CHILD-LIFE AND EDUCATION IN GENERAL.
The mother's heart is the child's school-room.—Henry Ward
Beecher.
The father is known from the child.—German Proverb.
Learn young, learn fair, Learn auld, learn mair. —Scotch Proverb.
We bend the tree when it is young.—Bulgarian Proverb.
Fools and bairns should na see things half done. —Scotch Proverb.
No one is born master.—Italian Proverb.
Mother as Teacher.
Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius in sensu is a favourite dictum of philosophy; primitive peoples might, perhaps, be credited with a somewhat different crystallization of thought: nihil est in puero quod non prius in parenti, "nothing is in the child which was not before in the parent," for belief in prenatal influence of parent upon child is widely prevalent. The following remarks, which were written of the semi-civilized peoples of Annam and Tonquin, may stand, with suitable change of terms, for very many barbarous and savage races:—
"The education of the children begins even before they come into the world. The prospective mother is at once submitted to a kind of material and moral regime sanctioned by custom. Gross viands are removed from her table, and her slightest movements are regarded that they may be regular and majestic. She is expected to listen to the reading of good authors, to music and moral chants, and to attend learned societies, in order that she may fortify her mind by amusements of an elevated character. And she endeavours, by such discipline, to assure to the child whom she is about to bring into the world, intelligence, docility, and fitness for the duties imposed by social life" (518. XXXI. 629).