The last thing that parents need fear is that the young reader will be hurt by passages in really good authors which might raise a blush a few years later. Whatever children do not understand slips through the mind, and leaves no trace; and what they do understand of matters of passion is to them divested of its mischief. Purified editions of noble books are monuments of wasted labour: for it ought to be with adults as it is with children;—their purity should be an all-sufficient purifier.
The second stage in the Intellectual Education of the Household children, then seems to be that in which the young creatures, having learned to use their own limbs and senses, and acquired the command of speech, begin to use their powers for the acquisition of materials for future thought. They listen, they look about them, they inquire, they read; and, above all, they dream. Life is for them all pictures. Everything comes to them in pictures. In preparation for the more serious work to come, the parent has chiefly to watch and follow Nature;—to meet the requirements of the child's mind, put the material of knowledge in its way, and furnish it with the arts necessary for the due use of its knowledge and its nobler powers:—the arts of reading, ready writing, and the recording and working of numbers; and the knowledge of the grammar of some one language, at least. Besides this, these best days of his memory should be used for storing up word-knowledge, and technical rules, and, as a luxury after these dry efforts, as much poetry as the pupil is disposed to learn; which will be a good deal, if the selection is, in any degree, left to his own choice: and some portion of it may well be so.
Thus far, here is nothing that may not be supplied in the most homely Household in the land, where there is any value for the human intellect, and any intention to educate the children. It is difficult to say what more could be done in the school-room of a palace. The intellect of the high and low is of the same nature, and developes itself in the same modes. While its training depends on the love and good sense of parents, as in this stage, it depends simply on the quality of the parents whether the children of the palace or of the cottage are the better educated.
"No mystery is here; no special boon For high and not for low; for proudly graced, And not for meek of heart."
CHAPTER XXI.
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.—THE REASONING FACULTIES.—FEMALE EDUCATION.
The time comes at last,—sooner with one child, later with another,—when the superior faculties begin to show their activity; when the young pupil attempts to reason, and should be helped to reason well. The preparation for this time ought to have gone on during all the preceding years, in the establishment of a perfect understanding between his parents' minds and his own. He ought to have received nothing but truth from them, in their intellectual, as in all their other intercourse. What I mean is this. From the time he could speak, the child has no doubt asked the Why of everything that interested him. Now, no one knows the ultimate Why of anything whatever; and it is right to say this to the inquirer,—telling him as much as he can understand of the How; and it is but little that the wisest of us know of the How. For instance, the little thing cries out "O! there is a robin!" "A robin! and what is it doing?" "It is hopping about. It has picked up something. O! it is a worm. What does it get the worm for?" "To eat it. Robins eat a great many worms." "Why do they eat worms? Why does this robin eat that worm?" "Because it is hungry." No intelligent child will stop here. He will want to know why the robin does not eat anything rather than worms; why the robin is hungry; and certainly he will sooner or later wonder why there are robins at all. About these latter mysteries, the parent knows no more than the questioner: and he should say so. He may tell something of the how;—how the robin and all other living creatures are impelled to eat; how food gives nourishment; and so on. He may or may not, according to his judgment, give information, as far as he has it himself: but it ought not to be a matter of choice with him whether to put off a child with an unsatisfactory answer, or to declare truthfully his own ignorance. He must never weary of replying "I don't know," if fairly brought to this point, after telling what he does know. If he tells all that is understood of a tree and its growth, so that he thinks his child cannot possibly have more to ask, he will find there are other questions still to come. "Why are trees green?" If they are not all green, "Why is the red beech red, and the pine black?" "Why does a tree grow, instead of being always tall?" "Why is John Smith handsome while Tom Brown is ugly?" "Why do people exist when they could not tell beforehand whether they should like it or not?" Now, it will not do, if the child's mind is to be fairly dealt with, to give a dogmatical answer; to put off the inquirer with a form of words, or any assurance of anything that is not absolutely known to be true. "I do not know," is the answer which parental fidelity requires. "Does anybody know?" is the next question. "Nobody." "Shall I ever know?" "I don't think you will: but you can try when you grow up, if you like." Of course, the child determines to try when he is a man: and meantime, he is satisfied for the present. There is an understanding between his parent and himself, which will be of infinite use to him when his time comes for finding out truth for himself by a comparison of abstractions;—that is, by reasoning.
