CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



enjoyments. But at the same time these enjoy- 

 ments should be limited by the educator doing 

 nothing to create them except when he is con- 

 sulting the health of the child. The habit of 

 trying to soothe children by appeals to their 

 sense of taste, simply intensifies their animal 

 nature. I f the child requires soothing, discover the 

 source of the pain and remove it. And if that is 

 impossible for a time, appeal to the child through 

 the higher senses the sense of hearing and the 

 sense of sight. This appeal will generally require 

 the educator to exert himself more, but the result 

 will be worth the trouble. 



Above all, it is essentially requisite that the 

 child be continually in an atmosphere of smiles 

 and love. He is very easily crushed ; he is ex- 

 tremely weak. A frown is a terrible cruelty in- 

 flicted on him. It is more : it depresses his whole 

 life, intellectual and moral. The educator must 

 be patient, and must be animated by unwearying 

 love. 



We proceed to the next stage : the period from 

 three to seven years of age. The child has by 

 this time got hold of perceptions of the external 

 world, and has begun to feel his personality both 

 in contrast with it and in contrast with his fellow- 

 beings. The work of the educator is now to make 

 these impressions as strong as possible, and to 

 bring out the right dispositions to his fellow-beings. 



The procedure of the educator is directed by 

 the laws of the child's mind. And it is important 

 to insist on these, and to demand imperative 

 attention to them at all stages. An object, as we 

 have seen, produces an impression on the child's 

 mind. It produces it again and again, until at 

 length the element of sensation grows less, and 

 the element of perception becomes stronger and 

 stronger, and at last it perceives the object This 

 is the first stage. The child now perceives one 

 object, and then another, and then another, and 

 notices that there are points of resemblance in 

 alL This is the next stage. At this point, 

 language becomes possible, and he calls the 

 different objects by one name. But he then pro- 

 ceeds upon a more difficult task. He takes each 

 object and compares it with the others, and finds 

 resemblances and differences. He gets at the 

 individuals through the differences, and by means 

 of resemblances he reaches wider and wider groups. 

 And then he gradually comes to know the exact 

 points in which the resemblance exists, and the 

 exact nature of the difference, and in his mind 

 he can separate these points or qualities from the 

 objects in which they reside. We have reached 

 a stage much farther on than the child of seven 

 can attain but we wish to carry the subject out 

 to its limit. And then through a knowledge of 

 these qualities or activities unities may be found 

 pervading nature. Here we have come to the 

 scientific stage, or the highest of all, where law is 

 seen to pervade everything. Now, it is important 

 to notice that this is the invariable order of nature 

 which we have now described. The human being 

 must deal first with the concrete ; and only 

 through the concrete can he come legitimately to 

 the abstract This applies to the whole education 

 of the child. If the child is to be taught numbers, 

 he must first see them in the concrete. He must 

 have before him- one, two, three, four objects. So 

 with the moral lessons he may now receive. He can- 

 not understand moral precepts presented abstractly, 



564 



but he can observe what actions of his own are 

 approved by his fellow-beings, and especially by 

 his educator, and what are disapproved. He can 

 listen to narratives of the doings of other human 

 beings, and draw his own as yet unconscious, or 

 at least inexpressible inferences. This may seem 

 a slow process, but it is the only right one. And 

 it is here that the educator can be of so great, 

 use to the person whom he is educating. Objects 

 appear in nature in such variety of combinations, 

 that to a child the confusion is inextricable. The 

 actions of men are also of every possible character. 

 But the educator can make his selection from the 

 objects and the actions. He can so arrange the 

 objects brought before the child that day by day 

 the impressions will become stronger ; and as he 

 can submit objects in the particular order in which 

 the child will be most inclined to perceive the 

 resemblances, he can gradually lead him to form 

 groups. And he can do the same with actions. 

 He can relate to him such as are entirely suitable 

 to his years ; and the child listening to them with 

 interest, and talking of them afterwards, will grow 

 in his knowledge of human nature. 



What the educator has mainly to do is to 

 produce strong impressions ; for out of the 

 strength of the impressions arise memory and the 

 power of reasoning. There must be constant 

 repetition, but never wearisomeness. As soon as 

 a subject lacks interest, it lacks educative power. 



At this period, the child's imagination is pecul- 

 iarly predominant He sees nothing very accu- 

 rately. He sees everything in masses. To be 

 added to this is the fact, that he has now got a 

 consciousness of himself to some extent, and he 

 proceeds to invest everything with the same life, 

 the same feelings and activities, of which he him- 

 self is conscious. This state of his mind must 

 form an essential consideration in the attempt to 

 educate him. Taken along with its feeble condi- 

 tion, it leads to the conclusion that, of all things, 

 the child's play is the most important means of 

 educating. He is willing to play, and he exercises 

 all his powers in play. Put him by the sands of 

 the sea-shore, and he will occupy himself the 

 whole day long, and occupy himself very profit- 

 ably. Or place him anywhere in the country, and 

 he will find objects to interest him continually. 

 But the educator can also use artificial means to 

 amuse and educate him. Now is the time to 

 teach children to distinguish colours, to notice 

 different sounds, to observe the forms of objects, 

 to be tender towards animals, and kind to all his 

 fellow-beings. The Kindergarten system of Froe- 

 bel is based on this idea. In the way of play, a 

 great deal can be done by a wise educator to form 

 the mind ; and the Kindergarten system attempts 

 to lay out systematically what can be thus effected. 

 It is, of course, carefully to be remembered that, 

 though the educator has the system in his mind, 

 the child is not to be constrained by any system. 

 He is to have full free exercise of all his powers, 

 and is not to be at any time compelled to exercise 

 his mind. As it is to be all play, compulsion is 

 out of the question. 



His moral treatment at this stage differs some- 

 what from that adopted in the previous stage. In 

 the previous stage, the child was unconscious, and 

 entirely free from blame. At this stage, the 

 child has reached consciousness, and may deserve 

 blame. He, accordingly, must feel that he is 



