Part 11 (1/2)

I have a bright little fellow in my school who had acquired a sad habit of sucking his thumb. I thought he actually began to grow thin upon it.

I had checked him many times, and he was good about it, but the habit was too strong for him. One day I drew on a little conversation about helping each other out of difficulties, which all agreed to; and all professed themselves willing to be helped and to listen to warnings. I then said there was one in the school whom I wished to cure of a bad habit, and I had a plan for doing it, but its success must depend upon whether he was willing, and upon whether the rest would be really friendly and not laugh at him, or tease him, but help him in every way they could. They were very desirous to know who and what it was, and very sure they would do all that was desired. I then spoke to little W----, who was only six, or at most, seven years old, and asked him if he was willing to let me tie that hand behind him that he might be cured of sucking his thumb; for I knew of no other way. I told him it would try his patience; for it was his right hand, and he would have to be dependent upon others for many things, and often would find it very inconvenient and annoying. After I had impressed him fully with the importance of the matter, he consented, and the rest of the children promised to be attentive to his wants. I never tied the hand behind him till he put the thumb into his mouth; but it had to be done every day for a fortnight. He bore it, and all the inconveniences, like a hero, and not one child forgot to be considerate and helpful. He was cured of the trick, and he has been an object of great interest among his companions ever since, because they helped to do him good.

Perhaps, dear A----, you will think I dwell longer than necessary upon this subject, knowing as _we_ do that the usual fault of schools is too much penalty, and too much low motive; but you and I are surrounded by those who are inclined, by their tendency of thought, to forget practical wisdom; who, in their lively sense that immortality begins now, and is not a distant good,--a sort of reward for well-doing, are in danger of forgetting that we are to be educated by circ.u.mstances, and that circ.u.mstances _will_ educate us, whether we direct them or not, in this beginning of our long career. Those who have most faith in the soul and its ultimate power to work itself free from all impediments, are most apt to despise all the minor aids that may help its first steps.

Then there is another cla.s.s of persons, who do not believe in the soul enough to think education of any use. They cannot very well tell you what they do believe; in truth they have no faith in anything, but finding it hard to control circ.u.mstances, and seeing instances of great failure where there have been most appliances, (they do not consider whether these appliances were wisely administered,) they give all up to chance, and believing neither in innate ideas nor in the use of means, rest satisfied with a low standard of action, and go through life without ever having a glimpse of anything better than themselves.

Indeed, if they see anything better, they understand it so little, that they think it must be a delusive appearance, and that an earnest view of any subject is extravagance, or even insanity. But I do not think so great a want of faith is very common.

This is too long a letter, so good-by for the present. When I think you are rested from this, I will write again.

M.

LETTER III.

MY DEAR ANNA,--Let me introduce you to my little family. It consists of twenty children, some of whom have been under my care for three years.

These latter are eight in number, and from nine to twelve years of age; then I have six who are not seven years old, who know how to read pretty well, but who study no lessons more difficult than a simple bit of poetry, the names of a few places on the map, a list of words from the black-board of the parts of a flower, or an interlined Latin fable, which I give them thus early, because Latin is one of the elements of our language, and its forms are so definite that it gives definiteness to ideas. These children print, write, draw from outlined forms and blocks, as well as from their own fancies, and listen to all sorts of information which I give them orally, and which they recount to me again when questioned. I tell a great many stories over maps, which are, in my dominions, not only lines running hither and thither with a few names interspersed, but real mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, which I clothe with verdure, and people with all kinds of animate forms, such as beasts, birds, fishes, and William Tells, or other interesting individuals and tribes. I have a book, called ”Wonders of the World,”

which is my Aladdin's lamp, and when I take it down, little hands are clapped and bright eyes glisten.

But I must not forget to mention my other six, who are sweet little buds of promise as one can well imagine; who love to hear stories about all living things, from oysters up through the more intelligent sh.e.l.l-fish that have heads as well as a foot, to small pink pigs and their mothers, b.u.t.terflies, birds, dogs, horses, cows, and fellow-children; and to learn that their stockings are made of wool that grew on the back of a lamb, their shoes of the skin of a calf, their ribbons from the coc.o.o.ns of a moth, the table of a tree, &c., &c. These little people were committed to my keeping directly out of their mothers' or their nurses'

arms. I am always diffident about taking the place of the former, but rejoice to rescue babes from the care of the latter.

