Practical Education (Vol.1&2). Maria Edgeworth

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Practical Education (Vol.1&2) - Maria  Edgeworth


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different colours.

      To fix the attention of children, or, in other words, to interest them about those subjects to which we wish them to apply, must be our first object in the early cultivation of the understanding. This we shall not find a difficult undertaking if we have no false associations, no painful recollections to contend with. We can connect any species of knowledge with those occupations which are immediately agreeable to young people: for instance, if a child is building a house, we may take that opportunity to teach him how bricks are made, how the arches over doors and windows are made, the nature of the keystone and butments of an arch, the manner in which all the different parts of the roof of a house are put together, &c.; whilst he is learning all this he is eagerly and seriously attentive, and we educate his understanding in the best possible method. But if, mistaking the application of the principle, that literature should be made agreeable to children, we should entice a child to learn his letters by a promise of a gilt coach, or by telling him that he would be the cleverest boy in the world if he could but learn the letter A, we use false and foolish motives; we may possibly, by such means, effect the immediate purpose, but we shall assuredly have reason to repent of such imprudent deceit. If the child reasons at all, he will be content after his first lesson with being "the cleverest boy in the world," and he will not, on a future occasion, hazard his fame, having much to lose, and nothing to gain; besides, he is now master of a gilt coach, and some new and larger reward must be proffered to excite his industry. Besides the disadvantage of early exhausting our stock of incitements, it is dangerous in teaching to humour pupils with a variety of objects by way of relieving their attention. The pleasure of thinking, and much of the profit, must frequently depend upon our preserving the greatest possible connection between our ideas. Those who allow themselves to start from one object to another, acquire such dissipated habits of mind, that they cannot, without extreme difficulty and reluctance, follow any connected train of thought. You cannot teach those who will not follow the chain of your reasons; upon the connection of our ideas, useful memory and reasoning must depend. We will give you an instance: arithmetic is one of the first things that we attempt to teach children. In the following dialogue, which passed between a boy of five years old and his father, we may observe that, till the child followed his father's train of ideas, he could not be taught.

      Father. S——, how many can you take from one?

      S——. None.

      Father. None! Think; can you take nothing from one?

      S——. None, except that one.

      Father. Except! Then you can take one from one?

      S——. Yes, that one.

      Father. How many then can you take from one?

      S——. One.

      Father. Very true; but now, can you take two from one?

      S——. Yes, if they were figures I could, with a rubber-out. (This child had frequently sums written for him with a black lead pencil, and he used to rub out his figures when they were wrong with Indian rubber, which he had heard called rubber-out.)

      Father. Yes, you could; but now we will not talk of figures, we will talk of things. There may be one horse or two horses, or one man or two men.

      S——. Yes, or one coat or two coats.

      Father. Yes, or one thing or two things, no matter what they are. Now, could you take two things from one thing?

      S——. Yes, if there were three things I could take away two things, and leave one.

      His Father took up a cake from the tea-table.

      Father. Could I take two cakes from this one cake?

      S——. You could take two pieces.

      His Father divided the cake into halves, and held up each half so that the child might distinctly see them.

      Father. What would you call these two pieces?

      S——. Two cakes.

      Father. No, not two cakes.

      S——. Two biscuits.

      Father. Holding up a whole biscuit: What is this?

      S——. A thing to eat.

      Father. Yes, but what would you call it?

      S——. A biscuit.

      His Father broke it into halves, and showed one half.

      Father. What would you call this?

      S——. was silent, and his sister was applied to, who answered, "Half a biscuit."

      Father. Very well; that's all at present.


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