dried her tears, and filled her with an insolent indignation which excluded all chance of repentance. She well knew the story of Ananias and Sapphira; and she happened to have a great admiration of the plan of the early Christians, of throwing all their goods into a common stock. She knew that the sin of Ananias and his wife lay chiefly in the selfish fraud which was the occasion of their lie, and that their case was therefore no parallel for hers: and in the indignation of having it supposed that she had sinned in their way,—she who longed above everything to have been an early Christian (a pretty subject truly!)—that she could be thought silly enough to suppose that they were struck dead for their fib, and not for their fraud,—in this insolent indignation she put her one sin out of sight, and felt herself an injured person. This adventure certainly did not strengthen her regard to truth. She dared not state her objection to the story in her own case: and perhaps she also disdained to do it: she remained sullen; and her mother had at last to let the matter drop.

This was a case to make any parent's heart sink: but the worse the case, the more instructive to us now. Here was sufficient moral sense and insight, in one direction, to hear an appeal, if any had been made. Disgrace was the worst possible resort, and especially when untenable ground was taken for it. The best resort would have been a tender and solemn private conversation, in which the entanglement of passionate feelings might have been unravelled, and the seat of moral disease have been explored. When a moral disease so fearful as this appears, parents should never rest till they have found the seat of it, and convinced the perilled child of the deadly nature of its malady. In this case, the child was certainly not half-convinced, and morally worse after the treatment, while the material for conviction, repentance and reformation, was in her.

The method of training must depend much on the organisation of the child in one respect; whether he is ingenuous and frank, or reserved and (I must say it)—sly. Some children are certainly prone to slyness by nature; but there is no reason why, under a wise training, they should not be as honourable as the most ingenuous soul that ever was born. And they may even, when thoroughly principled, be more reliable than some open-minded persons, from being more circumspect.

There is something very discouraging in seeing little creatures who ought to be all fearlessness and confidence hiding things under their pinafores, or slipping out at the back-door for a walk which they might have honestly by asking for it; or putting round-about questions when plain ones would do; or keeping all their little concerns to themselves while spending their whole lives among brothers and sisters. If one looks forward to their maturity, one recoils from the image of what they will be. But they must not grow up with these tendencies. Their fault may turn to virtue, under wise and gentle treatment. Their confidence must be tenderly won, and their innocent desires gratified, while every slyness is quietly shown to be as unavailing as it is disagreeable, and every movement towards ingenuousness cheerfully and lovingly encouraged. The child's imagination must be engaged on behalf of everything that is noble, heroic, and openly glorious before the eyes of men. His conscience and affections must be appealed to, not in words, but by a long course of love and trust, to return the trust he receives. Of course, the parental example must be that of perfect openness and simplicity; for the sight of mystery and concealment in the house is enough to make even the ingenuous child sly, through its faculty of imitation, and its ambition to be old and wise; and much more will it hinder the expansion of a reserved and cunning child. If these things be all attended to—if he sees only what is open, free, and simple, and receives treatment which is open, free, and encouraging, while it convinces him of a sagacity greater than his own, there is every hope that he will yield himself to the kindly influences dispensed to him, and find for himself the comfort and security of ingenuousness, and turn his secretive ingenuity to purposes of intellectual exercise, where it may do much good and no harm. That ingenuity and sagacity may be well employed among the secrets of history, the complexities of the law, or the mysteries of mechanical construction or chemical analysis, which may make a man vicious and untrustworthy, if allowed to work in his moral nature, and to shroud his daily conduct.

As for the training of the candid and ingenuous child, it is of course far easier and pleasanter; but it must not be supposed that no care is required to make him truthful. He must be trained to accuracy, or all his ingenuousness will not save him from saying many a thing which is not true. Dr. Johnson advised that if a child said he saw a thing out of one window, when in fact he saw it out of another, he should be set right. I think the Dr. was right; and that a child should consider no kind of misstatement a trifle, seeing always that the parents do not. An open-hearted and ingenuous child is likely to be a great talker; and is in that way more liable to inaccuracy of statement than a reserved child. Oh! let his parents guard him well, by making him early the guardian of the "unruly little member" which may, by neglect, deprive him of the security and peace which should naturally spread from his innocent heart through his open and honest life! Let them help him to add perfect truth of speech to his native truth of heart, and their promising child cannot but be a happy man.

It may seem wearisome to say so often over that the example of the parents is the chief influence in the training of the child; but how can I help saying it when the fact is so? Is it not true that when the father of a family comes home and talks before his children, every word sinks into their minds? If he talks banter—banter so broad that his elder children laugh and understand, how should the little one on its mother's lap fail to be perplexed and misled? It knows nothing about banter, and it looks up seriously in its father's face, and believes all he says, and carries away all manner of absurd ideas. Or, if told not to believe what he hears, how is he to know henceforth what to believe; and how can he put trust in his father's words? The turn for exaggeration which many people have is morally bad for the whole family. It is only the youngest perhaps who will believe that "it rains cats and dogs" because somebody says so; but a whole family may be misled by habitual exaggeration of statement. The consequence is clear. Either they will take up the habit, from imitation of father or mother, or they will learn to distrust their fluent parent. But how safe is everything made by that established habit of truth in a household which acts like an instinct! If the parents are, as by a natural necessity, always accurate in what they say, or, if mistaken, thankful to be set right, and eager to rectify their mistake, the children thrive in an atmosphere of such sincerity and truth: and any one of them to whom truthfulness may be constitutionally difficult, has the best chance for the strengthening of his weakness. Such an one must have sunk under the least aggravation of his infirmity by the sin of his parents: and the probability is, that the whole household would have gone down into moral ruin together; for it cannot be expected that any natural aptitude for truth in children should improve, or even continue, if discouraged by the example of the parents who ought to hail it as a blessing upon their house.

