1826.] Letters from the United States of North America. 503 



devoted exclusively to detailed reports on the subject of education every- 

 where, not only in America but \n Europe, though chiefly in America. 

 From what I know of the publishers, and from what I hear of the editor, 

 I am led to believe that this work will be of great use in our day. 

 Hitherto, every teacher of youth has had to begin where his grandfather 

 perhaps — or his great, great grandfather began ; whatever he has learnt 

 has been by good luck, or a course of perpetual experiment ; and when 

 he died, his knowledge died with him. It need not be so — nor will it be 

 so, much longer ; for, if this journal succeed — and it will succeed, I am 

 sure, if it be conducted with such views, and by such talent as I hear of — 

 others will be set on foot ; and schoolmasters will be the better and the 

 wiser for it all over the world — and, of course, the generations that have 

 to go through their hands will be so too.* I hear, moreover, that your 

 celebrated school at Hazlewood is beginning to be thought of as the 

 model for many to be established here, and that nmch inquiry is directed 

 now to your new variety of infant schools — and, by the way, this brings 

 to my mind a thought which I do believe worthy of serious attention. 

 People are afraid of correcting children while they are yet young, or, to 

 speak, as the fashion is, before the little creatures are able to reason, or 

 to understand why they are corrected. There appears to me to be a 

 radical error in this, an error too, which prevails in every work that 

 I have ever met with, on education. If you ever correct a child, so as 

 to cause bodily pain, it should be not after, but before it is able to 

 reason — for being able to reason, or to feel other pain, there is little need 

 of that, for guiding it. Before it is able to reason, however, there may 

 be need of another course — of an appeal to the body. And why not ? 

 Have we not a principle of truth before us, a sure guide in the education 

 of babes, on such a theory ; a principle which does in fact guide us with 

 creatures that cannot reason ? A child burns its finger in the candle — 

 it will not soon be persuaded to trust the candle again, we know. There- 

 fore, say I — if it were desirable to break a baby, a mere baby, of any 

 such habit, we should only have to inflict as much pain, no matter how, 

 by a pinch or a blow if you like, as it would feel by thrusting its finger 

 into the candle ; and if the pain followed immediately and certainly, the 

 baby would not repeat the act, any more than it would put its finger into 

 the candle a second time, if it were burnt the first timt. It is not neces- 

 sary that the little creature should reason ; it is only necessary that it 

 should Jeel: and if we were to profit by the knowledge thus afforded us, 

 by every act of a baby, when it refuses to touch a candle after it has 

 been burnt by a candle, or to suck its own finger, after that finger has 

 been hurt by its new tooth, we should have the power of educating babes 

 in the lap ; the power of preventing a multitude of pernicious habits of 

 temper, which are often rooted in a child before they are capable of being 

 assailed through the understanding, or the pride, or the affection. We 

 do this with a puppy, or a kitten : we break both of bad habits before 

 either is able to reason : are they more intelligent, or much more tract- 

 able than our own offspring ? But enough — I see no reason why the 

 proper education of a child should not commence a great while before it 

 does now, even at these infant schools. 



• This journal is now here. I have met with a copy. It is published by T. B. Wait 

 and Son, Boston, Mass. and may be had, perhaps, of Miller, Bridge Street, Blackfriars. 



