REESE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 JNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 L%eceived APR 24 1895 
 Accessions No. StfffZffi . Class No. 
 
HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 A NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 
 
 1876. 
 
V 
 
 & 
 
 \* 
 
 JJfTro 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 cnAP. 
 I. 
 
 Old and Young in School . 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 What the Schooling is for . 
 
 
 
 . 10 
 
 III. 
 
 The Natural Possessions of Man 
 
 
 
 . 19 
 
 IV. 
 
 How to Expect .... 
 
 
 
 . 29 
 
 V. 
 
 The Golden Mean .... 
 
 
 
 . 37 
 
 VI. 
 
 The New Comer .... 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 VII. 
 
 Care of the Frame 
 
 
 
 . 55 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Care of the Powers: — Will 
 
 
 
 . 64 
 
 IX. 
 
 Hope 
 
 
 
 . 72 
 
 X. 
 
 Fear 
 
 
 
 81 
 
 XI. 
 
 Patience . 
 
 
 
 94 
 
 XII. 
 
 Patience. — Infirmi i r . 
 
 
 
 , 104 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Patience. — Infirmity . 
 
 
 
 116 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Love 
 
 
 
 124 
 
 XV. 
 
 Veneration 
 
 
 
 135 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Truthfulness 
 
 
 
 145 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Conscientiousness . 
 
 
 
 157 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PACK 
 
 XVIII. Intellectual Training. — Its Requisites . .170 
 XIX. Order of Development. The Perceptive 
 
 Faculties 183 
 
 XX. The Conceptive Faculties . . .196 
 XXI. The Reasoning Faculties. Female Edu- 
 cation 212 
 
 XXII. The Imaginative Faculties . . .227 
 
 XXIII. Care of the Habits. — Importance of Habit . 241 
 
 XXIV. Personal Habits . , . . .253 
 XXV. Family Habits ...... 275 
 
 XXVI. Conclusion ... . 295 
 
(university) 
 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OLD AND YOUNG IN SCHOOL. 
 
 Household Education is a subject so important in 
 its bearings on every one's happiness, and so in- 
 exhaustible in itself, that I do not see how any person 
 whatever can undertake to lecture upon it authorita- 
 tively, as if it was a matter completely known and 
 entirely settled. It seems to me that all that we can 
 do is to reflect, and say what we think, and learn of 
 one another. This is, at least, all that I venture to 
 offer. I propose to say, in a series of chapters, what 
 I have observed and thought on the subject of Life 
 at Home, during upwards of twenty years' study of 
 domestic life in great variety. It will be for my 
 readers to discover whether they agree in my views, 
 and whether their minds are set to work by what I 
 say on a matter which concerns them as seriously as 
 any in the world. Once for all, let me declare here, 
 what I hope will be remembered throughout, that 
 
 1 
 
2 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 I have no ambition to teach ; but a strong desire to 
 set members of households consulting together about 
 their course of action towards each other. 
 
 It will be seen by these last words that I consider 
 all the members of a household to be going through 
 a process of education together. I am not thinking 
 only of parents drawing their chairs together when 
 the children have gone to bed, to talk over the young 
 people's qualities and ways. That is all very well ; 
 but it is only a small part of the business. I am not 
 thinking of the old experienced grandfather or grand- 
 mother talking at the fireside, telling the parents of 
 the sleeping children how they ought to manage 
 them, and what rules and methods were in force in 
 their day. This is all very well ; and every sensible 
 person will be thankful to hear what the aged have 
 to tell, out of their long knowledge of life : but this 
 again is a very small part of the matter. Every 
 member of the household — children, servants, ap- 
 prentices — every inmate of the dwelling, must have 
 a share in the family plan ; or those who make it are 
 despots, and those who are excluded are slaves. 
 
 Of course, this does not mean that children who 
 have scarcely any knowledge, little judgment, and no 
 experience, are to have a choice about the rules of 
 their own training. The object of training is one 
 thing ; and the rules and methods are another. With 
 rules and methods they have nothing to do but to 
 obey them till they become able to command them- 
 selves. But there is no rational being who is not 
 capable of understanding, from the time he can speak, 
 
OLD AND YOUNG IN SCHOOL. 3 
 
 what it is to wish to be good. The stupidest servant- 
 girl, and the most thoughtless apprentice-boy, are 
 always impressed by seeing those about them anxious 
 to improve ; and especially the oldest of all en- 
 deavouring the more to become wiser and wiser, 
 better and better, as their few remaining days dwindle 
 away. If the family plan therefore be the grand 
 comprehensive plan which is alone worthy of people 
 who care about education at all — a plan to do the 
 best that is possible by each other for the improve- 
 ment of all — every member of the family above the 
 yearling infant must be a member of the domestic 
 school of mutual instruction, and must know that he 
 is so. 
 
 It is a common saying that every child thinks his 
 father the wisest man in the world. This is very 
 natural ; as parents are their children's fountains of 
 knowledge. To them their children come for any- 
 thing they want to know : and by them they are 
 generally satisfied. But every wise parent has 
 occasion to say, now and then — " I do not know, my 
 dear." The surprise of the child on first hearing 
 that there is anything that his parents do not know 
 fixes the fact in his mind. When he has once 
 discovered that his parents have something more to 
 learn, he becomes aware — and this also ought to be 
 fixed in his mind — that their education is not finished ; 
 and that it is their business, as it is his, to learn 
 something more every day, as long as they live. So 
 much for knowledge. The case ought to be as clear 
 to him with regard to goodness. It is not enough 
 
 1—2 
 
4 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 that in church he hears that all men and women are 
 sinners ; and that in prayers at home he hears his 
 parents pray that they may become more worthy of 
 the goodness of God, and more like the Christ who is 
 set before them. These things may set him thinking ; 
 but there will be, or ought to be, more light every 
 day to clear up his ideas. The same parents who 
 honestly own to their child that they are ignorant of 
 things about which he questions them will own to 
 him that they are not nearly so good as they wish to 
 be. Thus is the truth opened to the feeblest and 
 smallest mind that education has still to go on, even 
 when people are so inconceivably old as children are 
 apt to think their parents. 
 
 To us, grown up to this mighty age, there can be 
 no doubt on such a point. We know very well that 
 we are all, through the whole range of society, like a 
 set of ignorant and wayward children, compared with 
 what we are made capable of being. Our best 
 knowledge is but a glimmering — a dawn of light 
 which we may hope will " increase more and more 
 unto the perfect day." Our best goodness is so weak, 
 so mixed, so inferior to what we can cenceive of, that 
 we should blush to say that during any day of our lives 
 we had been as good as we ought to be. It is as clear 
 to us as to children, that there is room for improve- 
 ment in both ways as long as we live. To us there 
 is another question which children cannot enter into, 
 and have no present business with ; — whether human 
 beings remain capable of improvement as long as 
 they live. 
 
OLD AND YOUNG IN SCHOOL. 5 
 
 About tills, there are different opinions. I rather 
 think the prevailing belief is that they are not ; and 
 that this prevailing belief arises from the common- 
 ness of the spectacle, not only of the faults of old 
 age, but of the inability of even amiable and lively 
 old people to receive new ideas, or correct bad habits. 
 This is certainly the commonest aspect of old age; 
 and serious is the warning it affords to correct our 
 faulty tempers and ways before we grow stiff in 
 mind, as well as in body. But I do not think 
 that this spectacle settles the question. We might 
 as well say that the human intellect can achieve 
 no great work after five-and-twenty, because the 
 ill-educated mind never does. As long as we see 
 one single instance of a mind still expanding in a 
 man of eighty-five, of a temper improving in one 
 of ninety, of a troublesome, daily habit conscien- 
 tiously cured, after the indulgence of a life-time, 
 by an old lady of seventy-five, we perceive that 
 education may go on to the extreme limit of life, 
 and should suppose that it might be generally so, 
 but for the imperfect training of preceding years. 
 
 I have known of one old man whose mind was 
 certainly still growing when he died, at the age of 
 eighty-six. I have known of another, whose study 
 through life had been the laws of the mind, and 
 who, when his faculties were failing him, applied 
 himself to that study, marking the gradual decline 
 of certain of his powers, adding the new facts to 
 his stores of knowledge, and thus, nourishing to 
 the last a part of his mind with the decay of the 
 
6 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 rest. This instance of persevering self-improvement 
 under conditions which any one would admit to be 
 those of release from labour, appears to me even 
 more affecting than that of the great physician who 
 watched his own approaching death with his finger 
 on his pulse, notifying its last beat as his heart 
 came to a stop, hoping to contribute one more fact 
 to useful science. With cases like these before us, 
 how shall we dare to suppose our education com- 
 pleted while we have one faculty remaining, or our 
 hearts have yet one more beat to give ? 
 
 As for the continuance of moral education to the 
 last, I have seen two contrasted cases, in close neigh- 
 bourhood, which make the matter pretty plain, in 
 a practical sense, to me. I knew two old ladies, 
 living only the length of a street apart, who were 
 fair specimens of educated and uneducated old age. 
 The one belonged to a family who were remark- 
 able for attaining a great age ; and she always confi- 
 dently reckoned on her lot being the same as that of 
 her predecessors. It is true, her mother, being above 
 a hundred, called her and her sister " the girls " 
 when they were above seventy ; but still one would 
 have thought that grey hairs and wrinkles would 
 have gone some way as a warning to her. Instead, 
 however, of reckoning on her future years (if she 
 must reckon on them) as so much time to grow wiser 
 in, she was merely surprised at her friends when 
 they advised her (she being then eighty) to make 
 some other terms for her house than taking another 
 lease of fourteen years. She could not conceive, as the 
 
OLD AND YOUNG IN SCHOOL. 7 
 
 last lease had answered so well, why the next should 
 not. I remember seeing her face, all puckered with 
 wrinkles, surmounted by rows of bright brown false 
 curls, and her arms, bare above the elbows, adorned 
 with armlets, such as young ladies wore half a century 
 before. I remember a clever pert youth setting him- 
 self to quiz and amuse her by humouring her in her 
 notions about the state of the world, drawing her 
 out to praise the last century, and express her ignorant 
 contempt of this, till she nodded emphatically over 
 her hand of cards, and declared that the depravity 
 of the age was owing to gas-lamps and macadamiza- 
 tion. She died very old, but no wiser than this. 
 Her case proves only that her education did stop ; 
 and not that it need have stopped. The other was 
 a woman of no great cultivation, but of a humble, 
 earnest, benevolent nature, full of a sense of duty 
 towards God and Man ; and, in them, towards her- 
 self. Having survived her nearest connections, she 
 had no strong desire to live; and her affairs were 
 always arranged for departure, down to the labelling 
 of every paper, and the neatness of every drawer. 
 Yet no one was more alive to the improvements of 
 the modern world. I shall never forget the earnest 
 look with which she would listen to any tidings of 
 new knowledge, or new social conveniences. A more 
 dignified woman I never knew ; yet she listened to 
 the young who brought information — listened as a 
 learner — with a deference which was most touching 
 to witness. But there was more than this. She 
 was conscious of having been, in her earlier days, 
 
8 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 somewhat hard, somewhat given to lecture and lay 
 down the law, and criticize people all round by 
 family notions ; a tendency which, if it really existed, 
 arose from family and not personal pride ; for, though 
 she might overrate the wisdom of parents and brothers, 
 there never was any sign of her overvaluing her 
 own. However this might be, she believed that 
 she had been hard and critical in former times ; 
 and she went on softening and growing liberal to 
 the day of her death. I never observed any weak- 
 ness — much less any laxity — in her gentleness to- 
 wards the feeble and the frail. It was the holy 
 tenderness which the pure and upright can afford 
 to indulge and impart. The crowning proof that 
 her improvement was the result of self-discipline and 
 not of circumstances, was that when, at above seventy 
 years of age, she became the inmate of a family 
 whose habits were somewhat rigid, and in many 
 respects unlike her own; she changed her own to 
 suit theirs, even forcing herself to an observance 
 of punctuality, in which she had been deficient all 
 her life, and about which she had scarcely ever 
 needed to think, while for many years living alone. 
 Of course, this moral discipline implies some con- 
 siderable use of the intellect. She read a good deal ; 
 and carried an earnest mind into all her pursuits. 
 And when her memory began to fail, and she could 
 not retain beyond the day what she had read, her 
 mind did not become weak. It was always at work, 
 and always on good subjects, though she could no 
 longer add much to her store of mere knowledge. 
 
OLD AND YOUNG IN SCHOOL. 9 
 
 Her case proves surely that education need never 
 stop. 
 
 Now, if we picture to ourselves a household, with 
 an honoured being liko this as the occupant of the 
 fireside chair, we can at once see how it may be 
 completely understood and agreed upon among them 
 all that the education of every one of them is always 
 going on, and to go on for ever while they live. No 
 child could ever stand at the knee of my old friend 
 without feeling that she was incessantly bent on self- 
 improvement — as earnest to learn from the humblest 
 and youngest as ready to yield the benefits of her 
 experience and reflections to any whom she could 
 inform and guide. When taken severely ill, she 
 said with a smile, to one by her bedside, " Why do 
 you look so anxious ? If I do die to-day, there is 
 nothing to be unhappy about. I have long passed 
 the time when I expected to go. What does it 
 matter whether I die now or a twelvemonth hence?" 
 And when that illness was over, she regarded it as 
 a process in her training, and persevered, as before, 
 in trying to grow wiser and more worthy. Here was 
 a case in which Household Education visibly included 
 the oldest as naturally as the youngest. And in all 
 dwellings, all the members are included in the in- 
 fluences which work upon the whole, whether they 
 have the wisdom to see it or not. Henceforward, 
 therefore, I shall write on the supposition that we are 
 all children together — from the greatest to the least — 
 the wisest and the best needing all the good they can 
 get from the peculiar influences of Home. 
 
 TTNIVERSIT 
 
10 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WHAT THE SCHOOLING IS FOE. 
 
 Eyeey home being a school for old and young together, 
 it is necessary, if the training is to be a good one, to 
 be clear as to what the schooling is for. 
 
 For the improvement of the pupils, is the most 
 obvious answer. 
 
 Yes ; but what do you mean by improvement ? 
 We must settle what we want to make of the 
 pupils, or everything will go on at random. In 
 every country of the world there is some sort of 
 general notion of what the men and women in it 
 ought to be : and the men and women turn out 
 accordingly : and the more certainly, the more clear 
 the notion is. 
 
 The patriarchs, some thousands of years ago, had 
 very clear notions of their own of what people ought 
 to be. One of these sitting in the evening of a hot 
 day under a terebinth-tree ten times his own age, 
 would be able to give a distinct account of what he 
 would have the training of his great-grandchilden 
 tend to. He would lay it down as the first point of 
 all, that the highest honour and the greatest privilege 
 in the world was to be extremely old. The next most 
 desirable thing was to have the largest possible number 
 of descendants; because the earth was very wide, 
 
WHAT THE SCHOOLING IS FOR. 11 
 
 with not half enough people in it; and the more 
 people a patriarch had about him, the richer and 
 more beautiful would the valleys and pastures be, 
 and the more power and authority he would have — 
 every patriarch being an absolute ruler over his own 
 family, and the more like a king the larger his tribe. 
 Of course, the old man would say decidedly that to 
 make the best possible man, you must train a child 
 to obey his parents ; and yet more the head of the 
 tribe, with the most absolute submission, to do in the 
 cleverest way what was necessary for defence against 
 an enemy, and to obtain food, and the skins of beasts 
 for clothing. The more wives and the more children 
 the better. These were the principal points. After 
 these, he would speak of its being right for such as 
 would probably become the head of a tribe to cultivate 
 such wisdom and temper as would make them good 
 rulers, and enable them to maintain peace among their 
 followers. Such was the patriarchal notion of im- 
 proving a man to the utmost — omitting certain con- 
 siderations which we think important, — truthfulness, 
 temperance, amiability, respect for other men, and 
 reverence for something a good deal more solemn 
 than mere old age. 
 
 Some wise men in Greece would have given a 
 different account of the aim of Education. A Spartan, 
 for instance, living in a little country which was 
 always in danger from enemies without and slaves 
 within, looked upon every boy as a future soldier, 
 and as born to help to preserve the State. Every 
 sickly or deformed child might be killed off at the 
 
12 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 desire of his father's kin. The healthy and promising 
 were looked after by the State from their earliest 
 years ; and at the age of seven were put under public 
 training entirely. They were taught to bear hunger, 
 and be content with coarse food ; to endure flogging 
 without a groan, sometimes to the point of death ; 
 and all for practice in bearing pain. They were 
 trained to all warlike exercises ; their amusements 
 were wrestling and sham battles ; their accomplish- 
 ments, singing martial songs. They were taught to 
 reverence rank and age ; to hate their enemies ; to 
 use fraud in war; to be unable to bear shame, whether 
 deserved or not ; and to treat women with respect, 
 not at all for their own sakes, but because despised 
 women could not be the mothers of heroes. Thus, to 
 make a perfect soldier, was what a good Spartan con- 
 sidered the great object of education. 
 
 The Jew in his own Palestine would have given 
 a different answer, in some respects, though he also 
 reared his children to hate their enemies, and to 
 covet both martial and patriarchal glory. His lead- 
 ing belief was that a greater God than any other 
 nation had ever worshipped was the special ruler 
 and protector of his own. Jehovah was the King 
 as well as the God of the Jews ; and the first virtue 
 of a Jew was to obey every tittle of the Law, which 
 ordered all things whatsoever in the lives of those 
 who lived under it. Obedience to the Law, in affairs 
 of food, dress, seasons of -work, sleep, worship, 
 journeying, &c, as well as in some higher matters, 
 was the main thing taught by a good parent, while 
 
WHAT THE SCHOOLING IS FOR. 13 
 
 he knew and thought nothing of the higher and 
 holier aims opened by the Gospel ; of which, indeed, 
 many a well-meaning Jewish parent could not bear 
 to hear from the lips of Christ, when he came to 
 declare what every man should be. When lie 
 declared that men should rise above the Law, and 
 be perfect as their Father in Heaven is perfect, 
 some strict Jewish educators crucified him. In a 
 Jew's mind, the best man was he who most servilely 
 obeyed the letter of the Law. 
 
 When I was in America, I saw three kinds of 
 people who had their own notions of what it was 
 to be a perfect man — each their own idea of the 
 chief aim in Education ; notions as wide of each 
 other as those of the Patriarch, the Spartan, and the 
 Jew. There were the dwellers in the cities ; men 
 speaking our language, and looking very like our- 
 selves. These men were, as was natural, proud of 
 their young and prosperous republic ; and they 
 thought more about politics than appears to us 
 necessary or wise in a life which contains so many 
 other great interests. Their children were brought 
 up to talk politics before they could be qualified to 
 have an opinion ; and taught at school to despise 
 other nations, and glorify their own, as a prepara- 
 tion for exercising the suffrage at twenty-one, and 
 thereby becoming, in a republic so constituted, a 
 member of the Government. The privilege — the 
 trust — is a most important one ; and we cannot 
 wonder that the subject is an engrossing one to 
 parents and children. The object of education 
 
14 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 among a very large proportion of American parents 
 is to make politicians : and it certainly is attained. 
 
 On the same continent, I saw something of a very 
 different race — the red men. Their idea of perfection 
 is a man's being a perfect warrior ; and yet in a way 
 quite unlike the Spartans. The red Indian is not 
 trained as a servant of the State, but as an indi- 
 vidual: and the Indian women are degraded and 
 oppressed, while the Spartan women were considered 
 and respected — whatever the ground of consideration 
 might be. The Indian boj is trained to use his five 
 senses till they reach an unequalled degree of nicety. 
 And, when old enough to bear the pain without 
 dying, he is subjected first to hunger and want of 
 sleep, and then to such horrible tortures as it turns 
 one sick to think of. He who comes out of this trial 
 the most bravely, and who afterwards shows himself 
 the most alert sentinel, the strongest and most endur- 
 ing soldier, the most revengeful enemy, the most 
 cruel conqueror, and the sternest husband and father, 
 is, in the eyes of his people, the most perfect man. 
 The Red Indians, therefore, generally make an 
 approach to this kind of character. 
 
 In the island of Mackinaw lives the other sort of 
 people I have referred to. This island rises out of 
 the wide waters of the great Northern Lakes, a perfect 
 paradise in the midst of the boundless blue expanse. 
 The people who inhabit it are, for the most part, 
 half-breeds — the offspring of the red race and the 
 French colonists who first settled on the island. The 
 great object here seems to be to become amphibious ; 
 
WHAT THE SCHOOLING IS FOR. 15 
 
 and truly, it appeared to me pretty well attained. 
 The dark-skinned boys who surrounded our ship, 
 and all others that I saw, were poppling about in 
 the water, as easily as so many fowl : and they scud 
 about in their tiny birch-bark canoes as readily as 
 we walk on our feet, thinking no more of being 
 capsized than we do of falling. 
 
 The aim here has about the same level as that of 
 the Arabs, to whom water is the greatest rarity, and 
 to whom the sandy desert serves much the same 
 purpose as the inland seas to the dwellers in 
 Mackinaw. The horse of the Arab is to him as 
 the bark-canoe to the half-breed of Mackinaw : and 
 children are launched into the desert, to live in it 
 as they best may, as the half-breed boys are into the 
 watery waste. And they succeed as well, conquer- 
 ing the desert, turning its dangers into sport, and 
 making a living out of it. And so it is with the 
 native dwellers in the icy deserts of Siberia. There, 
 a perfectly educated person is one who can sur- 
 prise the greatest number of water-fowl in summer, 
 foretel soonest the snow-storm in winter, best learn 
 the hour from the stars, bank up the most sheltered 
 sleeping-place in the snow, and light a fire within it 
 the most quickly ; dive among the beavers for the 
 longest time ; see in the dark like an owl, track game 
 like a pointer, fetch it like a spaniel, hearken like a 
 deer, and run like an ostrich. Such being the 
 Mongolian notion of perfection, it is more nearly 
 approached by them than by others. 
 
 None of these aims are ours, or such as we approve 
 
16 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 What then is ours ? It is easy to answer, u to grow 
 wiser and better every day : " but then comes the 
 question, what is the wisdom, what is the goodness, 
 that we aspire to ? All the people I have mentioned 
 aim at improvement in wisdom and goodness every 
 day. Our difference with them is precisely about 
 what wisdom and goodness are. 
 
 We are not likely to agree by setting up each our 
 own notion of wisdom and goodness. Hear children 
 at school talking of the heroes they admire most, and 
 see how seldom they agree. One admires the brave 
 man ; another the patient man ; another the philan- 
 thropist ; another the man of power ; another the 
 man of holiness ; another the patriot. Hear men 
 talking by the fireside of the sages of the race ; how 
 they vary in their preferences, and select for them- 
 selves from among the group of mighty minds — the 
 fathers of philosophy, of science, of art, of law and 
 government, of morals. We shall never arrive at a 
 practical point by setting up our separate preferences 
 as aims for all. 
 
 Nor will it answer to fix our aim by any single 
 example : no, not even — with reverence be it spoken 
 — by the great Exemplar, Christ himself. The fault 
 and weakness of this inability are in ourselves. It is 
 not any cloud in him, but partial blindness in us, 
 which renders this method insufficient by itself. All- 
 perfect as is the example, we cannot all, and con- 
 stantly, use its full perfection, from our tendency to 
 contemplate it from the favourite point of view which 
 every one of us has. One of us dwells most on the 
 
WHAT THE SCHOOLING IS FOE. 17 
 
 tenderness of his character ; another on its righteous 
 sternness ; one on his power ; another on his meek 
 patience ; and so on. And thus, while it is, and ever 
 will be, of the utmost importance that we should 
 preserve the aim of becoming like Christ, it yet 
 remains to be settled among us, in fact, though not 
 perhaps in words, what Christ was, the images of him 
 in different minds varying so endlessly as they cer- 
 tainly do. 
 
 The only method that appears to me absolutely 
 safe and wise, is one which perfectly well agrees 
 with our taking this great Exemplar as our model. 
 Each of us has a frame, sc fearfully and wonderfully 
 made ; " with such a variety of powers, that no one 
 yet knows them all, or can be sure that he under- 
 stands the extent of any one of them. It is impossible 
 that we can be wrong in desiring and endeavouring 
 to bring out and strengthen and exercise all the 
 powers given to every human being. In my opinion, 
 this should be the aim of education. 
 
 I have said, * to bring out, and strengthen, and 
 exercise all the powers." Some would add, " and 
 balance them." But if all were faithfully exercised, 
 I am of opinion that a better balance would ensue 
 than we could secure, so partial as are our views, and 
 so imperfect as has been the training of the best 
 of us. 
 
 I shall gladly proceed, in my next chapter, to 
 declare what I think we have learned as to what the 
 powers of the human being are. At present, I can 
 onlv just point out that the aim proposed is superior 
 
 2 
 
 ^ OF THE " ^ 
 
 J NIVERRTTYI 
 
18 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 to every other mentioned, and I believe to any other 
 that can be mentioned for this reason ; that it applies 
 universally — meets every case that can be conceived 
 of. In the patriarch's scheme of education, the 
 women — half the race — were slighted. In the 
 Spartan system, the slaves and all work-people were 
 left out. Among the modern republicans, citizens 
 have the preference over women and slaves : and 
 under the savage training — the Indian, Arab, and 
 Mongolian— riio individual whatever is done justice 
 to. And there is not a country in Christendom 
 where equal justice is done to all those whom we see 
 entering the world so endowed as that we ought to 
 look on every one of them with religious awe as a 
 being too noble for our estimate. The aim proposed 
 — of doing justice to all the powers of every human 
 being under training — includes all alike, and must 
 therefore be just. It includes women, the poor, the 
 infirm — all who were rejected or slighted under 
 former systems — while it does more for the privileged 
 than any lower principle ever proposed to do. It 
 appears that under it none will be the worse, but all 
 the better, in comparison of this with any lower aim. 
 To obtain a clearer and firmer notion of what this 
 object really comprehends, we must next make out, 
 as well as our present knowledge allows, what the 
 powers of the human being are. I mean as to their 
 kind ; for I do not think any one will venture to say 
 what is the extent of endowments so vast ; and in 
 their vastness so obscure. 
 
19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE NATURAL POSSESSIONS OF MAN. 
 
 What are the powers of the human being ? 
 
 I speak of those powers only which are the object 
 of education. There are some which work of them- 
 selves for the preservation of life, and with which we 
 have nothing to do but to let them work freely. The 
 heart beats, the stomach digests, the lungs play, the 
 skin transpires, without any care of ours, and we have 
 only to avoid hindering any of these actions. 
 
 Next, man has four limbs. Of these, two have to 
 be trained to move him from place to place in a great 
 variety of ways. There are many degrees of agility 
 between the bow-legged cripple, set too early upon 
 his feet, and the chamois hunter of the Alps, who 
 leaps the icy chasms of the glacier, and springs from 
 point to point of the rock. The two seem hardly to 
 be of the same race ; yet education has made each 
 of them what he is. 
 
 The two other limbs depend upon training for much 
 of their strength and use. Look at the pale student, 
 who lives shut up in his study, never having been 
 trained to use his arms and hands, but for dressing 
 and feeding himself, turning over books, and guiding 
 the pen. Look at his spindles of arms and his thin 
 fingers, and compare them with the brawny limbs of 
 
 2—2 
 
20 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the blacksmith, or the hands of the quay porter, 
 whose grasp is like that of a piece of strong machinery. 
 Compare the feeble and awkward touch of the book- 
 worm who can hardly button his waistcoat, or carry 
 his cup of tea to his mouth, with the power that the 
 modeller, the ivory carver, and the watchmaker have 
 over their fingers. It is education which has made 
 the difference between these. 
 
