Practical Education, Volume II

by Maria Edgeworth; Richard Lovell Edgeworth

The examination of M. Condillac's Cours d'Etude was meant to illustrate our own sentiments, more than to attack a particular system. Far from intending to depreciate this author, we think most highly of his abilities; but we thought it necessary to point out some practical errours in his mode of instruction. Without examples from real life, we should have wandered, as many others of far superior abilities have already wandered, in the shadowy land of theory.

In our chapters on Grammar, Arithmetic, Mechanics, Chemistry, &c. all that we have attempted has been to recall to preceptors the difficulties which they once experienced, and to trace those early footsteps which time insensibly obliterates. How few possess, like Faruknaz in the Persian tale, the happy art of transfusing their own souls into the bosoms of others!

We shall not pity the reader whom we have dragged through Garretson's Exercises, if we can save one trembling little pilgrim from that "slough of despond." We hope that the patient, quiet mode of teaching classical literature, which we have found to succeed in a few instances, may be found equally successful in others; we are not conscious of having exaggerated, and we sincerely wish that some intelligent, benevolent parents may verify our experiments upon their own children.

The great difficulty which has been found in attempts to instruct children in science, has, we apprehend, arisen from the theoretic manner in which preceptors have proceeded. The knowledge that cannot be immediately applied to use, has no interest for children, has no hold upon their memories; they may learn the principles of mechanics, or geometry, or chemistry; but if they have no means of applying their knowledge, it is quickly forgotten, and nothing but the disgust connected with the recollection of useless labour remains in the pupil's mind. It has been our object, in treating of these subjects, to show how they may be made interesting to young people; and for this purpose we should point out to them, in the daily, active business of life, the practical use of scientific knowledge. Their senses should be exercised in experiments, and these experiments should be simple, distinct, and applicable to some object in which our pupils are immediately interested. We are not solicitous about the quantity of knowledge that is obtained at any given age, but we are extremely anxious that the desire to learn should continually increase, and that whatever is taught should be taught with that perspicuity, which improves the general understanding. If the first principles of science are once clearly understood, there is no danger that the pupil should not, at any subsequent period of his life, improve his practical skill, and increase his knowledge to whatever degree he thinks proper.

We have hitherto proceeded without discussing the comparative advantages of public or private education. Whether children are to be educated at home, or to be sent to public seminaries, the same course of education, during the first years of their lives, should be pursued; and the preparatory care of parents is essential to the success of the public preceptor. We have admitted the necessity of public schools, and, in the present state of society, we acknowledge that many parents have it not in their power properly to superintend the private education of a family. We have earnestly advised parents not to attempt private education without first calculating the difficulties of the undertaking; we have pointed out that, by co-operating with the public instructer, parents may assist in the formation of their children's characters, without undertaking the sole management of their classical instruction. A private education, upon a calm survey of the advantages of both systems, we prefer, because more is in the power of the private than of the public instructer. One uniform course of experience may be preserved, and no examples, but those which we wish to have followed, need be seen by those children who are brought up at home. When we give our opinion in favour of private education, we hope that all we have said on servants and on acquaintance will be full in the reader's recollection. No private education, we repeat it, can succeed without perfect unanimity, consistency, and steadiness, amongst all the individuals in the family.

We have recommended to parents the highest liberality as the highest prudence, in rewarding the care of enlightened preceptors. Ye great and opulent parents, condescend to make your children happy: provide for yourselves the cordial of domestic affection against "that sickness of long life—old age."

In what we have said of governesses, masters, and the value of female accomplishments, we have considered not only what is the fashion of to-day, but rather what is likely to be the fashion of ten or twenty years hence. Mothers will look back, and observe how much the system of female education has altered within their own memory; and they will see, with "the prophetic eye of taste," what may probably be the fashion of another spring—another race.[112] We have endeavoured to substitute the words domestic happiness instead of the present terms, "success in the world—fortunate establishments," &c. This will lead, perhaps, at first, to some confusion in the minds of those who have been long used to the old terms: but the new vocabulary has its advantages; the young and unprejudiced will, perhaps, perceive them, and maternal tenderness will calculate with more precision, but not with less eagerness, the chances of happiness according to the new and old tables of interest.

Sectary-metaphysicians, if any of this description should ever deign to open a book that has a practical title, will, we fear, be disappointed in our chapters on Memory—Imagination and Judgment. They will not find us the partisans of any system, and they will probably close the volume with supercilious contempt. We endeavour to console ourselves by the hope, that men of sense and candour will be more indulgent, and will view with more complacency an attempt to collect from all metaphysical writers, those observations, which can be immediately of practical use in education. Without any pompous pretensions, we have given a sketch of what we have been able to understand and ascertain of the history of the mind. On some subjects, the wisest of our readers will at least give us credit for knowing that we are ignorant.

We do not set that high value upon Memory, which some preceptors are inclined to do. From all that we have observed, we believe that few people are naturally deficient in this faculty; though in many it may have been so injudiciously cultivated as to induce the spectators to conclude, that there was some original defect in the retentive power. The recollective power is less cultivated than it ought to be, by the usual modes of education: and this is one reason why so few pupils rise above mediocrity. They lay up treasures for moths to corrupt; they acquire a quantity of knowledge, they learn a multitude of words by rote, and they cannot produce a single fact, or a single idea, in the moment when it is wanted: they collect, but they cannot combine. We have suggested the means of cultivating the inventive faculty at the same time that we store the memory; we have shown, that on the order in which ideas are presented to the mind, depends the order in which they will recur to the memory; and we have given examples from the histories of great men and little children, of the reciprocal assistance which the memory and the inventive powers afford each other.