Practical Education, Volume I

listen with delight to the genuine language of nature. Those who have any interest in the education of children, have yet a higher sense of pleasure in observing symptoms of their sensibility; they a

ial beings, is sufficiently obvious, and we immediately perceive its necessary connection with compassion, friendship, and benevolence; but the subject becomes more int

lt. Let us even suppose a being capable of sympathy only with the best feelings of his fellow-creatures, still, without the direction of reason, he would be a nuisance in the world; his pity would stop the hand, and overturn the balance of justice; his love would be as dangerous as his pity; his gratitude would exalt his benefactor at the expense of the whole human race; his sympathy with the rich, the prosperous, the great, and the fortunate, would be so sudden, and so violent, as to leave him no time for reflection upon the consequences of tyranny, or the miseries occasioned by monopoly. No time for reflection, did we say? We forgot that we were speaking of a being destitute of the reasoning faculty! Such a being, no matter what his virtuous sympathies might be, must act either like a madman or a fool. On sympathy we cannot depend, either for the correctness of a man'

nd that with crying out, and making all the menacing noise we could, we should endeavour to drive the sow away-But if this should happen to be an half-starved creature, that, mad with hunger, went roaming about in quest of food, and we should behold the ravenous brute, in spite of our cries, and all the threatening gestures we could think of, actually lay hold of the helpless infant, destroy, and devour it;-to see her widely open her destructive jaws, and the poor lamb beat down with greedy haste; to look on the defenceless

re formed of his character, than in his fears of any conspiracies against his life. The "judge within," the habit of viewing his own conduct in the light in which it was beheld by the impartial spectator, prompted him to new crimes; and thus his unextinguished sympathy, and his exasperated sensibility, drove him to excesses, from which a more torpid temperament might have preserved him.[79] When, upon his presenting the sons of

cannot be trusted as a moral principle. Nero's love of sympathy, made him anxious to be applauded on the stage as a fiddler and a buffoon. Tiberius banished one of his philosophic courtiers, and persecuted him till the unfortunate man laid violent hands upon himself, merely because he had discovered that the emperour read books in the morning to prepare

or a Tiberius; but, in fact, irritability, in common language, merely denotes an excessive or ill governed degree of sensibility. The point of excess must be marked: sympathy must be regulated

carefully excluded from the sight of those who have yet no choice in their sympathy; expressions of kindness and affection in the countenance, the voice, the actions, of all who approach, and of all who have the care of infants, are not only immediately and evidently agreeable to the children, but ought also to be used as the best possible means of exciting benevolent sympathies in their mind. Children, who habitually meet with kindness, habitually feel

uffered to talk unheard, or else they are checked for unbecoming presumption. Children feel this change in public opinion and manners most severely; they are not sensible of any change in themselves, except, perhaps, they are conscious of having improved both in sense and language. This unmerited loss of their late gratuitous allowance of sympathy, usually operates unfavourably upon the temper of the sufferers; they become shy and silent, and reserved, if not sullen; they withdraw from our capricious society, and they endeavour to console themselves with other pleasures. It is difficult to them to feel contented with their own little occupations and amusements, for want of the spectators and the audience which used to be at their command. Children of a timid temper, or of an indolent disposition, are quite dispirited and bereft of all energy i

ese evils? Sympathy is our first, best friend, in education, an

be supported long on our parts, we should rather suffer them to feel a little ennui, at that age when they can have but few independent or useful occupations. We should employ ourselves in our usual manner, and converse, without allowing children to interrupt us with frivolous prattle; but whenever they ask sensible questions, make just observations, or show a disposition to acquire knowledge, we should assist and encourage them with

and frequently we must ensure future advantage, even at the expense of present pain or restraint. The companion and the tutor then, supposing each to be equally good and equally kind, must command, in a very different degree, the sympathy of the child. It may, notwithstanding, be questioned, whether those who are constant companions in their idle hours, when they are very young, are likely to be either as fond of one another when they grow up, or even as happy whilst they are children, as those are who spen

" But these sentences seldom operate as a charm upon the angry passions; the parties concerned, hearing it asserted that they must love one another, at the very instant when they happen to feel that they cannot, are still further exasperated, and they stand at bay, sullen in hatred, or approach hypocritical in reconciliation. It is more easy to prevent occasions of dispute, than to remedy the bad consequences which petty altercations produce. Young children should be kept asunder at all times, and in all situations, in which it is necessary, or probable, that their appetites and passions should be in direct competition. Two hungry children, with their eager eyes fixed upon one

is inhuman, and in every point of view unjustifiable in us, to excite these painful feelings in children, as we too often do, by the careless or partial distribution of affection and applause. Exact justice will best prevent jealousy; each individual submits to justice, because each, in turn, feels the benefit of its protection. Some preceptors, with benevolent intentions, labour to preserve a perfect equality amongst their pupils, and, from the fear of exciting envy in those who are inferior, avoid uttering any encomiums upon superior talents and merit. This management seldom succeeds; the truth cannot be concealed; those who feel their own superiority, make painful reflections upon the injustice done to them by the policy of their tutors; those who are sensible of their own inferiority, are not comforted by the courtesy and humiliating forbearance with which they are treated. It is, therefore, best to speak the plain truth; to give to all their due share of affection and applause: at the same time, we should avoid blaming one child at the moment when we praise another: we should never put our pupils in contrast with one another; nor yet should we deceive them as to their respective excellences and defects. Our comparison should rather be mad