 Man has five senses. Though much is done by the 
 incidents of daily life to exercise all the five, still a 
 vast difference ensues upon varieties of training. A 
 fireman in London, and an Indian in the prairie, can 
 smell smoke when nobody else is aware of it. An 
 epicure can taste a cork in wine, or a spice in a stew, 
 to the dismay of the butler, and the delight of the 
 cook, when every one else is insensible. One person 
 can feel by the skin whether the wind is east or west 
 before he gets out of bed in the morning ; while 
 another has to hold up a handkerchief in the open 
 air, or look at the weathercock, before he can answer 
 the question — " How's the wind ? " 
 
 As for the two nobler senses, there are great con- 
 stitutional differences among men. Some are natu- 
 rally short-sighted, and some dull of hearing; but 
 the differences caused by training are more frequent 
 and striking. If, of two boys born with equally good 
 eyes and ears, one is very early put, all alone, to keep 
 sheep on a hill-side, where he never speaks or is 
 spoken to, and comes home only to sleep, and the 
 other works with his father at joiner's work, or in 
 sea-fishing, or at a water-mill, they will, at manhood, 
 
THE NATURAL POSSESSIONS OF MAN. 21 
 
 hardly appear to belong to the same race. While the 
 one can tell veneer from mahogany in passing a shop- 
 window, the other cannot see any difference between 
 one stranger's face and another's. While the sleepy 
 clown cannot distinguish sea from land half a mile 
 off, the fisherman can see the greyest sail of the 
 smallest sloop among the billows on the horizon. 
 While the shepherd does not hear himself called till 
 the shout is in his ear, the miller tells by the fireside, 
 by the run of the water, whether the stream is 
 deepening or threatening to go dry. Of course, the 
 quickness or slowness of the mind has much to do 
 with these differences of eye and ear ; but besides 
 that, the eye and ear differ according to training. 
 The miller, with his mind and ear all awake, would 
 hear, with all his efforts, only four or five birds' notes 
 in a wood, where a naturalist would hear twenty ; and 
 the fisherman might declare the wide air to be vacant, 
 when a mountain sportsman would see an eagle, like 
 a minute speck, indicating by its mode of flight where 
 the game lay below. 
 
 Man has a capacity for pleasure and pain. 
 
 This is an all-important part of his nature, of which 
 we can give no account, because it is incomprehen- 
 sible. How he feels pleasure and pain, and why one 
 sensation or thought delights him and another makes 
 him miserable, nobody ever knew yet, or perhaps 
 ever will know. It is enough for us that the fact is 
 so. Of all the solemn considerations involved in the 
 great work of education, none is so awful as this — 
 the right exercise and training of the sense of 
 
22 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 pleasure and pain. The man who feels most pleasure 
 in putting brandy into his stomach, or in any other 
 way gratifying his nerves of sensation, is a mere 
 beast. One whose chief pleasure is in the exercise 
 of the limbs, and who plays without any exercise of 
 the mind, is a more harmless sort of animal, like the 
 lamb in the field, or the swallow skimming over 
 meadow or pool. He whose delight is to represent 
 nature by painting, or to build edifices by some 
 beautiful idea, or to echo feelings in music, is of an 
 immeasurably higher order. Higher still is he who 
 is charmed by thought, above everything — whose 
 understanding gives him more satisfaction than anv 
 other power he has. Higher still is he who is never 
 so happy as when he is making other people happy — 
 when he is relieving pain, and giving pleasure to 
 two, or three, or more people about him. Higher 
 yet is he whose chief joy it is to labour at great and 
 eternal thoughts, in which lies bound up the happi- 
 ness of a whole nation and perhaps a whole world, 
 at a future time when he will be mouldering in his 
 grave. Any man who is capable of this joy and at 
 the same time of spreading comfort and pleasure 
 among the few who live round about him, is the 
 noblest human being we can conceive of. He is also 
 the happiest. It is true that his capacity for pain is 
 exercised and enlarged, as well as his power of feeling 
 pleasure. But what pains such a man is the vice, 
 and folly, and misery of his fellow-men ; and he 
 knows that these must melt away hereafter in the 
 light of the great ideas which he perceives to be in 
 
THE NATURAL POSSESSIONS OF MAN. 23 
 
 store for them : while his pleasure being in the faith 
 of a better future, is as vivid and as sure as great 
 thoughts are clear and eternal. For an illustration 
 of this noblest means of happiness, we had better 
 look to the highest instance of all. I have always 
 thought that we are apt to dwell too much on the 
 suffering and sorrow of the lot and mind of Christ. 
 Our reverence and sympathy should be more with 
 his abounding joy. I think those who read with 
 clear eyes and an open mind will see evidences of an 
 unutterable joy in his words — may almost think they 
 hear it in his tones, when he promised heaven to the 
 disinterested and earth to the meek, and satisfaction 
 to the earnest ; when he welcomed the faith of the 
 centurion, and the hope of the penitent, and the 
 charity of the widow ; when he foresaw the incoming 
 of the Gentiles, and knew that heaven and earth 
 should pass away sooner than his words of life and 
 truth. The sufferings of the holy can never surely 
 transcend their peace : and whose fulness of joy can 
 compare with theirs ? 
 
 Before man can feel pleasure or pain from outward 
 objects or from thoughts, he must perceive them. 
 To a new-born infant, or a blind person enabled to 
 see for the first time, objects before the eyes can 
 hardly be said to exist. The blue sky and a green 
 tree beside a white house are not seen but as a blotch 
 of colours which touches the eye. This is the 
 account given by persons couched for cataract, who 
 have never before seen a ray of light. They see as 
 if they saw not. But the , power is in them. By 
 
24 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 degrees they receive the images, and perceive the 
 objects. A child learns to receive sounds separately ; 
 then to perceive one voice among others ; then to 
 distinguish one tone from another — the voice of sooth- 
 ing from that of playfulness — the tone of warning 
 from that of approbation ; then it receives thoughts 
 through the sounds ; and so on, till the power 
 is exercised to the fullest extent that we know of — 
 when distinct ideas are admitted from the minutest 
 appearances or leadings — strange bodies detected in 
 the heavens, and fresh truths in the loftiest regions 
 of human speculation. It depends much on training 
 whether objects and thoughts remain for life indis- 
 tinct and confused before the perceptive power, as 
 before infant vision, or whether all is clear and vivid 
 as before a keen and practised eye. 
 
 We know not how Memory acts, any more than 
 we understand how we feel pleasure and pain. But 
 we all know how the power of recalling images, words, 
 thoughts, and feelings, depends on exercise. A person 
 whose power of memory has been neglected has little 
 use of his past life. The time, and people, and events 
 that have passed by have left him little better than 
 they found him : while every day, every person, and 
 every incident deposits some wealth of knowledge 
 with him whose memory can receive and retain his 
 experience. 
 
 Then there are other powers which it will be 
 enough merely to mention here, as we shall have to 
 consider them more fully hereafter. Man has the 
 power, after perceiving objects and thoughts, to com- 
 
THE NATURAL POSSESSIONS OF MAN. 25 
 
 pare them, and see when they differ and agree ; to 
 penetrate their nature, and understand their purpose 
 and action. It is thus that he obtains a knowledge 
 of creation, and the curious powers, whether hidden 
 or open to view, which are for ever at work in it. 
 
 He can reason from what he knows to what he has 
 reason to suppose, and put his idea to the proof. He 
 can imitate what he sees ; and also the idea in his 
 mind ; and hence comes invention ; and that wise 
 kind of guess into what is possible which leads to 
 great discovery ; discovery sometimes of a vast con- 
 tinent, sometimes of a vast agency in nature for men's 
 uses, sometimes of a vast truth which may prove a 
 greater acquisition to men's souls than a new hemi- 
 sphere for their habitation. 
 
 Man has also a wonderful power of conceiving of 
 things about which he cannot reason. We do not 
 know how it is, but the more we dwell on what is 
 beautiful and striking, what is true before our eyes 
 and impressive to our minds, the more able we 
 become to conceive of things more beautiful, striking, 
 and noble, which have never existed, but might well 
 be true. None of our powers require more earnest 
 and careful exercise than this grand one of the 
 Imagination. Those in whom it is suppressed can 
 never be capable of heroic acts, of lofty wisdom, of 
 the purest happiness. Those in whom it is neglected 
 may exercise the little power they have in a fruitless 
 direction, probably aggravating their own faults, and 
 certainly wasting the power on ideas too low for it, as 
 the voluptuary who dreams of selfish pleasure, or the 
 
26 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 despot, grand or petty, who makes visions of un- 
 checked tyranny. Those in whom it is healthily 
 exercised will become as elevated and expanded as 
 their nature admits, and one here and there proves a 
 Mahommed, lifting up half the human race into a 
 higher condition; or a Raffaelle, bringing down seraphs 
 and cherubs from heaven, and so clothing them as 
 that men may look upon them and grow like them ; 
 or a Shakspere who became a creator in that way 
 which is truly no impiety, but, on the contrary, the 
 highest worship. Men are apt, in all times and 
 everywhere, to blaspheme, by attributing to God 
 their own evil passions and narrow ideas. It is 
 through this pow r er of the Imagination that they rise 
 to that highest ideal which is the truest piety. They 
 rise to share godlike attributes : the prophet seeing 
 " the things that are not as though they were," and 
 the poet creating beings that live and move and have 
 their being, immortal in the mind of man. Such a 
 power resides more or less in every infant that lies in 
 the bosom of every family. Alas for its guardians if 
 they quench this power, or turn it into a curse and 
 disease by foul feeding ! 
 
 Then, the Emotions of men are so many powers, 
 to be recognized and trained. Of the power of Hope 
 there is no need to speak, for all see w T hat it is as 
 a stimulus, both in particular acts, and through the 
 whole course of a life. Fear is hardly less important, 
 though it is intended to die out, or rather to pass 
 into other and higher kinds of feeling. A child who 
 has never known a sensation of fear (if there be 
 
THE NATURAL POSSESSIONS OF MAN. 27 
 
 such an one) can never be a man of a high order. 
 He must either be coarsely made in body, or unable 
 to conceive of anything but what is familiar to him. 
 A child whose heart beats at shadows and the fitful 
 sounds of the invisible wind, and who hides his face 
 on his mother's bosom when the stars seem to be 
 looking at him as they roll, is no philosopher at 
 present; but he is likely to grow into one if this 
 fear is duly trained into awe, humility, thoughtful- 
 ness, till, united with knowledge, it becomes con- 
 templation, and grows into that glorious courage 
 which searches all through creation for ultimate 
 truth. Out of Fear, too, grows our power of Pity. 
 Without fear of pain, we could not enter into the 
 pain of others. Fear must be lost in reverence and 
 love : but reverence and love could never be so 
 powerful as they ought to be, if they were not first 
 vivified by the power of Fear. 
 
 What the power of Love is, in all its forms, there 
 is no need to declare to any one who has an eye 
 and a heart. In the form of Pity, how it led Howard 
 to spend his life in loathsome prisons, crowded with 
 yet more loathsome guilt ! In other forms, how it 
 sustains the unwearied mother watching through long 
 nights over her wailing infant ! How it makes of 
 a father, rough perhaps to all other, a holy and 
 tender guardian of his pure daughters ! and how it 
 makes ministering angels of them to him in turn ! 
 How we see it, everywhere in the world, making 
 the feeble and otherwise scantily-endowed strong in 
 self-denial, cheerful to endure, fearless to die ! A 
 
28 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 mighty power surely is that which, breathing from 
 the soul of an individual man, can " conquer Death, 
 and triumph over Time." 
 
 Then there is in man a force by which he can 
 win and conquer his way through all opposition of 
 circumstance, and the same force in others. This 
 power of Will is the greatest force on earth — the 
 most important to the individual, and the most in- 
 fluential over the whole race. A strong Will turned 
 to evil lets hell loose upon the world. A strong 
 Will wholly occupied with good might do more 
 than we can tell to bring down Heaven into the 
 midst of us. If among all the homes of our land, 
 there be one infant in whom this force is discerned 
 working strongly, and if that infant be under such 
 guardianship as to have its will brought to bear 
 on things that are pure, holy, and lovely, to that 
 being we may look as to a regenerator of his race. 
 He may be anywhere where there are children. 
 Are there any parents who will not look reverently 
 into the awful nature of their children, search into 
 their endowments, and try of every one of them 
 whether it may not be he ? If not he, it is certain 
 that every one of them is a being too mysterious, 
 too richly gifted, and too noble in faculties not to 
 be welcomed and cherished as a heaven-sent stranger. 
 How can we too carefully set in order the home 
 in which it is to dwell ? 
 
29 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HOW TO EXPECT. 
 
 Whatever method parents may choose for educating 
 a child, they must have some idea in their minds of 
 what they would have him turn out. Even if they 
 set before them the highest aim of all — exercising and 
 training all his powers — still they must have some 
 thoughts and wishes, some hopes and fears, as to what 
 the issue will prove to be. 
 
 In all states of society, the generality of parents 
 have wished that their children should turn out such 
 as the opinion of their own time and country should 
 approve. There is a law of opinion in every society 
 as to what people should be. We have seen some- 
 thing of what this opinion was among the Patriarchs 
 of old, the Spartans, the Jews, and others. In our 
 own day, we find wide differences among neighbour- 
 ing nations, civilized, and so-called, christianized. 
 The French have a greater value for kindness and 
 cheerfulness of temper and manners than the English, 
 and a less value for truth. The Russians have a 
 greater value for social order and obedience, and less 
 for honesty. The Americans have a greater value 
 for activity of mind and pursuits, and less for peace 
 and comfort. In these and all other countries, parents 
 in general will naturally desire that their children 
 
30 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 should turn out that which is taken for granted to be 
 most valuable. 
 
 An ordinary English parent of our time, who had 
 not given much thought to the subject, would wish 
 that his son should turn out as follows. He would 
 wish that the child should be docile and obedient, 
 clever enough to make teaching him an easy matter, 
 and to afford promise of his being a distinguished 
 man ; truthful, affectionate, and spirited; that as a 
 man he should be upright and amiable, sufficiently 
 religious to preserve his tranquillity of mind and 
 integrity of conduct: steady in his business and 
 prudent in his marriage, so far as to be prosperous in 
 his affairs. 
 
 Now, this looks all very well to a careless eye: but 
 it will not satisfy a thoughtful mind. In all the ages 
 and societies we have spoken of, there have been a 
 few men wiser than the average, who have seen that 
 the human being might and ought to be something 
 better than the law of Opinion required that he should 
 be. There are certainly Hindoos now living and 
 meditating who do not consider that men are so good 
 as they might be, while they think no harm of lying 
 and stealing, and who are sorry for the superstition 
 which makes it an unpardonable crime to hurt a cow. 
 There are men among the Americans who see virtue 
 in repose of mind, and moderation of desires to which 
 the majority of their countrymen are insensible. And 
 so it is in our country. We are all agreed, from end 
 to end of society, that Truthfulness, Integrity, 
 Courage, Purity, Industry, Benevolence, and a spirit 
 
HOW TO EXPECT. 31 
 
 of Reverence for sacred things are inexpressibly 
 desirable and excellent. But when it comes to the 
 question of the degree of these good things which it 
 is desirable to attain, we find the difference between 
 the opinion of the many and that of the higher few. 
 A being who had these qualities in the highest degree 
 could not get on in our existing society without com- 
 ing into conflict with our law of Opinion at almost 
 every step. If he were perfectly truthful, he must 
 say and do things in the course of his business which 
 would make him wondered at and disliked ; he might 
 be unable to take an oath, or enter into any sort of 
 vow, or sell his goods prosperously, or keep on good 
 terms with bad neighbours. If he were perfectly 
 honourable and generous, he might find it impossible 
 to trade or labour on the competitive principle, and 
 might thus find himself helpless and despised among 
 a busy and wealth-gathering society. If he were 
 perfectly courageous, he might find himself spurned 
 for cowardice in declining to go to war or fight a 
 duel. If he were perfectly pure, he might find him- 
 self rebuked and pitied for avoiding a mercenary 
 marriage, and entering upon one which brings with 
 it no advantage of connexion or money. If the same 
 purity should lead him to see that though the virtue 
 of chastity cannot be overrated, it has, for low pur- 
 poses, been made so prominent as to interfere with 
 others quite as important : if he should see how thus 
 a large proportion of the girlhood of England is 
 plunged into sin and shame, and then excluded from 
 all justice and mercy; if, seeing this, he is just and 
 
32 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 merciful to the fallen, it is probable that his own 
 respectability will be impeached, and that some stain 
 of impurity will be upon his name. If he is perfectly 
 industrious, strenuously employing his various 
 faculties upon important objects, he will be called an 
 idler in comparison with those who work in only one 
 narrow track ; as an eminent author of our time was 
 accused by the housemaid, who was for ever dusting 
 the house, of H wasting his time a-writing and read- 
 ing so much." Just so the majority of men who 
 have one sort of work to do accuse him of idleness 
 who has more directions for his industry than they 
 can comprehend. If he is perfectly benevolent, he 
 cannot hope to be considered a prudent, orderly, 
 quiet member of society. He will be either inces- 
 santly spreading himself abroad, and spending him- 
 self in the service of all about him, or maturing in 
 retirement some plan of rectification which will be 
 troublesome to existing interests. If he be perfectly 
 reverent in soul, looking up to the loftiest subjects of 
 human contemplation with an awe too deep and true 
 to admit any mixture of either levity or superstition, 
 he will probably be called an infidel ; or, at least, a 
 dangerous person, for not passively accepting the 
 sayings of men instead of searching out the truth by 
 the faithful use of his own powers. 
 
 Thus we see how in our own, as in every other 
 society, the law of Opinion as to what men should be 
 agrees in the large, general points of character with 
 the ideas of the wisest, while there are great differ- 
 ences in the practical management of men's lives. 
 
HOW TO EXPECT. 23 
 
 The perplexity to many thoughtful parents is what to 
 wish and aim at. 
 
 Now, it must never be forgotten that it is a good 
 thing that there must everywhere be such a law of 
 Opinion on this subject, though it necessarily falls 
 below the estimate of the wisest. Some rule and 
 method in the rearing of human beings there must 
 be ; and if some are dwarfed under it, many more 
 have a better chance than they would have if it were 
 not a settled matter that truth, courage, benevolence, 
 &c, are good things. Till the constitution and train- 
 ing of the human being are better and more exten- 
 sively understood than they are, the general rule is 
 something to go by, as the product of a general 
 instinct; and it will work upon nearly all those who 
 are born under it, so as to bring them into something 
 like order. In our country, there is, I suppose, 
 scarcely a den so dark as that its inhabitants really 
 think no harm whatever of lying and stealing, or 
 consider them merits, as is the case in some parts of 
 the world. While we have among us far too many 
 who thieve and cheat, and quarrel, and drink, 
 we can scarcely meet with any who do not think 
 these things wrong, or have not thought so before 
 they were too far gone in them. On the whole, the 
 law of Opinion, though far below what the wise see 
 it might be, is a great benefit, and a thing worthy of 
 serious regard in fixing our educational aims. 
 
 This prevalent opinion being a good thing as far as 
 it goes, having its origin in nature, there can be no 
 doubt that a good education, having also its origin in 
 
 3 
 
 5^£SE um/Jf, 
 
34 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 nature, would issue in a sufficient accordance with it 
 for purposes of social happiness. As human beings 
 are born with limbs and senses whose thorough exer- 
 cise brings them out in a high state of bodily per- 
 fection, they are born with powers of the brain, 
 which, thoroughly exercised, would, in like manner, 
 bring them out as great, mentally and morally, as 
 their constitution enables them to be. There must 
 ever be innumerable varieties, as no two infants could 
 ever be said to be born perfectly alike ; and perhaps 
 no two adults could be found who had precisely the 
 same powers of limb and sense : but out of this infi- 
 nite variety must come such an amount of evidence 
 as to wha is best in human character as would con- 
 stitute a law of Opinion, higher than the present, but 
 agreeing with it in its main points. Let us conceive 
 of a county of England where every inhabitant 
 should be not only saved from ignorance, but having 
 every power of body and mind made the very most 
 of. The variety would appear much greater than 
 anything we now T see. There would be more people 
 decidedly musical, or decidedly mechanical, or deci- 
 dedly scientific : more who would occupy their lives 
 with works of benevolence, or of art, or of ingenuity : 
 more who would speculate boldly, speak eloquently, 
 and show openly their high opinion of themselves, or 
 their anxiety for the good opinion of others. The 
 more variety and the greater strength of powers, the 
 clearer would be the evidence before all eyes of what 
 is really the most to be desired for men. It would 
 come out more plainly than now that it is a bad and 
 
HOW TO EXPECT. 35 
 
 unhappy thing for men to have immoderate desires 
 for money, or luxury, or fame, or to have quarrel- 
 some tendencies, or to be subject to distrust and 
 jealousy of others, or to be afraid of pain of body or 
 mind. It would be more plain than ever that there 
 is a soul felt charm and nobleness and happiness in a 
 spirit of reverence, of justice, of charity, of domestic 
 attachment, and of devotion to truth. Thus, in such 
 a society, there would be an agreement, more clear 
 and strong than now, in all the best points of our 
 present law of Opinion, while there would be fuller 
 scope for carrying up the highest qualities of the 
 human being to their perfection. 
 
 Moreover, as men are made everywhere with a 
 general likeness of the powers of the mind, as with 
 the same number of limbs and senses, there must 
 come out of a thorough exercise of their faculties a 
 sufficient agreement as to what is best to generate a 
 universal idea of duty or moral good. No varieties 
 of endowment can interfere essentially with this 
 result. The Hindoo has slender arms, with soft 
 muscles, and cannot do the hard work which suits 
 the German peasant : yet both agree as to what arms 
 are for, and how they are to be used. The Red 
 Indian can see, hear, smell, and taste twice as well as 
 factory children or ploughboys; yet all will agree 
 that it is a good thing to have perfect sight and hear- 
 ing. And, in the same way, the African may have 
 less power of thought than the Englishman; and the 
 Englishman may have less genius for music than the 
 African : but not only is the African able to think, 
 
 3—2 
 
36 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 more or less, and the Englishman to enjoy music, but 
 they will agree that it is a good thing to have the 
 highest power of thought, and the greatest genius 
 for music. In the same manner, again, one race, as 
 well as one individual, may have more power of 
 reverence, another of love, another of self-reliance ; 
 but all will agree that all these are inestimably good. 
 
 It follows from this, that parents must be safe in 
 aiming at thoroughly exercising and training all the 
 powers of a child. If it would be safest for all to do 
 so, in the certainty that the result would be in accord^ 
 ance with the best points of the law of Opinion, it 
 must be a safe practice for individuals ; and they may 
 proceed in the faith that their work (if they do it 
 well) will turn out a noble one in the eyes of the 
 men of their own day, while they are doing their best 
 to help on a clearer and brighter day, when the law 
 of Opinion will itself be greatly ennobled. 
 
 Here I must end my chapter. But I must just say 
 a word to guard against any hasty supposition that 
 when I speak of exercising (as well as training) all 
 the human powers thoroughly, I contemplate any in- 
 dulgence of strong passions or of evil inclinations. 
 It cannot be too carefully remembered that what I 
 am speaking of is human Powers or Faculties ; and 
 that every power which a human being possesses may 
 be exercised to good, and is actually necessary to 
 make him perfect. 
 
 It will be my business hereafter to show what this 
 exercsie and training should be. 
 
37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GOLDEN MEAN. 
 
 It is a large subject that we have to treat, — that 
 of household education ; for the main part of every 
 process of education is carried on at home, except 
 in the instance of boarding-schools, where a few 
 years are spent by a small number of the youth 
 of our country. The Queen was brought up under 
 a method of household education; and so was, no 
 doubt, the last pauper who went to his grave 
 in a workhouse coffin. Elizabeth Fry was brought 
 up at home; so was the most ignorant and brutish 
 convict that was blessed by the saving light of her 
 pitying eye. Sir Isaac Newton, to whom the starry 
 heavens were as a home-field for intellectual exer- 
 cises, was reared at home; and so were the poor 
 children in the Durham coal-pits in our own time, 
 who never heard of God, and indeed could not 
 tell the names of their own fathers and mothers. 
 If thus, the loftiest and the lowliest, the purest 
 and the most criminal, the wisest and the most 
 ignorant, are comprehended under the process of 
 household education, what a wide and serious subject 
 it is that we have to consider ! 
 
 The royal child must, of course, be trained wholly 
 at home ; that is, little princes and princesses cannot 
 
38 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 be sent to school. But, while reared in the house 
 with their parents, the influences they are under 
 scarcely agree with our ideas of home. The royal 
 infant does not receive its food from the bosom first, 
 or afterwards from the hands of its mother. She 
 does not wash and dress it ; and those sweet seasons 
 are lost which in humbler homes are so rich in 
 caresses and play, so fruitful in endearing influences 
 both to mother and child. It is a thing to be re- 
 marked and praised by a whole court, if not a whole 
 kingdom, if a royal mother is seen with her child 
 in her arms; while the cottager's child is blessed 
 with countless embraces between morning and night, 
 and sleeps on its mother's arm or within reach of 
 her eye and voice. The best trained royal child 
 is disciplined to command of temper and manners ; 
 made to do little services for people about him, 
 and sedulously taught that a child should be humble 
 and docile. But the young creature is all the while 
 taught stronger lessons by circumstances than can 
 ever come through human lips. He sees that a 
 number of grown persons about him are almost 
 wholly occupied with him, and that it is their busi- 
 ness in life to induce him to command his temper 
 and manners. He feels that when he is bid to fetch 
 and carry, or to do any other little service, it is not 
 because such service is wanted, but for the sake 
 of the training to himself. He is aware that all 
 that concerns him every day is a matter of arrange- 
 ment, and not of necessity ; and a want of earnest- 
 ness and of steady purpose is an inevitable conse- 
 
THE GOLDEN MEAN. 39 
 
 quence. This want of natural stimulus goes into 
 his studies. I believe no solitary child gets on well 
 with book-learning as a part of the business of every 
 day. The best tutors, the best books, the quietest 
 school-room, will not avail, if the child's mind be 
 not stirred and interested by something more con- 
 genial than the grammar and sums and maps he has 
 to study. And every royal child is solitary, however 
 many brothers and sisters he may have older and 
 younger than himself. He has his own servants, 
 his own tutor, his own separate place and people, 
 so that he can never be jostled among other children, 
 or lead the true life of childhood. And so proceeds 
 the education of life for him. He can never live 
 amidst a large class of equals, with whom he can 
 measure his powers, and from among whom he may 
 select congenial friends. He passes his life in the 
 presence of servants, has no occupations and no 
 objects actually appointed to him, unless his state 
 be that of sovereignty, in which case his position is 
 more unfavourable still. He dies at last in the 
 midst of that habitual solitude which disables him 
 from conceiving, even at such a moment, of the state 
 in which " rich and poor lie down together." Such 
 a being may, if the utmost has been done for him, 
 be decent in his habits, amaible in temper and 
 manners, innocent in his pursuits, and religious in 
 his feelings ; but it is inconceivable that he can ever 
 approach to our idea of a perfect man, with an 
 intellect fully exercised, affections thoroughly dis- 
 ciplined, and every faculty educated by those in- 
 
40 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 fluences which arise only from equal intercourse 
 with men at large. 
 