Of all happy households, that is the happiest, where falsehood is never thought of. All peace is broken up when once it appears that there is a liar in the house. All comfort is gone, when suspicion has once entered; when there must be reserve in talk, and reservation in belief. Anxious parents, who are aware of the pains of suspicion, will place generous confidence in their children, and receive what they say freely, unless there is strong reason to distrust the truth of any one. If such an occasion should unhappily arise, they must keep the suspicion from spreading as long as possible; and avoid disgracing their poor child, while there is any chance of his cure by their confidential assistance. He should have their pity and assiduous help, as if he were suffering under some disgusting bodily disorder. If he can be cured, he will become duly grateful for the treatment. If the endeavour fails, means must of course be taken to prevent his example doing harm: and then, as I said, the family peace is broken up, because the family confidence is gone.

I fear that, from some cause or another, there are but few large families where every member is altogether truthful. Some who are not morally guilty, are intellectually incapable of accuracy. But where all are so organised and so trained as to be wholly reliable, in act and word, they are a light to all eyes, and a joy to all hearts. They are a public benefit; for they are a point of general reliance: and they are privately blessed, within and without. Without, their life is made easy by universal trust: and within their home and their hearts, they have the security of rectitude, and the gladness of innocence. If we do but invoke wisdom, she will come, and multiply such homes in our land.

We come now to the greatest and noblest of the Moral Powers of Man; to that power which makes him quite a different order of being from any other that we know of, and which is the glory and crown of his existence:—his Conscientiousness. The universal endowment of men with this power is the true bond of brotherhood of the human race. Any race of beings who possess in common the highest quality of which any of them are capable, are brothers, however much they may differ in all other respects, and however little some of them may care about this brotherhood. For those who do care about it, how clear it is, and how very interesting to trace! How plain it is that while men in different parts and ages of the world differ widely as to what is right, they all have something in them which prompts them to do what they believe to be right! Here is a little boy, permitted to try what he can get by selling five shillings' worth of oranges:—he points out to the lady who is buying his last half dozen, that two of them are spotted.—There was Regulus, the Roman general, who was taken prisoner by the enemy, the Carthaginians. He was trusted to go to Rome, to treat for an exchange of prisoners, on his promise that he would return to Carthage,—which he knew was returning to death,—if the Roman senate would not grant an exchange of prisoners. He persuaded the Roman senate not to agree to the exchange, which he believed would not be for the advantage of Rome: and then he went back to Carthage and to death. There is, at this day, the South Sea Islander,—the young wife who has been told that it is pious and right to give her first child to the gods. She has in her all a mother's feelings, all the love which women long to lavish on their first babe: but she desires that the infant should be strangled as soon as born, because she thinks it her duty. Now, this poor creature is truly the sister of the other two, though her superstition is horrible, and the infanticide it leads to is a great crime. She is shockingly ignorant, and her mind is not of that high order which would perceive that there must be something wrong in going against nature in this way: but, for all that, she is conscientious; and by her conscientiousness she is truly a sister in heart to the honourable Roman general, and the honest orange-seller. What she needs is knowledge: and what the whole human race wants is knowledge, to bring the workings of this great power into harmony all over the world. At present, we see men in one place feeding, and in another place burning one another,—because they think they ought. In one place, we see a man with seventy wives,—in another, a man with one wife,—and in another, a man remaining a bachelor all his life; and each one equally supposing that he is doing what is right. The evil everywhere is in the want of clear views of what is right. This is an evil which may and will be remedied, we may hope, in course of ages. There is nothing that we may not hope while the power to desire and do what is right is common to all mankind,—is given to them as an essential part of the human frame.

It does not follow, of course, that this power is equal in all. All but idiots have it, more or less; but it varies, in different individuals, quite as much as any other power. No power is more dependant on care and cultivation for its vigour: but none varies more from the very beginning. Some of the worst cases of want of rectitude that I have known have been in persons so placed as that everybody naturally supposed they must be good, and trusted them accordingly. I have known a girl, brought up by highly principled relatives, in a house where nothing but good was seen or heard of, turn out so faulty as to compel one to see that her power of conscientiousness was the weakest she had. She had some of it. She was uneasy,—truly and not hypocritically,—if she did not read a portion of the bible every day at a certain hour. She was plain, even to prudery, in her dress: she truly honoured old age, and could humble herself before it: and she studiously, and from a sense of duty, administered to the wishes of the elder members of the family, in all matters of arrangement and manners. But that was all. She was tricky to a degree I could never estimate or comprehend. Her little plots and deceptions were without number and without end. Her temper was bad, and she took no pains whatever to mend it, but spent all her exertions in making people as miserable as possible by her vindictiveness. In love matters, she reached a point of malice beyond belief, torturing people's feelings, and getting them into scrapes, with a gratification to her own bad mind which could not be concealed under her demure solemnity of manner. Enough of her! I will only observe that, though she was brought up by good people, it does not follow that she was judiciously managed. The result shows that she was not. A perfectly wise guardian would have seen that her faculty of conscientiousness wanted strengthening, and would have found safe and innocent employment for those powers of secretiveness and defiance, and that inordinate love of approbation, which, as it was, issued in mischief-making.—The opposite case to hers is that which touches one with a deeper pity than almost any spectacle which can be seen on this earth: that of the child whose strong power of conscientiousness is directed to wickedness, before it has ability to help itself. Think of the little child born in a cellar, among thieves! It is born full of human powers; and among these, it has a conscience, and perhaps a particularly strong one. Suppose it is brought up to believe that its duty is to provide money for its parents by stealing. Suppose that, by five years old, it entirely believes that the most wrong thing it can do is to come home at dark without having stolen at least three pocket-handkerchiefs! Such cases have been known; and not a few of them.—And it is only an exaggerated instance of what we very commonly see in history and the world. The Chief Inquisitor in Spain or Italy really believed that he was doing his duty in burning the bodies of heretics for the good of their souls. Our ancestors thought they were acting benevolently in putting badge dresses on charity children. The Pharisees of old were sincere in their belief that it was wrong to heal a sick man on the Sabbath. And I have no doubt that in a future age it will appear that we ourselves are ignorant and mistaken about some points of our conduct in which we now sincerely believe that we are doing what we ought.

In every household, then, the first consideration is to cherish the faculty of conscientiousness; and the next is, to direct it wisely.

