MENTAL AND PHYSICAL TRAINING OF CHILDREN. 219 



If the mind be curbed and bumbled too much in children, if their spirits be 

 abased and broken much by too strict a hand over them, they lose all their vigor 

 and industry. For extravagant young fellows that have liveliness and spirit come 

 sometimes to be set right, and so make able and great men. But dejected minds, 

 timorous and tame, and low spirits, are hardly ever to be raised, and very seldom 

 attain to anything. 



Again, when a child does well, Locke advises his father and 

 mother to show pleasure, and, upon his doing ill, to show a cold, 

 neglectful countenance, and this, he says, " if constantly observed, 

 I doubt not but will of itself work more than threats or blows, 

 which lose their force when once grown common, and are of no 

 use when shame does not attend them." "With regard to the early 

 teaching of children, it should be remembered that a young child 

 is always learning, and therefore parents should not be in too 

 great a hurry to begin that branch of education popularly known 

 as " lessons " ; and lessons themselves must not be looked upon as 

 an end, but as a means, or as tools put into the hands of a child to 

 enable him to shape his own life and discover its uses and beauty. 



We do not want to manufacture little prigs, who have swal- 

 lowed a mass of facts never to be digested, but we want children 

 who can take an intelligent interest in all that is going on around 

 them. They will learn much if their mothers will only take the 

 trouble to answer questions in an intelligent manner : it is either 

 laziness or stupidity to repulse a child with " Don't ask questions." 



A mother who conscientiously answers questions will find that 

 she too has profited as well as her children, and if there are some 

 questions the right answers to which it would be impossible for 

 children to understand, let them be told so honestly and not put 

 off with evasive answers. Nothing is better for young children 

 than to be sent to a good Kindergarten : they learn to be obedient 

 when they find obedience is expected as a matter of course ; they 

 learn to be observant, which is of great use to them in after-life ; 

 and they are made to take a pleasure in all they do, as all they 

 learn is made interesting to them. The Kindergarten principles 

 may, however, be carried out in all home teaching, when pleas- 

 ure in learning will be found one of the greatest aids to mental 

 digestion. 



I should begin the teaching of a child as a favor, not as a task ; 

 if he is inattentive, I should by no means insist upon the lesson 

 being done, and so give it the air of a task. It is far better to say : 

 " I really can not waste my time in teaching you. I have other 

 matters to do, and if you can not give me a little attention you 

 may go away." With the natural perversity of human nature, 

 the child immediately becomes anxious to learn, and feels at once 

 that you are doing him a favor, not he, you. If a child seems 

 dull, never force it to learn. If the dullness proceeds from deli- 



