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

by Mary Tyler Peabody Mann; Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

I believe I enjoy the youngest of my tribe most, before they know evil or are accustomed to hear of it with composure; when the wanton killing of a bird, or even of a spider, excites their weeping indignation; when the creations of their own fancies are as real to them as the things before their bodily eyes; and they do not question if the bird in the story speaks, or the stars sing. One may then imagine that they may be among the few who love to the end with unbroken faith, who never lose their primitive innocence, but grow as the tree grows, whose leaves, when the early frost nips them, turn to scales to protect their sister growths, adding to the final perfection of the whole, not arresting its beautiful and symmetrical progress, neither withering in the bud, nor throwing out gnarled branches to the light and heat that would fain warm and smile upon them. I would not pin these little inheritors of the earth to one seat, or always check the wild burst of delight, or the ringing laugh. I even like to have the older children hear it occasionally, and recognize it with a smile as I do, for they have already begun to remember happiness, alas! as if it had already begun its flight. They have laughed when it was not sympathized with, been reproved for loving fun, and deprived of innocent sports because they were not convenient to others. I like to keep up their sympathies with the spontaneous activity and pure imaginations of these babes. It is out of order for a little child that catches my eye to run across the room to say, "Oh, may I come and see 'oo 'ittle while?" but I cannot but nod assent, and he will come and scramble into my lap, where he is no sooner fairly settled and hugged than he will scramble down again and go back to his slate or his window. If he nestles up into his sister's chair, while she is studying, I put my finger on my lips, but let her put her arm round him and keep him till he is tired. This little sunbeam begins to wish to draw on the slate, and the little sister of seven years takes the greatest interest in what he does, as if expecting some angelic exploit of the pencil.

But though I wish to have self-government in my scholars instead of my own, dear Anna, do not for a moment mistake me. I consider obedience an essential ingredient of order, and order I regard as "heaven's first law." Indeed I have sent away one scholar of whom I have spoken a little way back, because I could not command his obedience; and my authority must not be questioned, although I do not obtrude it. No human being can be good or happy who cannot obey; and those parents do the best thing for their children, who successfully cultivate the sentiment. For, if it is the sentiment, it will acknowledge all lawful authority. When it is merely a practice gained through fear, there is generally no sentiment in it. The child who will not eat the bit of cake offered in its mother's absence, because she has refused to let him have it before,—and I have known many such,—is truly the obedient child. Children not only respect most but love best those whom they cheerfully obey. A child that obeys a judicious and affectionate mother, or teacher, will often, in the midst of its opposition and wilfulness, acknowledge that the power which rules him is a beneficent power. If I did not think that a pretty good child would feel that I was in the right very soon after a conflict of wills, I should suspect myself of having given some evidence of love of power or want of good temper. I would not restrain an expression of honest indignation, or strong disapprobation, if the offence deserved it; but any impatience of temper, or any personal feeling, except that of sorrow, is a crime in this relation. It may not be in a mother's or teacher's power to be always wise, judicious, or intellectually ready for an occasion; but the virtue of patience is lawfully demanded of them at the tribunal of conscience always. Corporal punishment I have nothing to do with, for though I know it is necessary in some extreme cases, I prefer that parents should exercise that function. No person that has a less vital interest in a child than a parent, should inflict it; and though as a principle of government I consider it brutalizing, there are instances in which I have felt it to be a holy act, and in which I have known the child to respect it, and to feel hurt for its parent rather than for itself. But my own influence, to be secure and useful, must be wholly moral and intellectual. I often tell children that I must inform their parents when I find them impervious to any influence of mine; and when, as has sometimes been the case, they have begged me not to do it, because they should be whipped, I have said that "perhaps that was the very best possible thing that could be done, and if a parent thought it necessary to whip his child, it must be because he truly loved him, and thought it right to do what must be to himself a painful thing: such a reason must not deter me from doing my duty. I should not act according to my conscience if I concealed anything from parents, for they are the guardians God has appointed over children, and I should do wrong to prevent them from knowing everything that I knew, that would help them make their children good."

I cannot provide for those exceptional cases illustrated to me by a little new scholar I once had, who was very refractory. I said to him, "don't you wish to be good, Lewis?" "No," he cried out in a distressed voice. He was only six years old, but this seemed to be a new case, so I put my arm affectionately round him and said, "What does it mean to be good, Lewis?" He raised his tearful eyes to me and gasped out "ter be whipped!" I never saw a look of greater infantile woe; but I soon taught him that that was not what I meant by "being good."

