Parents and children

by Charlotte M. Mason

Part I

Children whose parents have little theoretic knowledge of the values of the various food-stuffs are often thoroughly nourished; their parents rely on what they call common-sense; and the result is, on the whole, better than if scientific consideration were given to the family dietary. But this common-sense has usually scientific opinion for its basis, though the fact may be forgotten, and when scientific opinion has become the groundwork of habit it is of more value, and works in a more simple way, than while it is still in the stage of experiment. In the same way it is a good thing to have such an acquaintance with the functions of human nature that we act on our knowledge unconsciously, and do not even know that we possess it. But if we have no such floating capital of cognisance we must study the subject, even if we have to make experiments. Most people suppose that the sensations, feelings, and emotions of a child are matters that take care of themselves. Indeed, we are apt to use the three terms indiscriminately, without attaching very clear ideas to them. But they cover, collectively, a very important educational field; and though common sense, that is to say judgments formed upon inherited knowledge, often helps us to act wisely without knowing why, we shall probably act more wisely if we act reasonably.

Let us consider, first, the subject of sensations. We speak of sensations of cold, and sensations of heat, and sensations of pain, and we are quite right. We also speak of sensations of fear and sensations of pleasure, and we are commonly wrong. The sensations have their origin in impressions received by the several organs of sense—eye, tongue, nostrils, ear, the surface of the external skin—and are conveyed by the sensory nerves, some to the spinal cord and some to the lower region of the brain. Many sensations we know nothing about; when we become aware of our sensations it is because communications are sent by nerve fibres, acting as telegraph wires, from the sensorium to the thinking brain, and this happens when we give our attention to any one of the multitudinous messages carried by the sensory nerves. The physiology of the senses is too complicated a subject for us to touch upon here, but it is deeply interesting, and perhaps no better introduction exists than Professor Clifford’s little book, “Seeing and Thinking” (Macmillan). Now the senses are “The Five Gateways of Knowledge,” to quote the title of a little book which many of us have used in early days; and an intelligent person should be aware of, and capable of forming judgments upon, the sensations he receives.

We all recognise that the training of the senses is an important part of education. One caution is necessary: from the very first a child’s sensations should be treated as matters of objective and not of subjective interest. Marmalade, for example, is interesting, not because it is “nice”—a fact not to be dwelt upon at all—but because one can discern in it different flavours and the modifying effect of the oil secreted in the rind of the orange. We shall have occasion to speak more of this subject later; but a useful piece of education is this of centering a child’s interest in the objects which produce his sensations and not in himself as the receiver of these sensations.

The purpose of so-called object lessons is, to assist a child, by careful examination of a given object, to find out all he can about it through the use of his several senses. General information about the object is thrown in and lodges only because the child’s senses have been exercised, and his interest aroused. Object lessons are a little in disfavour, just now, for two reasons. In the first place, miserable fragments are presented to the children which have little of the character of the object in situ, and are apt to convey inadequate, if not wrong, ideas. In the next place, object lessons are commonly used as a means to introduce children to hard words, such as opaque and translucent, which never become part of their living thought until they pick them up for themselves incidentally as they have need of them. But the abuse of this kind of teaching should not cause us to overlook its use. No child can grow up without daily object teaching, whether casual or of set purpose, and the more thorough this is the more intelligent and observant will he become. It is singular how few people are capable of developing an intelligent curiosity about the most attractive objects, except as their interest is stimulated from without. The baby is a wonderful teacher in this matter of object lessons. To be sure his single pupil is his own small self, but his progress is amazing. At first he does not see any difference between a picture of a cow and the living animal; big and little, far and near, hard and soft, hot and cold, are all alike to him; he wishes to hold the moon in his pinafore, to sit on the pond, to poke his finger into the candle, not because he is a foolish little person, but because he is profoundly ignorant of the nature of the contents of this unintelligible world. But how he works! he bangs his spoon to try if it produces sound; he sucks it to try its flavour; he fumbles it all over and no doubt finds out whether it is hard or soft, hot or cold, rough or smooth; he gazes at it with the long gaze of infancy, so that he may learn the look of it; it is an old friend and an object of desire when he sees it again, for he has found out that there is much joy in a spoon. This goes on with great diligence for a couple of years, at the end of which time baby has acquired enough knowledge of the world to conduct himself in a very dignified and rational way.

This is what happens under Nature’s teaching; and for the first five or six years of his life everything, especially everything in action, is an object of intelligent curiosity to the child—the street or the field is a panorama of delight, the shepherd’s dog, the baker’s cart, the man with the barrow, are full of vivid interest. He has a thousand questions to ask, he wants to know about everything; he has, in fact, an inordinate appetite for knowledge. We soon cure all that: we occupy him with books instead of things; we evoke other desires in place of the desire to know; and we succeed in bringing up the unobservant man (and more unobservant woman), who discerns no difference between an elm, a poplar and a lime tree, and misses very much of the joy of living. By the way, why is it that the baby does not exercise with purpose his organ of smell? He screws up a funny little nose when he is taught to sniff at a flower, but this is a mere trick; he does not naturally make experiments as to whether things are odorous, while each of his other senses affords him keen joy. No doubt the little nose is involuntarily very active, but can his inertness in this matter be an hereditary failing? It may be that we all allow ourselves to go about with obtuse nostrils. If so, this is a matter for the attention of mothers, who should bring up their children not only to receive, which is involuntary and vague, but to perceive odours from the first.

