Guide to the Kindergarten and Intermediate Class; and Moral Culture of Infancy.

by Mary Tyler Peabody Mann; Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

At last the reaction began to take place. He became interested in Latin fables and natural history, and when I began to administer less interesting things in small doses, he would bring his book to me saying, "I can't tell how to get this lesson," instead of "I shall never get this, and I am not going to try." When I found he could adopt a suggestion from me as to the best way to conquer a difficulty, I could send him into another room to pronounce French phrases aloud, without the interruption of other recitations. I had no possible penalties for the recurrence of fits of idleness, and when he interrupted others, I only expressed my surprise and regret that he should be so childish and selfish, and occasionally sent him home because he was utterly disagreeable. These faults seemed to be the result of a morbid activity where healthful manifestations had been arbitrarily checked, and not an evil disposition; for he really loved little children, and was communicating and confiding to me before and after school, quite courteous and polite to me as Miss P——, but wholly in opposition to the school-dame. I always took pains to appeal to him for his traveller's stories when they came in appropriately to the geography lesson, or could illustrate in any way what was read. School began gradually to afford him the same sort of pleasure he received from reading with his mother, which was always agreeable, and had stored his mind with pleasant knowledge. In morals as well as in lessons I did the same thing. I called upon him to help me take care of the little children when we walked, because I saw he could do this with ease and pleasure. As soon as any other relation took the place of the school relation, all things went on agreeably. He knew that I respected his word, and that his story had due weight in the scale when I asked for various testimony in regard to any subject of difference.

My object was, as you will perceive, to leave him to feel the natural consequences of doing wrong, instead of fearing any arbitrary punishment; being confident that the natural sequence of things (that is, God's arrangements) would enlighten the mind as no mere penalty or mere precept could do. I often feel that I can see the prominent points in a case like this, where a mother may not, owing to her position. Neither do mothers know the faults of the school-room. I give information of these, as they tell me the faults of the nursery. Children that cry much in nurseries, seldom cry at all in a school-room, where a pleasing variety occupies the time, and a seed-grain of self-control is planted; and temptations arise in the school-room, where peculiar efforts and sacrifices are called for, that do not assail the child at home. The mother of this boy could hardly be made to believe that in school-hours neither his intellect nor his conscience acted, because she knew they did at other times. It was as if a spell bound him there. In his previous school-life there had been little but spelling-lessons, and what is called discipline, which consists, as far as I can understand, (and I have inquired very particularly of those who advocate the system,) of teaching as many uninteresting words as can be crowded into the memory, especial care being taken to keep out of the way all ideas. It was in such a conversation that the view was advanced to which I have before alluded, that the less interest, the more discipline of study. The advocate of such a plan thought everything that was studied in youth was forgotten, be it what it might, therefore training (alias misery and waste of time) was alone useful or desirable. He instanced his own experience as a proof of this, and where it was gently insinuated that perhaps if those forgotten geography lessons, Latin lessons, etc., had had any interest of their own, such as associations with interesting people, or the amusement of a story, they might have kept their place in his mind, he rejected the idea entirely, showing, as the Puritans did when they persecuted the Quakers for doing the very thing they had done, the evils of a bad education. I even ventured a little story, (that being a lively kind of argument I like to use,) of a little girl in my school, who, when I was endeavoring to make her hear the thunder-music and see the rainbow-tinted spray of Niagara Falls, exclaimed, "Why, I never knew before that Niagara Falls was made of water!"—but I found he could not be taught "out of the mouth of babes and sucklings."

