ae 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



AUG. 5 I -4 < 



Fur lliu K. E. Karmir. 



RURAL E D U C A '1' I O N . 

 No. II. 

 Education can never find a true and pin-e ba.sis, 

 such a one as philosopliy could approve, onl of the 

 order of nature. 'I'liat order points to woman, as 

 the first ojierator on body and ir.ind. Tlie fir-^t and 

 most important faculties are tauglit and cultivated 

 by lier. And who shall say, that in ifie earliest 

 dawn of intellect, the seeds of virtue or vice are 

 not sown by her, through ignorance ; for we cannot 

 suppose it ever to be her wish to impair the fruit of 

 Iier love, the fond hope of her future joy. 



Education begins at her hands, from the first 

 mom;''nt she applies the infant to her breast. Her 

 every motion is a lesson ; and as every motion has 

 a meaning, and a characler withal, the meaning and 

 the impulse, be they good or bad, patient or impa- 

 tient, just or unjust, must leave a durable impres- 

 sion. All primary education is imitation ; and 

 the infant mind learns only by physical imitation. 

 Can this be doubted by any one who ever noticed 

 the combativeness of the little children of the Irish 

 on r.road street, compared with those of the more 

 pidished parts of the city ? With reasonable al- 

 lowance for e.xceptions, are not children like their 

 parents in temper ? I inight extend these ques- 

 tions far ; but no one will doubt of the influence of 

 a mother over the future character of her child. — 

 But when a mother is almost peifect in herself, and 

 her child is almost the reverse, let not such unfor- 

 tunate coincidences tend to weaken the faith in 

 maternal example. These cases are very rare, and 

 might be traced almost invariably to their true 

 source, and that somewhere else than in the moth- 

 er. But how few mothers act always themselves. 

 How many of the best of them are impelled by the 

 unreasonable conduct of others, of their own house- 

 hold or out of it, into temporary fits of humor or 

 passion in the presence of their children. Who 

 has not seen these little farces played over, by the 

 youngest children, on other.s, or on their dolls. How 

 can a child conceive an idea of imperfection in the 

 beings it looks up to as the gods of its infancy. It 

 must then imitate the good and the bad indifferent- 

 ly. Is it easy to make a young tree which springs 

 crooked from the earth, grow straight ? fe it more 

 easy to eradicate that moral tortuousness which is 

 acquired in infancy, from the beloved source of its 

 e.xistence, by wordy precept ; and that too, from 

 some cold pedagogue, whose harsh and severe tones 

 are not like the music of a mother's voice ? Ho^v 

 long does it take rational nian to divest himself of 

 the foolish fear of a grave-yard in a dark night? 

 The seeds of this folly were sown in tender youth ; 

 anil llie ripe.st age with experience and reason, 

 cannot always obliterate then). 



The evil spirit, as it is ca.led, manifest.s ilselfso 

 ' early in life, sometimes, that well might superfi- 

 cial observers suspect that it comes into the world 

 with life itself. But such an idea is so foreign 

 from all tlie perfect works of nature and its Author, 

 that no reasonable mind should harbor it for one 

 moment. All that i.s imperfect we should in truth 

 as well as in humility attribute to ourselves. If 

 then it be admitted that instead of being all origin- 

 ally bad, we arc all originally good, all the imper- 

 fections of which we complain are really and sub- 

 stantially within the reach of remedy ; and that 

 remedy is in llie hands of him who has the greatest 

 interest in having it applied successfully, viz : man. 



If I be allnued hereto distinguish woman from 

 man, I should say, that woman has the greatest in- 

 terest of the two, in the moral reform of society. 

 But I cannot enlarge on this pregnant idea in this 

 place. 



If what I have presumed above, of the power of 

 primary, maternal education, over all the evils of 

 society be not true, vain is the labor of all educa- 

 tion ; and the history of all former progress is a de- 

 ception. We have then made no progress. The 

 social school is in a worse condition than when the 

 schoolmaster first began his task. Education, like 

 every thing, surely had a beginning; and that can 

 he found nowhere but in the cradle ; and who will 

 di-ipute the importance of heginnmgs in all things? 

 At the beginning of two diverging lines in geome- 

 try, if the departure be imperceptibly small, yet the 

 consequent distances will be infinite. How then 

 can too much stress be laid on the hrginning of 

 Ihnt o'A which all future happiness depends? Have 

 vice, and crime increased with the progress of so- 

 ciety from its simple to its more co[n|)lex forms ? 



those who meddle with this important subject, to 

 make all the means which they e;iiploy subservient 

 to the great and only reasonable end of making 

 men better and happier; every other consideration 

 should yield to these. 



The heart may be cultivated only in lender 

 youth, though the head may be improved at all 

 ages. If the importance of the former must not 

 yield to the latter, it behoves us to give our special 

 attention to that (the heart.) Interest, pride and 

 ambition will take care of the head ; and if legisla- 

 tors had no other regard for that, than what was 

 conducive to the improvement of the heart, they 

 would have little else to do, than to show in the 

 spirit of all the general laws they enacted, their 

 oivn regard for justice, which is the heart's own 

 empire. 



