Of the emotions excited by all the incidents between the cradle and the grave, none can be compared for depth and tenderness to those, called forth by the birth and baptism of the first child of an affectionate and happy husband and wife. Those, for whom this work is more peculiarly intended, will be aware, to what incident in our common stock of remembrances the above extract refers. Delightful sentiments, and yet deeply tinged with sadness! What a mystery is this conjoined miniature image of the parents, the babe itself! What a mystery the world with its mingled lights and shadows, upon which the feeble stranger is entering! What a mystery the unknown bourne to which it is bound! What a mystery the God, to whom it is consecrated! Callous and cold must be the heart of parents, that this mutual pledge of love and duty will not unite in one unchangeable sentiment of love and identity of interest, until death.
My views touching the modes, in which the best results of education are to be obtained, whether just or erroneous, have at least the advantage of being entirely practical. I am sufficiently convinced, that there must be an adequate and happy organization and mental development, without which no education, however wise and assiduous, will ever effect anything more, than mediocrity of character and acquirement. In the present state of public opinion, as great mistakes are made by expecting too much from the training of schools, as were formerly committed by attempting too little. The opulent, and people in the higher walks especially, are tempted by their condition to believe, that wealth and distinction can purchase, and even command mind, and that cultivation of it, by which more enlarged and distinguished minds differ from the common measure of intellect; a mistake, than which no other is more universally, and palpably taught by every day’s experience. The Author of our being reserves, and will never impart his own high prerogative, to bestow mind; and he as often dispenses the noblest and richest endowment of it in the lower, as in the upper walks of life; though, as we have seen, he has indicated, in the order of nature, a process of unlimited improvement of organization and endowment.
But the substratum of a practical and well endowed mind, to begin with, being granted, I beg leave to add my conviction to that of M. Droz, a conviction, which, as I think, will resume its authority and influence, when most of the present tedious and endless systems and projects of education will have passed into their merited oblivion. It is, that strong, latent and distinguished character and acquirement receive in domestic education, that predominant and fashioning direction, which they retain through life. The peculiar impress of a parent, a family-friend, a single tutor, is often as distinctly marked upon the whole after life of the scholar, that becomes truly distinguished, as though he had been wax in the hands of a moulder. The numerous tutors of opulent families, and of public institutions, seldom impart the same advantage. Their different views and modes of discipline countervail, and neutralize each other. The Greeks and the great Romans taught at home, the master being a member and an honored one of the family. The master and the pupil walked, conversed, and pursued their amusements together; and the sweet associations of home and the shade and freedom from restraint were conjoined with the lessons. When the good Plutarch paints to us, with his inimitable naiveté, one of his favorite characters, he indicates as his first felicity, that it was his lot to have the training of an Aristotle, or some similar worthy. Consult the English Plutarch for the same fact. Could all the commencing circumstances of most of the great men, who have lived, be exactly traced, we should find the same truth disclosed. That the development of strong inclination for books, studies and literature depends almost entirely on domestic habits and pursuits, the family, in which our common remembrances centre, is a striking example. During the years, in which the minds of this family received their unchangeable impress, the members were almost as vagrant in their modes, as the Tartars. All their education, except domestic, was exceedingly imperfect and desultory. Books were often wanting; adequate teachers always. But the love of the parents for books and reading was a simple, natural, unaffected and intense impulse. They loved the thing for its own sake, and independent of all its results. The first instruments of pleasure, and things of estimated value, that greeted the infant eyes of the children, were books; not furniture, dress, and the imposing ostentation of a modern parlor. Pleasant conversations, disputes, between laughter and seriousness, about these books, were the first conversations that greeted their listening ears. These conversations were perceived to be of deep and heart-felt interest, and as little mixed with pedantry and formality, as the manifestations of instinct. The children saw, that to those, they most loved, admired, and were disposed to imitate, books were the grand sources of interest, converse and enjoyment. They as naturally imbibed similar tastes, as, to use a coarse illustration, the children of savages learn to love hunting. The first thing for which they contended, and with which they wished to play, was a book, or a picture. Their first lispings were trials of skill, touching the comparative progress, which they had made in their knowledge of the contents of these books, and the application of it to present use. These trials they saw to be the chief points of interest and amusement for their parents. Thus, habits of reading and application grew with their growth and strengthened with their strength; and many a criticism, if not erudite and profound, at least eliciting hearty praise and laughter, passed away unrecorded in their domestic privacy. Their neighbors admired, and, I fear, envied, and calumniated; but could not but take astonished note of such results in a family without wealth, without the common appliances, which themselves could so much better afford, and which they had been accustomed to consider the only price, at which intellectual improvement could be purchased. It was placed beyond question, or denial, that the members of that family had right views, quiet and unawed self-respect, and could converse rationally, upon every other topic, as well as books; that tact and discrimination pervaded their manifestations of thought and pursuit; and that they possessed an inexhaustible source of amusement, and satisfaction independent of wealth, fashion, society, distinction, or any external resource whatever—the habit of internal reflection, comparison and pleasant converse with themselves.