I could have told him, if I had not been discouraged, of a dear little boy of my acquaintance, seven years old, whom his mother wished to send to my school, but his more ambitious father chose to put him into the Latin Grammar-School, (the very one of which this gentleman was usher when I talked with him.) His mother begged me to let him come to me privately to learn with me the terrible Latin Grammar-lesson of three pages, which was to be his first lesson in the school, and the language. So little Georgie and I had a secret session every day for a long time, in which we got the lesson together—I would hear him say it, and he would hear me, and I endeavored to extract some hidden meaning from it for him, but although I saved him from many a feruling, his hatred of school became so intense, from the impossibility he found of ever succeeding without penalty and suffering, that he actually broke down in spirits and health, and was at last taken away and sent to a military school to save his life. His mother and I knew why he failed, for he was of delicate organization, easily frightened, and his sensibility, which was keen and might have opened to him the beauties of the universe, was poisoned and embittered by unjust severity and the fearful drill of that model school. Some of my boys who have gone there after having learned to use their faculties, have succeeded well, and found no difficulties; but poor little George was taken from what I call a spelling-school, and put into that tread-mill, as it proved to him. I attribute a subsequent unhappy career to this mistake in his education, but I hope something will yet evoke his originally lovely nature.[K]

When one hears such views as these, and many others of similar import that I could recount, one almost despairs of ever seeing a whole man. The fact that there is a grain of truth in such heaps of falsehood, only increases the difficulty, because that grain of truth prevents the recognition of that mass of error. My observation and experience are that, not till things are intelligently learned do they begin to fertilize the mind, or are they even sure to stay in it, and scarcely a fine intellect will give you any other record of itself than that the date of its improvement began at that era when either self-education or the wise teacher showed it the thread of relation that runs through all things. Not till at least one human fact has exemplified some spiritual law, does the intellect work intelligently, or begin to arrange its stores. Do we not know some minds that are mere encyclopedias, which imagination has never penetrated with its Ithuriel spear? If such have moral sense in any fair proportion, they are liable to become hopelessly miserable in this world of shadows because they can see nothing but the shadows.

I once knew a mother who was a beautiful type to me of the spirit that should actuate the guardians of the young. She looked upon a soul with such awe that it was not easy for her to impose her authority upon her children, for might there not be something in their natures superior to her own? The possibility of this made her cautious in her requisitions, lest she should nip some beautiful bud of promise in them. I knew her when they were all young, and I saw that it was not want of decision, but the fear of doing harm that often arrested her action. The children were not always serene and happy, and sometimes not obedient, for they had strong wills, and what is called a great deal of character. How could there but be strong individuality in such a family? There was no fixed pattern by which they were all to be measured. But they reverenced her as she did them, for she lived and acted simply and genuinely, and encompassed them round about with her tenderness, practising daily those virtues of devotion and self-denial which are demanded of the mother of a large family, and never turning a deaf ear to the wants of those less favored with earthly happiness than herself. She treated her children with the respect one human being owes to another, irrespective of age. Yet she did not commit the error we sometimes see of reasoning out every point of duty with children, thus teaching them to quibble and catch at words. She could check that while she showed respect for their reasons. She had that true humility which makes its possessors question every step of the way in the path of duty, while they have a trusting faith that there is something within them to answer to its calls.

She died suddenly, and then her influence, which many might have doubted, appeared in a wonderful and beautiful manner. Circumstances were such that no one was able to take the proper care of the family for a month or two in the absence of the father. The eldest children, two boys, one fourteen, the other eleven, immediately took the place of their mother as a matter of course, assumed the personal care which they had seen their mother take every day, of six little brothers and sisters, arranging everything as their mother had done, even in such minutiæ as placing the clothes in the proper drawers, and washing and dressing the younger children, which the mother had never left to servants, although the home was well supplied with them. In a quiet and unostentatious manner a large establishment had been managed by a superior mind so skilfully, that these boys found no difficulty in keeping everything in train till their father's return. They had been inspired by their mother with a sense of order, propriety, and responsibility, for it was a peculiarity in her that she rather acted than inculcated principles, and through their great and tender affection, which had been her happiness in life, her characteristics flowed naturally and without a break into their lives. Such a mother should every teacher be, especially of young children.