With some abstractions every child becomes early familiar; as the days of the week. Perhaps the first which he is able to use for purposes of reasoning are numbers. They are at least eminently useful as a link between tangible objects and those which are ideal. A child sees on the table that two pins added to two make four pins: and then that a button and a thimble put down beside a marble and a halfpenny make four things, as well as if they were all of the same sort. He thus receives into his mind the abstract notion of numbers. Whenever by his own thought, or by inquiry of others, he clearly sees that, because two sixes make twelve, four threes must make twelve, he has begun to reason. He has found out a truth by comparing an abstraction with an abstraction: that is, he has begun to reason. Having begun,—having once satisfaction in grasping an invisible truth in this way,—he will be disposed to go on: and I, for one, would allow him to do so, at his own pace. Nothing can be more foolish than to stimulate the reasoning faculties too early: but I do not see why their natural action should be repressed because of a theory that the reasoning faculties should not come into activity till such or such an age. I know how painful such repression is to a thoughtful child, and how useless is the attempt to stop the process, which will only be carried on with less advantage, instead of being put an end to. I knew a girl of eleven, thoughtful and timid, seldom venturing to ask questions, or to open her mind about what occupied it most,—who, on some unusual incitement to confidence during a summer evening walk, opened a theme of perplexity, to get a solution from a grown-up brother, whom she regarded as able to solve anything. She told him that she could not see how, if God foreknew everything, and could ordain everything, men could ever be said to sin against him, or be justly punished for anything they did: and then she went on to the other particular of that problem;—how, if God was all powerful to create happiness, and all good to desire it, there came to be any suffering in the world. Her brother answered her with kindness in his tone, but injudiciously. He told her that that was a very serious question which she was too young to consider yet; and that some years hence would be time enough. She was dissatisfied and hurt;—not from pride; but because she felt it hard to be left in a perplexity from which she fully supposed her brother could relieve her. She felt that if she could ask the question,—thus put in a definite form,—she must be capable of understanding the answer. And so she undoubtedly was. If the brother held the doctrine of free will, he should have replied that he did not know;—that he could not understand the perplexity any more than herself. If he held the necessarian doctrine, he should have imparted it to her; for her question showed that she was capable of receiving it. The end of the matter was that she suffered for years under that reply, never again venturing to propose her difficulty to any one. She worked her way through the soluble half of the question alone at last,—thinking first, and then reading, and then meditating again, till all was clear and settled; and in her mature years she found herself fast anchored on the necessarian doctrine,—rather wondering how she could have been so long in satisfying herself about a matter so clear, but aware that she had found an inestimable gain;—which she might have reposed upon some years earlier, if the natural working of her faculties had been trusted as it might have been.
Our enjoyment of our faculties appears to me to be more proportioned to their quality than their strength:—that, whether any one of us has the reasoning power, or the imagination stronger or weaker than the perceptive and conceptive faculties, he enjoys most the exercise of the higher. Certainly, children whose faculties are developed freely and fairly have an intense relish for reasoning, while the mind remains unwearied. The commonest topics voluntarily chosen are conduct and character; because the most familiar and interesting abstractions are those which are connected with morals. How boys and girls will debate by the hour together about the stoicism of Junius Brutus, and the patriotism of Brutus and Cassius; and about all the suicides of all Romans, and all the questionable acts of all heroes! The mother is the great resource here, because she is always at hand; and these matters are of such pressing importance to the little people, that they cannot wait till their father comes in, or can give them some of his evening leisure. These topics are good as an exercise of both the moral and intellectual powers: but they do not yield full satisfaction to the reasoning faculty, because they can never be brought to any certain and evident issue. The conclusions of morals are clear enough for practical guidance; but they are not proveable. For the full satisfaction of the reasoning faculties, therefore, children must set to work elsewhere.—They may get something of it out of their lessons in grammar, if they are trusted with the sense of the grammar they are taught: lighting upon an accusative case and a verb in a Latin sentence, they know there must be a nominative: and there it is presently, accordingly. Finding an ablative absolute, they are confident of finding some sort of proposition: and there it is, to their hand. The words on the page before them are as real to the sense as the written numerals on their slates: but behind both there is a working of unseen laws,—independent of the signification of either words or numerals,—whose operation and issue it is a deep-felt pleasure to follow and apprehend. The rules of grammar, and the laws of numbers,—(the rules of arithmetic, in short,)—are abstractions proceeding from abstractions; and their workings bring out a conclusion clear to the pupil's apprehension, and unquestionable. This is all exercise of the reasoning powers; and it is this exercise of those powers, or the use of ear and memory only which makes the difference between a pupil who learns grammar and arithmetic with the understanding or by rote.