When I speak of cherishing the faculty, I do not mean that it is always to be stimulated, whether it be naturally strong or weak. There are cases, and they are not few, where the power is stronger than perhaps any other. In such cases, no stimulating is required, but only guidance and enlightenment. There are few sadder spectacles than that of a suffering being whose conscience has become so tender as to be superstitious; who lives a life of fear—of incessant fear of doing wrong. It is a healthy conscience that we want to produce; a conscience which shall act naturally, vigorously, and incessantly, like an instinct; so as to leave all the other faculties to act freely, without continual conflict and question whether their action be right or wrong. A child who is perpetually driven to examine all he thinks and does will become full of himself, prone to discontent with himself, and to servile dependence on the opinion of those whom he thinks wiser than himself. What is such a child to do when he comes out into the world, and must guide himself? At best, he will go trembling through life, without courage or self-respect: and something worse is to be apprehended. It is to be apprehended that if he makes any slip—and such an one will be sure to think that he does make slips—he will be unable to bear the pain and uncertainty, and will grow reckless. A clergyman, of wide and deep experience, who was the depository of much confidence, told me once (and I have never forgotten it), that some of the worst cases of desperate vice he had ever known were those of young men tenderly and piously reared, who came out from home anxious about the moral dangers of the world and the fears of their parents, and who, having fallen into the slightest fault, and being utterly wretched in consequence, lost all courage and hope, and drowned their misery in indulgence of the worst part of themselves. He felt this so strongly that he solemnly conjured me to use any influence I might ever have over parents in encouraging them to trust their children with their innocence, and to have faith in the best faculties of human nature. This entreaty still rings in my ears, and leads me so to use any influence I may now have over parents.

Is it not true that the strongest delight the human being ever has is in well-doing? Is it not true that this pleasure, like the pleasures of the eye and ear, the pleasures of benevolence, the pleasures of the understanding and the imagination, will seek its own continuance and gratification, if it have fair play? Is it not true that pain of conscience is the worst of human sufferings? and that this pain will be naturally avoided, like every other pain, if only the faculty have fair play?

The worst of it is, the faculty seldom has fair play. The fatal notion that human beings are more prone to evil than inclined to good, and the fatal practice of creating factitious sins, are dreadfully in the way of natural health of conscience. Teach a child that his nature is evil, and you will make it evil. Teach him to fear and despise himself, and you will make him timid and suspicious. Impose upon him a number of factitious considerations of duty, and you will perplex his moral sense, and make him tired of a self-government which has no certainty and no satisfaction in it. It is a far safer and higher way to trust to his natural moral sense, and cultivate his moral taste: to let him grow morally strong by leaving him morally free, and to make him, by sympathy and example, in love with whatever things are pure, honest, and lovely. What the parent has to do with is the moral habits of the child, and not to meddle with his faculties. Give them fair scope to grow, and they will flourish: and, let it be remembered, man has no faculties which are, in themselves and altogether, evil. His faculties are all good, if they are well harmonised. Instead of talking to him, or leading him to talk in his infancy of his own feelings as something that he has to take charge of, fix his mind on the things from which his feelings will of themselves arise. By all means, lead him to be considerate: but not about his own state, but rather about the objects which cause that state. If he sees at home integrity entering into every act and thought, and trust and love naturally ensuing, he will enjoy integrity and live in it, as the native of a southern climate enjoys sunshine and lives in it. If, as must happen, failure of integrity comes under his notice in one direction or another, he will see the genuine disgust and pain which those about him feel at the spectacle, and dishonesty will be disgusting and painful to him. And so on, through all good and bad qualities of men. And this will keep him upright and pure far more certainly than any warnings from you that he will be dishonest and impure, unless he is constantly watching his feelings, and striving against the danger.

In the beginning of his course, he must be aided,—in the early days when the action of all his faculties is weak and uncertain: and this aid cannot be given too early; for we are not aware of any age at which a child has not some sense of moral right and wrong. Mrs. Wesley taught her infants in arms to "cry softly." Without admiring the discipline, we may profit by the hint as to the moral capability of the child. When no older than this, he may have satisfaction, without knowing why, from submitting quietly to be washed, and to go to bed. When he becomes capable of employing himself purposely, he may have satisfaction in doing his business before he goes to his play, and a sense of uneasiness in omitting the duty. I knew a little boy in petticoats who had no particular taste for the alphabet, but began to learn it as a matter of course, without any pretence of relish. One day his lesson was, for some reason, rather short. His conscience was not satisfied. When his elder brother was dismissed, Willie brought his letters again, but found he was not wanted, and might play. The little fellow sighed; and then a bright thought struck him. (I think I see him now, in his white frock, with his large thoughtful eyes lighting up!) He said joyfully—"Willie say his lesson to hisself." He carried his little stool into a corner, put his book on his knees, and finished by honestly covering up the large letters with both hands, and saying aloud two or three new ones. Then he went to his play, all the merrier for the discharge of his conscience.

There is no reason why it should not be thus with all the duties of a child. The great point is that he should see that the peace and joy of the household depend on ease of conscience. His father takes no pleasure till his work is done, and tells the truth to his hurt. His mother seeks to be just to a slandered neighbour, or leaves her rest by the fireside to aid a sick one. Granny's eyes sparkle, or a flush comes over her withered cheek, when she tells the children what good men have endured rather than pretend what they did not believe, or betray a trust. The maid has taken twopence too much in change, and is uneasy till she has returned it, or she refuses to promise something, lest she should be unable to keep her word. His elder sister refuses something good at a neighbour's, because her mother would think it unwholesome while she is not quite well. His elder brother asks him to throw just a little cold water upon him in the mornings, because he is so terribly sleepy that he cannot get up without. And he sees what a welcome is given to a very poor acquaintance, and he feels his own heart beat with reverence for this very poor neighbour, because his father happens to know that the man refused five pounds for his vote at the last election. If the child is surrounded by a moral atmosphere like this, he will derive a strong moral life from it, and a satisfaction to his highest moral faculties which it is scarcely possible that he should forego for the pleasures of sin. The indolent child will, in such a home, lose all idea of pleasure in being idle, and soon find no pleasure till his work is done. The slovenly child will become uneasy under a dirty skin, and the thoughtless one in being behind his time. Common integrity we may suppose to be a matter of course in a household like this; and, as every virtuous faculty naturally advances "from strength to strength," we may hope that the abode will be blessed, as the children grow up, with a very uncommon integrity.