I know one mother who has a family of excitable children, which she treats wholly on hygienic principles. If they are out of temper, she administers nauseous doses of medicine, and such has been her power over their consciences that she can make them grateful to God for such blessings as ipecacuanha and epsom salts, even when she is holding the spoon to their mouths. This is a fact within my knowledge; and it was the first thing I knew that set my thoughts upon the track, which has led me to a firm conviction that half the ills of temper and perversity may be traced to physical causes; for her instinct proved to be a correct one. Her children were honorable and affectionate, but irritable, and this was owing to an unhappy inheritance of physical structure, incompatible with serenity till counteracted by judicious treatment. One of those wise physicians, who sometimes adorn the profession, was her aid and counsellor. "Her children rise up and call her blessed," and bless her too.

LETTER VI.

Dear Anna,—I have just heard that you think of changing your original plan, and becoming a governess. At the risk of being impertinent, I must give you the warning of experience against this course. I know the voice of experience is not an unerring one, because circumstances differ almost infinitely, but I think the relation of governess an unnatural one, and also that the disadvantages of home education, given exclusively, far overbalance its advantages. Mark me, I say given exclusively, for I think the early education should always be domestic. I would have every mother set apart from all the other duties of life to attend to her children, and be qualified to give them the rudiments of not only moral but intellectual training. I know only one mother who has done this absolutely and with all the requisite surroundings, though I know many who would be glad to do it. Perhaps I should say I know only one father who has made it possible. Doubtless there are some fathers who would be glad to have it done, with whom the mothers are not ready to coöperate. I could branch off here, and tell all I think about parents not having the right views of their parental duties, but that would take me still farther back, to the subject of being married on the right principles, which I have been led to reflect much upon, as I have circulated through the families of my friends, particularly of those who have from time to time put their children into my charge. I speak it with diffidence, but I see many families in which the children are regarded in the light of annoyances rather than of blessings; consequently they are penned up in nurseries, put to bed by servants, fed by them, washed and dressed by them, excused by them, falsely entertained by them, in fact educated by them, until they are old enough to be quiet inmates of the parlor, when they are allowed to be present to listen to conversations about the last new fashion, or comments upon the party of last night and that of the night to come. I have known the mothers of children under my care, to promise a sick child she would not go out in the evening, in order to quiet her querulous complaints of her nurse or attendant, and then to break the promise as soon as the child fell asleep, confiding in its mother's sincerity. This is an extreme case, but it is not so rare for mothers to send their children to bed under the care of servants, instead of leaving the pleasant fireside to make the most of that gracious hour when the heart of the child is most likely to unfold to the tender parent, and to utter its repentant confession or fervent little prayer.

But this is wandering a little from the point. I begin to think I indulge in too many digressions; but my vocation leads me into such observations and reflections.

I know there is much to be said on both sides of this question. I should give you the sum of my opinion, if I should say that after the age has arrived at which children are ordinarily sent to school, an alternation of the home and the school education is the best mode. Here experience raises her voice again; for the best educations I have known, all other things being equal, have been in two families where this has been done. In one of these, the watchful eye of the mother saw the very moment in which the home influence was becoming too exclusive and oppressive, and also when the school influence became scattering to the mind from too much companionship, or when ambition took the place of love of knowledge and excellence. The school intercourse was occasionally broken in upon by months of home life, when the mother devoted herself as companion in study and recreation, and kept alive her daughters' sympathy with her in her domestic duties. I have often seen the mere school-life kill out this sympathy with mothers and younger members of the family, and foreign influences quite counteract the parental ones.

My own favorite mode of education would be to send children to school after they have been well trained in imagination and self control at home, at the age when the social feeling seeks variety, and can receive least injury from indiscriminate contact; and when arrived at the age when too much companionship becomes dangerous, to call the girls back to the home influences, and let them there pursue, with judicious assistance, or even a chosen companion, the studies best adapted to the peculiarities of character, the mother ever keeping herself the chosen confidant, and making herself a willing sacrifice, instead of allowing the social tendencies of her daughters to expend themselves on frivolous or unworthy companions. Mothers are too apt to indulge their own ease, and allow their children to frequent, alone, scenes of amusement over which parents should always preside. I have known marriage relations to be formed and cemented by daughters so neglected, before parents knew even the fact of acquaintanceship.

I know how difficult is such practice as I would recommend, in our present state of society; but one can hardly help following out one's imaginings of perfect circumstances, and fancying all the good that might accrue in such millenniums. It was very sensibly remarked to me a little while since, by one to whom I was speaking of my ideal of education for girls, that we can rarely begin and go on with them according to any one system; for they are brought to us in all stages of development, most frequently, alas, without any. You will please always to understand me as if everything went on right from the beginning.