One change which has taken place in our society since the peace has struck me much. Since the continent was opened to us, almost all who can afford to travel, more or less, have been abroad. Struck with the advantages to themselves of having their minds opened and enlarged by intercourse with foreign nations, and by access to foreign literature, art, and methods of education in some respects superior to our own, they have naturally desired to give such advantages to their children, while they were yet young enough to benefit fully by them. Great numbers of children, and young people yet growing, have been carried abroad by their parents, and, of course, have obtained more or less of the "advantages" for which they went. But at what cost? In my opinion, at a fatal one. Much might be said of the danger to health and life of a complete change of diet and habits at so early an age. A friend of mine was telling me, and I was agreeing with her, that she and I hardly know of a family of children who have travelled abroad for any length of time that has not been fatally visited with the dreadful bilious fever which, when it spares life, too often does some irreparable injury to the frame,—to brain, or sense, or limbs. Bad as this is, it is not the worst. The practice is against Nature; and those who adopt it must bear the retribution for offences against Nature's laws. Nature ordains a kind of vegetative existence for children till the frame is complete, and strengthened in its completeness. The utmost regularity of habits (which by no means implies dulness of life) produces, beyond all question, the most healthy frames, and there cannot be a sadder mistake than to suppose that any greater variety than the most ordinary life affords is necessary to the quickening or entertainment of a child's faculties. Life, with all its objects, is new to him. Its commonest incidents are deeply interesting to him. Birth and death are exciting to him, and solemn beyond expression. The opening and close of the seasons, and their varying pleasures and pursuits, the changes in the lives of the people about him; the evolution of his own little history,—the expanding of his faculties, his achievements in study, his entrance upon more and more advanced duties and intercourses;—these are enough to keep his mind in full life and vigour: and he cannot receive his experience of life into the depths of his being unless he is at rest. If he is to commune with his own heart, he must be still. If he is to gather into his mind ripe observations of nature and man, and to store them up reflectively, he must be still. If his sentiments and emotions are to be the natural result of the workings of life upon him, he must be still, that life may work upon him undisturbed. I have devoted a close attention to this subject; and I certainly conclude, from my own observation, that the intellectual and moral value of families who have lived quietly at home (with due educational assistance) very far transcends that of young people whose anxious parents have dragged them about the world,—catching at advantages here and advantages there, unconscious of the sacrifice of the greatest advantage of all,—a natural method of life, with the quietude which belongs to it. I think that the untravelled have a deeper reflectiveness than the travelled,—a deeper sensibility,—a better working power, on the whole,—a better preparation for the life before them. They have more prejudice, and, of course, less accomplishment than the travelled; but life and years are pretty sure to abate the prejudice; and a better timed travel may give the accomplishment. If not, however,—if there must be a choice of good and evil at the outset of life, who would not rather see the fault of narrowness than of shallowness? A mind which has depth must, in ordinary course, widen; while a shallow mind, however wide, can never be worth much. In the sensibility, the difference is as marked as in the understanding: and no wonder; for to the quiet dweller at home life is an awful scroll, slowly and steadily unrolling to disclose its characters of fire, which burn themselves in upon the brain; while, to the young rover, life is but too much like a show-box, whose scenes shift too fast, and with too little interval, to make much impression. I mention this here, chiefly for the sake of parents who may feel occasional regrets that they cannot give to their children what they suppose to be the "advantages" of travel. My conviction is that their children are happier than they suppose. A moment's thought will show them how few the rovers can be,—how overwhelming must be the majority of those who must stay at home: and we may always be confident that the lot of the great majority, duly improved, must be sufficient for all the purposes of human life. Nothing that I have said is meant at all in disapprobation of those occasional changes of scene and society which all young people require more or less. On the contrary, I would indicate, as one of the advantages of a regular home life, that it prepares the novice to profit the more by such occasional changes. It is a magnificent event in the life of a quiet, industrious family when a house-painting, or other domestic necessity, authorises a visit to the sea-side, or a plunge into the country for a couple of months. It serves as a prodigious stimulus to the intellect; and the recollection never loses its brilliancy, to the latest period of life. It is worth more to novices than a whole year of continental travelling to practised rovers. The sunsets have sunk deep. The light-house, the dip in the waves, the shingle, the distant fleet—or the gorse on the common, the wood paths, with their wild flowers, the breezy down, the cottage in the lane,—call up a thrill in the heart of the town-bred child whenever the images are called up. Such changes are good; but they are not roving in search of "advantages." Again, when one child among several appears to pine in any degree, becomes irritable or depressed, looks pale, or ceases to grow, it is a sign that some change is needed. If such a boy or girl should be invited by some relation or friend on a visit of any length, it is probable that all will come right. The mind wants an airing, perhaps; and in a fresh abode, among new objects, and kind friends, and different companionship, and change of habits, without any further excitement, brooding thoughts are dispersed, domestic affections revive and strengthen, the mind overflows with new ideas, and after a time, home becomes intensely longed for; and the young absentee returns home—to father's greeting, and mother's side, and brothers and sisters' companionship, with more rapture than the prospect of the journey ever caused. Such a change as this is good; but it is not roving for educational "advantages." It is an agreeable tonic medicine; not a regimen of high diet.