Parents, when you have imparted to your children habits and tastes, like these, you have bequeathed them an intellectual fortune, which few changes can take away; and which is as strictly independent, as anything earthly can be. You have unlocked to their gratuitous use perennial fountains of innocent and improving enjoyment. You have secured them forever against the heart-wearing gloom of ennui, insufficiency to themselves, and slavish dependence upon others for amusement. Spend as lavishly as you may, in multiplying fashionable instructers, and blazon, as much as you will, the advantages of your children; if they do not perceive, while the rudiments of their taste and habits are forming, that you consider literature, science and the improvement of intellect a matter of paramount interest and importance, you will never cause their stream to flow higher, than your fountain. An occasional parlor lecture, or a high wrought eulogy, will not convince them, or avail to your purpose. They must see this preference, as all others, which they will be inclined to copy, manifested in your whole deportment and conversation.
But, while I am convinced, that parents will find efforts to train their children to be highly intellectual, rowing against the current, unless they evince, themselves, by their habitual examples, that they consider it a higher attainment, to possess literature and conversational powers, than fashion, or wealth or the common objects of pursuit, in other words, that all efficient education must be essentially domestic, I would not be understood to undervalue public schools and colleges. I am aware, that in these places are best imparted the knowledge and adroitness that fit them for the keen scramble of ambitious competition. But in regard to those boys who leave their competitions behind the classes of the university, I think on examination, we shall find, that the germ and the stamina of this progress were early communicated by instruction and example at home. At table, around the evening fire, in the Sabbath walk, in the common family intercourse, in the intervals of the toil of your profession, whatever it be, the taste and the permanent inclination for literature and intellectual cultivation are imparted. This can never be, if behind all your eulogy of these things, you discover, that your ruling passion is money, or the sordid objects of common pursuit.
It is a common and, I much fear, a well founded complaint, that some latent mischief in our system of education, political institutions, the ordering of our establishments, or in all these together, has generated, as a prevalent moral evil, filial unkindness and ingratitude. Scramble, competition and rivalry are the first, last, and universally witnessed order of things in our country. Nothing becomes a topic of conversation that is of absorbing interest, but acquisition and distinction. The manifestations of an intellect, sharpened for the pursuit of these things, is the subject of most earnest eulogy. Children, by our usages, are early cast upon their own resources, and taught to shift for themselves. The consequence seems to be, that the parental and filial ties are severed, as soon as the children are able to take care of themselves, almost as recklessly, in regard to subsequent duty, piety or affection, as those of the lower animals. When we see a spectacle so revolting, and unhappily so common, of sons who, as soon as they have realized the portion of goods that falleth to them, or of daughters, as soon as they have secured lovers or husbands, forgetting the authors of their days, it becomes us to search deeply for the defect in our discipline, or institutions, that originates the evil. The callous hearts of such children may no longer be appalled by the terrible execution of the Jewish law against such monsters. They may neither feel, nor care, how sharper than a serpent’s tooth, may be this want of filial piety to their parents. But, by a righteous reaction of the divine justice, more terribly vindictive than the threatened judgment of the Jewish law, thankless children bear in their hearts the certain guaranty of their own self-inflicted punishment. They part forever with the purest and noblest sentiments of the human heart; and they procure for themselves the sad certainty of being cast off in their turn, by their children, in the helpless period of their old age.
The history of literature proves, that none of the more unworthy sentiments of human nature have been so adverse to friendship, as the vanity of literary rivals. From many noble examples of a contrary kind, which we might cite, I select the intercourse between Racine and Boileau. When Racine was persuaded, that his malady would end in death, he charged his eldest son to write to M. de Cavoye, to ask him to solicit the payment of what was due of his pension, that his family might not be left without ready money. He wrote the letter and read it to his father. ‘Why did you not,’ said he, ‘request the payment of the pension of Boileau at the same time? Write again, and let him know, that I was his friend in death.’ This friend came to receive his last adieu. Racine rose in bed, as far as his weakness would allow. As he embraced his friend, he said ‘I regard it a happiness to die in your presence.’