EDUCATION. 



takes a special subject, and gives the pupil in- 

 structed full information in regard to it. It is 

 plain from this statement that there may be 

 instruction which is non-educative. If in com- 

 municating the instruction the instructor does not 

 call into full play the powers of the instructed ; if 

 he loads him with information which has been 

 merely taken in, but not acquired, and which will 

 necessarily soon vanish from the mind, the in- 

 structor is not educating. But, on the other hand, 

 instruction may be made powerfully educative. 

 It is the one direct way by which one man may act 

 upon another ; its methods can be distinctly laid 

 out; its results may be ascertained with compar- 

 ative certainty. And therefore instruction has 

 always occupied the principal place in education ; 

 and, accordingly, we shall first, treat of education 

 exclusive of instruction, and then of instruction. 

 In other words, we shall first discuss the right 

 mode of training the child in regard to desires, 

 feelings, and efforts ; and then we shall proceed 

 to the training of his intellectual powers. 



EDUCATION. 



We cannot, however, do this at the very com- 

 mencement. The elements are in the earliest stage 

 of the child's existence so completely blended that 

 they cannot be distinguished ; and even in the 

 ultimate stage it is of consequence to remember 

 that while they are distinguished mentally, they 

 are never separated in fact. Every intellectual 

 perception has emotion and effort bound up with 

 it. 



We begin with the infant, or rather with the two 

 earliest stages of the child's existence. In the 

 first till the end of the second year, he is as yet 

 totally incapable of expressing his feelings ; in the 

 second, from the third year to the seventh, he has 

 reached consciousness, but is still slowly emerging 

 from the purely animal condition into wide ac- 

 quaintance with objects, into active intercourse 

 with his fellow-beings, and into a distinct and 

 decided individuality. 



The first thing that the educator has to do in 

 regard to the earliest stage is to impress deeply 

 on his own mind the fact that the infant is an 

 animal, that he is living a vegetative life. For 

 the first days of his existence, his principal em- 

 ployment is sleep, and for a long time sleep fills 

 up the largest portion of his life. In the treat- 

 ment of him, therefore, this is the primary fact to 

 be remembered. If he feels joy, he feels joy as an 

 animal. If he feels pain, he feels pain as an 

 animal. He has yet no ideas, no desires, no 

 emotions but what are connected with his animal 

 nature. If, for instance, he cries, the cry arises 

 from something connected with his animal nature, 

 and, therefore, the educator is not to punish him 

 for it, or be angry with him, but at once to try to 

 discover the physical cause, and remove it. If the 

 child desires anything, it is still the impulse of his 

 animal nature, and it is within the range of his 

 animal nature that we must seek an explanation 

 of all the phenomena which he presents. In fact, 

 he is to be treated so far as a machine. When 

 anything goes wrong it must be put right, and no 

 praise or blame is to be assigned to the infant. 



But the infant is something more than a 

 machine or an animal Out of his animal nature is 

 to arise a spiritual ; and the educator's special busi- 



ness is to watch over this. It is one of the mistakes 

 easily committed, but fatally dangerous, to suppose 

 that the education of the child does not commence 

 until the child is able to understand and speak. 

 On the contrary, his mind comes into activity on 

 his first entrance into the world. He sees, he 

 feels, he strives continually. Every effort leaves 

 its trace behind ; and at the end of the second year 

 the child is the result of his manifold efforts, and 

 feelings, and observations. In fact, it seems to 

 be the case that thousands and thousands of im- 

 pressions must be made before the mind of any 

 one reaches consciousness. The child sees, and 

 sees, and sees again. Each time that he looks at 

 the object, it produces an impression on him ; but 

 at first, the different elements of desire, feeling, 

 effort, and perception are so intimately blended, 

 that the child is conscious of none of them. But 

 gradually, in the case of the sense of sight, the 

 elements of desire, feeling, and effort become less 

 preponderant, and then the child at length sees a 

 distinct object, and knows that he sees it But 

 though thus the earliest operations of the child's 

 mind form, for his whole character, a foundation 

 which can never become visible, and which eludes 

 the comprehension of man, yet they are not the 

 less important, and are to be watched with the 

 utmost care. 



The child, as we have said, is at this stage 

 purely an animal, but with higher capacities. 

 These higher capacities depend upon the use 

 which he makes of his senses. By these senses 

 he is at present swayed ; these senses are not of 

 co-ordinate position in regard to his higher nature. 

 At this stage the feeling of bodily comfort, arising 

 from the activity of all the functions of his body, 

 gives him the greatest pleasure, and has most 

 power over him. But the object of the educator 

 is gradually to deliver him from the bondage of 

 this purely animal feeling, due regard being 

 always paid to the health of the child. The 

 senses of smell and taste and touch are also 

 plainly inferior to the senses of hearing and sight. 

 The lower senses are unquestionably to be care- 

 fully attended to, but it is through the other two 

 that he bursts the bands of the animal nature and 

 rises to the spiritual. 



But all this must be done very gradually. The 

 first point to which the educator must give his 

 attention is the graduation of the outward stimuli 

 to the senses of the child. The infant's organs 

 are delicate and tender, and, therefore, at the 

 earliest stage, the light must be subdued. He 

 must only gradually come to bear the full light 

 of day. So no startling sounds must be applied 

 to his ears. Only ge'ntle words and tones are fit 

 for them. In the progress of time he will come 

 to distinguish one object from another, and one 

 sound from another, and after that, his knowledge 

 will make rapid progress. 



At the same time that the intellectual life of the 

 child is thus forming, the emotional and practical 

 parts of his being are also in full activity. Here 

 the method of procedure should plainly be to give 

 him through his lower senses all the pleasure 

 which attention to his health will bring along with 

 it. It is right that he should have such pleasure. 

 It is right that he should have such pleasures 

 throughout his life. In this, as in most cases in 

 connection with human life, wisdom lies in the 

 mean, not in the destruction of any of our natural 



563 