Though the parent will avoid making the child unnecessarily conscious of its own conscience, she (for this is chiefly the mother's business) will remember that her child has his difficulties and perplexities about the working of this, as of all his other imperfectly trained powers; and she will lay herself open to his confidence. Sometimes he is not clear what he ought to do: sometimes he feels himself too weak to do it: sometimes he is miserable because he has done wrong: and then again, he and some one else may differ as to whether he has done wrong or right. And again, he may have seen something in other people's conduct which shocks, or puzzles, or delights him. Oh! let the mother throw open her heart to confidences like these! Let her be sure that the moments of such confidence are golden moments, for which a mother may be more thankful than for anything else she can ever receive from her child. Let it be her care that every child has opportunity to speak freely and privately to her of such things. Some mothers make it a practice to go themselves to fetch the candle when the children are in bed; and then, if wanted, they stay a few minutes, and hear any confessions, or difficulties, and receive any disclosures, of which the little mind may wish to disburden itself before the hour of sleep. Whether then or at another time, it is well worth pondering what a few minutes of serious consultation may do in enlightening and rousing or calming the conscience,—in rectifying and cherishing the moral life. It may be owing to such moments as these that humiliation is raised into humility, apathy into moral enterprise, pride into awe, and scornful blame into Christian pity. Happy is the mother who can use such moments as she ought!

There remains, after all, the dread and wonder what such children are to think and do when they must come to know what is the average conscientiousness of the world. This is a subject of fear and pain to most good parents. But they must consider that their children will not see the world as they do all at once:—not till they have learned, like their parents, to allow for, and account for, what happens in the world. The innocent and the upright put a good construction on as much as possible of what they see; and are often more right in this than their clearer-sighted elders who know more of the tendencies of things. The shock will not come all at once. They hear now of broken contracts, dishonest bargains, venal elections, mercenary marriages, and, perhaps, profligate seductions. They know that there are drunkards, and cheats, and hypocrites, and cruel brutes, in society: and these things hardly affect them, are hardly received by them, because they are surrounded by honest people, and cannot feel what is beyond. And when they must become more truly aware of these things, they will still trust in and admire some whom they look up to, with more or less reason. The knowledge of iniquity will come to them gradually, and all the more safely the less sympathy they have with it.

If it be the pain, and not the danger, of this knowledge that the parents dread, they must make up their minds to it for their children. Surely they do not expect them to go through life without pain: and a bitter suffering it will be to them to see what wretchedness is in the world through the vices and ignorance of men; through their want of conscientiousness, or their errors of conscience. Such pain must be met and endured; and who is likely to meet it so bravely, and endure it so hopefully, as those who are fully aware that every man's heaven or hell is within him—giving a hope that heaven will expand as wisdom grows—and who carry within themselves that peace which the world "can neither give nor take away?"

We are all accustomed to speak of the Intellect and moral powers of man as if they were so distinct from one another that we can deal with each set of powers without touching the other.

It is true that there is a division between the intellectual and moral powers of man, as there is between one moral power and another. It is true that we can think of them separately, and treat them separately: but it does not follow that they will work separately. No part of the brain will act alone, no part begins its own action. It is always put in action by another part previously at work, and it excites in its turn some other portion. While we sleep, that part of the brain is at work on which depend those animal functions which are always going on: and, as we know by our dreams, other portions work with this, giving us ideas and feelings during sleep—perhaps as many as by day, if we could only recollect them. The animal portions of the brain set the intellectual and moral organs to work, and these act upon each other, so that there is no separating their action,—no possibility of employing one faculty at a time without help from any other. As memory cannot act till attention has been awakened,—in other words, as people cannot remember what they have never observed and received, so the timid cannot understand, unless it is in a docile and calm state; nor meditate well without the exercise of candour and truthfulness; nor imagine nobly without the help of veneration and hope. If we take any great intellectual work and examine it, we shall see what a variety of faculties, moral as well as intellectual, have gone to the making of it. Take "Paradise Lost," a work so glorious for the loftiness of its imagination, and the extent of its learning, and the beauty of its illustrations, and the harmony of its versification! These are its intellectual beauties: but look what moral beauties are inseparable from these. Look at the veneration,—not only towards God, but towards all holiness, and power, and beauty! Look at the purity, the love, the hopefulness, the strain of high honour throughout! And this intellectual and moral beauty are so blended, that we see how impossible it would be for the one to exist without the other. It is just so in the human character—the intellect of a human being cannot be of a high order, (though some particular faculties may be very strong) if the moral nature is low and feeble: and the moral state cannot be a lofty one where the intellect is torpid.

It does not follow from this that to be very good a child must be exceedingly clever and "highly educated," as we call it. There are plenty of highly-educated people who are not morally good; and there are many honest and amiable and industrious people who cannot read and write. The thing is, we misuse the word "Education." Book-learning is compatible with great poverty of intellect; and there may be a very fine understanding, great power of attention and observation, and possibly, though rarely, of reflection, in a person who has never learned to read,—if the moral goodness of that person has put his mind into a calm and teachable and happy state, and his powers of thought have been stimulated by active affections; if, as we say, his heart has quickened his head. These are truths very important to know; and they ought to be consolatory to parents who are grieved and alarmed because they cannot send their children to school,—supposing that their intellectual part must suffer and go to waste for want of school training and instruction from books. I will say simply and openly what I think about this.

I think that no children, in any rank of life, can acquire so much book-knowledge at home as at a good school, or have their intellectual faculties so well roused and trained. I have never seen an instance of such high attainment in languages, mathematics, history, or philosophy in young people taught at home,—even by the best masters,—as in those who have been in a good school. Without going into the reasons of this, which would lend us out of our way here, I would fully admit the fact.