The case of the only child seems to ask a word of kindness here. At the best, the case of the only child is a somewhat mournful one,—somewhat forlorn,—because it is unnatural. If it is unnatural for a multitude of children of the same age to herd together in an Infant school, it is at least as much so for a little creature to live alone among people with full-grown brains, and all occupied with the pursuits and interests of mature life. It is very well for the father to romp with his child at spare times, and for the mother to love it with her whole heart, and sympathise with it, with all the sympathy that such love can inspire. This is all well: but it does not make them children,—nor, therefore, natural companions for a child. In this case, above all others, it is desirable that the child should be sent to school, when old enough: and especially if the only one be a boy. A good day school, where play is included, may do much to obviate the disadvantages of the position. If this cannot be done, it is really hardly to be hoped that mischief will not be done on the one side or the other,—of too much or too little attention and sympathy. Some may wonder at the idea of the only child being in danger of having too little sympathy from its parents: but such cases are very conceivable and are occasionally witnessed. If everybody sees how an only child,—the light and charm of the house, the idol of the mother, and the pet of everybody, must unavoidably become of too much importance in its own eyes, and suffer accordingly,—who should feel this so anxiously and constantly as the conscientious parents of an only child? and what is more probable than that, in their anxiety not to spoil the mind they have under their charge, they should carry the bracing system somewhat too far, and depress the child by giving it less fostering and sympathy than it needs? They would not, for its own sake, have it troublesome to their friends, or self-important, or selfish; and they keep it back. But alas! if put back, the little thing is driven into loneliness; and children are not made for loneliness, in any but a desert life. Give a child the desert to rove in, with brown sheep to tend, and a young camel to play with, and rocks and weeds, and springs and stars and shrubby palms to live amongst, and he may make a very pleasant life of it, all alone; but not if he lives in a street, and must not go out alone, and passes his life among square rooms and stair-cases, and the measured movements of grown-up people. An only child must be troublesome, as long as he is a child. He craves play, and sympathy, and constant companionship: and he cannot do without them—he must not be required to do without them. If he is not sent to school, grown people must be his companions and playfellows,—the victims to his restlessness; and he must be troublesome.—The case is nearly the same,—only somewhat less desperate,—with a girl. Her parents cannot, if they have eyes, hearts, or consciences, see her pine. They must either provide her with natural companionship, or they must let themselves and their friends be appropriated by her as companions, till she grows up into fitness to be a companion to them.—It is not included in this necessity that there should be selfishness of temper and manners. The more fully and naturally the needs of the social nature are met and supplied, the less is the danger of this kind arising from peculiarity of position.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONCLUSION.
Is there any other department of Household Education than those on which I have touched? No one can be more aware than I am of the scantiness of what I have said, when compared with the vastness of the range and of the importance of the subject. I could only, as I declared at the beginning, tell a little of what I have seen and thought of the training of families in private life: but, admitting the meagre character of the whole, is there any one department left untouched? I am not aware of any that could be treated of in a volume for general reading.
Some may, perhaps, ask for a chapter on Social Habits: and an important subject it truly is. But it appears to me to be included in that of Family Habits and Manners. The same simplicity and ingenuousness, the same respect and kindliness, the same earnestness and cheerfulness, which should pervade the conduct and manners in the interior of the household are the best elements of conduct and manners in the world. I see no discretion and no grace which is needed in wider social intercourses that is not required by those of home. To the parents there may be some anxiety and uneasiness when their sons and daughters make intimacies out of the house. The warm friendships of youth may not perhaps be such as the parents would have chosen. They may be such as surprise and disappoint the parents. But the very fact of the surprise and disappointment should show them that there is something more in the matter than they understand or should seek to control. They cannot control the sympathies of any one; and no one being can fully understand the affinities which exist between others. The points to be regarded are clear enough: and when the best is done that can be done, the rest may be left without anxiety.
