Practical Education - Maria Edgeworth

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cannot, he says, make sure of the invisible attention of the mind, we may at least get something done, prevent the habit of total idleness, and perhaps make the children desire to exchange labour of body for labour of mind. These expedients will, we fear, be found rather palliative than effectual; if, by forcing children to bodily exercise, that becomes disagreeable, they may prefer labour of the mind; but, in making this exchange, or bargain, they are sensible that they choose the least of two evils. The evil of application is diminished only by comparison in their estimation; they will avoid it whenever they are at liberty. The love of eating, of fine clothes, &c. if they stimulate a slothful child, must be the ultimate object of his exertions; he will consider the performance of his task merely as a painful condition on his part. Still the association of pain with literature continues; it is then impossible that he should love it. There is no active principle within him, no desire for knowledge excited; his attention is forced, it ceases the moment the external force is withdrawn. He drudges to earn his cream bowl duly set, but he will stretch his lubbar length the moment his task is done.

      There is another class of children opposed to saunterers, whom we may denominate volatile geniuses. They show a vast deal of quickness and vivacity; they understand almost before a tutor can put his ideas into words; they observe a variety of objects, but they do not connect their observations, and the very rapidity with which they seize an explanation, prevents them from thoroughly comprehending it; they are easily disturbed by external objects when they are thinking. As they have great sensibility, their associations are strong and various; their thoughts branch off into a thousand beautiful, but useless ramifications. Whilst you are attempting to instruct them upon one subject, they are inventing, perhaps, upon another; or they are following a train of ideas suggested by something you have said, but foreign to your business. They are more pleased with the discovery of resemblances, than with discrimination of difference; the one costs them more time and attention than the other: they are apt to say witty things, and to strike out sparks of invention; but they have not commonly the patience to form exact judgments, or to bring their first inventions to perfection. When they begin the race, every body expects that they should outstrip all competitors; but it is often seen that slower rivals reach the goal before them. The predictions formed of pupils of this temperament, vary much, according to the characters of their tutors. A slow man is provoked by their dissipated vivacity, and, unable to catch or fix their attention, prognosticates that they will never have sufficient application to learn any thing. This prophecy, under certain tuition, would probably be accomplished. The want of sympathy between a slow tutor and a quick child, is a great disadvantage to both; each insists upon going his own pace, and his own way, and these ways are perhaps diametrically opposite. Even in forming a judgment of the child's attention, the tutor, who is not acquainted with the manner in which his pupil goes to work, is liable to frequent mistakes. Children are sometimes suspected of not having listened to what has been said to them, when they cannot exactly repeat the words that they have heard; they often ask questions, and make observations, which seem quite foreign to the present business; but this is not always a proof that their minds are absent, or that their attention is dissipated. Their answers often appear to be far from the point, because they suppress their intermediate ideas, and give only the result of their thoughts. This may be inconvenient to those who teach them; but this habit sufficiently proves that these children are not deficient in attention. To cure them of the fault which they have, we should not accuse them falsely of another. But it may be questioned whether this be a fault; it is absolutely necessary, in many processes of the mind, to suppress a number of intermediate ideas. Life, if this were not practised, would be too short for those who think, and much too short for those who speak. When somebody asked Pyrrhus which of two musicians he liked the best, he answered, "Polysperchon is the best general." This would appear to be the absurd answer of an absent person, or of a fool, if we did not consider the ideas that are implied, as well as those which are expressed.

      March 5th, 1796. To-day, at dinner, a lady observed that Nicholson, Williamson, Jackson, &c. were names which originally meant the sons of Nicholas, William, Jack, &c. A boy who was present, H——, added, with a very grave face, as soon as she had finished speaking, "Yes, ma'am, Tydides." His mother asked him what he could mean by this absent speech? H—— calmly repeated, "Ma'am, yes; because I think it is like Tydides." His brother S——eagerly interposed, to supply the intermediate ideas; "Yes, indeed, mother," cried he, "H—— is not absent, because des, in Greek, means the son of (the race of.) Tydides is the son of Tydeus, as Jackson is the son of Jack." In this instance, H—— was not absent, though he did not make use of a sufficient number of words to explain his ideas.

      August, 1796. L——, when he returned home, after some months absence, entertained his brothers and sisters with a new play, which he had learned at Edinburgh. He told them, that when he struck the table with his hand, every person present, was instantaneously to remain fixed in the attitudes in which they should be when the blow was given. The attitudes in which some of the little company were fixed, occasioned much diversion; but in speaking of this new play afterwards, they had no name for it. Whilst they were thinking of a name for it, H—— exclaimed, "The Gorgon!" It was immediately agreed that this was a good name for the play, and H——, upon this occasion, was perfectly intelligible, without expressing all the intermediate ideas.

      Good judges, form an accurate estimate of the abilities of those who converse with them, by what they omit, as well as by what they say. If any one can show that he also has been in Arcadia, he is sure of being well received, without producing minutes of his journey. In the same manner we should judge of children; if they arrive at certain conclusions in reasoning, we may be satisfied that they have taken all the necessary previous steps. We need not question their attention upon subjects where they give proofs of invention; they must have remembered well, or they could not invent; they must have attended well, or they could not have remembered. Nothing wearies a quick child more than to be forced slowly to retrace his own thoughts, and to repeat the words of a discourse to prove that he has listened to it. A tutor, who is slow in understanding the ideas of his vivacious pupil, gives him so much trouble and pain, that he grows silent, from finding it not worth while to speak. It is for this reason, that children appear stupid and silent, with some people, and sprightly and talkative with others. Those who hope to talk to children with any effect, must, as Rousseau observes, be able to hear as well as to speak. M. de Segrais, who was deaf, was much in the right to decline being preceptor to the Duke de Maine. A deaf preceptor would certainly make a child dumb.

      To win the attention of vivacious children, we must sometimes follow them in their zigzag course, and even press them to the end of their own train of thought. They will be content when they have obtained a full hearing; then they will have leisure to discover that what they were in such haste to utter, was not so well worth saying as they imagined; that their bright ideas often, when steadily examined by themselves, fade into absurdities.

      "Where does this path lead to? Can't we get over this stile? May I only go into this wood?" exclaims an active child, when he is taken out to walk. Every path appears more delightful than the straight road; but let him try the paths, they will perhaps end in disappointment, and then his imagination will be corrected. Let him try his own experiments, then he will be ready to try yours; and if yours succeed better than his own, you will secure his confidence. After a child has talked on for some time, till he comes to the end of his ideas, then he will perhaps listen to what you have to say; and if he finds it better than what he has been saying himself, he will voluntarily give you his attention the next time you begin to speak.

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