There are two ways of taking it. First, it cannot be helped. A much larger number of people are unable to send their children to school than can do so. The queen cannot send her children to school: and the children of the peerage are under great disadvantage. The girls cannot, or do not, go from home; and the boys go only to one or another of a very small choice of public schools, where they must run tremendous risks to both morals and intellect. Then there are multitudes of families, in town and country, among rich and poor, where the children must be taught at home. The number is much larger of the children who do not go to school than of those who do. If we consider, again, how large a proportion of schools, taking them from the highest to the lowest, are so bad that children learn little in them, it is clear that the home-trained intellects are out of all proportion more numerous than the school-trained.

The other way of looking at the matter is in order to inquire what school advantages may be brought home—what there is in the school that children may have the benefit of at home.

The fundamental difference between school and home is clear enough. At school, everything is done by rule; by a law which was made without a view to any particular child, and which governs all alike: whereas, at home, the government is not one of law, working on from year to year without change, but of love, or, at least, of the mind of the parents, varying with circumstances, and with the ages and dispositions of the children. There is no occasion to point out here how great are the moral advantages of a good home in comparison with the best of schools. Our business now is with the intellectual training. Can the advantages of school law be brought into the home?

I think they may, to a certain extent: and I think it of great importance that they should. Law will not do all at home that it does at school. It is known to be new made, for the sake of the parties under it; and it cannot possibly work so undeviatingly in a family as in a school; and the children of a family, no two of whom are of the same age, cannot have their faculties so stimulated to achieve irksome labour as in a large class of comrades of the same age and standing. But still, rule and regularity will do much: and when we consider the amount of drudgery that children have to get through in acquiring the elements of knowledge, we shall feel it to be only humane and fair to give them any aid that can be afforded through the plans of the household.

Those kinds and parts of knowledge which interest the reasoning faculties and the imagination are not in question just now. They come by and by, and can better take care of themselves, or are more sure to be taken care of by others, than the drudgery which is the first stage in all learning. The drudgery comes first; and it is wise and kind to let it come soon enough. The quickness of eye, and tenacity and readiness of memory, which belong to infancy should be made use of while at their brightest, for gaining such knowledge as is to be had by the mere eye, ear, and memory. How easily can the most ordinary child learn a hymn or other piece of poetry by heart;—sometimes before it can speak plain, and very often indeed before it can understand the meaning! What a pity that this readiness should not be used,—that the child, for instance, should not learn to count, and to read, and to say the multiplication table, while it can learn these things with the least trouble! We must remember that while we see the child to be about a great and heavy work, the child himself does not know this, and cannot be oppressed by the thought. All he knows about is the little bit he learns every day. And that little bit is easy to him, if the support of law be given him. It is here that law must come in to help him. He should, if possible, be saved all uncertainty, all conflict in his little mind, as to his daily business. If there is a want of certainty and punctuality about his lessons, there will be room for the thought of something which, for the moment, he would like better; and again, his young faculties will become confused and irregular in their working from uncertainty of seasons and of plans. If there can be a particular place, and a particular time for him, every day but Sundays, and he is never put off, his faculties will come to their work with a freshness and steadiness which nothing but habit will secure. A law of work which leaves him no choice, but sets all his faculties free for his business, saves him half the labour of it; as it does in after life to those who are so blessed as to be destined to necessary, and not voluntary labour. In houses where there cannot be a room set apart for the lessons, perhaps there may be a corner. If there cannot be any place, perhaps there may be a time: and the time should be that which can best be secured from interruption. Where the father is so fond of his children, and so capable of self-denial for their sakes as to devote an hour or two of his evenings to the instruction of his children, he may rely upon it that he is heaping up blessings for himself with every minute of those hours. His presence, the presence of the worker of the household, is equal to school and home influence together. The scantiness of his leisure makes the law; and his devotedness in using it thus makes the inestimable home influence. Under his teaching, if it be regular and intelligent, head and heart will come on together, to his encouragement now, and his great future satisfaction.

When I come to speak of habits, by and by, it will be seen that this introduction of law at home is to relate only to affairs of habit, and intellectual attainment. The misfortune of school is that the affections and feelings must come under the control of law, instead of the guidance of domestic love. It would be a wanton mischief indeed to spoil the freedom of home by stretching rule and law there beyond their proper province.

There are houses, many houses, and not always very poor ones, where the parents think they cannot provide for the intellectual improvement of their children, and mourn daily over the thought. I wish such parents could be induced to consider well what intellectual improvement is, and then they would see how much they may do for their children's minds without book, pen, or paper. It goes against me to suppose children brought up without knowledge of reading and writing; and I trust this is not likely to be the fate of any children of the parents who read this. But it is as well to suppose the extreme case, in order to see whether even people who cannot read and write must remain ignorant and debarred from the privileges of mind.

In America I saw many families of settlers, where the children were strangely circumstanced. There was always plenty to eat and drink; the barns were full of produce, and there were horses in the meadow; and every child would have hereafter a goodly portion of land: but there were no servants, and there could be no "education," because the mother and children had to do all the work of the house. In one of these homes the day was spent thus.—The father (a man of great property) went out upon his land, before daylight, taking with him his little sons of six and seven years old, who earned their breakfasts by leading the horses down to water, and turning out the cows, and sweeping the stable: and, when the milking was done (by a man on the farm, I think), they brought up the milk. Meantime, their mother, an educated English lady, took up the younger children, and swept the kitchen, lighted the fire, and cooked the beef-steak for her husband's breakfast, and boiled the eggs which the little ones brought in from the paddock. Soon after seven, the farmer and boys were gone again: and then the mother set down in the middle of the kitchen floor a large bowl of hot water and the breakfast things: and the little girl of four, and her sister of two, set to work. The elder washed the cups and dishes, and the younger wiped them, as carefully and delicately as if she had been ten years older. She never broke anything, or failed to make all bright and dry. Then they went to make their own little beds: they could just manage that, but not the larger ones. Meantime, their mother was baking, or washing, or brewing, or making soap,—boiling it in a cauldron over a fire in the wood. There were no grocers' shops within scores of miles. In the season, the family had to make sugar in the forest from their maple trees; and wine from the fruit they grew: and there were the apples, in immense quantities, to be split and cored, and hung up in strings for winter use. Every morning in the week was occupied with one or another of these employments; and in the midst of them, dinner had to be cooked, and ready by noon: another beef-steak, with apple-sauce or onions, and hot "corn" bread (made of Indian meal), and a squash pie, or something of the sort. There was enough to do, all the afternoon, in finishing off the morning's work: and there must be another steak for tea or supper.—The children had been helping all day: and now their parents wished to devote this time,—after six p.m.—to their benefit. It is true, the mother had now to sew; this being her only time for making and mending: but she got out the slates and lesson-books, and put one little girl and boy before her, while their father took the other two, and set them a sum and a copy on the slate. But alas! by this time, no one of the party could keep awake. They did try. The parents were so extremely anxious for their children that they did strive: but nature was overpowered. After a few struggles, the children were sent to bed; and in the very midst of a sentence, the mother's head would sink over her work, and the father's down upon the table, in irresistible sleep. Both had been very fond of chess, in former days: and the husband bade his wife put away her work, and try a game of chess. But down went the board, and off slid the men, in the middle of a game! Now,—what could be done for the children's education here? In time, there was hope that roads and markets would be opened where the produce of the farm might be sold, and money obtained to send the children to schools, some hundreds of miles off: or, at least, that neighbours enough might settle round about to enable the township to invite a school-master. But what could be done meantime?

