Practical Education, Volume I

can reason upon the justice of our commands; consequently it must be taught as a habit. By associating pleasure with those things which we first desire children to do, we should make them necessar

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bed; it is most prudent to take him to bed at the appointed time, without saying one word to him, either in the way of entreaty or command. If you entreat, you give the child an idea that he has it in his power to refuse you: if you command, and he does not instantly obey, you hazard your authority, and you teach him that he can successfully set his will in opposition to yours. The boy wishes to sit up; he sees no reason, in the moral fitness of things, why he should go to bed at one hour more than at another; all he perceives is, that such is your will. What does he gain by obeying you? Nothing: he loses the pleasure of sitting up half an hour longer. How can you then expect that he should, in consequence of these reasonings, give up his obvious immediate interest, and march off to bed heroically at the word of command? Let him not be put to the trial; when he has for some time been regularly taken to bed at a fixed hour, he will acquire

attention, to enforce the punctual observance of a variety of prohibitions, it will, for your own sake, be most prudent to issue as few edicts as possible, and to be sparing in the use of the imperative mood. It will, if you calculate the trouble you must take day after day to watch your pupil, cost you less to begin by arranging every circumstance in your power, so as to prevent the necessity of trusting to laws what ought to be guarded against by precaution. Do you, for instance, wish to prevent your son from breaking a beautiful china jar in your drawing room; instead of forbidding him to touch it, put it out of his reach.-Would you prevent your son from talking to servants; let your house, in the first place, be so arranged, that he shall never be obliged to pass through any

hbours on each side of the street to make proper speeches as his pupil passed by their doors, which alarmed and piqued the boy effectually. At length the child was met at a proper time, by a friend who had been appointed to watch him; and thus he was brought home submissive. This scene, as Rousseau observes, was admirably well performed;[47] but what occasion could there be for so much contrivance and deceit? If his pupil had not been uncommonly deficient in penetration, he would soon have discovered his preceptor in some of his artifices; then adieu both to obedience and confidence. A false idea of the pleasures of liberty misled Rousseau. Children have not our abstract ideas of the pleasures of liberty; they do not, until they have suffered from ill judged restraints, feel any strong desire to exercise what we call free will; liberty is, with them, the liberty of doing certain specific things which they have found to be agreeable; liberty is not the general idea of pleasure, in doing whatever they WILL to do. Rousseau desires, that we should not let our pupil know, that in doing our will he is obedient to us. But why? Why should we not let a child know the truth? If we attempt to conceal it, we shall only get into endless absurdities and difficulties. Lord Kames tells us, that he was acquainted with a couple, who, in the education of their family, pursued as much as possible Rousseau's plan. One evening, as the f

d this now, you will, perhaps, understand it some time hence." Whenever we tell children, that we forbid them to do such and such things for any particular reason, we must take care that the reason assigned is adequate, and that it will in all cases hold good. For instance, if we forbid a boy to eat unripe fruit, because it will make him ill, and if afterwards the boy eat some unripe gooseberries without feeling ill in consequence of his disobedience, he will doubt the truth of the person who prohibited unripe fruit; he will rather trust his own partial experience than any assertions. The idea of hurting his health, is a general idea, which he does not yet comprehend. It is more prudent to keep him out of the way of unripe gooseberries, than to hazard at once his obedience and his integrity. We need not expatiate further; the instance we have given, may be readily

s, arises frequently from slight causes in their early education. Children, who have experienced, that submission to the will of others ha

f we feel nothing but their weight whilst we wear them?" the galled poet used to reply. Nor did Boileau enjoy his freedom, though he thought with such horror of his slavery. He declared, that if he had it in his choice, either to be born again upon the hard conditions of again going through his childhood, or not to exist, he would rather not exist: but he was not happy during any period of his existence; he quarrelled with all the seasons of life; "all seemed to him equally disagreeable; youth, manhood, and old age, are each subject, he observed, to impetuous passions, to care, and to inf

