The Infant System / For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, from One to Seven years of Age

by Samuel Wilderspin

This we do in the first instance, because it is calculated to please the infants, and is one grand step towards order. After the first day or two, the children will begin to act together, and to know each other; but until this is the case, they will be frequently peevish, and want to go home; any method, therefore, that can be taken at first to gratify them, should be adopted; for unless this can be done, you may be sure they will cry. Having proceeded thus far, we have then to class them according to their capacity and age, and according as they shew an aptitude in obeying your several commands. Those who obey them with the greatest readiness may be classed together.

I have found it difficult, at all times, to keep up the attention of infants, without giving them something to do; so that when they are saying the tables in arithmetic, we always cause them to move either their hands or feet, and sometimes to march round the school. The best way we have yet discovered is the putting their hands one on the other every time they speak a sentence. If they are marching they may count one, two, three, four, five, six, &c.

Having classed them, and found that each child knows its own place in the school, you may select one of the cleverest of each class for a monitor. Some of the children will learn many of the tables sooner than the others; in this case, the teacher may avail himself of their assistance, by causing each child to repeat what he knows in an audible manner, the other children repeating after him, and performing the same evolutions that he does; and by this means the rest will soon learn. Then the master may go on with something else, taking care to obtain as much assistance from the children as he can, for he will find that unless he does so, he will injure his lungs, and render himself unfit to keep up their attention, and to carry on the business of the school.

When the children have learned to repeat several of the tables, and the monitors to excite their several classes, and keep them in tolerable order, they may go on with the other parts of the plan, such as the spelling and reading, picture lessons, &c., which will presently be described. But care must be taken that in the beginning too much be not attempted. The first week may be spent in getting them in order, without thinking of anything else; and I should advise that not more than sixty children be then admitted, that they may be reduced to order, in some measure, before any more are received, as all that come after will quickly imitate them. I should, moreover, advise visitors not to come for some time after a school is opened, for several reasons; first, because the children must be allowed time to learn, and there will be nothing worth seeing; secondly, they take off the children's attention, and interfere with the master: and, lastly, they may go away dissatisfied, and thereby injure the cause which they intend to promote.

In teaching infants to sing, I have found it the best way to sing the psalm or hymn several times in the hearing of the children, without their attempting to do so until they have some idea of the tune; because, if all the children are allowed to attempt, and none of them know it, it prevents those who really wish to learn from catching the sounds. Nothing, however, can be more ridiculous or absurd than the attempts at singing I have heard in some schools. And here, I would caution teachers against too much singing; and also against introducing it at improper times. Singing takes much out of the teacher, which will soon be felt in the chest, and cause pain and weakness there; and, if persevered in, premature death; and with women much sooner than men. This is another reason why one of each sex should be employed in the work. Singing is an exhilarating and exciting lesson; the children always like it: but even they are injured by the injudicious management of it, and by having too much of it each day; or the having two or even three exciting lessons at the same time. For example: I have seen children singing, marching, and clapping hands at the same time; and they are prompted and led by the teachers to do so. Here are three exciting lessons together, which ought to be separate: the result is, a waste of energy and strength, on the part of teacher and children, which is sometimes fatal to both. The exciting lessons were intended to be judiciously blended with the drier, yet necessary, studies. If the latter are neglected, and the former only retained, no greater perversion of the plans could occur, and a more fatal error could not be committed.

You must not expect order until your little officers are well drilled, which may be done by collecting them together after the other children are gone, and instructing them in what they are to do. Every monitor should know his work, and when you have taught him this, you must require it to be done. To get good order, you must make every monitor answerable for the conduct of his class. It is astonishing how some of the little fellows will strut about, big with the importance of office. And here I must remark, it will require some caution to prevent them from taking too much upon themselves; so prone are we, even in our earliest years, to abuse the possession of power.

The way by which we teach the children hymns, is to let one child stand in a place where he may be seen by the rest, with the book in his hand; he then reads one line, and stops until all the children in the school have repeated it, which they do simultaneously; he then repeats another, and so on, successively, until the hymn is finished. This method is adopted with every thing that is to be committed to memory, so that every child in the school has an equal chance of learning.

