La Gaucherie, one of the preceptors of Henry IV. having found that he had to do with a young prince of an impatient mind, and active genius, little suited to sedentary studies, instead of compelling his pupil to read, taught him by means of conversation: anecdotes of heroes, and the wise sayings of ancient philosophers, were thus imprinted upon the mind of this prince. It is said, that Henry IV. applied, in his subsequent life, all the knowledge he had acquired in this manner so happily, that learned men were surprised at his memory.[52]
By these observations, we by no means would insinuate, that application to books is unnecessary. We are sensible that accurate knowledge upon any subject, cannot be acquired by superficial conversation; that it can be obtained only by patient application. But we mean to point out, that an early taste for literature may be excited in children by conversation; and that their memory should be first cultivated in the manner which will give them the least pain. When there is motive for application, and when habits of industry have been gradually acquired, we may securely trust, that our pupils will complete their own education. Nor should we have reason to fear, that those who have a good memory for all other things, should not be able to retain all that is worth remembering in books. Children should never be praised for merely remembering exactly what they read, they should be praised for selecting with good sense what is best worth their attention, and for applying what they remember to useful purposes.
We have observed how much the habit of inventing increases the wish for knowledge, and increases the interest men take in a number of ideas, which are indifferent to uncultivated and indolent people. It is the same with children. Children who invent, exercise their memory with pleasure, from the immediate sense of utility and success. A piece of knowledge, which they lay by in their minds, with the hopes of making use of it in some future invention, they have more motives for remembering, than what they merely learn by rote, because they are commanded to do so by the voice of authority.
(June 19th, 1796.) S——, a boy of nine years old, of good abilities, was translating Ovid's description of envy. When he came to the Latin word suffusa, he pronounced it as if it had been spelled with a single f and a double s, sufussa; he made the same mistake several times: at last his father, to try whether it would make him remember the right pronunciation, desired him to repeat suffusa forty times. The boy did so. About three hours afterwards, the boy was asked whether he recollected the word which he had repeated forty times. No, he said, he did not; but he remembered that it meant diffused. His father recalled the word to his mind, by asking him what letter it was that he had sounded as if it had been a double letter; he said s. And what double letter did you sound as if it had been single? f, said the boy. Then, said his father, you have found out that it was a word in which there was a double ff and a single s, and that it is the Latin for diffused. Oh, suffusa, said the boy.
This boy, who had such difficulty in learning a single Latin word, by repeating it forty times, showed in other instances, that he was by no means deficient in recollective memory. On the contrary, though he read very little, and seldom learned any thing by rote, he applied happily any thing that he read or heard in conversation.
(March 31st, 1796.) His father told him, that he had this morning seen a large horn at a gentleman's in the neighbourhood. It was found thirty spades depth below the surface of the earth, in a bog. With the horn was found a carpet, and wrapped up in the carpet a lump of tallow. "Now," said his father, "how could that lump of tallow come there? Or was it tallow, do you think? Or what could it be?"
H—— (a boy of 14, brother to S——) said, he thought it might have been buried by some robbers, after they had committed some robbery; he thought the lump was tallow.
S—— said, "Perhaps some dead body might have been wrapped up in the carpet and buried; and the dead body might have turned into tallow."[53]
"How came you," said his father, "to think of a dead body's turning into tallow?"