Two points call for our attention in this education of the senses; we must assist the child to educate himself on Nature’s lines, and we must take care not to supplant and crowd out Nature and her methods with that which we call education. Object lessons should be incidental; and this is where the family enjoys so great an advantage over the school. It is almost impossible that the school should give any but set lessons, but this sort of teaching in the family falls in with the occurrence of the object. The child who finds that wonderful and beautiful object, a “paper” wasp’s nest, attached to a larch-twig, has his object lesson on the spot from father or mother. The grey colour, the round symmetrical shape, the sort of cup and ball arrangement, the papery texture, the comparative size, the comparative smoothness, the odour or lack of odour, the extreme lightness, the fact that it is not cold to the touch. These and fifty other particulars the child finds out unaided, or with no more than a word, here and there, to direct his observation. One does not every day find a wasp’s nest, but much can be got out of every common object, and the commoner the better, which falls naturally under the child’s observation, a piece of bread, a lump of coal, a sponge. In the first place it is unnecessary in the family to give an exhaustive examination to every object; one quality might be discussed in this, another quality in that. We eat our bread and milk and notice that bread is absorbent, and we overhaul our experience to discover other things which we know to be absorbent also, and we do what we can to compare these things as to whether they are less absorbent or more absorbent than bread. This is exceedingly important: the unobservant person states that an object is light and considers that he has stated an ultimate fact: the observant person makes the same statement, but has in his mind a relative scale, and his judgment is of the more value because he compares it silently with a series of substances to which this is relatively light. It is important that children should learn to recognise that high, low, sweet, bitter, long, short, agreeable, &c., &c., are comparative terms, while square, round, black, white, are positive terms, the application of which is not affected by comparison with other objects. Care in this matter makes for higher moral, as well as intellectual development: half the dissensions in the world arise from an indiscriminate use of epithets. “Would you say your bread (at dinner) was light or heavy?” The child would probably answer, “rather light.” “Yes, we can only say that a thing is light by comparing it with others; what is bread light compared with?” “A stone, a piece of coal, of cheese, of butter of the same size.” “But it is heavy compared with?” “A piece of sponge cake, a piece of sponge, of cork, of pumice,” and so on. “What do you think it weighs?” “An ounce, an ounce and a half.” “We’ll try after dinner; you had better have another piece and save it,” and the weighing after dinner is a delightful operation. The power of judging of weight is worth cultivating. We heard the other day of a gentleman who was required at a bazaar to guess the weight of a monster cake; he said it weighed twenty-eight pounds fourteen ounces, and it did, exactly. Cæteris paribus, one has a greater respect for the man who made this accurate judgment than for the well-intentioned but vague person, who suggested that the cake might weigh ten pounds. Letters, book parcels, an apple, an orange, a vegetable marrow, fifty things in the course of the day give opportunities for this kind of object teaching, i.e., the power of forming accurate judgments as to the relative and absolute weight of objects by their resistance, which is perceived by our sense of touch, though opposed to our muscular force. By degrees the children are trained to perceive that the relative weights of objects depend upon their relative density, and are introduced to the fact that we have a standard of weight.

In the same way children should be taught to measure objects by the eye. How high is that candlestick? How long and broad that picture-frame? and so on—verifying their statements. What is the circumference of that bowl? of the clock-face? of that flower-bed? How tall is so-and-so, and so-and-so? How many hands high are the horses of their acquaintance? Divide a slip of wood, a sheet of paper into halves, thirds, quarters by the eye; lay a walking-stick at right angles with another; detect when a picture, curtain, &c., hangs out of the perpendicular. This sort of practice will secure for children what is called a correct or true eye.

A quick and true ear is another possession that does not come by Nature, or anyway, if it does, it is too often lost. How many sounds can you distinguish in a sudden silence out of doors? Let these be named in order from the less to the more acute. Let the notes of the birds be distinguished, both call-notes and song-notes; the four or five distinct sounds to be heard in the flow of a brook. Cultivate accuracy in distinguishing footfalls and voices; in discerning, with their eyes shut, the direction from which a sound proceeds, in which footsteps are moving. Distinguish passing vehicles by their sounds; as lorry, brougham, dog-cart. Music is, no doubt, the instrument par excellence for this kind of ear culture. Mrs. Curwen’s “Child Pianist” puts carefully graduated means for this kind of culture into the hands of parents; and, if a child never become a performer, to have acquired a cultivated and correct ear is no small part of a musical education.

We do not attach enough importance to the discrimination of odours, whether as a safeguard to health, or as a source of pleasure. Half the people one knows have nostrils which register no difference between the atmosphere of a large, and so-called “airy,” room, whose windows are never opened, and that of a room in which a through current of air is arranged for at frequent intervals: and yet health depends largely on a delicate perception as to the purity of the atmosphere. The odours which result in diphtheria or typhoid are perceptible, however faint, and a nose trained to detect the faintest malodorous particles in food, clothing, or dwelling, is a panoply against disease to the possessor.