The first thing to be taught these, is how to live happily with each other; the next, how to use language. It is not necessary to wait till they can read before we begin this last instruction. They love dearly to repeat the words of simple poetry or of poetic prose, (Mrs. Barbauld is my cla.s.sic for babes,) and it is curious to see how synthetical are their first mental operations, and how difficult they find it to disentangle the words of a short sentence, which evidently has. .h.i.therto been but one word of many syllables. Names of things can be made to stand forth distinctly before other words, because the objects of the senses do; but when I first ask children of three or four years old to make sentences and put in _the_ and _and_, their pleasure in recognizing the single word is even greater, and they will amuse themselves a great deal with the exercise, running to me to whisper, ”just now I said _the_;” or, ”Charley said _and_.” If the printed word is pointed out at the same time, it is still more interesting, because then it becomes an object of the senses, a real thing, just as much as the book it is printed in. You know I take the royal road to the attainment of this art, and teach _words_ first, not letters. I find this a much better as well as happier way, for a word is a whole host of thoughts to a young child, and three words in a row a whole gallery of pictures. Bird, nest, tree! If a child has ever played in a meadow, or even in a garden, or sat on a gra.s.sy bank under the window, or has seen pigeons fly down into a city street, what subject of endless conversation does this combination of things present! The book that contains such words, and perhaps a story, of which they form a part, is itself an illuminated volume, and is immediately invested with a charm it cannot lose, for what child (or man) was ever tired of the thought of a bird, or a tree, to say nothing of that more rare and mysterious object, a nest? The warbled song, the downy breast, the sheltering wing, the snug retreat, have such an a.n.a.logy with the mother's carol or lullaby, the brooding bosom, and the beloved arms, a child's dearest home, that every sentiment is enlisted, and a thousand things, never to be forgotten, may be said. There is no need of pictures on such a page as this. I well remember the s.h.i.+ning pages of my childhood's books,--a l.u.s.tre never emitted by white paper alone. I doubt not the ancient fancy of illuminating the works of great minds with gilded and scarlet letters grew out of some such early a.s.sociation with printed, or rather written thoughts;--for printing was not known then.

I believe you do not approve of this method of teaching to read; but I cannot help thinking a variety of experience like mine would make you a convert to my mode. I claim to have discovered it, and the bright little six years old rogue, upon whom I tried my first experiment, learned to read in six weeks, and every word was an experience to him, for I made up the lessons as we went on from day to day right out of his little life. He would scream with delight to see what he called _his_ words on the sheet upon which I daily printed a new lesson. I have no doubt every name of a thing looked to him like the thing itself, for his imagination was a very trans.m.u.ting one. You would have been as amused at his antics over the word ”and” as I was. I only introduced such oysters of words occasionally into my gallery of pictures, but he never forgot any such useful members of society, though I think he could not have made pictures of them. One great point is, that children are always happy to read in this way; and to work their little brains against their will, seems to me cruel. It is quite an effort for them to learn to observe closely enough to distinguish such small particulars even as words, with which they have such vivid a.s.sociations, and altogether an unnatural one to learn arbitrary signs, to which nothing already known _can_ be attached. Until I was convinced that this was the best method, I always found myself instinctively helping innocent children along, through their first steps in reading, by means which, at the time, I half thought were tricks, and unsafe indulgences. I feared that I was depriving them of some desirable and wholesome discipline, such as we often hear of in our extreme youth from nursery-maids, who tell stories of parents who whip their children every morning that they may be good all day. But I will never again force helpless little ones, of three or four years old, to learn the alphabet and the abs, until every letter is interesting to them from the position it holds in some symbolic word.

When letters are learned in the ordinary way, they are often a.s.sociated with some image, as _a_ stands for _apple_, _b_ for _boy_, _c_ for _cat_; and these a.s.sociations may be so many hindrances (certainly in the case of the vowels) to the next step in the process, because they must all be unlearned before the letters can be applied to other words.

In our language there are so many silent letters in words, so many sounds for each vowel, and the alphabetic sound of the consonants is so different from their sound in words, that I do not care how late the a.n.a.lysis is put off.

After a while, I string columns of little words together, in which the vowel has the same sound, as _can_, _man_, _pan_, _tan_, and let these be the first spelling-lessons; but I prefer, even to this mode, that of letting children write from dictation the words they are familiar with on a page. One dear little boy came to school three months before he wished to read, or to look at a book, except for the pictures. At last he came into the cla.s.s without an invitation, and has learned very fast, and can read better than some children who have read longer. He is a perfect little dumpling, as gay and happy as a lark all day, and I would not for the world make it a task for him to use his brain, thus risking the diminution of his rotundity. He is as wise as a judge, though he has not lost his baby looks; and he might be made to reason subtly at an early age I doubt not; but I hope all such powers will be allowed to slumber peacefully as yet. He is in the mean time learning to read slowly; to print, to draw houses, to repeat poetry, to sing songs about birds, bees, and lambs, and to have as much fun between these exercises as I can furnish him with,--the latter in another apartment, of course.