the child to exert himself for her amusement; all his senses and all his muscles she commands. He must see, hear, talk, or be silent, move or be still, when she thinks proper; and often with the desire of amusing her charge, or of showing him off to the company, she disgusts him with voluntary exertion. Before young children have completely acquired the use of their limbs, they cannot perform feats of activity or of dexterity at a moment's warning. Their muscles do not instantaneously obey their will; the efforts they

ied to jump, and succeeded: from sympathy he learned the command of the muscles which were necessary to his jumping, and to his obedience. If this boy had been importuned, or forced to exert himself, he might have been thus taught obstinacy, merely from the imprudent impatience of the spectators. The reluctance to stop when a child is once in motion, is often mistaken for obstinacy: when he is running, singing, laughing, or talking, if you suddenly command him to stop, he cannot instantly obey you.

-- paused for a moment, but then went on singing the same words. His brother said, Hush! W-- paused for another second or two; but then went on with his roundelay. In his countenance there was not the slightest appea

ention, than by the stimulus of a peremptory voice. Children should never be accused of obstinacy; the accusation cannot cure, but may superinduce the disease. If, unfortunately, they have been suffered to contract a disposition to this fault, it may be cured by a little patience and good tempe

common nursery-maid's speech, which is well calculated to pique the pride of a half-subdued penitent. W

idea of honour, he perhaps considers the reward as the price of his submission; and, upon a future occasion, he will know how to raise that price by prolonging his show of resistance. Where the child has formed a false idea of honour, his obstinacy is only mistaken resolution; we should address ourselves to his understanding, and endeavour to convince him of his errour. Where the understanding is convinced, and the habit of opposition still continues, we should carefully avoid calling his false associations into action; we should not ask him to do any thing for which he has acquired an habitual aversion; we should alter our manner of speaking to him, that neither the tones of our voice, the words, or the looks, which hav

pends merely upon habit. The same courage and fortitude which in one case we reprobate, and try to conquer with all our might, in the other we admire and extol. This

tive which Charles the Twelfth's preceptor could have used, to make the young prince conquer his aversion to Latin; but we would point out, that where the love of glory is connected with obstinate temper, the passion is more than a match for the temper. Let us but enlighten this love of glory, and we produce magnanimity in the place of obstinacy. Examples, in conversation and in books, of great characters, who have not been ashamed to change their opinions, and to acknowledge that they have been mistaken, will probably make a g

understanding, than to the decision of others. As soon as he discovers more sense in the arguments of his companions, he will listen to them, and if he finds their reason superior to his own, he will submit. A preceptor, who wishes to gain ascendency over a clever positive boy, must reason with all possible precision, and must always show that he is willing to be decided by the strongest arguments which can be produced. If he ever prophesies, he sets his judgment at stake; therefore he should not prophesy about matters of chance, but rather in affairs where he can calculate with certainty. If his prophecies are frequently accomplished, his pupil's confidence in him will rapidly in

liked in society as pleasant companions, become surly, tyrannical masters in their own families, positive about mere trifles, and anxious to subjugat

this obtained, their time is sacrificed without regret. On the contrary, those who are engaged in literary or professional pursuits, set a great value upon their time, and feel considerable reluctance to part with it without some adequate compensation; they must consequently be less complaisant companions, and by the generality of superficial observers, would be thought, perhaps, less complying in their tempers, than the idle and dissipated. But when the idle man has past the common season for dissipation, and is settled in domestic life, his spirits flag from the want of his usual excitements; and, as he has no amusements in his own family, to purchase by the polite sacrifice of his opinion or his will, he is not inclined to complaisance. The pleasures of exercising his free will, becomes important in his eyes; he has few pleasures, and of those few he is tenacious. He ha

ar to succeed, and to have entirely eradicated, when they have merely suppressed, the disease for a time. As soon as the child that is intimidated by force or fear, is relieved from restraint, he will resume his former habits; he may cha

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