 The home education of the pauper child is no 
 better, though there are few who would venture 
 to say how much worse it is. A pauper child must 
 (I think we may say) be unfortunate in its parentage, 
 in one way or another. If it knows its parents, 
 they must probably be either sickly, or foolish, or 
 idle, or dissolute ; or they would not be in a state 
 of permanent pauperism. The infant is reared (if 
 not in the workhouse) in some unwholesome room 
 or cellar, amidst damp and dirt, and the noises and 
 sights of vice or folly. He is badly nursed and fed, 
 and grows up feeble, or in a state of bodily uneasi- 
 ness which worries his temper, and makes his pas- 
 sions excitable. He is not soothed by the constant 
 tenderness of a decent mother, who feels it a great 
 duty to make him as good and happy as she can, 
 and contrives to find time and thought for that 
 object. He tumbles in the dust of the road or the 
 mud of the gutter, snatches food wherever he can 
 get it, quarrels with anybody who thwarts him if 
 he be a bold boy, and sneaks and lies if he be 
 naturally a coward. He indulges every appetite, 
 as a matter of course, as it arises ; for he has no idea 
 that he should not. He hates everybody who in- 
 terferes with this licence, and has the best liking 
 for those who use the same licence with himself. 
 He knows nothing of any place or people but those 
 he sees, and never dreams of any world beyond 
 that of his own eyes. He does not know what 
 
THE GOLDEN MEAN. 41 
 
 society is, or law, or duty : and therefore, when he 
 injures society, and comes under the inflictions of 
 the law for gross violations of duty, he understands 
 no more of what is done to him than if he was 
 carried through certain ceremonies conducted in an 
 unknown tongue. He has some dim notion of glory 
 in dying boldly before the eyes of the crowd ; so 
 he goes to the gallows in a mocking mood, as 
 ignorant of the true import of life and human facul- 
 ties as the day he was born. Or, if not laid hold 
 of by the law, he goes on towards his grave brawling 
 and drinking, or half asleep in mind, and inert or 
 diseased in body, till at last he dies as the beast 
 dies. 
 
 Here are the two extremes. The condition about 
 half way between them appears to me to be the 
 most favourable, on the whole, for making the most 
 of a human being, and best fulfilling the purposes 
 of his life. There are stations above and below 
 highly favourable to the attainment of excellence; 
 but, taking in all considerations, I think the position 
 of the well-conditioned artisan the most favourable 
 that society affords, at least, in our own day. 
 
 There is much good in enlarged book-learning; 
 in what is commonly called a liberal education. If 
 united with hard and imperative labour — labour at 
 once of head and hands — it will help to make a 
 nobler man than can be made without it: but a 
 liberal education, enlarged book-learning, ordinarily 
 leads to only head work, without that labour of 
 the hands which is the way to much wisdom. The 
 
42 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 benefits, too, are much confined to the individual, 
 so that the children of the wisest statesman, or 
 physician, or lawyer, are only accidentally, if at 
 all, the better for his advantages; while the best 
 circumstances in the lot of the well-conditioned 
 artisan are the inheritance and the privilege of his 
 children. 
 
 And again, the labourer may be so placed, in 
 regard to employment, marriage, and abode, as that 
 he may, possessing an awakened mind, be for ever 
 learning great and interesting things from the book 
 of Nature and of Scripture, while he has comfort 
 in his home, and some leisure for training his chil- 
 dren to his own work, and whatever else may turn 
 up, so that they may grow up intelligent, dutiful, 
 affectionate, and able continually to improve. The 
 surgeon, the manufacturer, and the shop-keeper on 
 the one hand, and the street porter, the operative, 
 and the labourer on the other, may well work out 
 the true purposes of life; but the condition which 
 appears to me to be the meeting point of the greatest 
 number of good influences is that of the best order 
 of artisans. 
 
 That condition affords the meeting point of book- 
 knowledge, and that which is derived from personal 
 experience. Every day's labour of hand and eye 
 is a page opened in the best of books — the universe. 
 When duly done, this lesson leaves time for the other 
 method of instruction, by books. During the day 
 hours, the earnest pupil learns of Nature by the 
 lessons she gives in the melting fire, the rushing 
 

 THE GOLDEN MEAN. 43 
 
 water, the unseen wind, the plastic metal or clay, 
 the variegated wood or marble, the delicate cotton, 
 silk, or wool ; and at evening he learns of men — 
 of the wise and genial men who have delivered the 
 best part of their minds in books, and made of them 
 a sort of ethereal vehicle, in which they can come 
 at a call to visit any secret mind which desires 
 communion with them. And this privilege of double 
 instruction is one which extends to the whole house- 
 hold of the chief pupil. The children of the artisan 
 are happily appointed, without room for doubt, to 
 toil like their father ; and there is every probability 
 that they will share his opportunity and his respect 
 for book-knowledge. At the outset of life, they are 
 tended by their mother, owing directly to her their 
 food and clothes, their lullaby and their incitement 
 to play. During the day, they are under her eye ; 
 and in the evening, they sit on their father's knee, 
 and get knowledge or fun from him. In their busy 
 home, all the help is needed that every one can give ; 
 so the real business of life begins early, and with it 
 the most natural and best discipline. The children 
 learn that it is an honour to be useful, and a comfort 
 and blessing to be neat and industrious. So much 
 more energy is naturally put into what must be done 
 than into what it is merely expedient should be done, 
 that the children are likely to exert their once-roused 
 faculties to much better purpose than if their business 
 was appointed to them for their own educational 
 benefit. The little girl who tends the baby, or helps 
 granny, or makes father's shirt, or learns to cook the 
 
44 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 dinner, is likely to put more mind into her work than 
 if she were set to mark a sampler or make a doll's 
 frock for the sake of learning to sew. And so with 
 the hoy who carries the coals for his mother, or helps 
 his father in the workshop : he will become manly 
 earlier and more naturally than the highborn child 
 who sees no higher sanction for his occupations than 
 the authority of his parents. And how dearly prized 
 are the opportunities for book-study which can be 
 secured ! The children see what a privilege and 
 recreation reading is to their father ; and they grow 
 up with a reverence and love for that great resource. 
 The hope and expectation carry them through the 
 tedious work of the alphabet and pothooks. And 
 as they grow up, they are admitted to the magnificent 
 privilege of fireside intercourse with the holy Milton, 
 and the glorious Shakspere, and many a sage whose 
 best thoughts may become their ideas of every day. 
 They thus obtain that activity and enlargement of 
 mind which render all employments and all events 
 educational. The powers, once roused and set to 
 work, find occupation and material in every event 
 of life. Everything serves — the daily handicraft, 
 intercourse with the neighbours, rumours from the 
 world without, homely duty, books, worship, the face 
 of the country, or the action of the town. All these 
 incitements, all this material, are offered to the 
 thoughtful artisan more fully and impartially than 
 to such below and above him as are hedged in by 
 ignorance or by aristocratic seclusion : and therein 
 is his condition better than theirs. After having 
 
THE GOLDEN MEAN. 45 
 
 come to this conclusion, it is no small satisfaction 
 to remember that the most favoured classes are the 
 most numerous. So great a multitude is included 
 in the middle classes, compared with the highborn 
 and the degraded, that if they who have the best 
 chance for wisdom will but use their privilege, the 
 highest hopes for society are the most reasonable. 
 
46 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NEW COMER. 
 
 We may be perverse in our notions, and mistaken in 
 <our ways; but there are some great natural blessings 
 "which we cannot refuse. I reckon it a great natural 
 blessing that the main events of human life are com- 
 mon to all, and that it is out of the power of man 
 to spoil the privilege and pleasure of them. Birth, 
 love, and death, are beyond the reach of man's per- 
 verseness. They come differently to the wise and 
 the foolish, the wicked and the pure : but they come 
 alike to the rich and the poor. The infant finds as 
 warm a bosom in which to nestle in the cottage as in 
 the mansion. The bride and bridegroom know the 
 bliss of being all the world to each other as well in 
 their Sunday walk in the fields as in the park of a 
 royal castle. And when the mourners stand within 
 the enclosure where "rich and poor lie down together," 
 death is the same sad and sweet mystery to all the 
 children of mortality, whether they be elsewhere the 
 lowly or the proud. 
 
 It may be said that the coming of the infant is not 
 the same event to all, because some very poor people 
 are heard to speak of it as a misfortune, and, if the child 
 dies, to rejoice that the Lord has taken it to himself. 
 It is true that some parents are heard to speak in 
 
THE NEW COMEK. 47 
 
 this way ; but I believe that the difference here is 
 not between rich and poor, but between the wise 
 and foolish, the trusting and the faithless. I have a 
 right to believe this as long as I see that the hardest- 
 working mother can be as tender and as cheerful as 
 any other, and that the poorest man can be as con- 
 scientious a father as the richest. If the parents 
 have been guilty of no fault towards their unborn 
 child ; if the child be the offspring of healthful and 
 virtuous parents ; and if they are calmly resolved to 
 do all in their power for its good, — to earn its bread, 
 to cherish its health, to open its mind, to nourish its 
 som, they have as good a right to rejoice in the pro- 
 spect of its birth as anybody in the world. If they 
 steadily purpose to do their full duty by their child, 
 they may rely upon it that all the powers of nature 
 will help them — that in a world wrapped round with 
 sweet air, and blessed by sunshine, and abounding 
 with knowledge, the human being can hardly fail of 
 the best ends of life, if set fairly forth on his way by 
 those who are all to him in his helpless years. A 
 doubt of this may be pardoned in parents too hard 
 driven by adversity, who have lost heart, and think 
 that to be poor is to be miserable : but the doubt is 
 not reasonable or religious; and it is likely to be 
 fatal to the child. I need not consider it further : 
 for I write for those who have a high purpose and a 
 high hope in rearing children. Those who despond 
 are unfit for the charge, and are not likely to enter 
 into any consultation about it. 
 
 To all who have this high purpose and hope, how 
 
48 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 interesting and how holy is this expectation of the 
 birth of a human being ! The mother is happy, and 
 can wait. The father thinks the time long till he 
 can take his infant in his arms, and lavish his love 
 upon it. If there are already children, they are or 
 should be made happy by some promise of the new 
 blessing to come. A serious hope it should be made 
 to them, however joyful — a hope to be spoken of only 
 in private seasons of confidence, when parents and 
 children speak to each other of what they feel most 
 deeply — by the bedsides of the little ones at night, 
 or in the quietest time of the Sunday holiday. A 
 serious hope it should be to all parties ; for they 
 should bring into the consideration the duties of 
 labour and self-denial which lie before them, and the 
 seasons of anxiety which they must undergo. Before 
 the parents lie sleepless nights, after clays of hard 
 work, — hours and hours of that weary suffering 
 which arises from the wailing of a sick infant ; and 
 before the entire household the duty of those self- 
 restraints which are ever due from the stronger to 
 the weaker. Amidst the anticipated joys of an in- 
 fant's presence, these things are not to be forgotten. 
 
 When the child is born, what an event is it in the 
 education of the whole household ! According to the 
 use made of it, is it a pure blessing, or a cause of pain 
 and sin to some concerned. If it be the first child, 
 there is danger lest it be too engrossing to the young 
 mother. I believe it happens oftener than anybody 
 knows, that the first conjugal discontents follow on 
 the birth of the first child. The young mother trusts 
 
THE NEW COMER. 49 
 
 too much to her husband's interest in her new trea- 
 sure "being equal to her own — a thing which the 
 constitution of man's nature, and the arrangements 
 of his business, render impossible. He will love his 
 infant dearly, and sacrifice much for it if he remains, 
 as he ought, his wife's first object. But if she neg- 
 lects his comfort to indulge in fondling her infant, 
 she is doing wrong to both. If her husband no 
 longer finds, on his return from his business, a clean 
 and quiet fireside, and a wife eager to welcome him, 
 but a litter of baby- things, and a wife too busy up- 
 stairs to come down, or too much engaged with her 
 infant to talk with him and make him comfortable, 
 there is a mischief done which can never be repaired. 
 And if this infant be not the first, there is another 
 person to be no less carefully considered — the next 
 youngest. I was early struck by hearing the mother 
 of a large family say that her pet was always the 
 youngest but one ; it was so hard to cease to be the 
 baby ! Little children are as jealous of affection as 
 the most enraptured lover ; and they are too young 
 to have learned to control their passions, and to be 
 reasonable. A more miserable being can hardly 
 exist than a little creature who, having been accus- 
 tomed to the tenderness always lavished on the baby, 
 — having spent almost its whole life in its mother's 
 arms, and been the first to be greeted on its father's 
 entrance, finds itself bid to sit on its little stool, or 
 turned over to the maid, or to rough brothers and 
 sisters, to be taken care of, while everybody gathers 
 round the baby, to admire and love it. Angry and 
 
 4 
 
50 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 jealous feelings may grow into dreadful passions in 
 that little breast, if great care be not taken to smooth 
 over the rough passage from babyhood to childhood. 
 If the mother would have this child love and not hate 
 the baby, if she would have peace and not tempest 
 reign in the little heart, she will be very watchful. 
 She will have her eye on the little creature, and call 
 it to help her to take care of the baby. She will 
 keep it at her knee, and show it, with many a tender 
 kiss between, how to make baby smile, how to warm 
 baby's feet ; will let it taste whether baby's food be 
 nice, and then peep into the cradle, to see whether 
 baby be asleep. And when baby is asleep, the 
 mother will open her arms to the little helper, and 
 fondle it as of old, and let it be all in all to her, as 
 it used to be. This is a great piece of education 
 to them both, and a lesson in justice to all who 
 stand by. 
 
 The addition of a child to the family circle is an 
 event too solemn to be deformed by any falsehood. 
 But few parents have the courage to be truthful with 
 their children as to how the infant comes ; a question 
 which their natural curiosity always prompts. The 
 deceptions usually practised are altogether to be 
 reprobated. It is an abominable practice to tell 
 children that the doctor brought the baby, and the 
 like. It is abominable as a lie : and it is worse than 
 useless. Any intelligent child will go on to ask, — or 
 if not to ask, to ponder with excited imagination, — 
 where the doctor found it, and so on ; and its attention 
 will be piqued, and its mind injuriously set to work, 
 
THE NEW COMER. 51 
 
 Where a few serious words of simple but carefully 
 expressed truth, would have satisfied it entirely. The 
 child must, sooner or later, awaken to an under- 
 standing of the subject ; and it is no more difficult 
 to impress him with a sense of decency about this, 
 than about other things, that a well- trained child 
 never speaks of, but to its mother in private. The 
 natural question once truthfully answered, the little 
 mind is at rest, and free for the much stronger 
 interests which are passing before its eyes. 
 
 The first month of an infant's life is usually a 
 season of great moral enjoyment to the household. 
 Everybody is disposed to bear and to do everything 
 cheerfully for the sake of the new blessing. The 
 father does not mind the discomforts of the time of 
 his wife's absence from the table and the fireside, 
 and makes himself by turns the nurse and the play- 
 fellow, to carry the children well through it. If 
 Granny be there, and not able to do much in the 
 house, she gathers the little ones about her chair, 
 and tells them longer stories than ever before, to 
 keep them quiet. The children try with all their 
 might to be quiet ; and even the little two-year-old 
 one struggles not to cry for company when baby 
 cries, and learns a lesson in self-restraint. They 
 look with respect on the maid or the nurse when they 
 find that she has been up in the night, tending 
 mother and baby, and that she looks as cheerful in 
 the morning as if she had had good rest. And when 
 they are permitted to study the baby, and to see how 
 it jerks its little limbs about, and does not see any- 
 
 UNIVERSITY) 
 
52 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 thing they want it to see, and takes no notice of 
 anything they say to it; and when they hear that 
 their great strong father, so wise and so clever about 
 his business, was once just such a helpless little 
 creature as this, they learn to reverence this feeble 
 infant, and one another, and themselves, and their 
 hearts are very full of feelings which they cannot 
 speak. I well remember that the strongest feelings 
 I ever entertained towards anv human being were 
 towards a sister born when I was nine years old. I 
 doubt whether any event in my life ever exerted 
 so strong an educational influence over me as her 
 birth. The emotions excited in me were over- 
 whelming for above two years ; and I recal them as 
 vividly as ever now when I see her with a child 
 of her own in her arms. I threw myself on my 
 knees many times in a day, to thank God that he 
 permitted me to see the growth of a human being 
 from the beginning. I leaped from my bed gaily 
 every morning as this thought beamed upon me with 
 the morning light. I learnt all my lessons without 
 missing a word for many months, that I might be 
 worthy to watch her in the nursery during my play- 
 hours. I used to sit on a stool opposite to her as she 
 was asleep, with a Bible on my knees, trying to make 
 out how a creature like this might rise i( from 
 strength to strength," till it became like Christ. My 
 great pain was, (and it was truly at times a despair,) 
 to think what a work lay before this thoughtless little 
 being. I could not see how she was to learn to walk 
 with such soft and pretty limbs : but the talking was 
 
TILE NEW COMER. 53 
 
 the despair. I fancied that she would have to learn 
 every word separately, as I learned my French 
 vocabulary ; and I looked at the big Johnson's 
 Dictionary till I could not bear to think about it. 
 If I, at nine years old, found it so hard to learn 
 through a small book like that Vocabulary, what 
 would it be to her to begin at two years old such a 
 big one as that ! Many a time I feared that she 
 never could possibly learn to speak. And when I 
 thought of all the trees and plants, and all the stars, 
 and all the human faces she must learn, to say 
 nothing of lessons, — I was dreadfully oppressed, and 
 almost wished she had never been born. Then 
 followed the relief of finding that walking came of 
 itself — step by step ; and then, that talking came 
 of itself — word by word at first, and then many new 
 words in a day. Never did I feel a relief like this, 
 when the dread of this mighty task was changed 
 into amusement at her funny use of words, and droll 
 mistakes about them. This taught me the lesson, 
 never since forgotten, that a way always lies open 
 before us, for all that it is necessary for us to do, 
 however impossible and terrible it may appear before- 
 hand. I felt that if an infant could learn to speak, 
 nothing is to be despaired of from human powers, 
 exerted according to Nature's laws. Then followed 
 the anguish of her childish illnesses — the misery of 
 her wailing after vaccination, when I could neither 
 bear to stay in the nursery nor to keep away from 
 her ; and the terror of the back-stairs, and of her 
 falls, when she found her feet , and the joy of her 
 
54 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 glee when she first knew the sunshine, and the 
 flowers, and the opening spring ; and the shame if 
 she did anything rude, and the glory when she did 
 anything right and sweet. The early life of that child 
 was to me a long course of intense emotions which, I 
 am certain, have constituted the most important part 
 of my education. I speak openly of them here, 
 because I am bound to tell the best I know about 
 Household Education ; and on that, as on most 
 subjects, the best we have to tell is our own expe- 
 rience. And I tell it the more readily because I am 
 certain that my parents had scarcely any idea of the 
 passions and emotions that were working within 
 me, through my own unconsciousness of them at the 
 time, and the natural modesty which makes children 
 conceal the strongest and deepest of their feelings : 
 and it may be well to give parents a hint that more 
 is passing in the hearts of their children, on occasion 
 of the gift of a new soul to the family circle, than 
 the ingenuous mind can recognize for itself, or knows 
 how to confide. 
 
55 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CARE OF THE FRAME. 
 
 We have seen something of the influence of the 
 infant upon others : now let us see what others can 
 do for it. 
 
 Here is a little creature containing within itself 
 the germs of all those powers which have before 
 been described ; but with all these powers in so 
 feeble a state that months and years of nourishing 
 and cherishing under the influences of Nature are 
 necessary to give it the use of its own powers. 
 What its parents can do for it, and all that they 
 can do for it, is to take care that it has the full 
 advantage of the influences of Nature. This is their 
 task. They cannot get beyond it, and they ought 
 not to fall short of it. 
 
 Nature requires and provides that the tender frame 
 should be nourished with food, air, warmth and light, 
 sleep and exercise. All these being given to it, the 
 soft bones will grow hard, the weak muscles will 
 grow firm ; the eye will become strong to see, and 
 the ear to hear, and the different portions of the 
 brain to feel, and apprehend, and think ; and to form 
 purposes, and to cause action, till the helpless infant 
 becomes a self-acting child, and is on the way to 
 become a rational man. What the parents have to 
 
56 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 do is to take care that the babe has the best of food, 
 air, warmth, and light, sleep and exercise. 
 
 First, of food. — About this there is no possible 
 doubt. The mother's milk is the best of food. What 
 the mother has to look to is that her milk is of the 
 best. She must preserve her own health by whole- 
 some diet, air, and exercise, and by keeping a gentle 
 and cheerful temper. Many a babe has had con- 
 vulsions after being suckled by a nurse who had had 
 a great fright, or had been in a great passion : and a 
 mother who has an irritable or anxious temper, who 
 flushes or trembles with anger, or has her heart in 
 her throat from fear of this or that, will not find her 
 child thrive upon her milk, but will have much to 
 suffer from its illness or its fretfulness. She must 
 try, however busy she may be, to give it its food 
 pretty regularly, that its stomach may not be over- 
 loaded nor long empty or craving. An infant does 
 not refuse food when it has had enough, as grown 
 people can do. It will stop crying and suck, when 
 its crying is from some other cause than hunger : 
 and it will afterwards cry all the more if an over- 
 loaded stomach is added to the other evil, whatever 
 it may be. Of the contrary mischief — leaving a 
 babe too long hungry — there is no need to say any- 
 thing. And when the weaning time comes, it is 
 plain that the food should be at first as like as 
 possible to that which is given up ; thin, smooth, 
 moderately warm, fresh, and sweet, and given as 
 leisurely as the mother's milk is drawn. It is well 
 known that milk contains, more curiously than any 
 
CARE OF THE FRAME. 57 
 
 other article of food, whatever is necessary for 
 nourishing all the parts of the human body. It 
 contains that which goes to form and. strengthen the 
 bones, and that which goes to make and enrich the 
 blood — thereby causing the soft bones of the babe to 
 grow stiff and strong, and its heart to beat healthily, 
 and its lungs to play vigorously, and its muscles to 
 thicken and become firm. While all this is going on 
 well, and the child shows no need of other food, 
 there is nothing but mischief to be looked for from 
 giving it a variety for which it is not prepared. 
 Milk, flour and water are its natural food while it 
 has no teeth to eat meat with, and vegetables turn 
 sour on its stomach. As for giving it a bit or sip 
 of what grown persons are eating and drinking — 
 that is a practice too ignorant to need to be men- 
 tioned here. 
 
 Next comes air. Here, as usual, we have to 
 consult Nature. There is an ingredient in the air 
 which is as necessary to support human breathing 
 as to feed the flame of a candle. Where there is 
 too little of it, the flame of a candle burns dim ; and 
 where it is not freely supplied to a human frame, it 
 languishes, and pines and sickens. A constant supply 
 of pure air there must therefore be. If the house is 
 close, if the room is too long shut up, with people in 
 it who are using up that ingredient of the air, they 
 will all, and especially the babe, languish and pine 
 and sicken. Every morning, therefore, and during 
 the day, there must be plenty of fresh air let in to 
 replace that which has been spoiled by breathing ; 
 
58 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 and in fine weather, the babe should be carried into 
 the open air every day. But Nature also points out 
 that we must avoid extremes in giving the child air, 
 as well as food. We see sometimes how a babe grows 
 black in the face if carried with its face to the wind, 
 or whisked downstairs in a draught. Its lungs are 
 small and tender, like the rest of it, and can bear 
 even fresh air only when moderately given. By a 
 little care in turning its face away from the wind, or 
 lightly covering its head, a child may be saved from 
 being half strangled by a breeze out of doors ; while 
 care will, of course, be taken within doors to keep it 
 out of the direct draught from door or window. 
 
 As for light — we do not yet know so much as we 
 ought about the relation between light and the human 
 frame. I believe some curious secrets remain to be 
 discovered about that. But we do know this much 
 — that people who live in dark places, prisoners in 
 dungeons, and very poor people in cellars, and savages 
 in caves, who do not go abroad much, are not only 
 less healthy than others, but have peculiar diseases 
 which are distinctly traceable to deficiency of light. 
 My own conviction is that we grown people can 
 hardly have too much light in our houses ; and that 
 we are, somehow or other, alive almost in proportion 
 to the sunshine we live in. But we must observe, at 
 the same time, the difference which Nature makes 
 between the infant and adults. The infant's eyes are 
 weak, and its brain tender ; so that, while there is 
 plenty of light about its body, we must take care 
 that there is not too much directly before its eyes. 
 
CARE OF THE FRAME. 59 
 
 If held opposite a strong sunshine, it will squint if it 
 does not cry, or by some means show that the light 
 is too much for its tender brain. 
 
 As to warmth — everybody knows that a babe 
 cannot have that constant warmth which is kept up 
 in older persons by constant activity. Its little feet 
 require frequent warm handling; and its lips often 
 look blue when everybody else in the room is warm 
 enough. By gentle chafing and warming it must be 
 kept comfortable during the day, without being shut 
 up in a hot room, or scorched before the fire. As 
 for the night — its warmth should be secured by suffi- 
 cient clothing, in a little bed of its own, as early as 
 possible, rather than by lying with its mother, which 
 is far too common a practice. It may be necessary, 
 in extremely cold weather, to take the child into bed 
 for warmth ; but even then, the mother should not 
 sleep till she has put it back, warm and well covered, 
 into its own bed. I need say nothing of the horror 
 we feel when, every now and then, we hear of a 
 miserable mother whose child has been overlaid. 
 That accident happens oftener than many people 
 know of. But, besides that danger, the practice is 
 a bad one. The child breathes air already breathed ; 
 it soaks in the perspiration of its mother. If its 
 state is healthful, its natural sleep will keep it warm, 
 supposing its bedding to be sufficient; while it is 
 likely to be too hot, and not to breathe healthfully, 
 if laid close by another person. In all seasons, its 
 clothing should be loose enough to allow of a free 
 play of its limbs, and of all the movements within 
 
GO HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 its body — the beating of the heart, the heaving of 
 the lungs, and the rolling of the bowels, to go on 
 quite naturally. By careful management, an infant 
 may be kept in a state of natural warmth, night and 
 day, through winter and summer ; as every sensible 
 mother knows. 
 
 The little frame must be exercised. Every human 
 function depends on exercise for its growth and per- 
 fection. A person who lives almost in the dark has 
 little use of his eyes when he comes into the light ; 
 an arm hung in a sling becomes weak, and at last 
 useless ; a talent for arithmetic or music becomes 
 feebler continually from disuse. To make the most, 
 therefore, of the frame of a human being, it must be 
 exercised — some of its powers from the beginning, 
 and all in their natural order. We must take care, 
 however, to observe what this natural order is, or, 
 judging by our present selves, we may attempt too 
 much. We must remember that the infant has to 
 begin from the beginning, and that its primary 
 organs — the heart, lungs, and brain — have to be- 
 come accustomed to moderate exercise before any- 
 thing further should be attempted. At first, it is 
 quite enough for the infant to be taken up and laid 
 down, washed and dressed, and carried about a little 
 on the arm. When the proper time comes, it will 
 kick and crow, and reach and handle, and look and 
 listen. Its very crying, if only what is natural to 
 express its wants, is a good exercise of those parts 
 intended to be used afterwards in speaking and 
 making childish noises. Poor Laura Bridgman, the 
 
CARE OF THE FRAME. 61 
 
 American girl, who early lost both eyes and the 
 inner parts of the ears, and cannot hear, see, smell, 
 or taste, and whose mind is yet developed by means 
 of the sense of touch, said a thing (said it by finger 
 language) which appears to me very touching and 
 very instructive. Not being able to speak, she 
 was formerly apt to use the organs of speech in 
 making odd noises, disagreeable to people about her. 
 When told of this, and encouraged to try to be silent, 
 she asked — " Why, then, has God given me so much 
 voice ? " Her guardians took the hint, and gave her 
 a place to play in for some time every day, where 
 she can make as much noise as she likes — hearing 
 none of it herself, but enjoying the exercise to her 
 organs of sound. What Laura does now, an infant 
 does by squalling, and children do by shouting and 
 vociferating at their play. Their parents, it must be 
 remembered, are talking for many hours while they 
 are asleep. 
 
 Other exercises follow in their natural course — the 
 rolling and tumbling about on a thickly wadded quilt 
 on the floor (saving the busy mother's time, while 
 teaching the child the use of its limbs) — feeling its 
 feet on the lap, and learning to step, scrambling up 
 and down by the leg of the table, pulling and 
 throwing things about, imitating sounds, till speech 
 is attained — these are the exercises which nature 
 directs, and under which the powers grow till the 
 mother can see in her plaything the sailor who may 
 one day rock at the mast-head, or the stout labourer 
 who may trench the soil, or the gardener who will 
 
62 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 name a thousand plants at a glance, or the teacher 
 who will bring out and train a hundred human in- 
 tellects. What she has to look to is that the powers 
 of her child are all remembered and considered, and 
 exercised only in due degree and natural order. 
 
