“And is it then possible,” said the vicar, in a tone of supplication, “that you can seriously entertain so wild, and, I might even add, so cruel a scheme? Would you pursue the luckless little urchin from the schoolroom into the very playground, with your unrelenting tyranny? a sanctuary which the most rigid pedagogue has hitherto held inviolable. Is the buoyant spirit so forcibly, though perhaps necessarily, repressed, during the hours of discipline, to have no interval for its free and uncontrolled expansion? Your science, methinks, Mr. Seymour, might have taught you a wiser lesson; for you must well know that the most elastic body will lose that property by being constantly kept in a state of tension.”
“A fine specimen of sophistry, upon my word,” cried Mr. Seymour, “which would, doubtless, raise every nursery-governess and doating grandmother in open rebellion against me: but let me add, that it ill becomes a man of liberal and enlarged ideas, to suffer his opinions to be the sport of mere words; for, that our present difference is an affair of words, and of words only, I will undertake to prove, to the satisfaction of any unprejudiced person. Play and work--amusement and instruction--toys and tasks--are invariably but most unjustifiably employed as words of contrast and opposition; an error which has arisen from the indistinct and very indefinite ideas which we attach to such words. If the degree of mental exertion be said to constitute the difference between play and work, I am quite sure that the definition would be violated in the first illustration; for let me ask, when do boys exert so much thought as in carrying into effect their holiday schemes? The distinction may, perhaps, be made to turn upon the irksome feelings which might be supposed to attend the drudgery of study, but this can never happen except from a vicious system of education that excludes the operations of thought; a school that locks in the body, but locks out the mind: depend upon it, Mr. Twaddleton, that the human mind, whether in youth or manhood, is ever gratified by the acquisition of information; every occupation soon cloys, unless it be seasoned by this stimulant. Is not the child idle and miserable in a nursery full of playthings, and to what expedient does he instinctively fly to relieve his ennui? Why, he breaks his toys to pieces, as Miss Edgeworth justly observes, not from the love of mischief, but from the hatred of idleness, or rather from an innate thirst after knowledge; and he becomes, as it were, an enterprising adventurer, and opens for himself a new source of pleasure and amusement, in exploring the mechanism of their several parts. Think you, then, Mr. Twaddleton, that any assistance which might be offered the boy, under such circumstances, would be received by him as a task? Certainly not. The acquisition of knowledge then, instead of detracting from, must heighten the amusement of toys; and if I have succeeded in convincing you of this truth, my object is accomplished.”
Thus did Mr. Seymour, like an able general, assail his adversary on his own ground; he drove him, as it were, into a corner, and by seizing the only pass through which he could make his escape, forced him to surrender at discretion.
“Why, truly,” replied the vicar, after a short pause, “I am ready to admit that there is much good sense in your observations; and, if the scientific instruction upon these occasions be not carried so far as to puzzle the boy, I am inclined to coincide with you.”
“Therein lies the whole secret,” said Mr. Seymour: “when an occupation agreeably interests the understanding, imagination, or passions of children, it is what is commonly understood by the term play or sport; whereas that which is not accompanied with such associations, and yet may be necessary for their future welfare, is, properly enough, designated as a task.”
“I like the distinction,” observed the vicar.
“Then may I hope that you will indulge me so far as to listen to the scheme by which it is my intention to turn ‘Sport into Science,’ or, in other words, Toys into instruments of Philosophical Instruction?”
The vicar nodded assent.
Mr. Seymour proceeded--“In the first place, I would give the boy some general notions with regard to the properties of matter, such as its gravitation, vis inertiæ, elasticity, &c. What apparatus can be required for such a purpose, beyond some of the more simple toys? Indeed, I will undertake to demonstrate the three grand laws of motion by a game at ball; while the composition and resolution of forces may be beautifully exemplified during a game of marbles, especially that of ‘ring-taw;’ but in order that you may more clearly comprehend the capability of my plan, allow me to enumerate the various philosophical principles which are involved in the operation of the several more popular toys and sports. We will commence with the ball; which will illustrate the nature and phenomena of elasticity, as it leaps from the ground;--of rotatory motion, while it runs along its surface;--of reflected motion, and of the angles of incidence and reflection, as it rebounds from the wall;--and of projectiles, as it is whirled through the air; at the same time the cricket-bat may serve to explain the centre of percussion. A game at marbles may be made subservient to the same purposes, and will farther assist us in conveying clear ideas upon the subject of the collision of elastic and non-elastic bodies, and of their velocities and direction after impact. The composition and resolution of forces may be explained at the same time. The nature of elastic springs will require no other apparatus for its elucidation than Jack in the box, and the numerous leaping-frogs and cats with which the nursery abounds. The leathern sucker will exemplify the nature of cohesion, and the effect of water in filling up those inequalities by which contiguous surfaces are deprived of their attractive power; it will, at the same time, demonstrate the nature of a vacuum, and the influence of atmospheric pressure. The squirt will afford a farther illustration of the same views, and will furnish a practical proof of the weight of the atmosphere in raising a column of water. The theory of the pump will necessarily follow. The great elasticity of air, and the opposite property of water, I shall be able to show by the amusing exhibition of the ‘Bottle Imps.’”
“Bottle Imps!--‘Acheronta movebis,’” muttered the vicar.