H——. Why, when he moves his hand (flourishes) without touching the paper with the pen. And at first, when I want to do any thing, I cannot move my hand as I mean; but after being used to it, then I can do much better. I don't know why.
After going on hammering for some time, he stopped again, and said, "There's another thing I wanted to tell you. Sometimes I think to myself, that it is right to think of things that are sensible, and then when I want to set about thinking of things that are sensible, I cannot; I can only think of that over and over again."
M——. You can only think of what?
H——. Of those words. They seem to be said to me over and over again, till I'm quite tired, "That it is right to think of things that have some sense."
The childish expressions in these remarks have not been altered, because we wished to show exactly how children at this age express their thoughts. If M. Condillac had been used to converse with children, he surely would not have expected, that any boy of seven years old could have understood his definition of attention, and his metaphysical preliminary lessons.
After these preliminary lessons, we have a sketch of the prince of Parma's subsequent studies. M. Condillac says, that his royal highness (being not yet eight years old) was now "perfectly well acquainted with the system of intellectual operations. He comprehended already the production of his ideas; he saw the origin and the progress of the habits which he had contracted, and he perceived how he could substitute just ideas for the false ones which had been given to him, and good habits instead of the bad habits which he had been suffered to acquire. He had become so quickly familiar with all these things, that he retraced their connection without effort, quite playfully."[119]
This prince must have been a prodigy! After having made him reflect upon his own infancy, the abbé judged that the infancy of the world would appear to his pupil "the most curious subject, and the most easy to study." The analogy between these two infancies seems to exist chiefly in words; it is not easy to gratify a child's curiosity concerning the infancy of the world. Extracts from L'Origine des Loix, by M. Goguet, with explanatory notes, were put into the prince's hands, to inform him of what happened in the commencement of society. These were his evening studies. In the mornings he read the French poets, Boileau, Moliere, Corneille, and Racine. Racine, as we are particularly informed, was, in the space of one year, read over a dozen times. Wretched prince! Unfortunate Racine! The abbé acknowledges, that at first these authors were not understood with the same ease as the preliminary lessons had been: every word stopped the prince, and it seemed as if every line were written in an unknown language. This is not surprising, for how is it possible that a boy of seven or eight years old, who could know nothing of life and manners, could taste the wit and humour of Moliere; and, incapable as he must have been of sympathy with the violent passions of tragic heroes and heroines, how could he admire the lofty dramas of Racine? We are willing to suppose, that the young prince of Parma was quick, and well informed for his age; but to judge of what is practicable, we must produce examples from common life, instead of prodigies.
S——, a boy of nine years old, of whose abilities the reader will be able to form some judgment from anecdotes in the following pages, whose understanding was not wholy uncultivated, when he was between nine and ten years old, expressed a wish to read some of Shakespeare's plays. King John was given to him. After the book had been before him for one winter's evening, he returned it to his father, declaring that he did not understand one word of the play; he could not make out what the people were about, and he did not wish to read any more of it. His brother H——, at twelve years old, had made an equally ineffectual attempt to read Shakespeare; he was also equally decided and honest in expressing his dislike to it; he was much surprised at seeing his sister B——, who was a year or two older than himself, reading Shakespeare with great avidity, and he frequently asked what it was in that book that could entertain her. Two years afterwards, when H—— was between fourteen and fifteen, he made another trial, and he found that he understood the language of Shakespeare without any difficulty. He read all the historical plays with the greatest eagerness, and particularly seized the character of Falstaff. He gave a humorous description of the figure and dress which he supposed Sir John should have, of his manner of sitting, speaking, and walking. Probably, if H—— had been pressed to read Shakespeare at the time when he did not understand it, he might never have read these plays with real pleasure during his whole life. Two years increase prodigiously the vocabulary and the ideas of young people, and preceptors should consider, that what we call literary taste, cannot be formed without a variety of knowledge. The productions of our ablest writers cannot please, until we are familiarized to the ideas which they contain, or to which they allude.[120]
Poetry is usually supposed to be well suited to the taste and capacity of children. In the infancy of taste and of eloquence, rhetorical language is constantly admired; the bold expression of strong feeling, and the simple description of the beauties of nature, are found to interest both cultivated and uncultivated minds. To understand descriptive poetry, no previous knowledge is required, beyond what common observation and sympathy supply; the analogies and transitions of thought, are slight and obvious; no labour of attention is demanded, no active effort of the mind is requisite to follow them. The pleasures of simple sensation are, by descriptive poetry, recalled to the imagination, and we live over again our past lives without increasing, and without desiring to increase, our stock of knowledge. If these observations be just, there must appear many reasons, why even that species of poetry which they can understand, should not be the early study of children; from time to time it may be an agreeable amusement, but it should not become a part of their daily occupations. We do not want to retrace perpetually in their memories a few musical words, or a few simple sensations; our object is to enlarge the sphere of our pupil's capacity, to strengthen the habits of attention, and to exercise all the powers of the mind. The inventive and the reasoning faculties must be injured by the repetition of vague expressions, and of exaggerated description, with which most poetry abounds. Childhood is the season for observation, and those who observe accurately, will afterwards be able to describe accurately: but those, who merely read descriptions, can present us with nothing but the pictures of pictures. We have reason to believe, that children, who have not been accustomed to read a vast deal of poetry, are not, for that reason, less likely to excel in poetic language. The reader will judge from the following explanations of Gray's Hymn to Adversity, that the boy to whom they were addressed, was not much accustomed to read even the most popular English poetry; yet this is the same child, who a few months afterwards, wrote the translation from Ovid, of the Cave of Sleep, and who gave the extempore description of a summer's evening in tolerably good language.
Jan. 1796. S—— (nine years old) learned by heart the Hymn to Adversity. When he came to repeat this poem, he did not repeat it well, and he had it not perfectly by heart. His father suspected that he did not understand it, and he examined him with some care.