 After exercise comes sleep. If all else go well, 
 this will too. If the child digest well, be warm, 
 sufficiently fatigued and not too much — in short, if 
 it be comfortable in body, it will sleep at proper 
 times. One of the earliest pieces of education — of 
 training — is to induce a babe to sleep regularly, and 
 without the coaxing which consumes so much of the 
 mother's time, and encourages so much waywardness 
 on the part of the child. If a healthy child be early 
 accustomed to a bed of its own, and if it is laid down 
 at a sleepy moment, while the room is quiet, it will 
 soon get into a habit of sleeping when laid down 
 regularly, in warmth and stillness, after being well 
 washed and satisfied with food. The process is 
 natural; and it would happen easily enough if our 
 ways did not interfere with Nature. By a little 
 care, a child may be attended to in the night without 
 fully awakening it. By watching for its stirring, 
 veiling the light, being silent and quick, the little 
 creature may be on its pillow again without having 
 quite waked up — to its own and its mother's great 
 advantage. 
 
 Cleanliness is the removal of all that is unwhole- 
 some. Nature has made health dependent upon this, 
 in the case of human beings of every age : and the 
 more eminently, the younger they are. One great 
 
CARE OF THE FRAME. 63 
 
 condition of an infant's welfare is the removal of all 
 discharges whatever, by careful cleansing of the deli- 
 cate skin in every crease and corner, every day ; 
 and of all clothing as soon as soiled. The perpetual 
 washing of an infant's bibs, &c, is a great trouble to 
 a busy mother ; but less than to have the child ill 
 from the smell of a sour pinafore, or from wet under- 
 clothes, or from a cap that holds the perspiration of 
 a week's nights and days. It is a thing which must 
 be done — the keeping all pure and sweet about the 
 body of the little creature that cannot help itself; 
 and its look of welfare amply repays the trouble all 
 the while. 
 
 Such are the offices to be rendered to the new- 
 born infant. They consist in allowing Nature scope 
 for her higher offices. By their faithful discharge, 
 the human being is prepared to become in due sea- 
 son all that he is made capable of being — which may 
 prove to be something higher than we are at present 
 aware of. 
 
64 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CARE OE THE POWERS :— WILL. 
 
 While the bodily powers of the infant are nourished 
 and preserved by observing Nature, as pointed out in 
 the last chapter, the powers of the mind are growing 
 from day to day. When an infant has once been 
 pleased with the glitter of the sun upon the brass 
 warming-pan, or with the sound of a rattle, it will 
 kick and shake its little arms, and look eager, the 
 next time it sees the rattle and the warming-pan. 
 And having once remembered, it will remember 
 more every day. Every day it will give signs of 
 Hope and Desire. Will shows itself very early. Fear 
 has to be guarded against, and Love to be cherished, 
 from the first days that mind appears. It is the 
 highest possible privilege to the child if the parents 
 know how to exercise its power of Conscience soon 
 enough, so as to make it sweet and natural to the 
 young creature to do right from its earliest days. 
 Let us see how these things may be. 
 
 How strong is the Will of even a very young 
 infant ! How the little creature, if let alone, will 
 labour and strive after anything it has set its mind 
 upon ! How it cries and struggles to get the moon ; 
 and tumbles about the floor, as soon as it can sprawl, 
 to accomplish any w T ish ! And, if ill-trained, how 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— WILL. 65 
 
 pertinaciously it will refuse to do anything it ought ! 
 How completely may the wills of a whole party of 
 grown people be set at nought by the self-will of a 
 baby whose powers are allowed to run riot ! It is 
 exceedingly easy to mismanage such cases, as we all 
 see every day : but it is also very easy to render 
 this early power of Will a great blessing. 
 
 The commonest mistake is to indulge the child's 
 self-will, as the easiest course at the moment. Imme- 
 diate peace and quiet are sought by giving the child 
 whatever it clamours for, and letting it do whatever 
 it likes in its own way. We need not waste words 
 on this tremendous mistake. Everybody knows 
 what a spoiled child is; and nobody pretends to 
 stand up for the method of its education. I think 
 quite as ill of the opposite mistake — of the method 
 which goes by the name of breaking the child's 
 will ; a method adopted by some really conscientious 
 parents because they think religion requires it. When 
 I was in America, I knew a gentleman who thought 
 it his first duty to break the wills of his children : 
 and he set about it zealously and early. He was a 
 clergyman, and the President of an University : the 
 study of his life had been the nature and training 
 of the human mind ; and the following is the way 
 he chose — misled by a false and cruel religion of 
 Fear — to subdue and destroy the great faculty of 
 Will. An infant of (I think) about eleven months 
 old was to be weaned. A piece of bread was offered 
 to the babe ; and the babe turned away from it. Its 
 father said that it was necessary to break down the 
 
 5 
 
06 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 rebellious will of every child for once ; that if dona 
 early enough, once would suffice ; and that it would 
 be right and kind to take this early occasion in the 
 instance of this child. The child was therefore to be 
 compelled to eat the bread. A dressmaker in the 
 house saw the process go on through the whole day ; 
 and became so dreadfully interested that she could 
 not go away at night till the matter was finished. 
 Of course, the bit of bread became more and more 
 the subject of disgust, and then of terror to the 
 infant, the more it was forced upon its attention. 
 Hours of crying, shrieking and moaning were fol- 
 lowed by its being shut up in a closet. It was 
 brought out by candlelight — stretched helpless across 
 the nurse's arms, its voice lost, its eyes sunk and 
 staring, its muscles shrunk, its appearance that of a 
 dying child. It was now near midnight. The bit 
 of bread was thrust into the powerless hand ; no 
 resistance was offered by the unconscious sufferer ; 
 and the victory over the evil powers of the flesh and 
 the devil was declared to be gained. The dressmaker 
 went home, bursting with grief and indignation, and 
 told the story : and when the President went abroad 
 the next morning, he found the red brick walls of 
 the university covered with chalk portraits of himself 
 holding up a bit of bread before his babe. The 
 affair made so much noise that he was, after some 
 time, compelled to publish a justification of himself. 
 This justification amounted to what was well under- 
 stood throughout ; that he conscientiously believed it 
 his duty to take an early opportunity to break the 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— WILL. 67 
 
 child's will, for its own sake. There remained for 
 Iiis readers the old wonder where he could find 
 in the book of Glad Tidings so cruel a contradiction 
 of that law of love which stands written on every 
 parent's heart. 
 
 How much easier is the true and natural method 
 for controlling the young Will ! Nature points out 
 that the true method is to control the Will, not by 
 another person's Will, but by the other faculties 
 of the child itself. When the child wills what is 
 right and innocent, let the faculty work freely. 
 When it wills what is wrong and hurtful, appeal to 
 other faculties, and let this one sleep ; excite the 
 child's attention ; engage its memory, or its hope, or 
 its affection. If the infant is bent on having some- 
 thing that it ought not, put the forbidden object out 
 of sight, and amuse the child with something else. 
 Avoid both indulgence and opposition, and a habit 
 of docility will be formed by the time the child 
 becomes capable of deliberate self-control. This 
 natural method being followed, it is curious to see 
 how early the power of self-control may be attained. 
 I watched one case of a child endowed with a strong 
 Will who, well trained, had great power of self- 
 government before she could speak plain. She was 
 tenderly reared, and indulged in her wishes whenever 
 they were reasonable, and cheerfully amused and 
 helped whenever her desires were disappointed. One 
 day I had just begun to show her a bright new red 
 pocket-book full of pictures when she was called to 
 her dinner. She did not want her dinner, and 
 
 5—2 
 
68 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 begged to see the pocket-book ; begged it once — 
 twice — and was about to beg it a third time, when 
 I ventured to put to the proof her power of self- 
 denial. I put the case before her as it appeared to 
 me, fairly saying that I could not show her the 
 pocket-book till five in the afternoon. Showing her 
 what I thought the right of the matter, I asked 
 her whether she would now go to her dinner. She 
 stood, with the pocket-book in her hand, for some 
 seconds in deep thought ; then looked up at me with 
 a bright face, said graciously "I will;" put the 
 gay plaything into my lap, and ran off to her dinner. 
 The looking forward till five o'clock and the pleasure 
 of that hour fixed the effort in her mind, and made 
 the next easier. It is clear that a child early subject 
 to oppression and opposition in matters of the Will 
 could not arrive thus betimes and naturally at self- 
 government like this, but must have many perverse 
 and painful feelings to struggle with, in addition to 
 the necessary conflict with himself. 
 
 A parent who duly appreciates the great work 
 that every human being has to do in attaining self- 
 government, will assist the process from the very 
 first, by the two great means in his power — by the 
 aid of Habit, and of a government of love instead 
 of fear. It is really due to the feebleness of a child 
 to give it the aid and support of habit in what it 
 has to do and avoid. By regularity in the acts of 
 its little life, in its sleeping and feeding, and walking 
 and times of play, a world of conflict and wilfulness 
 is avoided, and the will is quietly trained, day by 
 
CAKE OE THE POWERS :— WILL. 69 
 
 day, to submission to circumstances ; life goes on 
 with the least possible wear and tear ; and a con- 
 tinually strengthening power is obtained over all 
 the faculties. Among the children entering upon 
 school life, and men and women upon any sphere 
 of duty whatever, a great difference as to efficiency 
 will be found between those who always have to 
 bring their Will to bear expressly on the business 
 of the time, unaided by habit, and those whose lives 
 and powers have been, as one may say, economized 
 by their having lived under that discipline of time 
 and circumstance which is the gentle and natural 
 education of the human Will. It is true, this mecha- 
 nical kind of discipline can never be more than 
 auxiliary. It can never stand in the place of the 
 deep internal principle by which alone the mightiest 
 movements of the human will are actuated. It can 
 only husband a man's powers for his ordinary duties, 
 and not of itself prepare him for the great crises of 
 life. It can only aid him in his everyday course, 
 and not strengthen him, when the agonising hour 
 comes, to surrender love, and hope, and peace, at 
 the call of duty, or to encounter outrage and death 
 for truth's sake. But we are now considering the 
 education of the infant man ; man at that stage when 
 our chief concern is with whatever is auxiliary to 
 that great aim of perfection which lies far into the 
 future. 
 
 Above all things it is important that the parental 
 administration should be one of love and not of fear. 
 There can be no healthful growth of the Will under 
 
70 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the restraints of fear. The fact is, the Will is not 
 trained at all in any frightened person. 
 
 The actions may be conformed to the Will of the 
 tyrant ; but the Will is running riot in secret, all the 
 time — unless, indeed, it be entirely crushed. But 
 how vigorously it grows under a government of love! 
 Look at the difference between a slave-owner, whose 
 people are driven by the lash, and an employer whose 
 people are ready to live and die for him : how languidly 
 and shabbily is the work done in the first case, and 
 how heartily and efficiently in the last ! And it is 
 with the young child as with the grown man. A 
 child who lives in the fear of punishment has half 
 its faculties absorbed by that fear, and becomes a 
 feeble little creature, incapable of governing itself; 
 while a mere babe who is cheered and led on in its 
 good efforts by smiles of love and tones of tenderness- 
 becomes strong to govern its passions, and to brush 
 away its tears ; and patient to bear pain ; and brave 
 to overcome difficulty ; becomes blessed, in short, 
 with a healthful and virtuous Will. I know nothing 
 more touching than the efforts of self-government of 
 which little children are capable, when the best parts 
 of their nature are growing vigorously under the 
 light and warmth of parental love. Mrs. Wesley 
 might pride herself on so breaking the wills of her 
 children by fear as that the youngest in arms learned 
 immediately <( to cry softly ; " but there was every 
 danger that the early cowed Will would sooner or 
 later start up in desperate rebellion, and claim a 
 freedom which it would be wholly unable to manage* 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— WILL. 71 
 
 How much safer, and how infinitely more beautiful 
 is the self-control of the little creature who stifles his 
 sobs of pain because his mother's pitying eye is upon 
 him in tender sorrow ! or that of the babe who 
 abstains from play, and sits quietly on the floor 
 because somebody is ill ; or that of a little hero 
 who will ask for physic if he feels himself ill, or 
 for punishment if he knows himself wrong, out of 
 confidence in the tender justice of the rule under 
 which he lives ! I have known a very young child 
 slip over to the cold side of the bed on a winter's 
 night, that a grown-up sister might find a warm one 
 I have known a boy in petticoats offer his precious 
 new humming-top to a beggar child. I have known 
 a little girl submit spontaneously to hours of irksome 
 restraint and disagreeable employment merely because 
 it was right. Such Wills as these — so strong and yet 
 so humble, so patient and so dignified — were never 
 impaired by fear, but flourished thus under the in- 
 fluence of love, with its sweet incitements and holy 
 supports. 
 
72 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CARE OF THE POWERS: — HOPE. 
 
 We have seen what power of Will a child has. But 
 the Will itself is put in action by Hope and Fear. 
 
 What is stronger in an infant than its capacity for 
 Hope and Fear? In its earliest and most uncon- 
 scious stages of emotion, how its little limbs quiver, 
 and its countenance lights up at the prospect of its 
 food ! and how it turns away its face, or wrinkles it 
 up into a cry, at the sight of a strange countenance, 
 or unusual appearance of dress or place ! And what 
 stronger hint can a parent have than this, to look 
 forward to what this hope and fear may grow to ? 
 
 This great power of Hope must determine the lead- 
 ing features of the character of the man or woman ; 
 determine them for good or evil according to the 
 training of the power from this day forward. Shall 
 the man continue a child, or sink into the brute by 
 his objects of hope continuing to be what they are 
 now — food or drink ? Shall his frame be always put 
 into commotion by the prospect of pleasant bodily 
 sensations from eating and drinking, and other animal 
 gratifications ? Or, when the child arrives at hoping 
 for his mother's smile and his father's praise, shall he 
 stop there, and live for admiration ; admiration of 
 his person and dress his activity, or his cleverness ? 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS : —HOPE. 73 
 
 Shall the gratification of his vanity be the chief in- 
 terest of his life ? Or shall it be ambition ? Shall 
 his perpetual hope be of a higher sort of praise — 
 praise from so large a number as shall give him 
 power over other men, and cause his name to be 
 known beyond his connexions, and his native place, 
 and his country and his age ? All this is very low 
 and very small ; too little for the requirements of his 
 nature, too little for the peace of his mind and the 
 happiness of his heart. Shall not rather this faculty 
 of hope be nourished up into Faith?' — faith which 
 includes at once the fulness of virtuous power and 
 the peace which the world can neither give nor take 
 away. A being in whom the early faculty of Hope 
 has been matured into a steady power of Faith is of 
 the highest and happiest order of men, because the 
 objects of his hope are unchanging and everlasting, 
 and they keep all his best powers in strenuous action 
 and in full health and strength. When the mother 
 sees her infant in an ecstacy of hope, first at the food 
 making ready for him, and next at the gay flower 
 within his reach, and afterwards at the flattery 
 of visitors, she should remember that here is the 
 faculty which may hereafter lead and sustain him 
 through days of hunger and nights of watching, or 
 years of toilsome obscurity, or scenes of the unthink- 
 ing world's scorn, calm and peaceful in the further- 
 ance of the truth of God and the welfare of Man. 
 And if her tender heart shrinks from the anticipation 
 of privation and contempt, such as have too often 
 hitherto attended a life of faith, let her remember 
 
74 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 that in the midst of the most prosperous life, there 
 can be no peace but in proportion to the power of 
 faith ; and that, therefore, in training up this faculty 
 of Hope to its highest exercise she is providing most 
 substantially for his happiness, be his lot otherwise 
 what it may. 
 
 How is this faculty to be trained ? 
 
 First, it must be cherished. Some well-meaning 
 parents repress and even extinguish it, from the 
 notion that this is the way to teach humility and 
 self-denial. The consequence is that they break the 
 mainspring of action in the child's mind, and every- 
 thing comes to a stand. It is difficult to weaken the 
 power of hope in a human being, and harder still to 
 break it down; but when the thing is done, what 
 sadder spectacle can be seen ? Of all moving sights 
 of woe, the most mournful is that of a hopeless 
 child. A single glance at its listless limbs, its dull 
 eye, its languid movements, shows the mischief that 
 has been done. The child is utterly unreliable; a 
 mere burden upon the world. He has no truth, no 
 love, no industry, no intellectual power in him ; and 
 if he has any conscience, it is the mere remains, — 
 enough to trouble him, without doing him any good. 
 This is an extreme case, and I trust a rare one. But 
 cases of repressed hope are much more common than 
 they should be. There are too many children who 
 are baulked of their mother's sympathy because she 
 is busy or fretful, or of their father's, because he is 
 stern. Too many little hearts are made to swell in 
 silence because they cannot get justice, or to burn 
 
CAKE OF THE POWERS :— HOPE. 75 
 
 under the suspicion that their aspirations are de- 
 spised. After this, what can they do? At best, 
 they carry their confidence elsewhere, and make 
 their chief interests away from home : and it is too 
 probable that they will give up their plans and aspi- 
 rations, and sink down to lower hopes. A boy who 
 aspires to discover the North Pole, or to write a book 
 which will teach the world something greater than it 
 ever knew before, will presently sink down to be 
 greedy after lollypops : and a girl who means to try 
 whether a woman cannot be as good as Jesus Christ, 
 may presently be discouraged down to the point of 
 reckoning on Sunday because she is to have a new 
 ribbon on her bonnet. In the case of every human 
 being, Hope is to be cherished from first to last; not 
 the hope of the particular thing that the child has set 
 its mind on, unless the thing itself be good ; but the 
 hopeful mood of mind. The busiest mother can 
 have nothing to do so important as satisfying her 
 child's heart by a word or look of sympathy : and 
 the most anxious father can have nothing so grave to 
 occupy him as the peril he puts his child into by 
 plunging him into undeserved fear and disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 Hope is to be cherished without ceasing. But the 
 objects of hope must first be varied and then exalted, 
 that the faculty may be led on from strength to 
 strength, till it is able to fix its aims for itself. To 
 the hope of good eating and drinking must succeed 
 that of clutching gay colours, of hearing mother 
 sing, of having play with father when he comes 
 
76 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 home ; then of having a kitten or a doll to take care 
 of; then of parents' praise for lessons or other work 
 well done; then of self-satisfaction for bad habits 
 cured : then there may be a great spring forward to 
 thoughts of glory; — the glory of being a great 
 sailor, or magistrate, or author, or martyr: and at 
 length, the hope of doing great things for the good 
 of mankind, and of becoming a .perfect man. As 
 for times and opportunities of cherishing and exalt- 
 ing hope — every hour is the right time, and every 
 day affords the opportunity. What is needed is, 
 that the parents should have the aim fixed in their 
 hearts ; and then their minds, and that of the child, 
 will work towards it as by an instinct. By natural 
 impulse the mother's hand will bring the gay flower, 
 and the kitten, or the doll, before the child's notice, if 
 it becomes greedy about its food. By natural im- 
 pulse she will sing its favourite song, or beg play for 
 it of its father after some little virtuous effort of the 
 child's ; in natural course, all things in human life, 
 great and small, will present themselves in their 
 heroic aspect to the minds of the parents, and be 
 thus represented to the mind of the child, if once the 
 idea of the future man be firmly associated with that 
 of moral nobleness. If they have in them faith 
 enough steadily to desire for him this moral noble- 
 ness above all things, there can be no fear but that 
 their aspiration will communicate itself to him ; and 
 his faculty of Hope will ripen into a power of Faith. 
 I have said nothing of a hope of reward as among 
 the objects of childhood. This is because I think 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— HOPE. 77 
 
 rewards and punishments seldom or never necessary 
 in household education, while they certainly bring 
 great mischief after them. In some cases of bad 
 habit, and in a very early stage of education, they 
 may be desirable, here and there ; but as a system, 
 I think rewards and punishments bad. In the case 
 of a very young child who has fallen into a habit 
 of crying at bedtime, or at any particular time of 
 day, or in that of a thoughtless, untidy child, where 
 the object is to impress its memory, or to establish 
 a strong association with time or place, it may be 
 useful to connect some expectation of pain or pleasure 
 with particular seasons or acts, so as to make the 
 infant remember the occasion for self-government, 
 and rouse its will to do right ; but this should bo 
 only where the association of selfish pleasure or pain 
 is likely to die out with the bad habit, and never 
 where such selfish pleasure or pain can be associated 
 with great permanent ideas and moral feelings. A 
 careless child may be allowed to earn a reward for 
 punctuality at meals, and for putting playthings and 
 dress in their proper place when done with, and for 
 personal neatness, during a specified time ; and per- 
 haps for the diligent learning of irksome tasks : and 
 there may be some punishment, declared and agreed 
 upon beforehand, and steadily inflicted, for any dis- 
 agreeable personal habit, or any other external instance 
 of habitual thoughtlessness. But the greater moral 
 aims of the parent are too sacred to be mixed up with 
 the direct personal interests of the child. A child 
 will hardly be nobly truthful who dreads being 
 
78 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 whipped for a lie ; and benevolence will be spoiled 
 in its young beginnings, if any pleasure beyond itself 
 is looked for in its early exercise. A child who has 
 broken a plate, or gone astray for pleasure when sent 
 on an errand, must want confidence in his parents, 
 and be more or less cowardly if he denies the 
 offence ; and he will not have more truth or courage 
 on the next occasion for being whipped now. What 
 he needs is to be made wiser about the blessedness of 
 truth and the horrors of falsehood, and more brave 
 about the pain of rebuke : and the whipping will not 
 make him either the one or the other. I remember 
 being fond of a book in my childhood which yet 
 revolted me in one part. It told of the children of a 
 great family in France, who heard of the poverty of a 
 woman about to lie in, and who bought and made 
 clothes for herself and her infant. Their mother and 
 grandmother made a sort of festival of the giving of 
 these clothes. The children rode in procession on 
 asses, carrying their gifts. One tied her bundle with 
 blue ribbon, and another with pink ; and the whole 
 village came out to see, when they alighted at the 
 poor woman's door. I used to blush with indignation 
 over this story ; indignation on the poor woman's 
 account, that her pauperism was so exposed ; and on 
 that of the children, that they were not allowed the 
 pure pleasure of helping a neighbour, without being 
 applauded at home and by a whole village for what 
 it gave them nothing but satisfaction to do. I am 
 strongly of opinion that when we duly understand 
 and estimate man, there will be no reward or punish- 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— HOPE. 79 
 
 raent at all ; that human beings will be so trained as 
 to find their pleasure and pain in the gratification or 
 the abuse of their own highest faculties : and that in 
 those days (however far off they may be) there will 
 be no tread-wheels, no hulks, no gibbets : and no prize- 
 giving, except for feats of skill or activity. And 
 meantime, I feel perfectly sure that children under 
 home-training may be led to find such gratification in 
 the exercise of their higher intellectual and moral 
 faculties, as to feel the abuse of them more painful 
 than any punishment, and their action more pleasur- 
 able than any reward. When we read of a Christian 
 in the early ages who was brought into the amphi- 
 theatre, and given the choice whether he would 
 declare Jupiter to be the supreme God, and enjoy life 
 and comfort, or avow himself a Christian, and be torn 
 to pieces by wild beasts the next minute, we feel that 
 he could not say he believed Jupiter to be God. 
 Well: convince any child as fully as this of the truth, 
 and of his absolute need of fidelity to it, and he can 
 no more endure lapse from it than the Christian could 
 endure to declare Jupiter to be God. As the invete- 
 rate drunkard must gratify his propensity to drink, at 
 the cost of any amount of personal and domestic 
 misery ; and as the miser must go on adding to his 
 stores of gold, even though he starves himself into 
 disease and death : so the upright man must satisfy 
 his conscience through every extremity ; and no 
 penalty can deter the benevolent man from devoting 
 all he has to give — his money, his time, and his life — 
 to the relief of suffering. On such as these — the 
 
80 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 upright and the devoted — every appeal to their lower 
 faculties is lost ; and as for their hope and fear — they 
 have passed into something higher. With them 
 se perfect love has cast out fear;" and hope has 
 grown up into Faith ; and this faith heing to them 
 <e the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
 things not seen/' it must be more to them than any of 
 the passing pains and pleasures of life. Exalted as 
 these beings are, they are of the same make as the 
 infant on its mother's lap : and each is destined to 
 derive his highest gratification from the exercise of 
 the noblest faculties of his nature. If parents did but 
 understand and constantly remember this, they would 
 consider well before they dared to mix up a meaner 
 pleasure and pain with the greater, while appealing to 
 any of the higher moral faculties of their children — if 
 indeed they ventured upon reward and punishment 
 at all. 
 
81 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CARE OF THE POWERS CONTINUED : — PEAR. 
 
 There is nothing in which children differ more than 
 in their capacity for Fear. But every child has it 
 more or less, — or ought to have it : for nothing can 
 be made of a human being who has never experienced 
 it A child who has never known any kind of fear 
 can have no power of Imagination; — can feel no 
 wonder, no impulse of life, no awe or veneration. 
 Such a case probably does not exist, except in a con- 
 dition of idiotcy. A child who is called fearless, and 
 who is congratulated upon this, — who shows no shy- 
 ness of strangers, who does not mind cold water, or 
 falls, or being in the dark, who runs after animals, 
 and plays with ugly insects, may yet cower under 
 a starry sky, or tremble at thunder, or be impressed 
 for life by a mysterious dream. It is for the parents 
 to watch the degree and direction of an infant's fear, 
 firmly assured that whatever be this degree and 
 direction, all may end well under prudent care. 
 
 The least favourable case is that of the apathetic 
 child. When it appears indifferent to whatever may 
 happen to it, and shrinks from nothing, it must be as 
 incapable of hope and enjoyment as of fear, and there 
 must be something amiss in its health, — in its nervous 
 system ; and its health is what must be looked to 
 
 6 
 
82 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 first. It must be well nourished and amused; its 
 perceptive faculties must be exercised, and every sort 
 of activity must be encouraged. If this succeeds, 
 and its feelings begin to show themselves, fear will 
 come with the rest; and then its education in that 
 respect must begin. But it must ever be carefully 
 remembered that fear often puts on the appearance of 
 apathy, — especially in a proud child. No creature 
 is so intensely reserved as a proud and timid child : 
 and the cases are few in which the parents know 
 anything of the agonies of its little heart, the spasms 
 of its nerves, the soul-sickness of its days, the horrors 
 of its nights. It hides its miseries under an appear- 
 ance of indifference or obstinacy, till its habitual 
 terror impairs its health, or drives it into a temper of 
 defiance or recklessness. I can speak with some 
 certainty of this, from my own experience. I was as 
 timid a child as ever was born ; yet nobody knew or 
 could know, the extent of this timidity ; for though 
 abundantly open about everything else, I was as 
 secret as the grave about this. I had a dream at 
 four years old which terrified mo to such an excess 
 that I cannot now recall it without a beating of the 
 heart. I could not look up at the sky on a clear 
 night; for I felt as if it was only just above the tree 
 tops, and must crush me. I could not cross the yard 
 except at a run, from a sort of feeling, with no real 
 belief, — that a bear was after me. The horrors of 
 my nights were inexpressible. The main terror, 
 however, was a magic-lantern which we were treated 
 with once a year, and sometimes twice. We used to 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— FEAR. 83 
 
 talk of this exhibition as a prodigious pleasure ; and 
 I contrived to reckon on it as such : but I never saw 
 the white cloth, with its circle of yellow light, without 
 being in a cold perspiration from head to foot. One 
 of the pictures on the slides was always suppressed 
 by my father, lest it should frighten the little ones ; — 
 a dragon's head, vomiting flames. He little thought 
 that a girl of thirteen could be terrified by this : but 
 when I was thirteen, — old enough to be put in charge 
 of some children who were to see the magic-lantern, 
 — this slide was exhibited by one of my brothers 
 among the rest. I had found it hard enough to look 
 and laugh before ; and now I turned so faint that 
 I could not stand, but by grasping a chair. But for 
 the intensity of my shame, I should have dropped. 
 Much of the benefit of instruction was lost to me 
 during all the years that I had masters : my memory 
 failed me when they knocked at the door, and I could 
 never ask a question, or get voice to make a remark. 
 I could never play to my music master, or sing with 
 a clear voice but when I was sure nobody could hear 
 me. Under all this, my health was bad ; my beha- 
 viour was dogged and provoking, and my temper 
 became for a time insufferable. Its improvement 
 began from the year when I first obtained some 
 release from habitual fear. During these critical 
 years I misled everybody about me by a habit of 
 concealment on this one subject, which I am sure 
 I should not now have strength for under any induce- 
 ment whatever. Because I climbed our apple-tree, 
 and ran along the top of a high wall, and took great 
 
 6—2 
 
84 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 leaps, and was easily won by benevolent strangers, 
 and because I was never known to hint or own 
 myself afraid, no one suspected that fear was at the 
 bottom of the immovable indifference and apparently 
 unfeeling obstinacy by which I perplexed and annoyed 
 everybody about me. I make these confessions wil- 
 lingly, in the hope that some inexperienced or busy 
 parent may be awakened by them to observe whether 
 the seeming apathy of a child be really from indiffer- 
 ence, or the outward working of some hidden passion 
 of fear. 
 
