Children, therefore, are to be trained up in the Elementary School, for helping forward the abilities of the mind, in these four things, as recommended to us both by reason and custom: Reading, to enable us to receive what has been bequeathed to us by others, and to store our memories with what is best for us; Writing, to enable us to do for others what was done for us, by handing on the fruits of our own experience, and besides to serve our own purposes; Drawing, to be a guide to the senses, and to afford us pleasure in the objects of sight; and Music, both with the voice and with an instrument, for the reasons above stated.
By reading we receive what antiquity has left us; by writing we hand on what posterity craves of us; by both we get great advantage in all the circumstances of our daily life. By delineating with the pencil, what object is there open to the eye, either brought forth by nature, or set forth by art, the knowledge and use of which we cannot attain to? By the study of music, besides the acquirement of a noble science, so definitely formed by arithmetical precept, so necessary a step to further knowledge, such a glass in which to behold both the beauty of concord and the blots of dissension, even in a body politic, how much help and pleasure our natural weakness receives for consolation, for hope, for courage! I do not touch here on the skilful handling of the untrained voice, nor the fine exercising of the unskilled fingers, though these things are not to be neglected where they can be obtained, and are naturally required when imperfection is to be removed by them. Again, does not all our learning, apprehended by the eye and uttered by the tongue, confess the great benefit it receives by reading? Does not all our expression, brought forth by the mind and set down by the pen, acknowledge obligation to the study of writing? Do not all our descriptions, which picture to the sense what is fashioned in thought, both preach and praise the pencil which makes them visible? Does not all our delight in times of leisure,—and we labour only for the sake of gaining rest and freedom from care,—protest in plain terms that it is wonderfully indebted to the music of both voice and instrument? This is the natural sweetener of our bitter life, in the judgment of every man who is not too much soured. Now, what quality of learning is there, deserving of any praise, that does not fall within this elementary course, or is not furthered by it, whether it be connected with the higher professions, or occupations of lower rank, or the necessary trades of common life?
Study of Languages.
Inasmuch as Grammar is used partly as a help to foreign languages, it furthers us very much in that way, because all our learning being got from foreign countries, as registered in their tongues, if we lack the knowledge of the one, we lack the hope of the other.
When learning and knowledge came first to light, those men who were the authors of them uttered their minds in the same speech that they used when they bred the things. And as they needed no foreign tongue for matter that was bred at home, so they had no use of any Grammar but that by which they endeavoured to refine their natural speech at home. But when their devices, first set out in their own tongues, were afterwards sought for by foreign students to increase their learning and to enrich their country with foreign wares, the foreign students were then driven to seek the assistance of Grammar of the second kind, because they could not understand the things which were written in a foreign tongue, without the knowledge of the tongue itself.
In the primitive Grammar children being trained as I now require, went straightway from the elementary to the substance of learning, and to the mathematical sciences, which are so termed, because indeed the whole scholars’ learning consisted in them, as in the first degree of right study. For whatever goes before them in right order is nothing but mere elementary study, and whatever goes before them in wrong order, as it is distorted in nature, it works no great wonder. But in the second use of Grammar, we are forced of necessity, after the elementary subjects, however hurried and simple they may be, to deal with the tongues ere we pass to the substance of learning; and this help from the tongues, though it is most necessary, as our study is now arranged, yet hinders us in time, which is a thing of great price,—nay, it hinders us in knowledge, a thing of greater price. For in lingering over language we are removed and kept back one degree further from sound knowledge, and this hindrance comes in our best learning time, while we are under masters and readers, of whom we may learn far better than of ourselves, if as much regard be had to their choice, as I have elsewhere recommended.
Follow Nature.
The proof of a good Elementary Course is, that it should follow nature in the multitude of its gifts, and that it should proceed in teaching as she does in developing. For as she is unfriendly wherever she is forced, so she is the best guide that anyone can have, wherever she shows herself favourable. Wherefore, if nature makes a child most fit to excel in many aptitudes, provided these are furthered by early training, is not that education much to be blamed that fails to do its part, allowing the child to be deprived by negligence of the excellence that nature intended for it? Again, seeing that there are no natural gifts that cannot be helped forward by training, is not that manner of study to be most highly approved which takes most pains where nature is most lavish? The hand, the ear, the eye, are the chief means of receiving and handing on our learning. And does not this course of study instruct the hand how to write, to draw, to play; the eye to read by letters, to distinguish form by lines, to judge by means of both; the ear to call for the sound of voice and instrument for its own pleasure and cultivation? And, in general, whatever gift nature has bestowed upon the body, to be brought out or improved by training, for any profitable use in life, does not this elementary course find it out and make the most of it? As for the capacities of the mind, whether they concern virtuous living or skill in learning, whatever be the art, science, or profession to which they belong, do they not all evidently depend upon reading and writing as their natural foundations? The study of language must be the basis of grammar, rhetoric, logic, and their derivatives, among which may be counted all the parts of philosophy, both moral and natural, as well as the three professions of divinity, law, and medicine, using as they do in all their branches the instrument of speech. If mathematics be in question, or any kindred subjects that have a bearing on mechanical science, though their secondary use is to whet the mental powers, yet they must rest on a study of the properties of number, figure, motion, and sound. And as for our pleasure in the beauties of art, that is obtained by the provision of drawing for the eye and music for the ear. So that, in my opinion, the fathers and founders of this elementary course (which I am only attempting to reintroduce, though with as much goodwill as so good a thing deserves) have shown great foresight in laying such sure foundations as to secure that all natural capacities shall not only be carefully fostered at their first sprouting, but brought to the fullest perfection when they are ripe for the harvest. When I use the term nature I mean that power which God has implanted in his creatures, both to preserve the race and to fulfil the end of their being. The continuance of their kind is the proof of their being, but the fulfilment of their end is the fruit of their being. This latter is the point to which education has a special eye (though it does not despise the other), so that the young fry may be brought up to prove good in the end, and serve their country well in whatever position they may be placed. For the performance of this end I take it that this elementary course is most sufficient, being the best means of perfecting all those powers with which nature endows our race, by using those studies which art and reflection appoint, and those methods which nature herself suggests. For the end of education and training is to help nature to her perfection in the complete development of all the various powers.
This is what I mean by following nature, not counterfeiting her in her own proper work by foolish imitation, or perverse attempt to produce her effects, like an Apelles in portraiture or an Archimedes in the laws of motion, but after considering and marking with good judgment what are the natural tendencies and inclinations, to frame a scheme of education in consonance with these, and bring to perfection by art all those powers which nature bestows in frank abundance.
For the physical life of man, in order to maintain and develop both the individual and the species, nature has provided organs that receive, prepare and distribute nourishment for the body, and has, besides, given us for self-preservation the power of perceiving all sensible things by means of feeling, hearing, seeing, smelling, and tasting. These qualities of the outward world, being apprehended by the understanding and examined by the judgment, are handed over to the memory, and afterwards prove our chief—nay, our only—means of obtaining further knowledge. Moreover, we have also a power of movement, either under the influence of emotion or by the enticement of desire, either for the direct purposes of life, as in the action of the pulse and in breathing, or for outward action, such as walking, running, or leaping. To serve the end both of sense-perception and of motion, nature has planted in the body a brain, the prince of all our organs, which by spreading its channels through every part of our frame produces all the effects through which sense passes into motion.