10 ON ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. 



three go into more complicated qualities and comljined relations, 

 and are, therefore, more adapted for the advanced or juvenile 

 school. 



Besides a knowledge of objects, with their qualities and uses, 

 much useful information may be communicated, such as easy arith- 

 metic by tangible objects, the simpler geometrical figures, the ele- 

 ments of Geography, and even History, with an endless variety of 

 amusing and instructive matters, which may all be selected to be of 

 value as preparatory for more advanced education, and future life.* 

 But let it never be forgotten, that all this may and must be attained 

 without TASKING or FATIGUING the infant pupil. The following- 

 is an extract, on this vital point, from Chambers' Infant Educa- 

 tion : — 



" This section ought not to be concluded without a caution, the 

 omission of which might cause infant education to become an irre- 

 mediable evil instead of good to its innocent objects. We learn 

 from physiological observations, too numerous and accurate to admit 

 of doubt, that the brain, the instrument of the mind, is in infancy 

 imperfectly developed, unconsolidated, and subject, in its own sub- 

 stance, to serious disease, as well as to be the cause of other diseases, 

 hy being overtasked. Now this overtasking is an error into which 

 infant-school teachers are very apt to fall in the intellectual depart- 

 ment of the training. They cannot, they suppose, give enough of 

 lesson exercise, or advance their pupils too fast and too far ' in their 

 learning.' Parents, they say, expect it, and have not learned to 

 appreciate anything else ; and to their ignorant prejudices they are 

 forced to yield. This is a grievous, often a fatal error. We refer 

 to what has been said in our introductory matter, on the secondary 

 importance of intellectual to moral, and even to physical, training, 

 at that early age. It ought to be secondary in the time allotted to 

 it and the attention bestowed upon it. It should not task the me- 

 mory, or have in it the slightest character of labour for any of the 

 faculties. Conversant with objects more than words, it should be 

 little more than a better directed and more systematic exercise of 

 the senses and the simple observing powers — those the child would 

 engage in if left to himself. It ought all to be amusement, not 

 study or exertion. If the knowledge is gained, it should be as easi- 

 ly gained as if picked up spontaneously by the way. It may be 



• I may here recommend, as guides in infant education, Wilderspin's 

 work on the subject, and the number of Chambers' Educational Course, en- 

 titled Infant Education, equally suited to the infant school and the nursery. 



