other object. For a child, under such dominion, there is but one alternative: either its mind must be continually wounded by the treatment it receives, or it must turn an invulnerable front to the attack. None would prefer the former were the choice his own, but the selection is generally quite involuntary. The tone and manner which are habitually used, however dreaded at first, are soon disregarded. The mental pain they occasion subsides, and at last departs, and with it all that delicacy of feeling upon which alone the moralist depends for his power of impressing the heart. 'Remember,' says Mr. Abbott, (an admirable writer on education) always remember, that the more delicately you touch the feelings of your pupils, the more sensitive those feelings will become. Few are aware of the injury they do by the coarse and rough exposures to which they subject the private feelings of the heart. A teacher may have his pupils in such a state, that his slightest whisper will be attended to, or that his loudest vituperations will be no more regarded than the whistling of the winds.'* A British officer, wishing to try the Prussian mode of discipline, deprived a soldier of his cockade. The man was very grateful; it saved him the trouble of keeping it clean.† Nothing could better illustrate the different effects produced by the same means, upon a mind alive to the sense of honour, and one whose feelings had been either never cultivated, or worn out. It is justly said, that where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue. Woe to that mind, to which degradation has become so habitual that it has ceased to give pain. A surgeon, eminent in his profession, declared that operations are the disgrace of surgery. It is at least equally true, that punishments are the disgrace of education; and as medicines are often only the substitutes for temperance and exercise, so is coercion the substitute for that voluntary restraint, and healthful stimulus, which ought to give tone and direction to the mind. If our system of education were perfect, we should have no need of punishments; and the frequency or infrequency of occasion for them, is a true criterion of the degree in which we have approached perfection. All punishments that tend to degrade, must be injurious. The Prussians are so aware of this, that in their civil schools there is a law forbidding the use of such; yet to some it may be a new doctrine, that the feelings of children ought to be regarded, as well as those of adults. The language of Channing, on the duty of honouring all men, is full of truth and beauty, and peculiarly applicable to this subject. 'Honour the child. Welcome into being the infant with a feeling of its mysterious grandeur, with the feeling that an immortal existence has *Abbott's Teacher. Bulwer's England and the English. begun, that a spirit has been kindled which is never to be quenched. Honour the child. On this principle all good education rests. Never shall we learn to train up the child, till we take it in our arms as Jesus did, and feel distinctly that "of such is the kingdom of heaven." In that short sentence is taught the spirit of the true system of education; and for want of understanding it, little effectual aid, I fear, is yet given to the heavenly principle in the human soul. I conceive that we little apprehend the power which might be exerted by a benevolence which should truly and thoroughly recognise in man the image of God. Perhaps none of us have yet heard, or can comprehend, the tone of voice in which a man thoroughly impressed with this sentiment would speak to a fellow-creature. It is a language hardly known on earth; and no eloquence, I believe, has achieved such wonders as it is destined to accomplish.' This kind of respect, while it would restrain us from violence or contempt, could never induce over-indulgence. Did we truly honour the child,' we dared not encourage it to degrade its august nature by making it subservient to its bodily appetites. Did we really regard it as an heavenly inheritor, whose infancy was to be cradled in the homes of earth, we should blush to treat such a being like a pet lap-dog, or an animated doll. The foregoing remarks apply equally well to the education of ooth sexes. It may now be desirable to touch upon those points which bear particular reference to that of females. At the head of these must be placed, the proper regulation of the affections. The female child is, from its very birth, full of sensibility and loving-kindness. She no sooner leaves her mother's arms, than her infant powers are exerted to soothe and nurture some creature scarcely more tender and helpless than herself. forsaken nestling, the rebellious kitten, or the toddling baby, are overwhelmed with her caresses and her well-meant care; and deadening indeed must be the effect of her education, if she do not soon evince that she has sumless riches from affections deep,' to shed, even in wasted showers.' How many of the transient tears of childhood, and the bitter feelings of youth, are caused by the chills thrown, often undesignedly, upon her glowing sympathies. The desire to be loved, (which so often degenerates into the wish to be admired,) is the first feeling that takes possession of the female heart, and generally the last that leaves it. The disposition to sympathise is the strongest instinct of woman. She yearns at once to reverence, to confide, and to cherish. It cannot be denied that her sensibilities are often inordinate and misplaced. Her mind is fitted to be made a shrine on which thoughts of pure and hallowed objects may rest amidst the seraphim of her affections; and it is from that very capability that it so easily becomes an altar whereon idolatrous sacrifices are offered. We should have little cause to lament the waste of sensibility, if we were careful early to proWe should seldom be shocked by perversion vide for it a use. of feeling, if we laboured to direct it, rather than to subdue. It has justly been said, with regard to time, that if we take care of the moments we need not be anxious about the hours. In education the reverse is the case. If we can insure the grand principles, the detail will follow naturally, and without much effort. If it can be given to a child to feel that there is an important business to be carried on with life, in which none are too young or too insignificant to be concerned that there are afflictions to be softened, burdens to be lightened-the happy to rejoice with, the feeble to cherish, the tempted to succour, and the ignorant to instruct, we should seldom find, even in the most sensitive mind, an inordinate attachment to an unimportant object. The diversity of interests which the world presents, is itself a safeguard against too intense anxiety respecting any one of them. Those who have witnessed the avidity with which children enter into plans of benevolence, will not complain that these are not pleasures suitable for very young minds. It is not intended that children should not have childish sports. Let them play, and play heartily. We have spoken