So much might be, and was, done as would astonish people who think that intellectual education means school learning. I do not at all wish to extenuate the misfortune of these children in being doomed to write a bad hand, if any; to be slow at accounts; to have probably no taste for reading; and no knowledge, except by hearsay, of the treasures of literature. But I do say that they were not likely to grow up ignorant and stupid. They knew every tree in the forest, and every bird, and every weed. They knew the habits of all domestic animals. They could tell at a glance how many scores of pigeons there were in a flock, when clouds of these birds came sailing towards the wood. They did not want to measure distances, for they knew them by the eye. They could give their minds earnestly to what they were about; and ponder, and plan, and imagine, and contrive. Their faculties were all awake. And they obtained snatches of stories from father and mother, about the heroes of old times, and the history of England and America. They worshipped God, and loved Christ, and were familiar with the Bible. Now, there are some things here that very highly educated people among us might be glad to be equal to: and the very busiest father, the hardest-driven mother in England may be able, in the course of daily business, to rouse and employ the faculties of their children,—their attention, understanding, reflection, memory and imagination,—so as to make their intellects worth more than those of many children who are successful at school. Their chance is doubled if books are opened to them: but if not, there is nothing to despair about.

I was much struck by a day's intellectual education of a little boy of seven who was thrown out of his usual course of study and play. The family were in the country,—in a house which they had to themselves for a month, in beautiful scenery, where they expected to be so continually out of doors that the children's toys were left at home. Some days of unintermitting, drenching rain came; and on one of these days, the little fellow looked round him, after breakfast, and said, "Papa, I don't exactly see what I can do." He would have been thankful to say his lessons: but papa was absolutely obliged to write the whole day; and mama was up-stairs nursing his little sister, who had met with an accident. His papa knew well how to make him happy. He set him to find out the area of the house, and of every room in it. He lent him a three-foot rule, showed him how he might find the thickness of the walls, and gave him a slate and pencil. This was enough. All day, he troubled nobody, but went quietly about, measuring and calculating, and writing down;—from morning till dinner,—from dinner till supper: and by that time he had done. When they could go out to measure the outside, they found him right to an inch: and the same with every room in the house.—This boy was no genius. He was an earnest, well-trained boy: and who does not see that if he and his parents had lived in an American forest, or in the severest poverty at home, he would have been, in the best sense, an educated boy! He would not have understood several languages, as he does now: but his faculties would have been busy and cultivated, if he had never in his life seen any book but the Bible.—Anxious parents may take comfort from the thought that nothing ever exists or occurs which may not be made matter of instruction to the mind of man. The mind and the material being furnished to the parents' hands, it is their business to bring them together, whether books be among the material or not.

In beginning a child's intellectual education, the parent must constantly remember to carry on his care of the frame, spoken of in a former chapter. The most irritable and tender part of a child's frame is its brain; and on the welfare of its brain every thing else depends. It should not be forgotten that the little creature was born with a soft head; and that it takes years for the contents of that skull to become completely guarded by the external bones, and sufficiently grown and strengthened to bear much stress. Nature points out what the infant's brain requires, and what it can bear; and if the parents are able to discern and follow the leadings of nature, all will be well. The most certain thing is that there is no safety in any other course.

In their anxiety to bring up any lagging faculty,—to cherish any weak power,—parents are apt to suppose those faculties weak, for whose development they are looking too soon. It grieves me to see conscientious parents, who govern their own lives by reasoning, stimulating a young child to reason long before the proper time. The reflective and reasoning faculties are among the last that should naturally come into use; and the only safe way is to watch for their first activity, and then let it have scope. One of the finest children I ever saw,—a stout handsome boy, with a full set of vigorous faculties, was, at five years old, in danger of being spoiled in a strange sort of way. The process was stopped in time to save his intellect and his morals; but not before it had strewn his youthful life with difficulties from which he need never have suffered. This boy heard a great deal of reasoning always going on; and he seldom or never saw any children, except in parties, or in the street. His natural imitation of the talk of grown up people was encouraged; and from the time he could speak, he saw in the whole world,—in all the objects that met his senses,—only things to reason about. He gathered flowers, not so much because he liked them as because they might be discoursed about. He could not shut the door, or put on his pinafore when bid, till the matter was argued, and the desired act proved to be reasonable. The check was, as I have said, given in time: but he had much to do to bring up his perceptive faculties and his mechanical habits to the point required in even a decent education. He had infinite trouble in learning to spell, and in mastering all the elements of knowledge which are acquired by the memory: and his writing a good hand, and being ready at figures, or apt at learning a modern language by the ear, was hopeless. He would doubtless have done all these well, if his faculties had been exercised in their proper order;—that is, in the order which nature indicates,—and vindicates.

And now,—what is that order?

