The child may also be taught to discriminate the varieties of green in leaves and other things; of yellow, red, and blue, in flowers and paints; and to distinguish not only the shades of all the colors, but their respective proportions in mixtures of two or more. Many persons, for want of such early culture, have grown to years without the ability of distinguishing between colors, as others have who have neglected the culture of the ear without the ability of distinguishing between tunes.
Drawing, whether of maps, the shape of objects, or of landscapes, is admirably adapted to discipline the sight. Children should be encouraged carefully to survey and accurately to describe the prominent points of a landscape, both in nature and in picture. Let them point out the elevations and depressions; the mowing, the pasture, the wood, and the tillage land; the trees, the houses, and the streams. Listen to their accounts of their plays, walks, and journeys, and of any events of which they have been witnesses. In these and all other exercises of the sight, children should be encouraged to be strictly accurate; and whenever it is practicable, the judgment they pronounce and the descriptions they give should, if erroneous, be corrected by the truth. Children can not fail to be interested in such exercises; and even where they have been careless and inaccurate observers, they will soon become more watchful and exact.
It is by the benign influences of education only that the senses can be improved. And still their culture has been entirely neglected by perhaps the majority of parents and teachers, who in other respects have manifested a commendable degree of interest in this subject. That by judicious culture the senses may be educated to activity and accuracy, and be made to send larger and purer streams of knowledge to the soul, has been unanswerably proved by an accumulation of unquestionable testimony. Most persons, however, allow the senses to remain uneducated, except as they may be cultivated by fortuitous circumstances. Eyes have they, but they see not; ears have they, but they hear not; neither do they understand. It is not impossible, nor perhaps improbable, that he who has these two senses properly cultivated will derive more unalloyed pleasure in spending a brief hour in gazing upon a beautiful landscape, in examining for the same length of time a simple flower, or in listening to the sweet melody of the linnet as it warbles its song of praise, than those who have neglected the cultivation of the senses experience during their whole lives!
This subject commends itself to all who regard their individual happiness, or who desire to render their usefulness as extensive as possible. Upon parents, teachers, and clergymen, who are more immediately concerned in the correct education of the rising generation, its claims are imperative. Let them be met, in connection with other appropriate means now in use and hereafter to be put in requisition, and our schools can not fail to become increasingly attractive; truancy, hence, will be less frequent, and the benign influences resulting from the correct education of the whole man will inspire the benevolent and philanthropic to renewed and increased efforts to secure the right education of all men, a condition upon which the maximum of human happiness depends.
CHAPTER VII.
THE NECESSITY OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
The exaltation of talent, as it is called, above virtue and religion, is the curse of the age. Education is now chiefly a stimulus to learning, and thus men acquire power without the principles which alone make it a good. Talent is worshiped; but if divorced from rectitude, it will prove more of a demon than a god.—Channing.
Religion ought to be the basis of education, according to often-repeated writings and declamations. The assertion is true. Christianity furnishes the true basis for raising up character; but the foundation must be laid in a very different manner from that which is commonly practiced. * * * We can, indeed, scarcely conceive of the purity, the self-denial, and the power that might be given to human character by systematic development.—Lalor.
We have now reached a department of our subject of surpassing importance, for however judiciously physical and intellectual cultivation may have been conducted, if we make a mistake here, all is lost. Knowledge is power, it is true; but we should bear in mind that it is potent for evil as well as for good; and that, whether its effects be good or ill, depends entirely upon the dispositions and sentiments by which it is impelled and guided. Numerous have been the instances illustrative of the fact that the greatest scourges of our race are men of gigantic cultivated intellect. Where knowledge but qualifies its possessor for inflicting misery, ignorance would indeed be bliss.