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.