 Bold children are good and promising subjects; 
 and it is a delightful thing to a parent's heart to see 
 an infant fairly trying its powers against difficulties 
 and obstacles — confronting nature in all seasons of 
 light and darkness, of sunshine and tempest, in the 
 face of strangers and friends alike, free and fearless. 
 It is delightful to think how much misery and em- 
 barrassment he is spared, by his happy constitution 
 of nerves and brain. But, while the proud parent 
 sees in him the future discoverer or sailor, or leader 
 among men, it must be remembered that in order to 
 become great, in order to become truly a man at all, 
 he must learn and endure much that can be learned 
 and endured only through fear, and the conquest of 
 it. That there is some fear in him is certain ; and 
 the parent must silently search it out, and train it up 
 into that awe and modesty which are necessary to the 
 high courage of a whole life. No man or woman can 
 be a faithful servant of Duty, qualified to live, suffer, 
 and die for it, who has not grown up in awe of some- 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— FEAK. 85 
 
 thing higher than himself — in veneration of some 
 powers greater than he can understand ; and this 
 awe and veneration have in them a large element of 
 fear at the beginning. What this element is, in each 
 case, the parents must set themselves to understand. 
 Too many think it their duty to make a child afraid, 
 if fear does not seem to come of itself: and too many 
 do this without thinking it their duty, from the spirit 
 of opposition being excited in themselves, from the 
 experience of inconvenient fearlessness in the child. 
 I have known a tutor avow his practice of beating a 
 bold boy till he broke two canes over him, because 
 the boy ought to learn that he is under a power (a 
 power of arm) greater than his own, and must, 
 through fear of it, apply himself to his appointed 
 business. Such inflictions make a boy reckless, or 
 obstinate, or deceitful. And I have seen far too 
 many instances of irritable parents who have tried to 
 manage a high-spirited child by threats; and, the 
 threats failing, by blows, or shutting up in the dark, 
 or hobgoblin prophecies, which have created no real 
 awe or obedience, but only defiance, or forced and 
 sullen submission. This will never do. A tender 
 parent will never have the heart to breed fear in a 
 child, knowing that u fear hath torment" A truly 
 loving parent will know that it would be less unkind 
 to bruise his child's limbs, or burn its flesh, than to 
 plant torturing feelings in his mind. The most 
 effectual way, for all purposes, is to discover the fear 
 that is already there, in order to relieve him from it, 
 by changing this weakness into a source of strength 
 
8G HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION 
 
 and comfort. What is it — this fear that lies hidden 
 in him ? A boy who is not afraid of the dark, or of 
 a bull, or of a ghost, may tremble at the sight of a 
 drunken man, or at the hearing of an oath. A girl 
 who is not afraid of a spider, or a toad, nor of thieves, 
 nor of climbing ladders, may tremble at the moaning 
 of the wind in the chimney, or at a frown from her 
 mother, or at entering a sick chamber. Whatever 
 be the fear, let the parents watch, carefully but 
 silently, till they have found it out : and, having 
 found it out, let them lead on the child to conquest, 
 both by reason and by bringing such courage as he 
 has to bear on the weak point. In any case, whether 
 of a bold or a timid child, the only completely 
 effectual training comes from the parents' example. 
 If the every day life of the parents shows that they 
 dread nothing but doing wrong, for either themselves 
 or their children, the fears of the most timid and of 
 the boldest will alike take this direction, sooner or 
 later : and the courage of both will, with more or less 
 delay, become adequate to bear and do anything for 
 conscience' sake. If it be the clear rule and habit of 
 an entire household to dread and detest only one 
 thing, the fear and dislike of every mind in the house- 
 hold will become concentred upon that one thing, 
 and every heart will become stout to avoid and repel 
 it. And if the one dreaded thing be sin, it is well ; 
 for the courage of each and all will be perpetually 
 reinforced by the whole strength of the best faculties 
 of every mind. 
 
 As for the case of the timid child, — let not the 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— FEAR. 87 
 
 parent be disheartened, for the noblest courage of 
 man or woman has often grown out of the excessive 
 fears of the child. It is true, the little creature is 
 destined to undergo many a moment of agony, many 
 an hour of misery, many a day of discouragement ; 
 but all this pain may be more than compensated for 
 by the attainment of such a freedom and strength 
 at last as may make it feel as if it had passed from 
 hell to heaven. Think what it mast be for a being 
 who once scarcely dared to look round from fear of 
 lights on the ceiling or shadows on the wall, who 
 started at the patter of the rain, or the rustle of the 
 birds leaving the spray, who felt suffocated by the 
 breeze and maddened by the summer lightning, to 
 pass free, fearless and glad through all seasons and 
 their change, — all climes and their mysteries and 
 dangers ; — to pass exhilarated through raging seas, 
 over glaring deserts, and among wild forests ! Think 
 what it must be for a creature who once trembled 
 before a new voice or a grave countenance, and 
 writhed under a laugh of ridicule, and lied, at the 
 cost of deep mental agony, to avoid a rebuke, — think 
 what it must be to such a creature to find itself at 
 last free and fearless, — enjoying such calm satisfac- 
 tion within as to suffer nothing from the ridicule or 
 the blame of those who do not know his mind, and 
 so thoroughly acquainted with the true values of 
 things as to have no dread of sickness, or poverty, or 
 the world's opinion, because no evil that can befal 
 him can touch his peace ! Think what a noble work 
 it will be to raise your trembling little one to such a 
 
88 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 condition as this, and you will be eager to begin the 
 task at once, and patient and watchful to continue it 
 from day to day. 
 
 First, how to begin. The most essential thing for 
 a timid infant is to have an absolutely unfailing 
 refuge in its mother. It may seem unnecessary to 
 say this. It may appear impossible that a mother's 
 tenderness should ever fail towards a helpless little 
 creature who has nothing but that tenderness to look 
 to : but alas ! it is not so. I know a lady who is 
 considered very sweet-tempered, and who usually is 
 so — kind and hospitable, and fond of her children. 
 Her infant, under six months old, was lying on her 
 arm one day when the dessert was on the table ; 
 and the child was eager after the bright glasses and 
 spoons, and more restless than was convenient. 
 After several attempts to make it lie quiet, the 
 mother slapped it — slapped it hard. This was from 
 an emotion of disappointed vanity, from vexation 
 that the child was not "good" before visitors. If 
 such a thing could happen, may we not fear that 
 other mothers may fail in tenderness, — in the middle 
 of the night, for instance, after a toilsome day, when 
 kept awake by the child's restlessness, or amidst 
 the hurry of the day, when business presses, and 
 the little creature will not take his sleep? Little 
 do such mothers know the fatal mischief they do 
 by impairing their child's security with them. If 
 they did, they would undergo anything before they 
 would let a harsh word or a sharp tone escape them, 
 or indulge in a severe look or a hasty movement. 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— FEAR. 89 
 
 A child's heart responds to the tones of its mother's 
 voice like a harp to the wind; and its only hope 
 for peace and courage is in hearing nothing but gentle- 
 ness from her, and experiencing nothing but unre- 
 mitting love, whatever may be its troubles elsewhere. 
 Supposing this to be all right, the mother will feel 
 herself from the first the depositary of its confidence ; 
 — a confidence as sacred as any other, though tacit, 
 and about matters which may appear to all but 
 itself and her infinitely small. Entering by sym- 
 pathy into its fears, she will incessantly charm them 
 away, till the child becomes open to reason, — and 
 even afterwards ; for the most terrible fears are 
 precisely those which have nothing to do with reason. 
 She will bring it acquainted with every object in the 
 room or house, letting it handle in merry play every- 
 thing which could look mysterious to its fearful 
 eyes, and rendering it familiar with every household 
 sound. Some of my worst fears in infancy were 
 from lights and shadows. The lamp-lighter's torch 
 on a winter's afternoon, as he ran along the street, 
 used to cast a gleam, and the shadows of the window- 
 frames on the ceiling ; and my blood ran cold at 
 the sight, every day, even though I was on my 
 father's knee, or on the rug in the middle of the 
 circle round the fire. Nothing but compulsion could 
 make me enter our drawing-room before breakfast 
 on a summer morning ; and if carried there by the 
 maid, I hid my face in a chair, that I might not see 
 what was dancing on the wall. If the sun shone 
 (as it did at that time of day,) on the glass lustres 
 
90 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 on the mantel-piece, fragments of gay colour were 
 cast on the wall ; and as they danced when the 
 glass drops were shaken, I thought they were alive, 
 — a sort of imps. But, as I never told anybody 
 what I felt, these fears could not be met, or charmed 
 away ; and I grew up to an age which I will not 
 mention before I could look steadily at prismatic 
 colours dancing on the wall. Suffice it that it was 
 long after I had read enough of optics to have 
 taught any child how such colours came there. 
 Many an infant is terrified at the shadow of a per- 
 forated night-lamp, with its round spaces of light. 
 Many a child lives in perpetual terror of the eyes 
 of portraits on the walls, — or of some grotesque 
 shape in the pattern of the paper-hangings. Some- 
 times the terror is of the clack of the distant loom, 
 or of the clink from the tinman's, or of the rumble 
 of carts under a gateway, or of the creak of a water- 
 wheel, or the gush of a mill-race. Everything is or 
 may be terrifying to a timid infant ; and it is there- 
 fore a mother's charge to familiarise it gently and 
 playfully with everything that it can possibly notice, 
 making sport with all sights, and inciting it to imita- 
 tion of all sounds — from the drone of the pretty bee 
 to the awful cry of the old clothes-man ; from the 
 twitter of the sparrows on the roof to the toll of the 
 distant church bell. 
 
 It is a matter of course that no mother will allow 
 any ignorant person to have access to her child who 
 will frighten it with goblin stories, or threats of 
 the old black man. She might as well throw up 
 
CAEE OF THE TOWERS: — FEAR. 91 
 
 her charge at once, and leave off thinking of house- 
 hold education altogether, as permit her child to be 
 exposed to such maddening inhumanity as this. The 
 instances are not few of idiotcv or death from terror 
 
 a 
 
 so caused. 
 
 While thus preventing or scattering fears which 
 arise from the imagination, both parents should bo 
 constantly using the little occasions which are always 
 arising, for exercising their child's courage. The 
 most timid children have always courage in one 
 direction or another. While I was trembling and 
 fainting under magic-lanterns and street cries, I 
 could have suffered any pain and died any death 
 without fear, the circumstances being fairly laid 
 before me. Let the timid child be made hardy in 
 its play by example and encouragement. Let it be 
 cheered on to meet necessary pain without flinching, 
 the taking out a thorn, or pulling out a tooth. 
 Let it early hear of real heroic deeds — hear them 
 spoken of with all the affectionate admiration with 
 which we naturally speak of such acts. If a life is 
 saved from fire or drowning, let the children hear 
 of it as a joyful fact. Let them hear how steadily 
 William TelPs little son stood for his father to shoot 
 through the apple. Let them hear how the good 
 man who was on his way to be burnt for his religion 
 took off his shoes, and gave them to a barefooted 
 man who came to stare at him, saying that the poor 
 man wanted the shoes, but he could do without them 
 now. Let them hear of the other good man who 
 was burnt for his religion, and who promised some 
 
92 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 friends, in danger of the same fate, that he would 
 clasp his hands above his head in the midst of the 
 fire, if he found the pain so bearable that he did not 
 repent, and who did lift up his arms and join them 
 after his hands were consumed — so giving his friends 
 on the hill-side comfort and strength. If any child 
 of your acquaintance does a brave thing, or bears 
 pain cheerfully, let your children hear of it as a 
 good and happy thing. Above all, let them see, 
 as I said before, all their lives long, that you fear 
 nothing but wrong-doing, — neither tempests nor 
 comets, nor reports of famine or fever, nor the 
 tongues of the quarrelsome, nor any other of the 
 accidents of life, — no pain, in short, but pain of 
 conscience, — and the same spirit will strengthen in 
 them. Their fear will follow the direction of yours ; 
 their courage will come in sympathy with yours; 
 and their minds will fill more and more with 
 thoughts of hope and heroism, which must in time 
 drive out such remaining terrors as cannot be met by 
 fact or reason. 
 
 In this fearlessness of yours is included fearless- 
 ness for your children, as well as for yourselves. 
 While their limbs are soft and feeble, of course you 
 must be strength and safety to them : but when they 
 arrive at a free use of their limbs and senses, let 
 them fully enjoy that free use. We English are 
 behind almost every nation in the strength and hardi- 
 hood of the race of children. In America I have 
 seen little boys and girls perched in trees over- 
 hanging fearful precipices, and crawling about great 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— FEAK. 93 
 
 holes in bridges, while the torrent was rushing below ; 
 and I could not learn that accidents from such 
 practices were ever heard of. In Switzerland I have 
 seen mere infants scrambling among the rocks after 
 the goats, — themselves as safe as kids, from the early 
 habit of relying on their own powers. In Egypt and 
 Nubia I have seen five-year old boys poppling about 
 like ducks in the rapids of the Nile, while some, not 
 much older, were not satisfied with hauling and 
 pushing, as our boat ascended the cataract, but swam 
 and dived, to heave off her keel from sunken rocks. 
 Such children are saved from danger, as much as 
 from fear, by an early use of all the powers they 
 have : and it would be a happy thing for many an 
 English child if its parents were brave enough to 
 encourage it to try how much it can do with its 
 wonderful little body. Of this, however, we shall 
 have to say more under another head. 
 
94 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 CARE OF THE POWERS CONTINUED :— PATIENCE. 
 
 Some may be surprised to find Patience spoken of 
 among the Powers of Man. They have been 
 accustomed to consider it a passive quality, and not 
 as involving action of the mind. They do not find 
 it in any catalogue of the organs of the brain, and 
 have always supposed it a mere negation of the action 
 of those organs. 
 
 But patience is no negation. It is the vigorous 
 and sustained action, amidst outward stillness, of 
 some of the most powerful faculties with which the 
 human being is endowed ; and primarily of its powers 
 of Firmness and Resistance. The man who holds 
 up his head, quiet and serene, through a season of 
 unavoidable poverty or undeserved disgrace, is 
 exercising his power of firmness as vigorously as the 
 general who pursues his warfare without change of 
 purpose through a long campaign ; and a lame child, 
 strong and spirited, who sits by cheerfully to see his 
 companions leaping ditches, is or has been engaged 
 in as keen a combat with opposing forces as a couple 
 of pugilists. In the case of the patient, the resolution 
 and resistance are brought to bear against invisible 
 enemies, which are the more, and not the less, hard 
 to conquer from their assaults being made in silence, 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— PATIENCE. 95 
 
 and having to be met in the solitude of the inner 
 being. The man patient under poverty or disgrace 
 has to carry on an active interior conflict with his 
 baffled hope, his grieved domestic affections, his 
 natural love of ease and enjoyment, his mortified 
 ambition, his shaken self-esteem, and his yearning 
 after sympathy. And the lame child among the 
 leapers has to contend alone with most of these 
 mortifications, and with his stimulating animal spirits 
 besides. Nothing can be further from passiveness 
 than his state in his hour of trial, though he may sit 
 without moving a muscle. He is putting down the 
 swellings of his little heart, and taming his instincts, 
 and rousing his will, and searching out noble supports 
 among his highest ideas and best feelings — putting 
 on his invisible armour as eagerly as any hero whom 
 the trumpet calls from his rest. 
 
 Patience is no more like passiveness in its smallest 
 exercises than in these great ones. Look at the ill- 
 nursed passive infant, — how it hangs over its mother's 
 shoulder, or slouches on her arm, — its eye dull, its 
 face still, its movements slow : see how, when old 
 enough to amuse itself, it sits on the floor by the hour 
 together, jangling a bunch of keys, lulling itself with 
 that noise, instead of making any of its own ! 
 Contrast with this the lively infant beginning to be 
 trained to patience. It does not cry for its food or 
 toy, as it used to do, but its limbs are all active, it 
 fidgets, and it searches its mother's face for hope and 
 encouragement not to cry. And when more advanced, 
 how busy is its little soul while it makes no noise, 
 
96 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 and postpones its play for the sake of the baby. If 
 it sits at watch beside the cradle, how it glances 
 about to warn away the kitten, or puts its finger on 
 its lips if the door opens, or watches so intently for 
 baby's eyelids to open as to start when it jerks its 
 hand. If waiting for play till baby has had its meal, 
 how it stands at its mother's knee, making folds in 
 her gown, — see-sawing its body, perhaps, and fetching 
 deep sighs, to throw off its impatience, but speaking 
 no word — making no complaint till baby has had its 
 dues. And when its turn is come, baby being laid 
 down, what a spring into the Jap, what a clasp of the 
 neck is there ! while the child with the keys has to 
 be lifted from the floor like a bag of sand. 
 
 As patience includes strong action of the mind, 
 the vivacious child has a much better chance of 
 becoming patient than the passive one ; — so far are 
 passiveness and patience from being alike. Patience 
 is indeed the natural first step in that self-govern- 
 ment which is essential to the whole purpose of 
 human life. It is impossible to overrate the impor- 
 tance of this self-government ; and therefore it is 
 impossible to overrate the importance of this first 
 step, — the training to patience. And the vivacious 
 child is happy above the apathetic one in being fitted 
 to enter at once upon the training from the earliest 
 moment that the will is naturally capable of action. 
 
 And now about this training. 
 
 It must begin before the little creature is capable 
 of voluntary effort. The mother must take its little 
 troubles upon herself, and help it all she can till the 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— PATIENCE. 97 
 
 habit of patience is completely formed ; — which will 
 be long. She must not only comfort it in its rest- 
 lessness and inability to wait, but beguile it of its 
 impatience. She must amuse it, and turn away its 
 attention from its grievance, or its object of desire, — 
 never yielding what it ought not to have, and always 
 indulging it where there is no reason for denial. In 
 time, the infant will learn that it can wait, and in 
 what cases it must wait ; and from that time, its work 
 of self-control begins. I have before my mind's eye 
 a little child of sensitive nerves and strong will who 
 early showed by her loud impatient cry how she 
 might suffer in after life, if the habit of patience 
 were not timely formed. It was timely formed. 
 She died of scarlet fever before she was four years 
 old ; and the self-command that little creature showed 
 amidst the restlessness of her fever and the grievous 
 pain of her sore-throat, was a comfort which will 
 remain for ever to those who mourn her. It of 
 course lessened her own suffering, and it cheered the 
 heart of her wise mother with a joy which lights up 
 her memory. Here the great condition was fulfilled 
 which is essential to the work; — the parents are 
 themselves patient and consistent. Self-control can 
 never be taught without example. From the begin- 
 ning an infant can perceive whether the moral atmo- 
 sphere around it is calm or stormy, and will naturally 
 become calm or stormy accordingly. If its mother 
 scolds the servant, if its father gets into a passion 
 with the elder children, if there is disturbance of 
 mind because a meal is delayed, — if voices grow loud 
 
 7 
 
9S HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 and angry in argument, or there is gloom in the face 
 or manner of any grown person who has a headache, 
 how is the infant to learn to wait and be cheerful 
 under its little troubles ? — these little troubles being 
 to it misfortunes as great as it is at all able to bear. 
 
 I would not cite the old quaker discipline of 
 families as a pattern of what is to be wished in all 
 things. There was too often a want of tenderness, 
 and of freedom and of mirth — such as children need, 
 and as are quite compatible with the formation of 
 a habit of patience : but in that one respect, — of 
 patience, — how admirable are the examples that 
 many of us have seen ! The cultivation of serenity 
 being a primary religious duty with the parents, how 
 the spirit and the habit spread through the children ! 
 Before they could understand that the grown people 
 about them were waiting for the guidance of "the 
 Inward Witness," they saw and felt that the temper 
 was that of humble waiting ; and they too learned to 
 wait. When set up on a high stool from which they 
 could not get down, and bid to sit still without toys 
 for a prescribed time, how many a restless child 
 learned to subdue his inward chafing, and to sit still 
 till the hand of the clock show r ed that he might ask 
 to come down ! This exercise was a preparation for 
 the silent meeting, where there would be less to 
 amuse his eyes, and no one could tell how long he 
 might have to sit; and how well the majority of 
 quaker children went through this severer test! 
 Few of us will approve of this kind of discipline. 
 We think it bad, because unnatural. We think that 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS:— PATIENCE. 99 
 
 the trials of a child's patience which come of them- 
 selves every day are quite enough for its powers, 
 and, if rightly used, for its training ; but the instance 
 shows how powerful is the example of the parents 
 and the habit of the household in training little 
 children to self-control. 
 
 Yes, — the little occasions of every day are quite 
 enough : and if they were not, little could be gained, 
 and much would be lost, by inventing more. There 
 is tyranny in making a lively child sit on a high stool 
 with nothing to do, even though the thing is ordained 
 for its own good ; and every child has a keen sense 
 of tyranny. The patience taught by such means 
 cannot be thorough. It cannot be an amiable and 
 cheerful patience, pervading the whole temper. It is 
 much better to use those natural occasions which it is 
 clear that the parent does not create. There is seldom 
 or never a day when something does not happen to 
 irritate a child ; — it is hungry, or thirsty, or tired ; it 
 gets a tumble, or dislikes cold water, or wants to be 
 petted when its mother is busy ; or breaks a toy, or 
 the rain comes when it wants to go out, or pussy runs 
 away from play, or it has an ache or a pain some- 
 where. All these are great misfortunes for the time 
 to a little child : and if it can learn by degrees to bear 
 them, first by being beguiled of them, and then by 
 being helped through them, and at last by sustaining 
 them alone, there is every hope that the severe trials 
 of after life will be sustained with less effort than is 
 required by these trifles now. A four-year-old child 
 that can turn away and find amusement for itself 
 
 7—2 
 
100 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 when its mother cannot attend to it, — and swallow its 
 tears when the rain will not let it sow its garden seeds, 
 and stifle its sobs when it has knocked its elbow, and 
 forgive any one who has broken its toy, and lie still 
 without complaining when it is ill, gives the fairest 
 promise of being able to bear serenely the severest 
 calamities of after life. For my own part, I feel that 
 no spectacle of fortitude in man or woman is more 
 animating and touching than what may be seen in 
 little children, who have seriously entered upon the 
 great work of self-government, — sustained by wise 
 and tender parental help. Some time ago, I was in 
 the house with a little girl of three years old, whose 
 throat was one day very sore. She tried in vain to 
 get down some dinner, — cried, was amused, and went 
 to sleep. On waking, some of the soft rice-pudding 
 from our table was tried ; but the throat was now 
 worse, and she cried again. To amuse her, she was 
 set up at our taWe in her little chair, between her 
 mamma and me. I saw the desperate efforts she was 
 making to keep down her sobs : and when she looked 
 over to her father, and said softly, " I mean to be 
 dood," it was too much for others besides me. Her 
 tender father helped her well through it. He told 
 her a long long story about something he had seen 
 that morning ; and as her large eyes were fixed on 
 his face, the sobs subsided, and she became absorbed 
 in what he was telling her. That child was as truly 
 an object of reverence to us as any patient sufferer of 
 mature age. 
 
 The finest opportunity for the cultivation of patience 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— PATIENCE. 101 
 
 in a household is where there are many children, — 
 boys and girls, — with no great difference of years 
 between them. Here, in the first place, the parents 
 have need of all the faith and patience they have, to 
 bear hopefully with the impatience of some of their 
 children. There are moments, hours, and days, in 
 the best households, when the conscientious and 
 tender mother feels her heart rent by the spectacle of 
 the quarrels of her children. It is a truth which had 
 better be at once fully admitted, that where there are 
 many children nearly approaching each other in age, 
 their wills must clash, their passions become excited, 
 and their affections be for the time overborne. When 
 a mother sees her children scratch and strike, when 
 her ear catches the bitter words of passion between 
 brothers, her heart stands still with grief and dread. 
 But she must be comforted. All may be well if she 
 overrules this terrible necessity as she may. She 
 must remember that the strength of will thus shown 
 is a great power for use in the acquisition of patience. 
 She must remember that the odiousness of passion is 
 not yet evident to her children, as it is to her. She 
 must remember how small is the moral comprehen- 
 sion of a child, and therefore how intense are its 
 desires, and how strong is the provocation when those 
 desires are thwarted. She must remember that time 
 and enlargement of views are what children want to 
 make them men : and that time and enlargement are 
 sure to come to these young creatures, and make men 
 of them, if the parents do their part. Her part to-day 
 is to separate the children who cannot agree ; to give 
 
102 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 time and opportunity for their passions to subside, the 
 desire of the moment to pass away, and the affections 
 and the reason to be aroused. She must obtain their 
 confidence apart, and bring them together again when 
 they can forgive and agree. If she finds that such 
 troubles enable her to understand her children better, 
 and reveal their own minds to themselves, and if such 
 failures help them to a more careful self-rule, the 
 event may be well worth the pain. 
 
 I have said that there are few or no large families 
 of children in which quarrelling does not sometimes 
 occur. But if the quarrelling does not early cease — 
 if the liability does not pass away like the diseases of 
 childhood — it is sadly plain that the fair opportunity 
 of cultivating a habit of patience has been lost or 
 misused. It must be early and watchfully used. 
 Every member of the household must be habituated, 
 constantly and as a privilege, to wait and forbear for 
 the sake of others. The father takes the lead — as he 
 ought to do in all good things. His children see in 
 him, from year to year, an example of patient toil — 
 patient and cheerful toil — whether he be statesman, 
 merchant, farmer, shopkeeper, artizan or labourer. 
 The mother comes next, — seen to wait patiently on 
 her sick or helpless infant, and to be forbearing with 
 servants and children, enduring in illness and fatigue, 
 and cheerful through everything. Then come the 
 elder children, who must have been long and steadily 
 trained, through early self-control, to wait, not only 
 in tenderness on the helpless infant, but in forbearance 
 on the weakness of those younger and frailer than 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— PATIENCE. 103 
 
 themselves. Then come those of the middle age, 
 who have to wait in such patience as they are capable 
 of under their own personal trials, and the will and 
 pleasure of their parents and elders. And lastly 
 come the little ones, who are likely to have plenty 
 of opportunity for self-command amidst the business 
 and chances of a large family, and the variety of 
 influences ever at work therein. So various a house- 
 hold is a complete little world to children — the dis- 
 cipline of which is no small privilege as being pre- 
 paratory to that of the larger world upon which they 
 must enter after their habits of mind are formed. 
 To the parents the advantage is inestimable of having 
 this little world, not only under their eye, so that 
 they may timely see how their children are likely to 
 fare morally in the great world of adult life, but 
 under their hand, so that they can, according to their 
 discretion, adapt its influences to the needs of their 
 charge. 
 
 Some households, — and not a few — are made a 
 harsh school, or a sweet home of patience, by the 
 presence of some infirmity of body or mind in some 
 one member. This is a case so frequent, and the 
 circumstance is so important, that I must devote my 
 next pages to it 
 
104 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CARE OF THE POWERS : PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. 
 