eir pleasure is much increased by mutual sympathy. This happy moral truth, upon which so many of our virtues depend, should be impre

deration aside, be willing to make the purchase at such a price? Let any person, desirous to see a striking picture of the effects of scholastic competition upon the moral character, look at the life of that wonder of his age, the celebrated Abeillard. As the taste and manners of the present times are so different from those of the age in which he lived, we see, without any species of deception, the real value of the learning in which he excelled, and we can judge both of his acquirements, and of his

rary rivalship. It is to be hoped, that there are men of the most extensive learning and genius, now living, who could, from their own experience, assure us that those are obsolete observations, no longer applicable to modern human nature. At all events, we, who refer so much to education, are hopefully of opinion, that education can prevent these evils, in common with almost all the other evils of life. It would be an errour, fatal to all improvement, to believe that the cultivation of the understanding, impedes the exercise of the social affections. Obviously, a man, who secludes himself from the world, and whose whole life is occupied with abstract studies, cannot en

tion, his faculties can never want subjects on which they may be amply exercised. The dearth of conversation, which every body may have felt in certain company, is always attended with mournful countenances, and every symptom of ennui. Indeed, without the pleasures of conversation, society is reduced to meetings of people, who assemble to eat and drink, to show their fine clothes, to weary and to hate one another. The sympathy of bon vivants is, it must be acknowleged, very lively and sincere towards each other; but this can last only

ted with even the idea of esteem. It is therefore pernicious to all who partake of it; it excites to no great exertions; it rewards neither useful nor amiable qualities: on the contrary, it is to be obtained by vice, rather than by virtue; by folly much more readily than by wisdom. It is the mere follow

he ruling principle of men of this character; in private life, they are addicted to clubs, and associations of all sorts, in which the contagion of sympathy has a power which the sober influence of reason seldom ventures to correct. The waste of talents, and the total loss of principle, to which this indiscriminate love of sympathy leads, should warn us to guard against its influence by early education. The gregarious propensity in childhood, should not be indulged without precautions: unless their companions are well educated, we can never be reasonably secure of the conduct or happiness of our pupils: from sympathy, they catch all the wishes, tastes, and ideas of those with whom the

fer the company of friends, who can sympathize in their occupations, to the presence of ignorant idlers, who can fill up the void of ideas with nonsense and noise. Some people have a notion that th

hood, there occur but few opportunities of exerting the virtues

ings of compassion, are strong amongst uneducated people; yet these do not restrain them from acts of cruelty. They take delight, it has been often observed, in all tragical, sanguinary spectacles, because these excite emotion, and relieve them from the listless state in which their days usually pass. It is the same with all persons, in all ranks of life, whose minds are uncultivated.[86] Until young people have fixed habits of benevolence, and a taste for occupation, perhaps

associations lead to cruelty. If we do not prejudice our pupils by foolish exclamations; if they do not, from sympathy, catch our absurd antipathies, their benevolence towards the animal world, will not be illiberally confined to favourite lap-dogs and singing-birds. F

t Gulliver should love the Brobdignagian wasp that buzzed round his cake, and prevented him from eating his breakfast? Could we expect that Gulliver should be ever reconciled to the rat against whom he was obliged to draw his sword? Many animals are, to children, what the wasp and the rat were to Gulliver. Put bodily fear out of

was to subsist, especially if he had raised them by his own care and industry. Buffon,[88] notwithstanding all his benevolent philosophy, can scarcely speak with patience of his enemies the field mice; who, when he was trying experiments upon the culture of forest trees, tormented him perpetually by their insatiable love of acorns. "I was terrified," says he, "at the discovery of half a bushel, and often a whole bushel, of acorns in each of the holes inhabited by these little animals; they had collected these acorns for their winter provision." The philosopher gave orders immediately for the erection of a great number of traps, and snares baited with broiled nuts; in less than three weeks nearly three hundred field mice were killed or taken prisoners. Mankind are obliged to carry on a defensive war with the animal world. "Eat or be eaten," says Dr. Darwin, is the great law of nature. It is fortunate for us that there are butchers by profession in the world, and rat-catchers, and cats, otherwise our habits of benevolence and sympathy would be utte

s of the distressed: nor have they sufficiently enlarged views to discern the best means of doing good to their fellow-creatures. They may give away money to the poor, but they do not always feel the value of what they give: they give counters: supplied with all the necessaries and luxuries of life, they have no use for money; they feel no privation; t