The main point is to preserve the full confidence of the young people. If perfect openness and the utmost practicable sympathy be maintained, all must be safe. Young people must win their own experience. They must find out character for themselves: they must try their own ground in social life; they must be self-convicted of the prejudices and partialities which belong to their immaturity; and, while their own moral rectitude and their ingenuous confidence in their parents subsist, they can take no permanent harm from casual associations which may be far from wise. The parents should remember too how very important a part of the training of each individual is of a kind which the parents have nothing to do with but to witness, and to have patience with, as a piece of discipline to themselves.
As has been observed before, there seems to be a fine provision in human nature for rectifying home tendencies which would otherwise be too strong, and for supplying the imperfections of home experience by the process which takes place,—the revolution of moral tastes which ensues,—upon the introduction of young people into a wider circle than that of home. The parents have naturally,—unavoidably,—laid the most stress in the training of their children on those qualities which are strongest in themselves, and slight, more or less, such as they disregard, or are conscious of not excelling in themselves. When the young people go out into the world, they are struck by the novel beauty of virtues in full exercise which they have seen and heard but little of, and fall in love with them, and with those who possess them, and, with a fresh enthusiasm, cherish them in themselves. Thus it is that we so often see whole families of young people becoming characterised by the virtues in which their parents are most deficient; and also, as a consequence, by the faults which are the natural attendants of those virtues. I have seen a case of parents, indulgent and faithful to their children, virulently censorious to the rest of the world;—the children, while wearing pinafores, disgusting from their gleeful gossip, picked up from the elders, scorning and quizzing everybody's thoughts and ways;—and those same children, when abroad in the world as men and women, growing first grave,—then just and fair,—then philosophical, and at last indulgent, as the truly philosophical must ever be. They preserved the keen insight into character and the movements of mind in which they had been trained at home, after first recognising, and then opening their hearts to the beauty of charity. I have seen the children of imprudent, lavish, and embarrassed parents turn out eminently correct in their management of money matters:—the children of an untidy mother turn out perfectly methodical;—the children of a too social father, remarkably retired and domestic; and so on. Very often the new and late virtue becomes too prominent, excluding the hereditary opposite qualities; and in that case, when these young people become parents, the same process takes place, and their children strongly resemble their grandparents. It is a curious spectacle,—that of such a moral oscillation;—and it is so common that every one may observe it. One of the pieces of instruction that it yields is to parents;—that they must now let Nature work, and take off their hands from meddling. They may themselves learn something if they will, in silence and sympathy, from the spectacle of the expansion of their children; and they may take the lesson into a light and easy heart if they have hitherto done their duty as well as they know how. There is nothing in what they see to hurt any but an improper pride: and they may make sure of an increased reverence and love from their children if they have the magnanimity to go hand in hand with them into new fields of moral exercise and enterprise, and to admit the beauty and desirableness of what they see.
Here we have arrived at the ultimate stage of Household Education,—that where the entire household advances together, in equal companionship, towards the great object of human existence, the perfecting of each individual in it. We set out with the view that the education of a household comprehended the training and discipline of all its members; and here we find ourselves at the same point again, amidst a great difference in the circumstances. They are no longer all under the same roof. One may be in the distant town; another in a far country; a third in the next street, but seen only on Sundays: but still they are one Household company, living in full confidence and sympathy, though their eyes may seldom meet, and a clasp of the hand may be a rare luxury. The mother who once received discipline from her child when he was a wailing infant, keeping her from her rest at midnight, receives another discipline from him now when she sees him in earnest pursuit of some high and holy aim whose nobleness had become somewhat clouded to her through the cares of the world, and her very solicitude for him. The father who had suffered perhaps too keenly from some gross faults of his thoughtless boys in their season of turbulence, receives from them now a new discipline—a rebuke full of sweetness,—in the proof they offer that he had distrusted Nature,—had failed in faith that she would do her work well, if only the way was duly kept open for her. There is a new discipline for them in the gradual contraction of the family circle, in the deepening quietness of the house, and in the loss of the little hourly services which the elderly people now think they hardly valued enough while they had them every hour. We can never say that any part of the discipline of life is over for any one of us; and that of domestic life is certainly not over for affectionate parents whose children are called away from their side, however unquestionable the call may be.
As for the younger generation of the household,—their education by their parents never ceases while the parents live: and the less assertion the parents make of this, the deeper are the lessons they impress. The deepest impressions received in life are supposed to be those imparted to the sensitive and tenacious mind of childhood: but the mature reverence and affection of a manly mind are excited more efficaciously than the emotions of childhood can ever be when the active men and women who were once the children of a household see their grey-haired parents in the midst of them looking up to Nature, and reaching after Truth and Right with the humble trust and earnest docility which spread the sweetest charm of youth over the countenance of age. However many and however rich are the lessons they have learned from their parents, assuredly, in such a case, the richest is the last.