 Though the great majority of children born into the 
 world have five senses and four limbs, a full-formed 
 brain, and a well-formed frame, there are many 
 thousands in every civilized country that have not : 
 and so many more thousands are interested in their 
 lot, that it is, or ought to be, a subject of wide and 
 deep concern how their case should be treated, for 
 their own sake, and that of all connected with them. 
 It is a matter of great and increasing surprise, when 
 elections of objects for Blind and Deaf and Dumb 
 Institutions, or a special census for the purpose occurs, 
 how very numerous are the Blind and Deaf and 
 Dumb : and much greater still is the proportion of 
 persons who, through ill health or accident, lose a 
 limb, or grow up deformed. And I believe the cases 
 of total or partial idiotcy are more numerous even 
 than these. The number of persons thus interested 
 in the subject of bodily infirmity is very large indeed: 
 and it would be a great omission in treating of 
 Household Education, not to speak of what concerns 
 so many homes. 
 
 The first impulse of a parental heart, on becoming 
 aware of the infirmity of a child, is to lavish on the 
 sufferer all its tenderness, and thus to strive to com- 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. 105 
 
 pensate to it for what it must forego and suffer from 
 its peculiarity. The impulse, being natural and un- 
 selfish, is right ; but it is not enough. It is very 
 far indeed from being all that is due to a creature 
 whose helplessness gives it a sacred claim upon its 
 whole race for whatever aid can be afforded it. If it 
 were good that a mother should nurse an infirm child 
 through the day, and guard it all the night : — that 
 she should devote all her time, and all her love, and 
 sacrifice all her pleasures to it, and minister to its 
 wishes every hour of its life ; — if it were good that 
 she should do all this, it would not be enough. It is 
 not good, and it is not enough. 
 
 The true claim of an infirm child, as of every other 
 child, is to be made the most of. And no human 
 being was ever yet made the most of by lavish and 
 unchastened indulgence. Every human being, — not 
 excepting even the idiot, — has a world of its own, 
 wherein to act and enjoy : and the parent's charge is 
 to enable it to act and enjoy in its own world in the 
 fullest and freest manner possible. 
 
 Let us take the worst case first : — that of the idiot. 
 
 It is never the case that a human being has no 
 faculties at all. A child whose brain did not act at 
 all, could not live. It could not move, nor swallow 
 or digest food, nor see, nor hear, nor breathe. And 
 it seldom or never happens that it has not many 
 faculties, though the want, in an idiot, of what we 
 call Sense makes us too careless in observing what 
 powers he has, and in making what we can of them. 
 From the deficiency of some faculties, and the con- 
 
106 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 sequent want of co-operation and balance among his 
 powers, the idiot lacks sense, and must therefore be 
 taken care of all his days, like an infant : but it does 
 not follow that he can never do and enjoy more than 
 an infant. On the contrary, we see, oftener than 
 not, that an idiot has some strong faculties. One 
 may be shockingly gluttonous and sensual : another 
 is desperately orderly : another is always singing : 
 another is wonderful in arithmetic, though nobody 
 can conceive how he learned : another draws every- 
 thing he sees : another imitates everything he hears : 
 another is always building clay houses, or cutting 
 wood or paper into shapes : another can always tell 
 the time — day or night — even where there is no 
 clock in the house, or within hearing. One will share 
 everything he has to eat with the dog, or the cat, or 
 the bird : another caresses his mother, or brothers 
 and sisters, and follows them about wherever they 
 go ; while another gives no heed to anybody, but 
 stands out of doors for hours listening to the wind or 
 the birds, and sits a whole winter evening watching 
 the blazing fire. One will not be ruled, and fights 
 everybody who tries to control him, while another is 
 in a transport or an agony, according as his mother 
 looks pleased or displeased with him. All these ten- 
 dencies show that some part or other of the brain is 
 alive and active : and it is the parent's business, with 
 this child as with the rest, to make the most that can 
 be made of his brain. 
 
 As reason cannot be used in his case, there must 
 be all the more diligence in the use of Habit : and as 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE — INFIRMITY. 107 
 
 he has no reason of his own, that of his family must 
 be made available to him to the utmost. He must 
 be made the family charge ; and every member of the 
 household must be admitted into the council held in 
 his behalf. There is hardly a child so young but 
 that it can understand the main points of the special 
 training required, and the reasons for them. There 
 is hardly a child so young but that it can understand 
 that John does not know, as other people do, when to 
 leave off eating ; and that this is why the proper 
 quantity is set before him, and no more is given: 
 and there are not a few little ones who will refrain 
 from asking for more of a good thing at table because 
 John is to be trained not to ask for more. If the 
 object is to make John clean and tidy, the youngest 
 will bear cold water, and the trouble of dressing 
 cheerfully, that John may see what other people do, 
 and perhaps learn to imitate them. If John ever 
 sings, some little one will begin to sing when John 
 looks dull ; and the family will learn as many tunes 
 as they can to give him a variety. If he is fond of 
 arranging things, they will lead him to the cupboard 
 or the play-room, when it wants putting in order. 
 When he mopes, they will bring him the scissors and 
 paper, or the slate and pencil, or they will empty the 
 box of bricks on the floor, that the pleasant rattle 
 may tempt him to come and build. If, happily, the 
 time should arrive when John may learn to do some- 
 thing useful, every one takes pride in it. At worst, 
 he may perhaps be trained to work the mangle, or 
 to turn the wheel at the rope-walk. His faculty of 
 
108 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 order may be turned to account by letting him set the 
 dinner and tea-table, and clear away. By a faculty 
 of constructiveness, he may become a fair basket- 
 maker. By his power of imitation, he may learn to 
 dig in the field, or to saw wood, or blow glass, or do 
 other such mechanical work. If the whole family 
 not only love their poor brother, but take his interests 
 fairly to heart, his case may be made something of in 
 one way or another. At worst he will probably be 
 saved from being offensive or annoying to those about 
 him ; — a thing almost always practicable in cases of 
 idiotcy from birth : and it is very likely that he will 
 be enabled to pass through life, not only harmless, 
 but busy, and, to some extent, useful, and as happy 
 as his deficient nature permits. 
 
 This is not a case in which patience can be spoken 
 of as a solace to the individual. He may be saved 
 from the misery of impatience by wise training, — by 
 the formation of habits of quietness, under the rule of 
 steady, gentle authority. This may often be done : 
 but the noble and sweet solace of patience under his 
 restrictions is not for him : for he is unconscious, and 
 does not need it. It remains for those who do 
 need it — for those who suffer for him and by him 
 — for the father who sighs that his son can never 
 enjoy the honour and privilege of toil, or the blessing 
 of a home ; — for the mother whose pillow is wet with 
 the tears she sheds over her child's privations : — for 
 the children whose occupations and play are dis- 
 turbed by the poor brother who wants their playthings, 
 and hides or spoils their books or work. They all 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. 109 
 
 have need of much patience, and, under good train- 
 ing, they obtain patience according to their need. 
 From what I have seen, I know that the training of 
 such a being may become a cheerful and hopeful 
 object to his parents, and one which strengthens them 
 to repress his whims and deny his animal appetites, 
 and inflict the pain of their displeasure upon him, in 
 the patient hope of giving him some degree of the 
 privilege of self-government. From what I have 
 seen, I know that the most self-willed and irritable 
 child of such a family may learn never to be angry 
 with John, however passionate at times with others. 
 Toys broken by John are not to be cried for ; — work 
 spoiled by John is to be cheerfully done over again : 
 and everybody is to help to train John not to do such 
 mischief again. 
 
 Poor John knows nothing of life and its uses. He 
 goes through his share of it, like one walking in a 
 dream, and then passes away without leave-taking. 
 He passes away early, for people in his state rarely 
 live very long. Brain is the great condition of life ; 
 and an imperfect brain usually brings early death. 
 It is when he has passed away that the importance 
 of poor John's life becomes felt and understood. 
 Neighbours may and do reasonably call his departure 
 a blessing ; and the parents and brethren may and do 
 reasonably feel it an unspeakable relief from anxiety 
 and restraint. But they mourn him with a degree 
 of sorrow surprising to themselves. When the parents 
 mark the habits of self-government, and the temper 
 of cheerful patience, generated in their remaining 
 
110 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 children, they feel as if under deep obligations to their 
 dead son, as the instrument of this. And the youngest 
 of the tribe looks round wistfully for John, and daily 
 wishes that he was here, to do what he was fond of 
 doing, and enjoy the little pleasures which were 
 looked upon as particularly his own. 
 
 If the worst case of infirmity may issue thus, we 
 may turn cheerfully to some which are light in com- 
 parison, however sad when looked at by themselves — 
 the cases of blind and deaf children. What is to be 
 made of these ? 
 
 The case of the deaf is unquestionably the worst 
 of the two, when the deficiency is from birth. The 
 subsequent loss of either sense is quite a different 
 matter. Then, blindness is the severest privation 
 of the two, from its compulsory idleness, and total 
 exclusion from the objects of the lost sense, while 
 the deaf can always be busy in mind and hands, 
 and retain the most important part of the world of 
 sound in written and printed speech. It is the pri- 
 vation of language which makes the case of those 
 born deaf worse than that of the born blind. Those 
 born deaf are dumb ; and they are rendered inca- 
 pable of any high degree of intellectual and moral 
 cultivation, by being cut off from all adequate know- 
 ledge of the meaning of language, and from the 
 full reception of most abstract ideas. This is not 
 the place for discussion on this subject. It is enough 
 to say here, that every one who has tried knows 
 that though it is easy to teach a deaf and dumb 
 child what is meant by the words " dog," " sheep," 
 
CARE OE THE POWERS: PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. Ill 
 
 ¥ spoon," " tree," " table," &c., it is found beyond 
 measure difficult to teach it the meaning of " Monday," 
 " Tuesday," " Wednesday," &c.,and of "love," "truth," 
 "hatred," "wisdom," and the names of unseen things 
 in general. There is every reason to believe that 
 the most highly educated deaf and dumb persons, 
 who use language readily and prettily, have yet very 
 narrow and superficial minds — from language not 
 being to them natural speech, incessantly bringing 
 them into communication with other minds, but a 
 lesson taught as we teach blind children about colours, 
 which they may speak about without making mis- 
 takes, but can never understand. 
 
 It is necessary for the parents of the deaf and 
 dumb to be aware of these things, if they are to 
 look their child's lot steadily in the face, and learn 
 what is the best that can be made of it. They 
 must apply themselves chiefly to give it what it is 
 least likely to obtain from others — not so much ideas 
 of sight, touch, smell, and taste, as of unseen things. 
 They must ever bear in mind that the great purpose 
 of the human ear and of speech is not so much to 
 convey ideas of sound — sweet and profitable as is 
 all the natural music of the universe — as of unseen 
 things — of the whole world of the spirit, from which 
 their child is naturally shut out by its infirmity. 
 After all that they can do, there will be a sad 
 deficiency ; but they must lessen it as much as they 
 can. There is no fear but that the child will, much 
 as others, enjoy the sights which are laid open to 
 it, and be quick and ready in action, according to 
 
112 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 its ideas. They must arouse in it the pleasure of 
 using its mental faculties ; and more carefully still, 
 the satisfaction of moral energy. They must be 
 even more careful with it than with the rest to 
 lead it on to the exercise of self-denial, and a habit 
 of thoughtful conscientiousness, that it may learn 
 from its own moral experience much that it is debarred 
 from learning as others do of the rich kingdom which 
 lies within us all. In this case, above all others, 
 is the moral example of the parents important to 
 the child. Other children hear every day the spoken 
 testimony of their parents in favour of what is good 
 in morals and manners. They hear it in church, 
 and in every house they enter. The deaf child 
 judges by what it sees, and guides itself accordingly. 
 If it sees bad temper and manners, how is it to know 
 of anything better? If it sees at home only love and 
 kindness, just and gentle, has it not an infinitely 
 better chance of becoming loving and gentle itself? 
 
 The parents must keep a careful guard on their 
 own pity for their defective child. A deaf child 
 has scarcely any notion, as a blind one has, of 
 what it loses ; and nothing is more certain than that 
 deaf children are apt to be proud and vain, and to 
 take advantage of the pity which everybody feels 
 for them. Knowing little of their own loss, they 
 misunderstand this pity, and are apt to take to them- 
 selves the credit of all the notice it brings them, 
 and to grasp at all they can get. A watchful parent 
 knows from her heart that there is no blame in this ; 
 but she sees that there is great danger. The child 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. 113 
 
 cannot help the liability ; but it may be rescued from 
 it. She must not be lavish of indulgence which may 
 be misunderstood. She should let it be as happy 
 as it can in its own way — and the deaf and dumb 
 are usually very brisk and cheerful. What she has 
 to do for it is not to attempt to console it for a 
 privation which it does not feel, but to open to it 
 a higher and better happiness in a humble, occupied, 
 and serene state of mind. She should set before it 
 its own state of privation, notwithstanding any morti- 
 fication that the disclosure may cause : and when 
 that mortification is painful, she should soothe it 
 by giving, gently and cheerfully, the sweet remedies 
 of humility and patience. 
 
 In the case of the blind child, the training must 
 be very different. Every day, and almost every 
 hour, reminds the blind child of its privation; and 
 its discipline is so severe, that almost any degree 
 of indulgence in the parent would be excusable, if 
 it were not clearly the first duty to consider the 
 ultimate welfare of the child. It is natural to the 
 sighing mother to watch over its safety with a nervous 
 anxiety, to go before it to clear its way, to have 
 it always at her knee, and to make everybody and 
 everything give way to it. But she must remember 
 that her child is not destitute, and for ever helpless, 
 because it has one sense less than other people. It 
 has the wide world of the other four senses to live 
 in, and a vaster mental and moral world than it will 
 ever learn fully to use : and she must let it try what 
 it can make of its possessions. She will find that 
 
 8 
 
114 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 it learns like others that fire burns and that bruises 
 are disagreeable, and that it can save itself from 
 burns and bruises by using its senses of touch and 
 hearing. She will encourage it in the cheerful work 
 of shifting for itself, and doing, as far as possible, 
 what other people do. The wise and benevolent 
 Dr. Howe tells us of the children w T ho come to 
 the Blind School at Boston, that for the first two 
 or three days they are timid and forlorn — having 
 been accustomed to too much care from their mothers, 
 w T ho will not let them cross the floor without being 
 sure that there is nothing in the way. But they 
 presently enter into the free and cheerful spirit of 
 the house, use their faculties, feel their way boldly, 
 and run, climb, sw T ing, and play as merrily as any 
 other children. That school is a little world of 
 people with four senses — not so happy a one as if 
 they had five, but a very good one, nevertheless; 
 sufficiently busy, safe, and cheerful for those who 
 use heartily such powers as they have. 
 
 This is the way in which the lot of the blind 
 should be viewed by their parents. And even then 
 the deprivation is quite sad enough to require great 
 efforts of patience on every hand. The parents have 
 need of a deep and settled patience when they see 
 that their child has powers which, if he had but 
 eyes, would make him able and happy in some func- 
 tion from which he is now for ever cut off: and 
 the whole family have need of patience for their 
 infirm member when they are gaining knowledge, 
 or drinking in enjoyment through the eye, while he 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. 115 
 
 sits dark, and unconscious or mortified. As for him, 
 in his darkness and mortification, there can be no 
 question of his need of patience. How to aid him 
 and supply this need, I shall consider in my next 
 chapter, when treating of the other infirmities which 
 some children have to learn to bear. 
 
 8—2 
 
116 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CAKE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE — INEDRMITY. 
 
 The smaller misfortunes which we now turn to, 
 under the head of Infirmity — the loss of a limb, the 
 partial loss of a sense, deformity and sickness — are 
 scarcely less afflictive to the parent than those we 
 have considered, because they are even more trying 
 to the child. The sufferer is fully conscious of 
 these : and the parent's heart is sore at the spectacle 
 of its mortifications. What can be done to help it 
 to a magnanimous patience ? 
 
 First, there must be the fullest confidence between 
 the parents and the child. It can open its swelling 
 heart to no one else ; for the depth of its feeling 
 renders it quite unable to speak of its sufferings to 
 any one, unless allured to do so ; and no one can or 
 ought to allure it to this confidence, except its 
 parents, or in case of failure from them. It may 
 be thought strange that this apparently natural act 
 should be set before the parents as a duty: but I 
 speak from knowledge ; and from the knowledge of 
 so many cases that I am compelled to believe that 
 the very last subject on which parents and child 
 speak together is that on which it is most necessary 
 to the sufferer to have spoken sympathy. Some 
 parents have not courage to face the case themselves, 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE — INFIRMITY. 117 
 
 and evade the painful thought from day to day. 
 Some feel for their child that sort of deference 
 which it is natural to feel for the afflicted, and wait 
 for the sufferer to speak. Some persuade themselves 
 that it is better for the child not to recognize the 
 trial expressly, and repel by forced cheerfulness 
 the sufferer's advances towards confidence. All this 
 is wrong. I have known a little crippled girl grow 
 up to womanhood in daily pain of heart from the 
 keen sense of her peculiarity, almost without utter- 
 ing a syllable to any human being of that grief 
 which cursed her existence ; and suffering in mind 
 and character irreparably from the restraint. She 
 got over it at last, to a considerable degree, and 
 became comparatively free and happy ; but nothing 
 could ever compensate to her for her long bondage 
 to false shame, or repair the mischief done to the 
 action of her mind by its being made to bear unre- 
 lieved weight which it had naturally power to throw 
 off. I know another sufferer from the same misfor- 
 tune whose heart was early opened by genial con- 
 fidence, and who throve accordingly. She had to 
 bear all the pain which a lively and sensitive child 
 must feel in being unable to play and dance as 
 others do, and being so marked an object as to be 
 subject to staring in the street, and to the insulting 
 remarks of rude children as she passed. But the 
 sympathy of her protectors bore her through till 
 her mind was strong enough to protect itself; and 
 she has come out of the struggle free and gay, active 
 and helpful to a marvellous degree — even graceful, 
 
118 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 making a sort of plaything of her crutch, and giving 
 constant joy to her friends, and relief to strangers, 
 by her total freedom from false shame. I have 
 known deafness grow upon a sensitive child, so 
 gradually as never to bring the moment when her 
 parents felt impelled to seek her confidence ; and 
 the moment therefore never arrived. She became 
 gradually borne down in health and spirits by the 
 pressure of her trouble, her springs of pleasure all 
 poisoned, her temper irritated and rendered morose, 
 her intellectual pride puffed up to an insufferable 
 haughtiness, and her conscience brought by per- 
 petual pain of heart into a state of trembling sore- 
 ness — all this, without one word ever being offered 
 to her by any person whatever of sympathy or 
 sorrow about her misfortune. Now and then, some 
 one made light of it; now and then, some one told 
 her that she mismanaged it, and gave advice which, 
 being inapplicable, grated upon her morbid feelings ; 
 but no one inquired what she felt, or appeared to 
 suppose that she did feel. Many were anxious to 
 show kindness, and tried to supply some of her pri- 
 vations ; but it was too late. She was shut up, and 
 her manner appeared hard and ungracious while her 
 heart was dissolving in emotions. No one knew 
 when she stole out of the room, exasperated by the 
 earnest talk and merry laugh that she could not 
 share, that she went to bolt herself into her own 
 room, and sob on the bed, or throw herself on her 
 knees, to pray for help or death. No one knew of 
 her passionate longing to be alone while she was, for 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. 119 
 
 her good, driven into society ; nor how, when by- 
 chance alone for an hour or two, she wasted the 
 luxury by watching the lapse of the precious minutes. 
 And when she grew hard, strict, and even fanatical 
 in her religion, no one suspected that this was 
 because religion was her all — her soul's strength 
 under agonies of false shame, her wealth under her 
 privations, her refuge in her loneliness : while her 
 mind was so narrow as to require that what religion 
 was to her — her one pursuit and object — it should 
 be to everybody else. In course of years, she, in a 
 great measure, retrieved herself, though still con- 
 scious of irreparable mischief done to her nature. 
 All this while, many hearts were aching for her, and 
 the minds of her family were painfully occupied in 
 thinking what could be done for her temper and her 
 happiness. The mistake of reserve was the only 
 thing they are answerable for : a mistake which, 
 however mischievous, was naturally caused by the 
 very pain of their own sympathy first, and the 
 reserve of the sufferer afterwards. 
 
 From the moment that a child becomes subject 
 to any infirmity, a special relation between him and 
 his mother begins to exist: and their confidence 
 must become special. She must watch for, or make 
 occasions for speaking to him about his particular 
 trial ; not often, nor much at a time, but so as to 
 leave an opening for the pouring out of his little 
 heart. If he is not yet conscious of his peculiarity, 
 this is the gentlest and easiest way in which he can 
 be made so. If he is conscious, he must have some 
 
120 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 pain at his heart which he will be the better for 
 confiding. Hump-backed people are generally said 
 to be vain, haughty, fond of dress, forward and 
 talkative, irritable and passionate. If not so, they 
 are usually shy and timid. I cannot see anything 
 in their peculiarity to cause the first-mentioned 
 tendencies ; and I believe they arise from the mis- 
 management of their case. The fond mother and 
 pitying friends may naturally forget that the child 
 does not see himself as they see him, and fancy that 
 they soothe his mortifications by saying whatever 
 they can say in favour of his appearance — letting 
 him know that he has pretty hair, or good eyes. 
 They may even dress him fine, to make up to him 
 in one way for his faults of appearance in another 
 Under the idea of encouraging him under his sup- 
 posed mortifications, they may lead him on to be 
 forward and talkative. And then again, his morti- 
 fications, when they come upon him unprepared, 
 may well make him irascible. How much of this 
 might be obviated, as well as the shyness and 
 timidity of those who are left to themselves, by 
 timely confidence between the mother and child ! 
 When they are alone together, calm and quiet, let 
 her tell him that he does not look like other children, 
 and that he will look less like other people as he 
 grows older. Never let her tell him that this is of 
 no great consequence — never let her utter the cant 
 that is talked to young ladies at schools, that the 
 charms of the mind are everything, and those of the 
 form and face nothing. This is not true ; and she 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. 121 
 
 ought to know that it is not : and nothing but truth 
 will be strong enough to support him in what he 
 must undergo. Let her not be afraid to tell him 
 the worst. He had better hear it from her ; and it 
 will not be too much for him, if told in a spirit of 
 cheerful patience. The child, like the man, never 
 has a happier hour than that which succeeds the 
 reception of bad news, if the nobler faculties are 
 allowed their free play. If such a child hears from 
 his mother that he will always be ugly-shaped and 
 odd-looking, — that he will not be able to play as 
 other boys do, or will be laughed at when he tries ; 
 that he will be mocked at and called " My lord " 
 in the streets, and so on, and yet that all these 
 things will not make him unhappy if he can bear 
 them ; and if they go on to consult how he may 
 bear them, and she opens out to him something of 
 the sweet pleasures of endurance, he will come out 
 of the consultation exhilarated, and perhaps proudly 
 longing to meet his mortifications, and try his strength. 
 Such pride must have a fall, — like all the pride of 
 childhood, — and many an hour of depression must 
 he know for every one of exhilaration : but his case 
 is put into his own hands, and there is every hope 
 that he will conquer, through patience, at last. And 
 what a refuge he has in his mother ! How well she 
 will now know his feelings and his needs ! and how 
 easy and natural it will be to him henceforth to 
 confide in her! And a knowledge of his secret 
 mind will enable her to oversee and regulate the 
 conduct of the rest of the household towards him, 
 
 tJNIVP.PCTTT 
 
122 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 so as to guard against his being treated with an 
 indulgence which he can dispense with, or his re- 
 ceiving in silence wounds to his feelings which might 
 rankle. The object is, with sufferers under every 
 kind of conscious infirmity, to make them hardy in 
 mind, — saving them from being hardened. They 
 must know in good time that they have a difficult and 
 humbling lot, and what its difficulties and humilia- 
 tions are, — their noblest faculties being at the same 
 time roused to meet them. It is the rousing of these 
 noble faculties which makes the hour of confidence 
 one of exhilaration : and when the actual occasion of 
 trial arises, when the cripple is left out of the cricket- 
 match, and the deaf child misses the joke or entertain- 
 ing story, and the hump-back hears the jibe behind 
 him, — there is hope that the nobler faculties will be 
 obedient to the promised call, and spread the calm 
 of patience over the tumult of the sufferer's soul. 
 
 But, while the infirm child is encouraged to take 
 up the endurance of his infirmity as an object and 
 an enterprise, he must not be allowed to dwell too 
 much on it, nor on the peculiar features of his con- 
 dition; or his heroism will pass over into pride, 
 and his patience into self-complacency. Life and 
 the world are before him, as before others ; and one 
 circumstance of lot and duty, however important, 
 must not occupy the place of more than one, — 
 either in his confidences with his mother, or in his 
 own mind. The more he is separated from others 
 by his infirmity, the more carefully must his interests 
 and duties be mixed up with those of others, in the 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE— INFIRMITY. 123 
 
 household and out of it. Companionship in every 
 way must be promoted all the more, and not the less, 
 because of the eternal echo within him, " The heart 
 knoweth its own bitterness, and the stranger inter- 
 meddleth not with its joy." 
 
 What has been said thus far about patience will 
 serve for cases of sickness, as well as for other trials 
 among children. I may add that I think it a pity 
 to lavish indulgence — privileges — upon a sick child, 
 for two reasons; — that such indulgence is no real 
 comfort or compensation to the suffering child, who 
 is too ill to enjoy it : and that it is witnessed by 
 others, and remembered by the patient himself when 
 he has forgotten his pain, so as to cause sickness to 
 be regarded as a state of privilege; a persuasion 
 likely to lead to fancies about health, and an exagger- 
 ation of ailments. All possible tenderness, of course, 
 there should be, and watchfulness to amuse the mind 
 into forgetfulness of the body : but the less fuss and 
 unusual indulgence the better for the child's health 
 of body and mind, and the purer the lesson of 
 patience which he may bring out of his sickness. 
 Illness is a great evil, little to be mitigated by any 
 means of diversion that can be used; and a child 
 usually trained to patience, may be trusted to bear 
 the evil well, if not misled by false promises : and it 
 is much kinder to him to let him rest on a quiet and 
 steady tenderness, than to promise and offer him 
 indulgences which will be longed for hereafter, but 
 which wholly disappoint him now, and add another 
 trial to the many which put his patience to the proof. 
 
124 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CARE OF THE POWERS :— LOVE. 
 
 It appears to me, that much disappointment in the 
 results of education, as in other departments of life, 
 arises from the confusion we fall into about human 
 affections, — mixing up things which do not belong to 
 each other, and then being disappointed at a mixed 
 result. For instance, we speak of love as if it were 
 one affection ; or at most of two kinds — one a passion 
 and the other an affection : whereas, there are many 
 kinds of love, as distinct from one another as hope 
 and patience. Besides what is commonly called the 
 passion of love, there are other kinds which differ as 
 essentially from one another, as from this. It is 
 commonly, but as I think, hastily, supposed that 
 a child's love of her doll is the same affection which 
 will be fixed hereafter on a schoolfellow, on her 
 parents, and on suffering fellow creatures. It is sup- 
 posed to be the same affection, employed on different 
 objects: and the parent is perplexed and shocked 
 when the little creature, who cannot be parted from 
 her doll, shows indifference towards her family, and 
 has no sympathy with a beggar, or a sick neighbour. 
 If the parents will put away their perplexity and dis- 
 may, and set themselves to learn from what is before 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— LOVE. 125 
 
 their eyes, they may discover what will comfort and 
 direct them. 
 