I have taken no pains to teach him his letters. I have a great repugnance to _letters_, with their many different sounds, so puzzling to the brain;--but one day, finding he knew some of them, I pointed to _g_, and asked him if he knew the name of it. He said ”gra.s.s,” which was the first word in which he had seen _g_. So _w_ he first called ”water,”

for the same reason. I gave him their sounds, but not their alphabetical names. I was obliged to give him two sounds for _g_, one hard, one soft, and he soon knew all the consonants by their powers. I hope he will not ask me anything about the vowels at present.[I]

I also cut out the words children first learn, as soon as they can put together a few in short sentences, and let them arrange them to correspond with the sentences in the book. I have devoted one copy of my Primer to this purpose, and keep the words thus separated, and pasted upon card-board, for such use.

I know all children learn to read, and some children learn rapidly, but I am always interested to know at what cost. It is a very important question, I a.s.sure you. One may not realize, at the time, the evils consequent upon the difficulties first encountered. The actual injury to the brain stands first among these. We grown people know the painful sensation consequent upon too long and too fixed attention to one subject, even in the arranging of piles of pamphlets which we are endeavoring to cla.s.sify. The brain whirls and experiences chills, and the whole body feels it. So with children, when made to read too long, before the eye has learned to discriminate words easily. The child is told that it is naughty, if it does not continue as long as the teacher's or the mother's patience holds out (as soon as that is exhausted, the lesson is sure to be over). How false this is! A little child should never be required to do anything intellectual as a duty. It should not be required even to _love_ as a duty, much less to think.

Both should be made inevitable by the interest inspired; its mental efforts should only be sports. Its habits of self-control, its kindness, its affection, should be cultivated, and this rather by example than by precept. When mothers do not succeed in teaching their children to read, because they have not the resolution to force them to it, they often say to me, ”Do teach the child to read, it will be a great resource;” I reply, if I think they will believe me, that their instincts have perhaps been wiser than their understanding; but if I see that they are unreasonable, I reply that I will try, reserving to myself the privilege of trying just as much as I please, and no more. I can generally make the effort to read a voluntary one, if I do not find any previous painful a.s.sociations to do away. If I do, I wait patiently till I can replace them by others, and in the mean time make books vocal of such enchanting things that the desire will bubble up in the little mind, through all the rubbish that has gathered over it. The pleasure of reading together from a black-board, on which the letters should be printed with great exactness and perfection of form, in order to resemble those in the book, often gives this desire.

One little fellow, whose perceptive powers are sharper than those of my dumpling, reflects upon himself more, and although equally fat, appears, from a certain anxious expression on his face, to have had some trials.

He says his sister sometimes ”hurts his feelings.” He thinks some words are beautiful and ”full of pictures.” He tells very small fibs, such as ”Mother says I must read those words, and those.” Do not suppose I let this fibbing pa.s.s. I make a great point of not believing it, and of comparing it with truth, and of proving to him that his mother knows nothing about it.

Another little darling, who cannot speak plain, says, ”Oh, is 'at _feathers_? Why! is it _feathers_? Oh, now tell me where _wings_ is! Oh!

is 'at _wings_? Oh! I want to kiss oo.”

I hear these little ones read four or five times a day. The lesson occupies about fifteen minutes each time. All ”study” together, as they call it. I put my pointer on the book of each in turn, making it a habit that they shall not look off the book for the s.p.a.ce of three minutes, perhaps, during which each reads. They keep within a few sentences of each other, near enough to think they read together, as I detain them long upon the repet.i.tion of all they know; but I see very clearly which will start off soon and outstrip the rest. I say nothing of which reads the best, but sometimes make such remarks as, ”L---- will learn to read very fast, I think, he is so attentive.” This makes L---- all the more attentive, and helps the others to make the effort; for with these four, to be able to read is the most charming of prospects. I am determined that no touch of weariness shall break the charm. In three months they will be able to read the two first stories in the Primer, which occupy about two pages. Their eyes will by that time become so accustomed to a.n.a.lyzing the looks of the words, that they will be able to print them without the book, and soon new words will be learned very rapidly. I stave off the spelling as long as possible, but you may be sure that these children will spell well by and by. I am convinced of this by experience, for the next cla.s.s above these in age have begun within a few weeks to write stories of their own, composing instead of copying them from books, as they have done for two years, and I am myself quite astonished at their spelling. They have never spelled a word they did not understand, and their spelling in composition is better than that of some children still older who learned to spell elsewhere, and who hate spelling-books.

One of my exercises in thinking is to ask the children to tell me the names of all the actions they can think of; and to help them I say, for instance, ”What can the bird do?” ”What can the fly do?” ”How many things can the fly do?” Another is to ask them what things are made of, and where they are found, ”Are they vegetables, or are they from animals, or are they minerals?” They are vastly entertained by this, and one little fellow became so much excited, and wearied himself so much with his investigations at home, that his mother begged me to suspend the exercise for a time. Jemmy's head is a little too big for his body; and the look of research in his great eyes gives evidence of precocity, the thing of all others to be shunned. His mother has put thick boots upon him lately, and turned him out into the snow, and he looks like a b.u.t.terfly in boots, with his ethereal head and spiritual orbs.