to expect generosity equal to their own from their companions; then come tacit or explicit comparisons of the value or elegance of their respective gifts; the difficult rules of exchange and barter are to be learned; and nice calculations of Tare and Tret are entered into by the repentant borrowers and lenders. A sentimen

s the sensibility of children to be tried? How is the young heart to display i

she did. Once when a servant was going from Saint Leu to Paris, madame de Silleri asked her pupils if they had any commissions; the little duke de Chartres says yes, and gave a message about a bird-cage, but he did not recollect to write to his mother, till somebody whispered to him that he had forgotten it. Madame de Silleri calls this childish forgetfulness a "heinous offence;" but was not it very natural, that the boy should think of his bird cage

here was no reason for anxiety; but, consistently with the strict duties of friendship, you ought to have given orders before you went to bed, for inquiries to be made at eight o'clock in the morning, to know whether I had had any return of my complaint during the night; and yo

ad of warm, genuine, enlightened gratitude, nothing but the expression of cold, constrained, stupid hypocrisy. During the process of education, a child cannot perceive its ultimate end; how can he judge whether the means employed by his parents, are well adapted to effect their purposes? Moments of restraint and of privation, or, perhaps, of positive pain, must be endured by children under the mildest system of education: they must, therefore, perceive, that their parents are the immediate cause of some evils to them; the remote good is beyond their view. And can we expect from an infant the s

ed continually about their feelings, to have their countenances scrutinized, and the degrees of their sensibility measured by the surveying eye of the unmerciful spectator. Under the constraint of such examinations, they can think of nothing, but that they are looked at, and feel nothing but shame or apprehension: they are afraid to lay their minds open, le

her to give her a plaything: one of her sisters had just before aske

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have a sober certainty of his affection. The thoughtless caresses of children who are never accustomed to reason, are lavished

erence, we should endeavour to lead, not to drive them to reflect upon the reasons for their affection. They will probably at first mention some particular instance of kindness, which they have lately received from the person whom they prefer. "I like such a

mean sycophants, or useful and honourable members of society, by the methods which we use to direct their first efforts to please. It should be our object to convince them, that the exchange of mutual good offices contributes to happiness; and whilst we connect the desire to assist others with the perception of the beneficial consequences that eventually arise to themselves, we may be certai

ood to me, I'll

athy and sensibility, we met wit

er hands on the front of the box, fixed her eyes upon the stage, and continued with her mouth open, all attention to the motions of the actors. It was truly touching to see their different passions painted on her face as in a glass. There appeared in her countenance successively, anxiety, surprise, melancholy, and grief; at length the interest increasing in every sce

oor woman lying on the ground, busied in weeding a bed of sorrel; near her was a little girl of six years old at the utmost, standing motionless, and all purple with cold. I addressed myself to this woman, who appeared to be ill, and I asked her what was the matter with her. Sir, said she, fo

ed in picking up all round the summer house dry sticks, which they put into a sort of wallet which was lying upon the king's table, whilst a little ill clothed thin boy was devouring a bit of bread in one corner of the room. I asked the tallest of the children, who appeared to be between eight and nine years old, what she meant to do with the wood which she was gathering together with so much eagerness. She answered, 'Sir, you see that little boy, he is very unhappy. He has a mother-in-law' (Why always a mother-in-law?) 'H

praised for expressions of sensibility, the young lady who wept so bitterly at the play-house, would be preferred; affectionate children will like the little girl who stood purple with cold beside he

you give him so much pain, that you not only repress, but destroy his affectionate feelings. On the contrary, if you appear touched and delighted by his caresses, from the hope of pleasing, he will be naturally inclined to repeat such demonstrations of sensibility: this repetition should be gently discouraged, lest it should lead to affectation. At the same time, though we take this precaution, we should consider, that children are not ea

elf sufficiently agreeable; and, perhaps, from a desire to please, she would, upon the next favourable occasion, have repeated the same sentiment; this we should immediately call affectation; but how could the child foresee, that the repetition of what we formerly liked, would be offensive? We should not first extol sympathy, and then disdain affectation; our encomiums frequently produce the faults by which we are disgusted. Sensibility and sympathy, when they have proper objects, and full employment, do not look for applause; they are su

ntal authors, who paint with enchanting colours all the graces and all the virtues in happy union, teach us to expect that this union should be indissoluble. Afterwards, from the natural influence of association, we expect in real life to meet with virtue when we see grace, and we are disappointed, almost disgusted, when we find virtue unadorned. This false association has a double effect upon the conduct of women; it prepares them to be pleased, and it excites them to endeavour to please by adventitious charms, rather than by those qualities which merit esteem. Women, who have been much addicted to common novel-reading, are always acting in

an to feel weary of the world, exclaimed, whilst she was recounting what she had suff

but a short season of felicity. The sentimental sorrows of any female mourner, of more than thirty years standing

ot require the stimulus of dissipation, or of romance. Their sympathy and sensibility are engrossed by proper objects, and connected with

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's Life of Cicero

Verite.-Madame de Genl

's Critical Interludes in the Botanic Garden, and

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