 With the passion of love, as it is called, we have 
 nothing to do here, but to give an anecdote by the 
 way. A little girl was telling a story to her father, 
 when they fell in with the kind of perplexity, I have 
 spoken of. She told of a knight who once loved 
 a lady, and of all the hard and troublesome things 
 the knight did to gratify the wishes of the lady : and 
 how, at last, when the lady did not choose to marry 
 him, he carried her off, and shut her up in a castle, 
 and gave her everything he could think of to make 
 her happy: but she could not enjoy all these fine 
 things, because she pined to get home. " Oh ! " said 
 the father, " she did wish to get out, then." " Yes ! 
 she begged and prayed of the knight to let her go 
 home : but he loved her so much that he would not." 
 " Well : but you said he did everything he could to 
 gratify her: why was that?" "Because he loved 
 her so much." " What ! he did everything to please 
 her because he loved her so much : and then he 
 would not let her go home as she wished, because he 
 loved her so much ! How can that be ? " The 
 child thought for awhile, and then said, " I suppose 
 he had two loves for her: and one made him do 
 almost everything that she liked ; and the other 
 made him want that she should do what he liked." 
 
 If parents could see thus plainly the difference 
 between the several kinds of love which their chil- 
 dren should experience, it would be well for all 
 parties. A mother who intensely loves her little 
 
126 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 prattler, is mortified that the child appears to have 
 but a very moderate love for her in return : and she 
 comforts herself with the hope that the child's affec- 
 tion will strengthen as it grows, till it becomes a fair 
 return for her own. She does not perceive that the 
 child already entertains an affection much like her 
 own, — only, not for her, but for something else. A 
 little girl who had to lose her leg, promised to try 
 to lie still if she might have her doll in her arms : 
 and wonderfully still she lay, clasping her doll. 
 When it was over, the surgeon thoughtlessly said, 
 " Now shall I cut off your doll's leg ? " " Oh ! no, 
 no ! " cried the child, in an agony of mind far greater 
 than she had shown before : " not my doll's leg ; — 
 don't hurt my doll ! " And she could hardly be 
 comforted. Here was an affection the same as the 
 mother's, — and as strong and true : but of a different 
 kind from that which children can ever feel for 
 parents ; for it is purely instinctive, while the love 
 of children for parents is made up of many elements, 
 and must slowly grow out of not only a natural 
 power of attachment, but a long experience of hope, 
 reliance, veneration and gratitude. 
 
 This instinctive love is a pretty thing to witness : 
 as in the case of a very little child who had a pas- 
 sionate love of flowers. She would silently carry out 
 her little chair in the summer morning, and sit down 
 in the middle of the flower-bed, and be overheard 
 softly saying, e< Come you little flower — open, you 
 little flower ! When will you open your pretty blue 
 eye ? " This is charming ; and so it is to see an 
 
CAKE OF THE POWERS :— LOVE. 127 
 
 infant fondling a kitten, or feeding the brood of 
 chickens, and a girl singing lullaby to her doll. But 
 it must ever be remembered, that this is the lowest 
 form of human affection till it is trained into close 
 connection with the higher sentiments. What it is 
 when left to itself — and it will too probably be left 
 to itself by parents who are satisfied with any mani- 
 festation of affection in children ; — what it is when left 
 to itself may be seen in some disgusting spectacles 
 which occasionally meet our eyes among the mature 
 and the old. We see it in the young mother who 
 spoils her child — who loves her child with so low 
 a love, that she indulges it to its hurt. We see it in 
 the aged mother, who loves her manly son as a bear 
 loves its cub ; — only with more selfishness, for she 
 cannot consider his good, but lavishes ill-humour and 
 fondness on him by turns. We see it in the man 
 who gives his mind to the comfort of his horse ; and 
 never a look or a word to a hungry neighbour. We 
 see it in a woman who opens her arms to every dog 
 or cat that comes near her, whose eye brightens, and 
 whose cheek mantles while she feeds her canaries, 
 though she never had a friendship, nor cares for any 
 human being but such as are under five years old. 
 
 Thus low is this instinctive affection when left to 
 itself. But it is inestimable when linked on to other 
 and higher kinds of love, and especially to that which 
 is the highest of all, and worthy to gather into itself 
 all the rest, — benevolence. It is easy to form this 
 link when its formation is desired : and it is terribly 
 easy to neglect it when its importance is not perceived. 
 
128 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 The child must be led to desire the good of the cat, 
 or bird, or doll, to the sacrifice of its own inclinations. 
 It must not hurt pussy, or throw dolly into a corner 
 (every child believing that dolly can feel), nor frighten 
 the bird : and, moreover, it must be made to dis- 
 charge punctually, even to its own inconvenience, 
 the duty of feeding the live favourite, and cherishing 
 the doll. This leads on naturally to a cherishing 
 and forbearing love of the baby-brother or sister : 
 and next, perhaps, the parents may be surprised by 
 an offer of affection in sickness which never showed 
 itself while they were in health. A child who 
 receives caresses carelessly, or runs away from them 
 to caress the kitten, (which, perhaps, runs away in 
 its turn,) will come on tiptoe to his mother's knee 
 when she is ill, and stroke her face, or nurse her 
 foot in his lap, or creep up into her easy chair, and 
 nestle there quietly for an hour at a time : and yet, 
 perhaps, this same child will appear as indifferent as 
 before when his mother is well again, and does not 
 seem to want his good offices. 
 
 From home, the affection may next be led a little 
 further abroad. This must be done very cautiously, 
 and the expansion of benevolence by no means 
 hurried or made a task of. I knew a little girl who, 
 at four years old, was full of domestic benevolence — 
 capable of denying herself noise and amusement 
 on fitting occasions, and never happier than when 
 waiting on and cherishing a sick person. One day 
 she seemed so much interested about a poor woman 
 who had come to beg, that her mother took her into 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— LOVE. 129 
 
 consultation about what could be done for the 
 woman and her children. When told how nearly 
 naked the poor children were, and how they had no 
 more clothes to put on, though the weather was 
 growing colder and colder, she was asked whether 
 she would not like to give her blue frock to one of 
 them. In a low earnest voice, she said, " No." The 
 case was again represented to her ; and when, with 
 some little shrinking, she again said, "No," her 
 mother saw that she had gone rather too far, and had 
 tried the young faculty of benevolence beyond its 
 strength. She watched and waited, and is repaid. 
 In her daughter, warm domestic affections co-exist 
 with a more than ordinary benevolence. 
 
 This benevolence is the third form in which we 
 have already seen what is called love. Can anything 
 be more clearly marked than the difference between 
 these three ; — the love that leads to marriage ; fond- 
 ness for objects which can be idolized ; anH benevolence 
 which has no fondness in it, but desires the diffusion 
 of happiness, and acts independently of personal 
 regards ? None of these yield the sort of affection 
 which the heart of the parent desires, and which is 
 essential to family happiness. A child may kill its 
 pet bird, or cat, with kindness, and go out into the 
 street in the early morning, with its halfpenny in its 
 hand (as I have known a child do) to do good with it 
 to somebody ; — a child may have these two kinds of 
 love strong in him, and yet show but a weak attach- 
 ment to the people about him. This attachment is 
 another kind of love from those w r e have been 
 
 9 
 
130 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 considering. It is all-important to the character of 
 the individual, and to the happiness of the family 
 circle : and it is therefore of consequence that its 
 nature should be understood, and its exercise wisely 
 cared for. 
 
 It is some time before the infant shows attachment 
 to any one. There are many signs of hope and fear 
 in an infant before it gives any token of affection ; 
 its arms are held out first to its nurse; and she 
 usually continues the one to whom the child clings, 
 and from whom it will not be separated. Beyond the 
 nurse, the child's attachments sometimes appear un- 
 accountable. It will be happy with some one person 
 in the house, and make a difficulty of going to any 
 one else ; and the reason of this may not be plain to 
 anybody. Happy is the mother if she be the one ; 
 and a severe trial it is to a loving mother when she is 
 not the one. Of course, if the misfortune be owing 
 to any fault In herself, — if she be irritable, stern, or 
 in any way teasing to the child, — she cannot wonder 
 that he does not love her. If she be tender, gentle, 
 playful, and wise, and still her child loves some one 
 else in the house better, it is a sore trial, certainly ; 
 but it must be made the best of. Of course, the 
 mother will strive to discover what it is in another 
 person that attaches the child ; and if she can attain 
 the quality, she will. But it is probably that which 
 cannot be attained by express efforts, — a power of 
 entering into the little mind, and meeting its thoughts 
 and feelings. Some persons have this power naturally 
 much more than others ; and practice may have given 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: — LOVE. 131 
 
 them great facility in using it; while the sense of 
 inexperience, and the strong anxiety that a young 
 mother has, may easily be a restraint on her faculties 
 in dealing with her child. I have heard the mothers 
 of large families declare (in the most private conversa- 
 tion) in so many instances, that their younger children 
 are of a higher quality than the older, and this from 
 an age so early as to prevent the difference being 
 attributed to experience in teaching, that I have been 
 led to watch and think on the subject : and I think 
 that one powerful cause is that the mother has 
 naturally more freedom and playfulness and tact in 
 her intercourse with her younger children than with 
 the elder, and thereby fixes their attachment more 
 strongly : and there are no bounds to the good which 
 arises from strong affections in a child. Happy the 
 mother who is the object of her child's strongest love 
 from the beginning ! — happy, that is, if she makes a 
 good use of her privilege. She must never desire 
 more love than the child has to give. The most 
 that it can give will be less than she would like, and 
 far less than her own for it : but she will not obtain 
 more, but only endanger what she has, by making 
 the child conscious of his affections, and by requiring 
 tokens which do not manifest themselves spon- 
 taneously. It should be enough for a mother that 
 her child comes to her with his little troubles and 
 pleasures, and shows by his whole behaviour that she 
 is of more importance to him than any one else in 
 the world. If it be so, there will be times when he 
 will spring into her lap, and throw his arms round 
 
 9—2 
 
132 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 her neck, and give her the thrilling kiss that she 
 longs to have every day and every hour. But the 
 sweetness of these caresses will be lost when they 
 cease to be spontaneous ; and the child will leave off 
 springing into the lap, if it is to be teased for kisses 
 when there. There are few products of the human 
 mind which are to be had good upon compulsion ; 
 and affection least of all. I knew a little boy who 
 was brought home from being at nurse in the country, 
 and shown to his conscientious, anxious, but most 
 formal mother. The child clung to his nurse's neck, 
 hid his face on her shoulder, and screamed violently. 
 But his mother's voice was heard above his noise, 
 saying solemnly, " Look at me, my dear. Nurse is 
 going away, and you will not see her any more. 
 You must love me now." Whether she thus gained 
 her child's love, my readers may conjecture. 
 
 The mother who is first in her child's affection is 
 under the serious responsibility of imparting the 
 treasure to others. She takes her whole household 
 into her own heart ; and she must open her little one's 
 heart to take in all likewise. She .must associate all 
 in turn in his pursuits and pleasures, till his love has 
 spread through the house, and he can be happy and 
 cherished in every corner of it. 
 
 The mother who sees some one else more beloved 
 than herself, — the servant, perhaps, or an elder child 
 of her own, — must not lose heart, much less temper, 
 or all is lost. It is possible that her turn may never 
 come: but it is far more probable that it will, if she 
 knows how to wait for it. She must go on doing her 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— LOVE. 133 
 
 part as perseveringly and, if it may be, as cheerfully 
 as if her heart was satisfied ; and sooner or later the 
 child will discover, never to forget, what a friend she 
 is. Moreover, if her mind and manner are not such 
 as to win a child in his early infancy, they may suit 
 his needs at a later stage of his mind. I have 
 observed that the mothers who are most admirable at 
 some seasons of their children's lives fall off at others. 
 I have seen a mother who had extraordinary skill in 
 bringing out and training her children's faculties 
 before they reached their teens, and who was all- 
 sufficient for them then, fail them sadly as a friend 
 and companion in the important years which follow 
 seventeen. And I have seen a mother who could 
 make no way with her children in their early years, 
 and who keenly felt how nearly indifferent they were 
 to her, while her whole soul and mind were devoted 
 to them, — I have seen such a mother idolized by her 
 daughters when they became wise and worthy enough 
 to have her for a friend. I mention these things for 
 comfort and encouragement : and who is more in need 
 of comfort and encouragement than the mother who, 
 loving her child as mothers should, meets with not 
 only a less than adequate, but a less than natural 
 return ? 
 
 There is one case more sad and more solemn than 
 this ; the case of the unloving and unloved child. 
 There are some few human beings in whom the 
 power of attachment is so weak that they stand 
 isolated in the world, and seem doomed to a hermit 
 existence amidst the very throng of human life. If 
 
134 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 such are neglected, they are lost. They must sink 
 into a slough of selfishness, and perish. And none 
 are so likely to be neglected as those who neither love 
 nor win love. If such an one is not neglected, he 
 may become an able and useful being, after all ; and 
 it is for the parents to try this, in a spirit of reverence 
 for his mysterious nature, and of pity for the priva- 
 tions of his heart. They will search out and cherish, 
 by patient love, such little power of attachment as he 
 has : and they will perhaps find him capable of gene- 
 ral kindliness, and the wide interests of benevolence, 
 though the happiness of warm friendships and family 
 endearment is denied him. Such an one can never 
 take his place among the highest rank of human 
 beings, nor can know the sweetest happiness that life 
 can yield. But by the generous love of his parents, 
 and of all whom they can influence to do his nature 
 justice, his life may be made of great value to himself 
 and others, and he may become respected for his 
 qualities, as well as for his misfortune. 
 
135 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CARE OF THE POWERS: — VENERATION. 
 
 Among the great blessings which are shared by the 
 whole human race, one of the chief is its universal 
 power of veneration. 
 
 I call this a universal power, because there is no 
 human being (except the idiot) in whom it is not 
 inherent from his birth : and I think I may say, that 
 there is none in whom it does not exist, more or less, 
 till his death. Unhappy influences may check or 
 pervert it : but there is no reason to believe that it 
 can be utterly destroyed. The grinning scoffer, who 
 laughs at everything serious, who despises every man 
 but himself, and who is insensible to the wonders and 
 charms of nature, yet stands in awe of something, — 
 if it be nothing better than rank and show, or brute 
 force, or the very power of contempt in others which 
 he values so much in himself. Send for such an one 
 into the presence of the Queen, or bring him to the 
 bar of the House of Commons, or ask him to dinner 
 in a sumptuous palace, and, however far gone he may 
 be in contempt, he will be awe-struck. Set him 
 down face to face with a man who makes game of 
 everything he does not understand (and that will be 
 almost everything that exists), and he will have a 
 respect for that man. If you can bring his mind into 
 
136 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 contact with any objects low enough to excite his 
 degraded faculty of veneration, you will find that 
 the faculty is still there. It appears to be indeed 
 inextinguishable. 
 
 We have, as usual, two things to take heed to in 
 regard to this great and indispensable power of the 
 mind. First, to take care that the power neither 
 runs riot, nor is neglected. And next, to direct it to 
 its proper objects. 
 
 I. The faculty, like all others, is of unequal 
 strength in different people ; — in children, as well as 
 in grown persons. We see one man who seems to have 
 no self-reliance or freedom of action in anything; 
 whose life is one long ague fit of superstition, from 
 that cowardly dread of God which he means for 
 religion : who takes anybody's word for everything, 
 from a fear of using his own faculties, and who is 
 overwhelmed in the presence of rank, wealth, or 
 ability superior to his own. We see another man 
 careless, and contemptuous, and self-willed, from a 
 want of feeling of what there is in the universe, and 
 in his fellow-men, superior to his faculties and 
 mysterious to his understanding. And in the merest 
 infants, we may discern, by careful watching, a dif- 
 ference no less marked. One little creature will reach 
 boldly after everything it sees, and buffet its play- 
 things and the people about it, and make itself heard 
 and attended to whenever it so pleases, and has to 
 be taught and trained to be quiet and submissive. 
 And another of the same age will watch with a 
 shrinking wonder whatever is new or mysterious, 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: — VENERATION. 137 
 
 and be shy before strangers, and has to be taught 
 and trained to examine things for itself, and to make 
 free with the people about it. Such being the 
 varieties in the strength of the natural faculty, the 
 training of it must vary accordingly. 
 
 As I have said before, no human faculty needs to 
 be repressed ; because no human faculty is in itself 
 bad. Where any one power appears to be excessive, 
 we are not to set to work to vex and mortify it : but 
 rather, to bring up to it those antagonist faculties 
 which ought to balance it, and which, in such a case, 
 clearly want strengthening. If, for instance, a child 
 appears to have too much of this faculty of Venera- 
 tion — if it fancies a mystery in everything that 
 happens, and yields too easily to its companions, and 
 loves ghost stories which yet make it ill, and is 
 always awe-struck and dreaming about something or 
 other — that child is not to be laughed at, nor to be 
 led to despise or make light of what it cannot under- 
 stand. That child has not too much Veneration : for 
 no one can ever have too much of the faculty. The 
 mischief lies in his having too little of something 
 else; — too little self-respect; too little hope; too 
 little courage. 
 
 Let him continue to exercise and enjoy freely his 
 faculty of Wonder. His mother should tell him of 
 things that are really wonderful and past finding out: 
 and as he grows old enough, let her point out to him 
 that all things in nature are wonderful, and past our 
 finding out, from the punctuality of the great sun 
 and blessed moon, to the springing of the blade of 
 
138 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 grass. Let her sympathize in his feeling that there 
 is something awful in the thunderstorm, and in the 
 incessant roll of the sea. Let her express for him, 
 as far as may be, his unutterable sense of the weak- 
 ness and ignorance of child or man in the presence 
 of the mighty, ever-moving universe, and of the 
 awful unknown Power which is above and around 
 us, wherever we turn. Let her show respect to 
 every sort of superiority, according to its kind— to 
 old age, to scholarship, to skill of every sort, to 
 social rank and office ; and above all, to the supe- 
 riority that goodness gives. Let her thus cherish and 
 indulge her child's natural faculty, and permit no 
 one else to thwart it. But she must give her utmost 
 pains to exercise at the same time his inquiring and 
 knowing faculties, and his courage and self-respect. 
 Among the many wonders which she cannot explain, 
 there are many which she can. He should be en- 
 couraged to understand as much as anybody under- 
 stands, and especially of those things which he is 
 most likely to be afraid of. He should be made to 
 feel what power is given to him by such knowledge : 
 and led to respect this power in himself as he would 
 in any one else. I knew a little child whose rever- 
 ence for Nature was so strong as almost to over- 
 power some other faculties. She was town-bred: 
 and whenever it chanced that she was out' in the 
 country for more than a common walk, she was 
 injuriously excited, all day long. She was not only 
 in a state of devout adoration to the Maker of all 
 she saw : but she felt towards the trees, and brooks, 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS: — VENERATION. 139 
 
 and corn-fields as if they were alive, and she did not 
 dare to interfere with them. One day, some com- 
 panions carried home some wild strawberry roots for 
 their gardens, and persuaded her to do the same. 
 She did so, in a great tremor. Before she had 
 planted her roots, she had grown fond of them, as 
 being dependent on her ; and she put them into the 
 ground very tenderly and affectionately. As it was 
 now near noon, of course she found her strawberries 
 withered enough when she next went to look at them, 
 as they lay drooping in the hot sun. She bethought 
 herself, in her consternation, of a plan for them : ran 
 in for a little chair : put it over the roots, stuffing 
 up with grass every space which could let the sun- 
 shine in; watered the roots, and left them, with the 
 sense of having done a very daring thing. It was 
 sunset before she could go to her garden again. 
 When she removed the chair, there were the straw- 
 berries, fresh and strong, with leaves of the brightest 
 green ! It was a rapturous moment to this super- 
 stitious child — this, in which she felt that she had 
 meddled with the natural growth of something, and 
 with success. And it was a profitable lesson. She 
 took to gardening, and to trying her power over 
 Nature in other ways, losing some superstition at 
 every step into the world of knowledge, and gaining 
 self-respect (a highly necessary direction of the spirit 
 of reverence) with every proof of the power which 
 knowledge confers. 
 
 What the parent has to do for the child in whom 
 the sentiment of Reverence appears disproportionate, 
 
140 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 is to give him Power in himself, in every possible 
 way, that he may cease to be overwhelmed with the 
 sense of power out of himself on every hand. If he 
 can become possessed of power of Conscience, his 
 religious fear will become moderated to wholesome 
 awe. If he can become possessed of power of under- 
 standing, the mysteries of Nature will stimulate 
 instead of depressing his mind. If he can attain to 
 power of sympathy, he will see men as they are, and 
 have a fellow-feeling with them, through all the cir- 
 cumstances of rank and wealth which once wore a 
 false glory in his eyes. If he can attain a due power 
 of self-reliance, he will learn that his own wonderful 
 faculties and unbounded moral capacities should 
 come in for some share of his reverence, and be 
 brought bravely into action in the universe, instead 
 of being left idle by the wayside, making obeisance 
 incessantly to everything that passes by, while they 
 ought to be up and doing. 
 
 What should be done with the pushing, fearless 
 child, who seems to stand in awe of nobody, is plain 
 enough. As I have said, he reverences something : 
 for no human being is without the faculty. His 
 parents must find out what it is that does excite his 
 awe : and, however strange may be the object, they 
 must sympathize in the feeling. I have known a 
 fearless child of three reverence his brother of four 
 and a half. We may laugh ; but it was no laughing 
 matter, but a very interesting one, to see the little 
 fellow watch e^ery movement of his brother, give him 
 credit for profound reasons in everything he did, and 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— -VENERATION. 141 
 
 humbly imitate as much as he could. Supposing 
 such a child to be deficient generally in reverence, 
 it would be a tremendous mistake in the parents to 
 check this one exercise of it. They should, in such 
 a case, carefully observe the rights of seniority among 
 the children; avoid laughing at the follies of the elder, 
 or needlessly pointing out his faults, in the presence 
 of the younger, while they daily strive to raise the 
 standard of both. They must also lead the imagi- 
 nation of the little one to contemplate things which he 
 must feel to be at once real and beyond his com- 
 prehension. They must, at serious moments, lead 
 his mind higher than he was aware it would go, even 
 till it sinks under his sense of ignorance. They must 
 carry his thoughts down into depths which he never 
 dreamed of, and where the spirit of awe will surely 
 lay hold upon him. I do not believe there is any 
 child who cannot be impressed with a serious, plain 
 account of some of the wonders of nature ; with 
 a report, ever so meagre, of the immensity of the 
 heavens, whose countless stars, the least of which we 
 cannot understand, are for ever moving, in silent 
 mystery, before our eyes. I do not believe there are 
 many children that may not be deeply impressed by 
 the great mystery of brute life, if their attention be 
 duly fixed upon it. Let the careless and confident 
 child be familiarized, not only with the ant and the 
 bee for their wonderful instinct, but with all living 
 creatures as inhabitants of the same world as himself, 
 and at the same time, of a world of their own, as we 
 have ; a world of ideas, and emotions, and pleasures, 
 
142 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 which we know nothing whatever about, — any more 
 than they know the world of our minds. I do not 
 believe there is any child who would not look up 
 with awe to a man or woman who had done a noble 
 act, — saved another from fire or drowning, or told the 
 truth to his own loss or peril, or visited the sick in 
 plague-time, or the guilty in jail. I do not believe 
 there is. any child who would not look up with awe 
 to a man who was known to be wise beyond others ; 
 to have seen far countries; to have read books in 
 many languages ; or to have made discoveries among 
 the stars, or about how earth, air, and water are 
 made. If it be so, who is there that may not be 
 impressed at last by the evident truth that all that 
 men have yet known and done is as nothing compared 
 with what remains to be known and done : that the 
 world-wide traveller is but the half-fledged bird 
 flitting round the nest : that the philosopher is but 
 as the ant which spends its little life in bringing home 
 half a dozen grains of wheat: and that the most 
 benevolent man is grieved that he can do so little 
 for the solace of human misery, feeling himself 
 like the child who tries to wipe away his brother's 
 tears, but cannot heal his grief! Who is there 
 that cannot be impressed by the grave pointing out 
 of the mystery of life, and the vastness of know- 
 ledge which lie around and before him ; and by the 
 example of him who did none but noble and gene- 
 rous deeds, and bore the fiercest sufferings, and 
 felt contempt for nothing under heaven ! How can 
 it but excite reverence to show that he, even he, 
 
CAKE OF THE POWERS :— VENERATION. 143 
 
 was himself full of reverence, and incapable of 
 contempt ! 
 
 II. Having said thus much about nourishing and 
 balancing the faculty of reverence, I need only point 
 out the directions in which it should be trained. 
 
 The point on which a child's veneration will first 
 naturally fix will be Power. It must be the parents' 
 first business to fix that veneration on Authority, 
 instead of mere power. Instead of the power to shut 
 up in a closet, or to whip, the child must reverence 
 the authority which reveals itself in calm control and 
 gentle command. The parents must be the first 
 objects of the child's disciplined reverence. Even 
 here, in this first clear case, the faculty cannot work 
 well without sympathy : and the child must have 
 sympathy from the parents themselves. He must 
 see that his parents respect each other ; that they 
 consider one another's authority unquestionable in the 
 household ; and that they reverence their parent — if 
 Granny be still among them. 
 
 Beyond this, there is no reason why the sympathy 
 between parents and children should not be simple, 
 constant, and true, as to their objects of reverence. 
 
 The child may revere as very wise, some person 
 whom the parents know not to be so : but they may 
 join their child in revering the wisdom which they 
 know to be his ideal. The child may go into an 
 enthusiasm about some questionable hero, — the ex- 
 emplar of some virtue which the parents feel to be 
 of a rather low order: but they will sympathize in the 
 homage to virtue — which is the main point. They 
 
144 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 may be secretly amused at their child's reverence for 
 the constable : but they feel the same in regard to 
 that of which the constable is the representative to 
 the child — the Law. They will lead him on with 
 them in their advancing reverence for knowledge; for 
 that moral and intellectual knowledge united which 
 constitute wisdom ; and will thus turn away his 
 regards from dwelling too much on outward distinc- 
 tions, which might otherwise inspire undue awe. 
 
 Yet nearer will their hearts draw to his in vene- 
 ration for goodness; for intrepid truthfulness, for 
 humble fidelity, for cheerful humility, for gentle 
 charity. And at the ultimate point, their hearts 
 must become one with his ; in the presence of the 
 Unknown ; for there we are all, — the oldest and the 
 youngest — the wisest and the weakest, — but little 
 children, waiting to learn, and desiring to obey. 
 
145 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CARE OF THE POWERS: — TRUTHFULNESS. 
 
 We come now to consider a moral quality whose 
 importance cannot be overrated, yet about which 
 there is more unsettledness of view and perplexity 
 of heart among parents than about, perhaps, any 
 other. Every parent is anxious about the truth- 
 fulness of his child : but whether this virtue is to 
 come by nature, or by gift, or by training, many 
 an one is sorely perplexed to know. So few children 
 are truthful in all respects and without variation, 
 that we may well doubt whether the quality can 
 be inborn. And the cases are so many of children 
 otherwise good — even conscientious in other respects 
 — who talk at random, and say things utterly untrue, 
 that I do not wonder that those who hold low views of 
 human nature consider this a constitutional vice, and 
 a hereditary curse. I am very far from believing 
 this : and I will plainly say what I do believe. 
 
 I believe that the requisites of a habit of truth- 
 fulness he in the brain of every child that is born ; 
 but that the truthfulness itself has to be taught, as 
 the speech which is to convey it has to be taught, 
 by helping the child to the use of his natural powers. 
 The child has by nature the ear, the lungs, the 
 tongue, the palate, and the various and busy mind, — 
 
 10 
 
146 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the requisites for speech : but he does not speak 
 unless incited by hearing it from other s, and by 
 being himself led on to attain the power. In a 
 somewhat resembling manner, every child has more 
 or less natural sense of what is just in feeling and 
 action, and what is real in nature, and how to 
 present his ideas to another mind. Here are the 
 requisites to truthfulness of speech : but there is 
 much to be learned, and much to overcome, before 
 the practice of truthfulness can be completely formed 
 and firmly established. If the case is once under- 
 stood, we shall know how to set about our work, 
 and may await the event without dismay in the 
 worst cases, though in all with the most careful 
 vigilance. 
 
