The following anecdote illustrates the subject still further:—
"One day, when the children were in the play-ground, four boys occupied the boys' circular swing, while a stranger gentleman was looking on with the teacher. Conscious of being looked at, the little fellows were wheeling round with more than usual swiftness and dexterity, when a little creature of two or three years made a sudden dart forward into their very orbit, and in an instant must have been knocked down with great force. With a presence of mind and consideration, and with a mechanical skill,—which to admire most we knew not, one of the boys, about five years old, used the instant of time in which the singular movement was practicable, threw his whole body into a horizontal position, and went clear over the infant's head. But this was not all; in the same well employed instant it occurred to him that that movement was not enough to save the little intruder, as he himself was to be followed as quick as thought by the next swinger; for this he provided, by dropping his own feet to the ground, and stopping the whole machine the instant he had cleared the child's head. The spectator of this admirable specimen of intellect and good feeling, which was all necessarily the thought and act of a moment, had his hand instinctively in his pocket for a shilling, but was stopped by the teacher, who disowns all inferior motives for acts of kindness and justice. The little hero, however, had his reward, for the incident was related by the teacher in a full school, in the presence of the strangers, and was received with several rounds of hearty applause."
We will quote another anecdote illustrative of the good effects of exercising the kindly feelings.
J.J. accused H.S. of having eaten up J.J.'s dinner. It was proved by several witnesses that H.S. not only appropriated the dinner, but used force: the charge being proved to the satisfaction of the jury (the whole school), the same tribunal were requested by the teacher to decide what should be the consequence to the convict. One orator rose, and suggested that as H.S. had not yet eat his own dinner, he ought to give it to J.J. This motion, for the children always welcome any reasonable substitute for corporal punishment, was carried by acclamation. When one o'clock came, and the dinner was handed over, "coram publico," to J.J., H.S. was observed by him to be in tears, and lingering near his own dinner. They were by this time nearly done, but the teacher was watching the result. The tears were too much for J.J., who went to H.S., threw his arms round his neck, told him not to cry, but to sit down and take half. This invitation was of course accepted by H.S., who manifested a great inferiority of character to the other, and furnished an example of the blindness of the unjust to the justice of retribution, which they always feel to mere revenge and cruelty. He could not bear to see J.J. even sharing his dinner, and told him with bitterness that he would tell his mother. "Weel, weel!" said the generous child, "I'll gin y'd a' back again." Of course the teacher interfered to prevent this gross injustice, and in the afternoon made their school-fellows perfectly aware of the part each had acted. It is not easy to render a character like H.S. liberal, but a long course of such practice, for precept is impotent in such cases, might modify what in after life would have turned out a selfish, unjust, and unsocial character.
This selfish principle it is the great object of moral training to combat against. We may trace almost all the misery in the world to it; and until it ceases to exist to the extent which it now does, little can be done to accomplish any good or great purpose. But lessons like the above, and received into the infant mind when in a receptive state, will, if proper advantage be taken of their occurrence, prove in the hands of the Almighty a powerful engine for the removal of selfishness; and we know of no method so effectual to accomplish this object as the drawing infants into societies, which is done only in infant schools.
The following anecdote, bearing on the same subject, came under the observation of the author of this work, very early in his labour for the extension of his system. He gives it here in the same words as he communicated it to a friend at the time of its occurrence.
A few days since I went to the Boston Street school; the children were in the gallery, and the moment I entered, they rose to receive me. When the school was over, the children came around me, as they usually do, saying, When will you come again? and so on. I told them I could not tell, but that I would come as soon as I could. This answer would not satisfy them, and I talked to them until near six o'clock in the evening. One little girl, about four years old, kept looking stedfastly at me the whole time, not letting a single word or gesture escape her notice. At last I finished my observations, and desired the children to go. The infant in question immediately took hold of my hand, and said, "We shall never see you any more, you must come home with me." I replied, "What do you want me to go home for?" The child answered, "I have nothing to give you, but if you will come home mother will give you some tea." I patted the child on the head, telling it I could not go. The child went home, as I thought, and I remained some time talking to one of the ladies of the committee. On walking down the street I saw the same child crying bitterly, and surrounded by many other children. On inquiring the cause, I received for answer, "You would not come home to tea." If only one half the invitations that are given amongst men were given with as much sincerity and disinterestedness as was manifested by this infant, I am much mistaken if we should not see a very different state of society.
"Moral education," writes Mr. Simpson in his "Philosophy of Education," "embraces both the animal and moral impulses. It regulates the former, and strengthens the latter, whenever gluttony, indelicacy, violence, cruelty, greediness, cowardice, pride, insolence, vanity, or any mode of selfishness shew themselves in the individual under training, one and all must be repressed with the most watchful solicitude, and the most skilful treatment. Repression may at first fail to be accomplished, unless by severity; but the instructor sufficiently enlightened in the faculties, will, in the first practicable moment, drop the coercive system, and awaken and appeal powerfully to the higher faculties of conscience and benevolence, and to the powers of reflection: this, done with kindness, in other words, with a marked manifestation of benevolence itself, will operate with a power, the extent of which in education is yet, to a very limited extent, estimated. In the very exercise of the superior faculties the inferior are indirectly acquiring a habit of restraint and regulation; for it is morally impossible to cultivate the superior faculties without a simultaneous though indirect regulation of the inferior."
It is indeed a melancholy truth, that moral training is yet, to a very limited extent, estimated, and this is mainly owing to its not being understood by the generality of those selected for the office of teachers of infants, nor can it be expected that persons of sufficient intellect and talent to comprehend and carry out this great object, can be procured, until a sufficient remuneration is held out to them, to make it worth their while to devote their whole energies to the subject. It is a fatal error to suppose that mere girls, taken perhaps from some laborious occupation, and whose sum total of education consists of reading and writing, can carry out views which it requires a philosophical mind, well stored with liberal ideas and general knowledge, to effect. They may be able to instruct the children in the mere mechanical part of the system; and as long as they confine themselves to this, they will go on capitally, but no further than this can they go; and though the children may appear to a casual visitor, to be very nicely instructed, and very wonderful little creatures, on a closer examination they will be found mere automatons; and then, without a thought on the subject, the system will be blamed, without once considering that the most perfect figure of mechanism will not work properly in any hands, except those that thoroughly understand it.
Enough may have now been said on this subject, and my earnest prayer is, that by God's help, these remarks may produce beneficial results; and if my endeavours to make the subject of moral instruction more easily understood, and to demonstrate its importance as clearly as possible are successful, the results will soon shew me that the hard labour of three-and-thirty years has not been entirely in vain, and this will be to me a greater reward than all the praise, distinction, and honour that it is in man's power to confer.