The Perceptive faculties come first, into activity. Do we not all remember that colours gave us more intense pleasure in our early childhood than they have ever done since? Most of us can remember back to the time when we were four years old,—or three; and some even two. What is it that we remember? With one, it is a piece of gay silk, or printed cotton or china; or a bed of crocuses;—or we remember the feel of a piece of velvet or fur, or something rough;—or the particular shape of some leaf;—or the amazing weight of a globule of quicksilver;—or the immense distance from one end of the room to the other. I, for one, remember several things that happened when I was between two and three years old: and most of these were sensations, exciting passions. I doubt whether I ever felt keener delight than in passing my fingers round a flat button, covered with black velvet, on the top of a sister's bonnet. I remember lighting upon the sensation, if one may say so; and the intense desire afterwards to be feeling the button. And just at that time I was sent into the country for my health; and I can now tell things about the first day in the cottage which no one can ever have told to me. I tried to walk round a tree (an elm, I believe), clasping the tree with both arms: and nothing that has happened to-day is more vivid to me than the feel of the rough bark to the palms of my hands, and the entanglement of the grass to my feet. And then at night there was the fearful wonder at the feel of the coarse calico sheets, and at the creaking of the turn-up bedstead when I moved.—After I came home, when I was two years and nine months old, I saw, one day, the door of the spare bed-room ajar, and I pushed it open and went in. I was walking about the house because I had a pair of new shoes on, and I liked to hear their pit-pat, and to make sure that I could walk in them, though they were slippery. The floor of the spareroom was smooth and somewhat polished; and it was—(at least to my eyes—) a large room. I was half-frightened when I saw that the blinds were down. But there was a fire; and standing by the fire, at the further end, was an old woman—(or to me she looked old)—with a muslin handkerchief crossed over her gown: and in her arms she held a bundle of flannel. The curtains of the bed were drawn;—the fawn-coloured moreen curtains with a black velvet edge, which I sometimes stroked for a treat. The old woman beckoned to me; and I wished to go; but I thought I could never walk all that way on the polished floor without a tumble. I remember how wide I stretched out my arms, and how far apart I set my feet, and how I got to the old woman at last. With her foot she pushed forwards a tiny chair, used as a footstool, embroidered over with sprawling green leaves; and there I sat down: and the old woman laid the bundle of flannel across my lap. With one hand she held it there safe, and with the other she uncovered the little red face of a baby. Though the sight set every pulse in my body beating, I do not remember feeling any fear,—though I was always afraid of everything. It was a passionate feeling of wonder, and a sort of tender delight;—delight at being noticed and having it on my lap, perhaps, as much as at the thing itself. How it ended, I do not know. I only remember further seeing with amazement, that somebody was in the bed,—that there was a nightcap on the pillow,—though it was day-time. These details may seem trifling: but, if we want to know what faculties are vigorous in infancy, it is as well to learn, in any way we can, what children feel and think at the earliest age we can arrive at. One other instance of vivid perception stands out among many in my childhood so remarkably as to be perhaps instructive: and the more so because I was not endowed with quick senses, or strong perceptive powers, but, on the contrary, discouraged my teachers by dullness and inattention, and a constant tendency to reverie. I was always considered a remarkably unobservant child.

I slept with the nursemaid in a room at the top of the house which looked eastwards: and the baby brother mentioned above, now just able to walk, slept in a crib by the bedside. One summer morning I happened to wake before sunrise, and thought it very strange to see the maid asleep; the next thing I remember was walking over the boards with bare feet, and seeing some little pink toes peeping out through the rails of the crib. I gently pinched them, and somehow managed to keep the child quiet when he reared himself up from his pillow; he must have caught some of the spirit of the prank, for he made no noise. I helped him to scramble down from the crib, and led him to the window, and helped him to scramble upon a chair: and then I got up beside him; and, by using all my strength, I opened the window. How chill the air was! and how hard and sharp the window-sill felt to my arms! We were so high above the street that I dared not look down; but oh! what a sight we saw by looking abroad over the tops of the houses to the rising ground beyond! The sun must have been coming up, for the night-clouds were of the richest purple, turning to crimson; and in one part there seemed to be a solid edge of gold. I have seen the morning and evening skies of all the four quarters of the world, but this is, in my memory, the most gorgeous of all, though it could not in fact have been so. I whispered all I knew about God making the sun come up every morning; and I certainly supposed the child to sympathise with me in the thrilling awe of the moment: but it could not have been so. I have some remembrance of the horrible difficulty of getting the window down again, and of hoisting up my companion into his crib: and I can distinctly recal the feelings of mingled contempt and fear with which I looked upon the maid, who had slept through all this; and how cold my feet were when I crept into bed again.

Now, if this is what children are, it seems plain that the faculties by which they perceive objects so vividly should be simply trained to a good use. The parent has little more to do than to see that Nature is not hindered in her working: to see that the faculties are awake, and that a sufficient variety is offered for them to employ themselves upon. Nothing like what is commonly called teaching is required here, or can do anything but harm at present. If the mother is at work, and the children are running in and out of the garden, it is only saying to the little toddler, "Now bring me a blue flower;—now bring me a yellow flower;—now bring me a green leaf." At another time, she will ask for a round stone; or a thick stick; or a thin stick. And sometimes she will blow a feather, and let it fall again: or she will blow a dandelion-head all to pieces, and quite away. If she is wise, she will let the child alone, to try its own little experiments, and learn for itself what is hard and what is soft; what is heavy and light; hot and cold; and what it can do with its little limbs and quick senses. Taking care, of course, that it does not injure itself, and that it has objects within reach in sufficient variety, she cannot do better, at this season of its life, than let it be busy in its own way. I saw a little fellow, one day, intently occupied for a whole breakfast-time, and some time afterwards, in trying to put the key of the house-door into the key-hole of the tea-caddy. When he gave the matter up, and not before, his mother helped him to see why he could not do it. If she had taken the door-key from him at first, he would have missed a valuable lesson. At this period of existence, the children of rich and poor have, or may have, about equal advantages, under the care of sensible parents. They can be busy about anything. There is nothing that cannot be made a plaything of, and a certain means of knowledge, if the faculties be awake. If the child be dull, it must, of course, be tempted to play. If the faculties be in their natural state of liveliness, the mother has only to be aware that the little creature must be busy while it is awake, and to see that it has variety enough of things (the simpler the better) to handle, and look at, and listen to, and experiment upon.