You need not tell me that mothers and teachers must be wise as well as tender, courageous as well as reverential. I know it well. I can tell you of a young mother who risked an essential injury to her child (humanly speaking, for we cannot injure the essence of another) by allowing him to quibble upon subjects of right and wrong, and accepting his excuses when he could found them upon any inadvertence of hers. His mental motions were more rapid than hers, and a morbid tenderness of conscience made her hesitate to lay injunctions upon him, lest she might err in judgment. A natural tendency to subtlety and stratagem was thus fostered in him, and as he had not much imagination, there was danger that he would become actually deceitful. He led an innocent life compared with many boys of his age, for he was kept very much out of harm's way, but I soon perceived the pleasure he experienced from a successful trick of fun, and that his great command over his nerves tempted him to play many such, which he could do with a grave face. I never saw one that was not in itself innocent fun, and if they had been practised as some children practise them, who will betray their agency the next moment from mere artlessness, I should only have battled the point with him as I do with others who play in school in study hours, (or rather half hours.) But I saw that this was likely to become a deeper evil, connected as it was with his habit of excusing himself, finding flaws in my directions, and quibbling upon words. It was too serious a matter for penalties of my device, designed as reminders, nor was I willing to enter the lists with him and vanquish him by my superior sagacity, for this would be only sharpening his tools.

I took a good opportunity one day to call what he did mean, and to tell him that I thought he was growing cunning, which I was very sorry for, as that led to deception of all sorts. It was very funny to pull another boy's hair, and then look grave as if he knew nothing about it, which I had often seen him do, but I could not laugh at fun, when it was at the expense of truthfulness, though I enjoyed a good joke as well as any one. It was wrong, too, for him to play when I was looking the other way, because it was cheating me and setting a bad example to the other scholars. I liked to be able to trust people's honor, and when I gave a direction, and then went to the other side of the room to attend to others, in the confidence that my wishes would be conscientiously regarded, I was disappointed and grieved to find that I was cheated. I did not like to be obliged to watch people. I could not respect any one I must watch, and I would not watch him. If he would do wrong and teach others to do so, he must sit entirely by himself. As to himself, no one else could cure him of his faults. If he was willing to grow deceitful, no one could help it; but if he had no honor, every one must defend himself against him, and he could command no respect from any one, nor have any of his own, which I thought more precious than that of others. What was a person good for who could not have self-respect? It was a pleasant thing to make other people laugh, but if he could allow another to bear the blame of it, and not speak up to say he was the offender, I could not trust him even when he did speak. I added, that I had long observed these tricks of his, and had been sure they would at last lead to meanness, and here was an instance of it just as I had expected. I also reminded him of an occasion when I saw him take an unfair advantage in play for the mere pleasure of winning a little game, thus giving up his honor for the enjoyment of a moment. I hoped he would remember these instances and the danger to which he was exposing himself. I would not dare to punish such faults, for I might be suspicious of him when he did not deserve it, as I could not always read his mind or be sure of his sincerity. The punishment must be the one God had appointed for such faults—and that was, a loss of integrity itself, the most dreadful of all punishments.

The child loved me and thought a great deal of my opinion. He did not wish the tears in his eyes to fall, and he swallowed them till his face flushed. I had spoken before all the school, as it was a public offence not to be passed over; for nothing is more attractive to children than the wittiness of practical jokes, as I knew one child to confess when asked which boys he liked best in a certain story, "Oh the bad boys," said he, "I like the wittiness of them."

I afterwards took every opportunity to put this little fellow upon his honor, and often said, so that he might hear it, that if any one wished to be fair and honorable, they had better not indulge in what seemed very innocent fun when concealment was necessary, for fear of learning to deceive. I often appealed to him for testimony, because I knew he had accuracy of observation, and dwelt particularly on such occasions upon my wish that he should tell me all his own part in a transaction, very carefully, both good and bad, for the sake of helping me to do justice, and urged him not to be cowardly, or keep back anything for fear of being blamed. Blame, I once told him, was one of our best friends. The fear of it sometimes kept us from doing wrong even when we had no better reason, and when we had done wrong, it showed us to ourselves, just as we were, and waked conscience up to its duty. Only cowards were afraid to tell the truth against themselves. Yet I checked him whenever he told tales of others; which is a thing I always carefully discriminate from telling the truth when asked. I checked him also because one of his bad habits was to excuse himself, and the temptation that assailed him was to throw the blame on others.