I have mentioned that the children should be classed: in order to facilitate this, there should be a board fastened to the wall perpendicularly, the same width as the seats, every fifteen feet, all round the school; this will separate one class from another, and be the cause of the children knowing their class the sooner. Make every child hang his hat over where he sits, in his own class, as this will save much trouble. "Have a place for every thing, and every thing in its place." This will bring the children into habits of order. Never do any thing for a child that he is able to do for himself; but teach him to put his own hat and coat on, and hang them up again when he comes to school. Teach every child to help himself as soon as possible. If one falls down, and you know that he is able to get up himself, never lift him up; if you do, he will always lie till you can give him your aid. Have a slate, or a piece of paper, properly ruled, hanging over every class; let every child's name that is in the class be written on it, with the name of the monitor; teach the monitor the names as soon as you can, and then he will tell you who is absent. Have a semicircle before every lesson, and make the children keep their toes to the mark; brass nails driven in the floor are the best, or flat brass or iron let into the floor. When a monitor is asking the children questions, let him place his stool in the centre of the semicircle, and the children stand around him. Let the monitors ask what questions they please, they will soon get fond of the process, and their pupils will soon be equally fond of answering them. Suppose the monitor ask. What do I sit on? Where are your toes? What do you stand on? What is before you? What behind you? Let the monitors be instructed in giving simple object lessons on any familiar substance, such as a piece of wood, of stone, of iron, of paper, of bone, of linen, &c. Let them question their class as to the qualities first, and then the various uses to which the object is applied. These lessons will be of incalculable benefit to the children, and give them an early desire to inquire into the nature, qualities, and uses of every natural object they come into contact with. We will suppose the monitor holds in his hand a piece of leather; he first asks, "What is this?" The children will simultaneously exclaim, "A piece of leather." This being answered, he will proceed to the qualities, and will have either from his class, or by his own help, the following answers: "It is dry, it is smooth, it is hard, it is tough, it is pliable, it is opaque," &c. He will then question them as to its uses, and will ask, "What is made from leather?" A. Boots and shoes. Q. What use is it of else? A. Books are bound with it; and so on through all its uses. He will then ask them how leather is made, and give them information which he has himself previously received from the teacher as to the mode of tanning leather, and the various processes which it goes through. Indeed, there is no end to the varied information which children may thus receive from simple natural objects. At first they will have no idea of this mode of exercising the thinking powers. But the teacher must encourage them in it, and they will very speedily get fond of it, and be able to give an answer immediately. It is very pleasing to witness this. I have been much delighted at the questions put, and still more so at the answers given. Assemble all the very small children together as soon as you can: the first day or two they will want to sit with their brothers or sisters, who are a little older than themselves. But the sooner you can separate them the better, as the elder children frequently plague the younger ones; and I have always found that the youngest ones are the happiest by themselves.

In all cases let teachers be careful to avoid the "parrot system," and to remember that while it is necessary to infuse a certain amount of information into the child's mind, it can only be made its own by drawing it back again and getting its own ideas upon it—this is called development, which is a thing universally disregarded in almost every school I have seen; and it is a general complaint made by almost every modern writer on education; and many have objected to the infant system on this account, because the teachers of it were not acquainted with its end and essence. The true infant system is a system of development; no other system can be of lasting benefit to the country in general, nor to the pupils in particular; the genuine infant system is not subject to the fundamental errors so much complained of; it has been invented for the purpose of operating upon all the faculties, and the machine must not be condemned merely because the teachers do not know how to work it; but every committee, and each individual in a committee, appear to lose sight of these principles, in order to try how much originality may be displayed, and thus utility is sacrificed to novelty; thus we may find as many infant systems as there are days in the year; and I have been made chargeable by certain writers for the errors of others; but these writers have not condescended to examine into the merits of the system for which I have been so many years an advocate.

But enough of this: we will now suppose that the little flock are brought by thus time into something like order; we are next to consider the means of securing other objects. Although the following rules for this purpose are given, it must not be supposed, that they are presented as a model not to be departed from. If they can be improved so much the better, but some such will be found indispensable.