I once witnessed a curious instance of the difference between the reasoning pupils of a class at school and the learners by rote. The test was, I think, designed by the master to be a test; and it answered his purpose even better than our strenuous exercises in grammar and arithmetic. Our master proposed to give some of us an idea of English composition, and said he would next week explain to us how to set about it. Some of us, however, were all on fire with the idea of writing essays, and were by no means disposed to wait. The next time our master entered the school-room, eight or ten pairs of beseeching eyes were fixed upon him; and he, being a good-natured man, asked what we wished. What we wanted was to be allowed immediately to write an essay on Music. He had no objection; but he asked for some precision in the object of the essay;—proposed that it should be the Uses of Psalmody, or some such topic, which could be treated in the limits of a school theme;—but no; he saw by the faces and manner of the class that it must be an essay on Music. I was the youngest of the class, who ranged from eleven to sixteen: and I wondered whether the elder ones felt as I did when I saw the little smile at the corners of the mouth, amidst the careful respect of our kind master. I felt that we were somehow doing something very silly, though I could not clearly see what. It was plain enough when we brought up our themes. Our master's respect and kindness never failed: and he now was careful to say that there was much that was true in each essay; but——. We saw the "but" for ourselves, and were ready to sink with shame; for nobody had courage to begin to laugh at our folly. Such a mass of rhapsody and rhodomontade as we presented to our master! Such highflying, incoherent nonsense! Each was pretty well satisfied with her own rhapsody till she heard the seven or nine others read. "Now, perhaps you perceive," our master began: and indeed we saw it all;—the lack of order and object;—the flimsiness,—and our own presumption. We were now more ready to be taught. Some, however, could not yet learn; and others liked this lesson better than any they had ever attempted. This is the difference which induces me to tell the story here. We were taught the parts of a theme, as our master and many others approved and practised them, in sermons and essays: and the nature and connexion of these parts were so clearly pointed out, that on the instant it appeared to me that a sudden light was cast at once on the processes of thought and of composition,—for both of which I had before an indistinct and somewhat oppressive reverence. I saw how the Proposition, the Reason, the Example, the Confirmation, and the Conclusion led out the subject into order and clearness, and, in fact, regularly emptied our minds of what we had to say upon it. From that day till our school was broken up (and my heart nearly broken with it) a year and a half afterwards, the joy of my life was writing themes;—or rather composing them; for the act of writing was terribly irksome. But that which some of us eminently enjoyed was altogether burdensome to others, from the procedure of the task being utterly unintelligible. I suppose their reasoning faculties were yet unawakened,—though they were not so very young. The Proposition they usually wrote down in the words in which our subject was given to us;—the mere title of the theme. The Reason was any sort of reason about any affair whatever,—the authors protesting that a reason was a reason any day. The Examples were begged, or copied out of any history book. The Confirmation was omitted, or declared to consist in "the universal experience of mankind,"—whatever the subject might be: and as for the Conclusion, that was easy enough:—it was only to say that for all the reasons given, the author concluded so and so,—in the words of the title. This was a case in which it would have been better to wait awhile, till the meaning of the task and its method should dawn upon the minds yet unready. But, for those who were capable, it was a task of great pleasure and privilege; and we loved our master for testing and trusting our faculties in a direction so new to us.