not of finding them amusements, but of providing them with interests, the gratification attending which will be continually increasing, and will supply the place of the infantile pleasures they are outgrowing, and which might otherwise be succeeded by unworthy objects. The idea, that to be interesting a woman should be timid even to weakness, is now so nearly exploded, that there requires no argument to prove the necessity of cultivating moral courage in the mind of a girl. The sufferings which children undergo from the operations of fear, especially when left alone in dark or isolated chambers, can only be described by those who recollect experiencing them. The feeling about for a friendly arm, the listening for a familiar voice, and the horrible sense of loneliness and insecurity, are so exquisitely detailed by Lamb,* that nothing better can be said upon the subject. Were it only to arm the mind against these terrors, no effort should be spared to inspire it with fortitude; yet these are but a foretaste of the trials which the moral courage of a female will have to sustain. It is much oftener the lot of woman than of man, to be placed in circumstances under which it is impossible to act. She must painfully experience that the extreme of human patience is to wait.' The wearing anxieties of the sick chamber, and the awful excitements of the dying scene, she is more frequently called to undergo; and these require that her mind, as it gradually unfolds, should be imbued * Vide Essays of Elia, on Witches, &c. 6 with every idea that can breathe out a spirit of enduringness As the poet beautifully exclaims and trust. Our first small words are taught us by her lips, Of watching the last hours of him who led them.' Not least in the catalogue of feminine virtues, is the art of diffusing everywhere around, manifestations of comfort, refinement, and ease, or, in more homely language, propriety in domestic arrangements and in personal attire. Those who transgress in this particular, may be divided in two classes, the one bestowing too much, and the other too little thought upon the subject. The error of the former, like other inordinate affections, is likely to be increased by direct opposition, but probably may easily be corrected by providing some object of more rational interest, before the incitements of vanity have had time to grow strong. A deficiency of attention to the thousand seeming trifles that contribute to make home delightful, it is more difficult to supply. There is an apparent saving of trouble in the petty neglects of which such persons are guilty, which appeals to their love of ease; and the evil they occasion arises so gradually, that it seldom alarms or awakens the conscience. It cannot be too early impressed upon a child, that we must be acceptable, to the end that we may be useful, and avoid what is offensive as well as what is criminal.' This sentiment, thoroughly wrought into a mind training to act up to its convictions, would, under favourable circumstances, be sufficient; yet we must not expect the precept, complete and beautiful as it is, to prevail against the powerful influence of example. For the want of this kind of propriety, it is sometimes thought difficult to account. When the mother wonders at the absence of neatness observable in the parlour, chamber, and dress of her daughters, she forgets what the state of the nursery was from the earliest time at which they can remember it; or the condition of the apartment, demi-nursery, demi-parlour, about which the little maidens were accustomed to bustle every time a knock was heard at the door; and most approved was she who could hide the greatest portion of untidiness under the sofa cushions, or behind the screen. She forgets how often she has sat down en dishabile, beneath the disapproving eye of her husband, forming an excuse half to him and half to her conscience, that with her engagements it is impossible to be always neat. True, the little girls were taught to avoid, as a great evil, being caught in such a condition by a stranger; but would that make them desire to be neat in their habits, or only to appear so? If the mother, in her home attire, peep through the chink of a door, and seeing an intimate friend, come forward with the exclamation, 'Oh, I do not mind you seeing me, my dear what marvel that the daughters no sooner become familiar, than they cease to be neat? Few people are aware of the impression these apparent trifles make upon children. Though, when nursery days are over, a mother may throw aside her nursery attire, she cannot change the early habits of her children. If her eyes are not opened, she must sit down to wonder that her daughters are not tidy. Those who understand human nature would wonder if they were. A few exceptions may be found; girls who have taken a disgust to such proceedings; but they are only exceptions, and it is not safe to expose children to an evil example, for the chance of some being satiated with the evil. Let us not be understood to mean that the proper sphere of a mother is not in the nursery; or supposed to be wanting in respect for the struggles of those, who, with small incomes, strive to keep up their station in society. If such are not aware that this want of acceptableness does not facilitate their object, it may be difficult to make them so. Those who find that they have not time to be untidy, perhaps could explain the truth. There are some other particulars in the management of children which it would be difficult to class under a distinct head. In nothing, perhaps, are persons more unjust to children, than with respect to their giving trouble. It is very common to threaten a child with some grievous penalty or infliction, if it be 'troublesome,' a term so indefinite that few adults, and no children, would be able to understand its limits. The word is applied, in nursery phrase, to every misdemeanour of which a child is capable, from the asking a simple question, to the perpetration of a wilful mischief, and is used very differently under different circumstances. Exhortations concerning offences which come under the head of troublesomeness,' are therefore imperfectly comprehended; and as that which is laughed at on one occasion, is branded as 'extremely troublesome' on another, a child often knows not what result of its conduct to expect; often exposes itself to censure when it had no suspicion of having done wrong; or, fearful of incurring punishment it is so difficult to calculate upon, flies to that refuge of the misgoverned, concealment or deceit. It is true that amidst the concerns of a family, and the hurry of business, there are many times when it is impossible to give attention to a child. 'How troublesome you are, my dear,' may be repeated twenty times on these occasions without producing the desired effect. It is almost equally useless to give children general directions not to come near persons who are engaged, as they have not discernment enough to judge which are the engagements which cannot, on their account, be laid aside. It is best to suspend |