The perceptive faculties have a relation to other objects than those which are presented to the five senses. It is very well for children to be picking up from day to day knowledge about colours and forms, and the hardness and weight of substances, and the habits of animals, and the growth of plants;—the great story, in short, of what passes before their eyes, and appeals to their ears, and impresses them through the touch: but there is another range of knowledge appropriate to the perceptive faculties. There are many facts that can be perceived through another medium than the eye, the ear, or the hand. Facts of number and quantity, for instance, are perceived (after a time, if not at first) without illustration by objects of sight or sound: and it is right, and kind to the child, to help him to a perception of these facts early, while the perceiving faculties are in their first vigour. There is no hardship in this, if the thing is done in moderation: and in many cases, this exertion of the perceptive faculties is attended with a keen satisfaction. I have known an idiot child, perfectly infantine in his general ways, amuse himself half the day long with employing his perceptions of number and quantity. He, poor child, was incapable of being taught anything as a lesson: he did not understand speech,—beyond a very few words: but the exercise of such faculties as he had—(and the strongest he had were those of Order, and Perception of number, quantity and symmetry) was the happiness of his short and imperfect life: and the exercise of the same faculties,—moderate and natural exercise,—may make part of the happiness of every child's life.

It is very well to use the faculty of eye and ear as an introduction to the use of the inner perceptions,—so to speak. For instance, it is well to teach a child the multiplication-table, by the ear as well as the understanding:—to teach it by rote, (as one teaches a tune without words), as an avenue to the mystery of numbers: but the pleasure to the pupil is in perceiving the relations of numbers. In the same manner, the eye may be used for the same purpose; as when the mother teaches by pins on the table, or by peas, or peppercorns, that two and two make four; and that three fours, or two sixes, or four threes, all make twelve: but the pleasure to the pupil is in perceiving the relations of these numbers without pins or peppercorns,—in the head; and in going on till he has mastered all the numbers in the multiplication-table,—perceiving them in the depths of his mind, without light or sound,—without images or words. Children who are capable of mental arithmetic delight in it, before their minds are tired:—and the moment the mind is tired, the exercise should stop.

About quantity, the same methods may be used. At first, there must be measurement, to prove to the child the relation of quantities: but to what a point of precision the mind may arrive, after having once perceived the truth of quantities and spaces, is seen in the fact that astronomers can infallibly predict eclipses centuries before they happen. Another department of what is called exact knowledge comprehends the relations of time. This is another case in which idiots have proved to us that there is an inner perception of time,—a faculty which works pleasurably when once set to work. One idiot who had lived near a striking clock, and was afterwards removed from all clocks, and did not know a watch by sight, went on to the end of his life imitating the striking of the hour regularly, with as much precision as the sun marks it upon the dial. Another who never had sense enough to know of the existence of clock or watch, could never be deceived about the precise time of day. Under all changes of place and households with their habits, he did and looked for the same things at exactly the same moment of every day. And by this faculty it is that even little children learn the clock;—a process which, from its very nature, could never be learned by rote. In these matters, again, the children of the poor can be as well trained as those of the rich. Every where, and under all circumstances, people can measure and compute. The boy must do it if he is to practise any art or trade whatever; and in every household, there is, or ought to be, enough of economy,—of measuring, and cutting out, and counting and calculating, for the girl to exercise her faculty of perception of number and quantity. The understanding of money is no mean exercise, in itself. In one rank, we see the able builder, carpenter, and mechanician, practised in these departments of perception: and in another we see the astronomer detecting and marking out the courses of the stars, and understanding the mighty mechanism of the heavens, as if he had himself trodden all the pathways of the sky. It is wise and kind to use the early vigour of these faculties—the powers which perceive facts,—up to the limit of satisfaction, stopping short always of fatigue.

This is the season too, and these are the faculties, to be employed in learning by rote. Learning by rote is nothing of a drudgery now compared with what it is afterwards;—for the ear is quick, the eye is free and at liberty; the memory is retentive, and the understanding is not yet pressing for its gratification. At this season too, as has been before observed, the child does not look forward, nor comprehend what it is attempting. The present hour, with its little portion of occupation, is all that it sees: and it accomplishes vast things, bit by bit, which it would never attempt if it knew the sum of the matter. No one would learn to speak if he knew all that speech comprehends: yet every child learns to speak, easily and naturally. Thus it is with every art, every science, every department of action and knowledge. The beginning,—the drudgery—should be got over at the time when it costs least fatigue. And this is why we teach children early to read;—so early that, but for this consideration, it is of no consequence whether they can read or not. We do it while the eye is quick to notice the form of the letters, and while the ear is apt to catch their sound, and before the higher faculties come in with any disturbing considerations. My own opinion is that, on account of the feebleness and uncertainty of the hand, writing had better be taught later than it usually is;—that is, when the child shows an inclination to draw or scribble,—to describe any forms on slate or paper, or on walls or sand. But whatever depends mainly on eye, ear, and memory, should be taught early, when the learning causes the most gratification and the least pain. The help that this arrangement gives to, and receives from, the formation of habits of regularity and industry will come under notice when I speak hereafter of the Care of the Habits.

According to what has been said, a child's first intellectual education lies in varied amusement, without express teaching. This is while its brain is infantine and tender, and its nature restless and altogether sensitive. When it shows itself quieter and more thoughtful, it may be expressly taught, a little at a time, with cheerful steadiness and tender encouragement. What it should learn, a healthy well-trained child will, for the most part, indicate for itself, by its inquiries, and its pleasure in learning. What the parent has to impose upon it is that which, being artificial, it cannot indicate for itself,—the art of reading, and the names and forms of numbers, and such arrangements of language as are found in simple poetry, or other useful forms which may be committed to memory. It is impossible to lay down any rule as to the age to be comprehended in this period; and it might be dangerous to do so;—so various are the capacities and temperaments of children; but, speaking quite indeterminately, I may say that I have had in view the period, for ordinary children, from the opening of the faculties to about seven years old.