I will not now open that Pandora's box, which 

 might exhibit in all its ugly features, the general 

 injustice which has pervaded from time immemorial, 

 the statutes of all governments, for the edification 

 and moral improvement of CuU grown scholars, teach- 



The pulpit tells us that we are all backsliders. | jng them by an exalted example, lessons of fraud 

 This is not very encouraging; but it should not j which these very lawgivers ikclnre they will pun- 

 dishearten the brave and virtuous, the true believ- ish by severe penalties, even to death, if poor indi- 

 ers in divine wisdom. If we are all backsliders in viduals presume to follow their example and iieg- 



nioral practice, we have surely gained some mental 

 strength wherewith to regain a better foothold on 

 moral and physical truth. And that very backslid- 

 ing, it may be hoped, may carry us back in thought, 

 to the source of truth, where we may discover the 

 first small, almost iuiperceptible departure of the 

 two lines of truth and error, and correct it there. 



To mend the original evil impressions, by after 

 education, is a task which no moralist has, as yet, 

 been able to prescribe the means of doing. All 

 the religions we read of seem to have had this ob- 



lect their precepts ; — but I will for the present, 

 merely ask these wise legislators, these pretended 

 reformers of the world, at least in our boasting 

 America, how they can expect tliat woman, who 

 only can have the power to give the first important 

 iirpulse of character to man, will be able to perform 

 this delicate duty, while she is opposed by the ty- 

 ranny of physical force, the injustice and tyranny 

 of the law, and the tyranny of fashion? She is 

 called upon to make bricks where the straw is re- 

 fused ; and the light of the sun even is shut out 

 ject in view. All the laws which have been made, I from her labors. In the midst of these important 

 assume <Ao( to have been their object. But the i labors, if perchance some faint rays of light have 

 present stale of the world, after many thousand i pierced the dark cloud of mate tyranny, and shone 

 years experience and mental labor, shows no ade- ! upon her for a moment, her sublime lord and inas- 

 quate progress : perhaps no moral progress at all, j ler breaks the delicate thread in her hands, and re- 

 if numbers and crimes were compared, from the ; places it with a ponderous chain. His superior 

 first knowledge of society, to the present time. If; wisdom commands, and her docile nature obeys; — 

 this appalling truth be admitted, it <inly goes to ' she is thwarted in a thousand ways, and by as many 

 show that we have heretofore sought the remedy , whims ; and perhaps separated from her tender 

 for moral and physical evil in the wrong place ; i ward at an age when nothing but the tender cares 

 and must seek for it elsewhere. I wish I could in and peaceful example of a happy mother is want- 

 conscience attribute this error entirely to ignorance. | ing. If I had not a great aversion to the inlerfe- 

 But I cannot, no more than I can believe that the ■ rehce of the laws in domestic concerns, beyond 

 learned judges and clergy, who hung witches and ' what is indispensable, I would reciunmend defer- 

 quakers, were ignorant of the sin of those acts. ' ring the technical ABC education to the sixth 

 Worldly and selfish motives have certainly impeded year, leaving the physical and purely moral educa- 

 ihe progress of morals and good governments in all • tion entirely in the hands of the mother. But I 

 countries. We Americans assume to know, by our: will not indulge myself in speculating on this diffi- 

 own experience, and some real progress in morals j cult branch of the subject ; for however desirable 

 and government, that certain governments widely :a radical reform may be, I can .^ee as well as oth- 

 dift'ering from our own, do absolutely require for : ers, a thousand difficulties in practice, growing out 

 their support, as they are now constituted, igno- of the present state of society, which admonish us 

 ranee, superstition, poverty and vice. In such of the imperious necessity of yielding to lliein now, 



countries, therefore, a few learned men might have 

 discovered, long since, the source of their evils, 

 but dared not promulgate it, or propose any effec- 

 tual remedy. Hence we see no attempts there of 

 a radical cure; but simply palliatives, weak and 

 temporary, to ward off as long as possible, the ler 

 rible threalnings of revolution. Education ha.s 

 never been free ; and if all subjects which may 

 come under that head were specified here, it is not 

 certain that it could be called free even with us. — 

 I will not, however, contend with its distant forms, 

 before I have examined more closely its small be- 

 ginnings; and it should be the constant aim of all 



while we boldly contemplate them, and admit them 

 to be curable in time. The inslruii.en;s necessary 

 for a reform in education are yet to be created. A 

 better and more general knowledge of the errors of 

 the existing system and its unfruitful results, — a 

 more perfect understanding of all that we require 

 of education, in a moral and political view ; and a 

 clearer insight into the means best calculated to 

 accomplish our end, is what should principally oc- 

 cupy our attention. Under this prudent and patient 

 system, however, it may not be ine.vpedient to make 

 occasionally some gentle innovations, such as the 

 present state of society will tolerate. 