 Is it not true that different nations, even Christian 
 nations, vary more in regard to truthfulness than 
 perhaps any other moral quality? Is it not true 
 that one or two continental nations fall below us 
 in regard to this quality, while they far excel us 
 in kindliness and cheerfulness of temper, and pleasant- 
 ness of manners ? And does not this difference arise 
 from their thinking kindliness and cheerfulness more 
 important than sincerity and accuracy of speech ? 
 And is not our national superiority in regard to 
 the practice of truth chiefly owing to its being our 
 national point of honour, and our fixed supposition 
 as a social habit ? Do not these facts tend to show 
 that the practice of truthfulness is the result of 
 training? and that we may look for it with con- 
 fidence as the result of good training ? 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— TRUTHFULNESS. 147 
 
 Now, what are the requisites, and what the diffi- 
 culties that we have to deal with ? 
 
 Has not every child a keen sense of right and 
 justice, which he shows from the earliest time that 
 he can manifest any moral judgment at all ? He 
 may be injurious and unjust to another, from selfish- 
 ness and passion : but can he not feel injustice done 
 to himself with the infallibility of an instinct, and 
 claim his rights with the acuteness of a lawyer ? Is 
 there anything more surprising to us in the work of 
 education than every child's sense of his rights, and 
 need of unerring justice, till he is far enough advanced 
 generously to dispense with it? Here we have the 
 perception of moral truth for one requisite. 
 
 Another requisite is such good perceptive power 
 as informs a child truly of outward facts. There 
 is no natural power which varies more in different 
 subjects than this. One child sees everything as it 
 is, withui its range. Another child sees but little, 
 being taken up with what it thinks or imagines. 
 A third sees wrongly, being easily deceived about 
 colours and forms, and the order in which things 
 happen, from its senses being dull, or its faculties 
 of observation being indolent. I have known a child 
 declare an object to be green when it was grey; 
 or a man in a field to be a giant ; or a thing to 
 have happened in the morning which took place in 
 the afternoon : and one need but observe how wit- 
 nesses in a court of justice vary in their testimony 
 about small matters regarding which they are quite 
 disinterested, to see that the same imperfection in 
 
 10—2 
 
148 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the perceptive faculties goes on into mature age. 
 It is plain that these faculties must be exercised 
 and trained very carefully, if the child is to be made 
 accurate in its statements. 
 
 Another and most important requisite is that the 
 child should, from the beginning, believe that truth- 
 fulness is a duty. This belief must be given on 
 authority : for the obligation to truth is not, as I 
 have said, instinctive, but a matter of reasoning, 
 such as a child is not capable of entering into. 
 He will receive it, easily and permanently, from 
 the assurance and example of his parents; but he 
 does not, in his earliest years, see it for himself. 
 An affectionate child, thinking of a beloved person, 
 will tell his parent that he has just seen and talked 
 with that person, who is known to be a hundred 
 miles off. The parent is shocked: and truly there 
 is cause for distress ; for it is plain that the child 
 has as yet no notion of the duty of truthfulness; 
 but the parent must not, in his fear, aggravate the 
 case, and run into the conclusion that the child 
 loves lying. The case probably is that he says what 
 is pleasant to his affections, without being aware that 
 there is a more serious matter to be attended to first : 
 a thing which he may hereafter be shocked not to 
 have known. I happen to remember at this moment, 
 three persons, now conscientiously truthful, who in 
 early childhood were in the habit of telling, not 
 only wonderful dreams, but most wonderful things 
 that they had seen in their walks, on the high- 
 road or the heath; giants, castles, beautiful ladies 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— TRUTHFULNESS. 149 
 
 riding in forests, and so on. In all these cases, 
 the parents were deeply distressed, and applied them- 
 selves accordingly, first to check the practice of 
 narration, and next to exercise the perceptive and 
 reflective powers of the children, so as to enable 
 them to distinguish clearly the facts they saw from 
 the visions they called up before their mind's eye. 
 The appeal to conscience they left for cases where 
 their child had clearer notions of right and wrong. 
 Any one of these children would, I believe, at that 
 very time, have suffered much rather than say what 
 he knew to be false, from any motive of personal 
 fear or hope. As I said, all these three are now 
 eminently honourable and trustworthy persons. 
 
 The chief final requisite is, of course, conscien- 
 tiousness. When the child becomes capable of self- 
 knowledge and self-government, this alone can be 
 relied on for such a confirmation of the habit of truth- 
 telling, or such a correction of any tendency to inac- 
 curacy, as may carry the young probationer through 
 all temptations from within and from without, steady 
 in the practice of strict truth. When all these 
 requisites are combined — when the child feels truly, 
 sees truly, and is aware of the duty of speaking truly, 
 the practice of truthfulness becomes as natural and 
 unfailing as if it originated in an instinct. 
 
 I remember an instance of the strange, unbalanced, 
 unprincipled state of mind of a child, who was capable 
 of telling a lie, and persisting in it, at the very time 
 that she was conscientious to excess about some of 
 her duties, and her sense of justice (in regard to her 
 
150 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 own rights) ran riot in her. It is an odd and a sad 
 story ; but instructive from its very strangeness. 
 She was asked by her mother one day whether she 
 had not played battledore and shuttlecock before 
 breakfast. From some levity or inattention at the 
 moment, she said, (( No," and was immediately about 
 to correct herself when her mother's severe counte- 
 nance roused her pride and obstinacy, and she 
 wickedly repeated her denial. Here it was temper 
 that was the snare. There was nothing to be afraid 
 of in saying the truth, no reason why she should 
 not. But she had a temper of such pride and obsti- 
 nacy that she was aware of even enjoying being 
 punished, as giving her an opportunity of standing 
 out ; while the least word of appeal to her affections 
 or her conscience, if uttered before her temper was 
 roused, would melt her in a moment. The question 
 was repeated in many forms ; and still she, with a 
 terrified and miserable conscience, persisted that she 
 had not played battledore thart morning; whereas 
 her mother had heard it, and knew from her com- 
 panion who it was that had played. The lying child 
 was sent to her own room, where she was in conster- 
 nation enough till a mistake of management was 
 made which spoiled everything, and destroyed the 
 lesson to her. She was sent for to read aloud, before 
 the family, the story of Ananias and Sapphira. She 
 was sobbing so that the reading was scarcely possible, 
 till her thoughts took a turn which speedily dried 
 her tears, and filled her with an insolent indignation 
 which excluded all chance of repentance. She well 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— TRUTHFULNESS. 151 
 
 knew the story of Ananias and Sapphira ; and she 
 happened to have a great admiration of the plan of 
 the early Christians, of throwing all their goods into 
 a common stock. She knew that the sin of Ananias 
 and his wife lay chiefly in the selfish fraud which 
 was the occasion of their lie, and that their case 
 was therefore no parallel for hers ; and in the indig- 
 nation of having it supposed that she had sinned in 
 their way, — she who longed above everything to 
 have been an early Christian (a pretty subject truly!) 
 — that she could be thought silly enough to suppose 
 that they were struck dead for their fib, and not for 
 their fraud, — in this insolent indignation she put 
 her one sin oat of sight, and felt herself an injured 
 person. This adventure certainly did not strengthen 
 her regard to truth. She dared not state her objec- 
 tion to the story in her own case ; and perhaps she 
 also disdained to do it : she remained sullen ; and her 
 mother had at last to let the matter drop. 
 
 This was a case to make any parent's heart sink ; 
 but the worse the case, the more instructive to us 
 now. Here was sufficient moral sense and insight, 
 in one direction, to bear an appeal, if any had been 
 made. Disgrace was the worst possible resort, and 
 especially when untenable ground was taken for it. 
 The best resort would have been a tender and solemn 
 private conversation, in which the entanglement 
 of passionate feelings might have been unravelled, 
 and the seat of moral disease have been explored. 
 When a moral disease so fearful as this appears, 
 parents should never rest till they have found the 
 
152 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 seat of it, and convinced the perilled child of the 
 deadly nature of its malady. In this case, the child 
 was certainly not half-convinced, and morally worse 
 after the treatment, while the material for conviction, 
 repentance, and reformation, was in her. 
 
 The method of training must depend much on the 
 organization of the child in one respect ; whether he is 
 ingenuous and frank, or reserved and (I must say it) — 
 sly. Some children are certainly prone to slyness by 
 nature ; but there is no reason why, under a wise train- 
 ing, they should not be as honourable as the most inge- 
 nuous soul that ever was born. And they may even, 
 when thoroughly principled, be more reliable than some 
 open-minded persons, from being more circumspect. 
 
 There is something very discouraging in seeing 
 little creatures who ought to be all fearlessness and 
 confidence hiding things under their pinafores, or 
 slipping out at the back-door for a walk which they 
 might have honestly by asking for it; or putting 
 roundabout questions when plain ones would do; 
 or keeping all their little concerns to themselves 
 while spending their whole lives among brothers and 
 sisters. If one looks forward to their maturity, one 
 recoils from the image of what they will be. But 
 they must not grow up with these tendencies. Their 
 fault may turn to virtue, under wise and gentle 
 treatment. Their confidence must be tenderly won, 
 and their innocent desires gratified, while every 
 slyness is quietly shown to be as unavailing as it 
 is disagreeable, and every movement towards in- 
 genuousness cheerfully and lovingly encouraged 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS : —TRUTHFULNESS. 153 
 
 The child's imagination must be engaged on behalf 
 of everything that is noble, heroic, and openly 
 glorious before the eyes of men. His conscience 
 and affections must be appealed to, not in words, but 
 by a long course of love and trust, to return the 
 trust he receives, Of course, the parental example 
 must be that of perfect openness and simplicity ; for 
 the sight of mystery and concealment in the house 
 is enough to make even the ingenuous child sly, 
 through its faculty of imitation, and its ambition to 
 be old and wise ; and much more will it hinder the 
 expansion of a reserved and cunning child. If these 
 things be all attended to — if he sees only what is 
 open, free, and simple, and receives treatment which 
 is open, free, and encouraging, while it convinces 
 him of a sagacity greater than his own, there is 
 every hope that he will yield himself to the kindly 
 influences dispensed to him, and find for himself the 
 comfort and security of ingenuousness, and turn his 
 secretive ingenuity to purposes of intellectual exer- 
 cise, where it may do much good and no harm. 
 That ingenuity and sagacity may be well employed 
 among the secrets of history, the complexities of the 
 law, or the mysteries of mechanical construction or 
 chemical analysis, which may make a man vicious 
 and untrustworthy, if allowed to work in his moral 
 nature, and to shroud his daily conduct. 
 
 As for the training of the candid and ingenuous 
 child, it is of course far easier and pleasanter ; but 
 it must not be supposed that no care is required 
 to make him truthful. He must be trained to 
 
154 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 accuracy, or all his ingenuousness will not save him 
 from saying many a thing which is not true. Dr. 
 Johnson advised that if a child said he saw a thing 
 out of one window, when in fact he saw it out of 
 another, he should be set right. I think the Dr. 
 was right ; and that a child should consider no kind 
 of misstatement a trifle, seeing always that the 
 parents do not. An open-hearted and ingenuous 
 child is likely to be a great talker ; and is in that 
 way more liable to inaccuracy of statement than 
 a reserved child. Oh! let his parents guard him 
 well, by making him early the guardian of the 
 " unruly little member " which may, by neglect, 
 deprive him of the security and peace which should 
 naturally spread from his innocent heart through his 
 open and honest life ! Let them help him to add per- 
 fect truth of speech to his native truth of heart, and 
 their promising child cannot but be a happy man. 
 
 It may seem wearisome to say so often over that 
 the example of the parents is the chief influence in 
 the training of the child ; but how can 1 help saying 
 it when the fact is so ? Is it not true that when the 
 father of a family comes home and talks before his 
 children, every word sinks into their minds ? If he 
 talks banter — banter so broad that his elder children 
 laugh and understand, how should the little one on 
 its mother's lap fail to be perplexed and misled ? It 
 knows nothing about banter, and it looks up seriously 
 in its father's face, and believes all he says, and 
 carries away all manner of absurd ideas. Or, if told 
 not to believe what he hears, how is he to know 
 
CARE OF THE POWERS :— TRUTHFULNESS. 155 
 
 henceforth what to believe ; and how can he put 
 trust in his father's words ? The turn for exaggera- 
 tion which many people have is morally bad for the 
 whole family. It is only the youngest perhaps who 
 will believe that "it rains cats and dogs" because 
 somebody says so ; but a whole family may be misled 
 by habitual exaggeration of statement. The conse- 
 quence is clear. Either they will take up the habit, 
 from imitation of father or mother, or they will learn 
 to distrust their fluent parent. But how safe is 
 everything made by that established habit of truth 
 in a household which acts like an instinct ! If the 
 parents are, as by a natural necessity, always accu- 
 rate in what they say, or, if mistaken, thankful to be 
 set right, and eager to rectify their mistake, the 
 children thrive in an atmosphere of such sincerity 
 and truth : and any one of them to whom truthfulness 
 may be constitutionally difficult, has the best chance 
 for the strengthening of his weakness. Such an one 
 must have sunk under the least aggravation of his 
 infirmity by the sin of his parents: and the proba- 
 bility is, that the whole household would have gone 
 down into moral ruin together; for it cannot be 
 expected that any natural aptitude for truth in chil- 
 dren should improve, or even continue, if discouraged 
 by the example of the parents, who ought to hail it as 
 a blessing upon their house. 
 
 Of all happy households, that is the happiest, 
 where falsehood is never thought of. All peace is 
 broken up when once it appears that there is a liar 
 in the house. All comfort is gone, when suspicion 
 
156 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 has once entered ; when there must be reserve in talk, 
 and reservation in belief. Anxious parents, who are 
 aware of the pains of suspicion, will place generous 
 confidence in their children, and receive what they 
 say freely, unless there is strong reason to distrust 
 the truth of any one. If such an occasion should 
 unhappily arise, they must keep the suspicion from 
 spreading as long as possible ; and avoid disgracing 
 their poor child, while there is any chance of his 
 cure by their confidential assistance. He should 
 have their pity and assiduous help, as if he were 
 suffering under some disgusting bodily disorder. If 
 he can be cured, he will become duly grateful for 
 the treatment. If the endeavour fails, means must 
 of course be taken to prevent his example doing 
 harm : and then, as I said, the family peace is broken 
 up, because the family confidence is gone. 
 
 I fear that, from some cause or another, there 
 are but few large families where every member is 
 altogether truthful. Some who are not morally 
 guilty, are intellectually incapable of accuracy. But 
 where all are so organized and so trained as to be 
 wholly reliable, in act and word, they are a light to 
 all eyes, and a joy to all hearts. They are a public 
 benefit ; for they are a point of general reliance : and 
 they are privately blessed, within and without. With- 
 out, their life is made easy by universal trust: and 
 within their home and their hearts, they have the 
 security of rectitude, and the gladness of innocence. 
 If we do but invoke wisdom, she will come, and 
 multiply such homes in our land. 
 
157 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 
 
 We come now to the greatest and noblest of the 
 Moral Powers of Man ; to that power which makes 
 him quite a different order of being from any other 
 that we know of, and which is the glory and crown 
 of his existence: — his Conscientiousness. The uni- 
 versal endowment of men with this power is the true 
 bond of brotherhood of the human race. Any race 
 of beings who possess in common the highest quality 
 of which any of them are capable, are brothers, how- 
 ever much they may differ in all other respects, and 
 however little some of them may care about this 
 brotherhood. For those who do care about it, how 
 clear it is, and how very interesting to trace ! How 
 plain it is that while men in different parts and ages 
 of the world differ widely as to what is right, they 
 all have something in them which prompts them to 
 do what they believe to be right ! Here is a little 
 boy, permitted to try what he can get by selling five 
 shillings' worth of oranges : — he points out to the 
 lady who is buying his last half dozen, that two of 
 them are spotted. — There was Regulus, the Roman 
 general, who was taken prisoner by the enemy, the 
 Carthaginians. He was trusted to go to Rome, to 
 treat for an exchange of prisoners, on his promise 
 
158 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 that he would return to Carthage, — which he knew 
 was returning to death, — if the Roman senate would 
 not grant an exchange of prisoners. He persuaded 
 the Roman senate not to agree to the exchange, 
 which he believed would not be for the advantage 
 of Rome : and then he went back to Carthage and 
 to .death. There is, at this day, the South Sea 
 Islander, — the young wife who has been told that 
 it is pious and right to give her first child to the 
 gods. She has in her all -a mother's feelings, all the 
 love which women long to lavish on their first babe : 
 but she desires that the infant should be strangled as 
 soon as born, because she thinks it her duty. Now, 
 this poor creature is truly the sister of the other 
 two, though her superstition is horrible, and the in- 
 fanticide it leads to is a great crime. She is shock- 
 ingly ignorant, and her mind is not of that high 
 order which would perceive that there must be some- 
 thing wrong in going against nature in this way : 
 but, for all that, she is conscientious ; and by her 
 conscientiousness she is truly a sister in heart to the 
 honourable Roman general, and the honest orange- 
 seller. What she needs is knowledge : and what 
 the whole human race wants is knowledge, to bring 
 the workings of this great power into harmony all 
 over the world. At present, we see men in one 
 place feeding, and in another place burning one 
 another, — because they think they ought. In one 
 place, we see a man with seventy wives, — in another, 
 a man with one wife, — and in another, a man remain- 
 ing a bachelor all his life ; and each one equally 
 
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 159 
 
 supposing that he is doing what is right. The evil 
 everywhere is in the want of clear views of what is 
 right. This is an evil which may and will be reme- 
 died, we may hope, in course of ages. There is 
 nothing that we may not hope while the power to desire 
 and do what is right is common to all mankind, — is 
 given to them as an essential part of the human frame. 
 It does not follow, of course, that this power is 
 equal in all. All but idiots have it, more or less ; 
 but it varies, in different individuals, quite as much 
 as any other power. No power is more dependent 
 on care and cultivation for its vigour : but none 
 varies more from the very beginning. Some of the 
 worst cases of want of rectitude that I have known 
 have been in persons so placed as that everybody 
 naturally supposed they must be good, and trusted 
 them accordingly. I have known a girl, brought up 
 by highly principled relatives, in a house w T here 
 nothing but good was seen or heard of, turn out so 
 faulty as to compel one to see that her power of con- 
 scientiousness was the weakest she had. She had 
 some of it. She was uneasy, — truly and not hypo- 
 critically, — if she did not read a portion of the Bible 
 every day at a certain hour. She was plain, even to 
 prudery, in her dress : she truly honoured old age, 
 and could humble herself before it: and she stu- 
 diously, and from a sense of duty, administered to 
 the wishes of the elder members of the family, in all 
 matters of arrangement and manners. But that was 
 all. She was tricky to a degree I could never esti- 
 mate or comprehend. Her little plots and deceptions 
 
160 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 were without number and without end. Her temper 
 was bad, and she took no pains whatever to mend it, 
 but spent all her exertions in making people as 
 miserable as possitle by her vindictiveness. In love 
 matters, she reached a point of malice beyond belief, 
 torturing people's feelings, and getting them into 
 scrapes, with a gratification to her own bad mind 
 which could not be concealed under her demure 
 solemnity of manner. Enough of her I I will only 
 observe that, though she was brought up by good 
 people, it does not follow that she was judiciously 
 managed. The result shows that she was not. A 
 perfectly wise guardian would have seen that her 
 faculty of conscientiousness wanted strengthening, 
 and would have found safe and innocent employment 
 for those powers of secretiveness and defiance, and 
 that inordinate love of approbation, which, as it was, 
 issued in mischief-making. — The opposite case to hers 
 is that which touches one with a deeper pity than 
 almost any spectacle which can be seen on this earth: 
 that of the child whose strong power of conscientious- 
 ness is directed to wickedness, before it has ability to 
 help itself. Think of the little child born in a 
 cellar, among thieves ! It is born full of human 
 powers ; and among these, it has a conscience, and 
 perhaps a particularly strong one. Suppose it is 
 brought up to believe that its duty is to provide 
 money for its parents by stealing. Suppose that, by 
 five years old, it entirely believes that the most 
 wrong thing it can do is to come home at dark with- 
 out having stolen at least three pocket-handkerchiefs! 
 
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 161 
 
 Such cases have been known; and not a few of 
 them. — And it is only an exaggerated instance of 
 what we very commonly see in history and the 
 world. The Chief Inquisitor in Spain or Italy really 
 believed that he was doing his duty in burning the 
 bodies of heretics for the good of their souls. Our 
 ancestors thought they were acting benevolently in 
 putting badge dresses on charity children. The 
 Pharisees of old were sincere in their belief that it 
 was wrong to heal a sick man on the Sabbath. And 
 I have no doubt that in a future age it will appear 
 that we ourselves are ignorant and mistaken about 
 some points of our conduct in which we now sin- 
 cerely believe that we are doing what we ought. 
 
 In every household, then, the first consideration is 
 to cherish the faculty of conscientiousness ; and the 
 next is, to direct it wisely. 
 
 When I speak of cherishing the faculty, I do not 
 mean that it is always to be stimulated, whether it be 
 naturally strong or weak. There are cases, and 
 they are not few, where the power is stronger than 
 perhaps any other. In such cases, no stimulating is 
 required, but only guidance and enlightenment. 
 There are few sadder spectacles than that of a suffer- 
 ing being whose conscience has become so tender as 
 to be superstitious ; who lives a life of fear — of inces- 
 sant fear of doing wrong. It is a healthy conscience 
 that we want to produce ; a conscience which shall 
 act naturally, vigorously, and incessantly, like an 
 instinct; so as to leave all the other faculties to 
 act freely, without continual conflict and question 
 
 11 
 
162 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 whether their action be right or wrong. A child 
 who is perpetually driven to examine all he thinks 
 and does will become full of himself, prone to dis- 
 content with himself, and to servile dependence on 
 the opinion of those whom he thinks wiser than him- 
 self. What is such a child to do when he comes out 
 into the world, and must guide himself? At best, 
 he will go trembling through life, without courage or 
 self-respect: and something worse is to be appre- 
 hended. It is to be apprehended that if he makes 
 any slip — and such an one will be sure to think that 
 he does make slips — he will be unable to bear the 
 pain and uncertainty, and will grow reckless. A 
 clergyman, of wide and deep experience, who was 
 the depositary of much confidence, told me once (and 
 I have never forgotten it), that some of the worst 
 cases of desperate vice he had ever known were 
 those of young men tenderly and piously reared, who 
 came out from home anxious about the moral dangers 
 of the world and the fears of their parents, and who, 
 having fallen into the slightest fault, and being utterly 
 wretched in consequence, lost all courage and hope, 
 and drowned their misery in indulgence of the worst 
 part of themselves. He felt this so strongly that he 
 solemnly conjured me to use any influence I might 
 ever have over parents in encouraging them to trust 
 their children with their innocence, and to have faith 
 in the best faculties of human nature. This entreaty 
 .still rings in my ears, and leads me so to use any 
 influence I may now have over parents. 
 
 Is it not true that the strongest delight the human 
 
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 163 
 
 being ever has is in well-doing ? Is it not true that 
 this pleasure, like the pleasures of the eye and ear, 
 the pleasures of benevolence, the pleasures of the 
 understanding and the imagination, will seek its own 
 continuance and gratification, if it have fair play? 
 Is it not true that pain of conscience is the worst of 
 human sufferings ? and that this pain will be natur- 
 ally avoided, like every other pain, if only the faculty 
 have fair play ? 
 
 The worst of it is, the faculty seldom has fair play. 
 The fatal notion that human beings are more prone 
 to evil than inclined to good, and the fatal practice 
 of creating factitious sins, are dreadfully in the way 
 of natural health of conscience. Teach a child that 
 his nature is evil, and you will make it evil. Teach 
 him to fear and despise himself, and you will make 
 him timid and suspicious. Impose upon him a 
 number of factitious considerations of duty, and you 
 will perplex his moral sense, and make him tired of a 
 self-government which has no certainty and no satis- 
 faction in it. It is a far safer and higher way to 
 trust to his natural moral sense, and cultivate his 
 moral taste : to let him grow morally strong by 
 leaving him morally free, and to make him, by 
 sympathy and example, in love with whatever things 
 are pure, honest, and lovely. What the parent has 
 to do with is the moral habits of the child, and not 
 to meddle with his faculties. Give them fair scope 
 to grow ar.d they will flourish : and, let it be re- 
 membered, man has no faculties which are, in them- 
 selves and altogether, evil. His fac ulties ar e all 
 
 UNIVERSITY) 
 or ... y 
 
164 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 good, if they are well harmonized. Instead of talking 
 to him, or leading him to talk in his infancy of his 
 own feelings as something that he has to take charge 
 of, fix his mind on the things from which his feelings 
 will of themselves arise. By all means, lead him to 
 be considerate: but not about his own state, but 
 rather about the objects which cause that state. If 
 he sees at home integrity entering into every act and 
 thought, and trust and love naturally ensuing, he 
 will enjoy integrity and live in it, as the native of a 
 southern climate enjoys sunshine and lives in it. If, 
 as must happen, failure of integrity comes under his 
 notice in one direction or another, he will see the 
 genuine disgust and pain which those about him feel 
 at the spectacle, and dishonesty will be disgusting 
 and painful to him. And so on, through all good 
 and bad qualities of men. And this will keep him 
 upright and pure far more certainly than any warn- 
 ings from you that he will be dishonest and impure, 
 unless he is constantly watching his feelings, and 
 striving against the danger. 
 
 In the beginning of his course, he must be aided, 
 — in the early days when the action of all his facul- 
 ties is weak and uncertain : and this aid cannot be 
 given too early ; for we are not aware of any age at 
 which a child has not some sense of moral right and 
 wrong. Mrs. Wesley taught her infants in arms to 
 " cry softly." Without admiring the discipline, we 
 may profit by the hint as to the moral capability of 
 the child. When no older than this, he may have 
 satisfaction, without knowing why, from submitting 
 
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 165 
 
 quietly to be washed, and to go to bed. When he 
 becomes capable of employing himself purposely, he 
 may have satisfaction in doing his business before he 
 goes to his play, and a sense of uneasiness in omitting 
 the duty. I knew a little boy in petticoats who had 
 no particular taste for the alphabet, but began to 
 learn it as a matter of course, without any pretence 
 of relish. One day his lesson was, for some reason, 
 rather short. His conscience was not satisfied. 
 When his elder brother was dismissed, Willie brought 
 his letters again, but found he was not wanted, and 
 might play. The little fellow sighed ; and then a 
 bright thought struck him. (I think I see him now, 
 in his white frock, with his large thoughtful eyes 
 lighting up !) He said joyfully — " Willie say his 
 lesson to hisself." He carried his little stool into a 
 corner, put his book on his knees, and finished by 
 honestly covering up the large letters with both 
 hands, and saying aloud two or three new ones. 
 Then he went to his play, all the merrier for the dis- 
 charge of his conscience. 
 
 There is no reason why it should not be thus with 
 all the duties of a child. The great point is that he 
 should see that the peace and joy of the household 
 depend on ease of conscience. His father takes no 
 pleasure till his work is done, and tells the truth to 
 his hurt. His mother seeks to be just to a slandered 
 neighbour, or leaves her rest by the fireside to aid a 
 sick one. Granny's eyes sparkle, or a flush comes 
 over her withered cheek, when she tells the children 
 what good men have endured, rather than pretend 
 
166 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 what they did not believe, or betray a trust. The 
 maid has taken twopence too much in change, and is 
 uneasy till she has returned it, or she refuses to 
 promise something, lest she should be unable to 
 keep her word. His elder sister refuses something 
 good at a neighbour's, because her mother would 
 think it unwholesome while she is not quite well. 
 His elder brother asks him to throw just a little 
 cold water upon him in the mornings, because he 
 is so terribly sleepy that he cannot get up with- 
 out. And he sees what a welcome is given to a 
 very poor acquaintance, and he feels his own heart 
 beat with reverence for this very poor neighbour, 
 because his father happens to know that the man 
 refused five pounds for his vote at the last election. 
 If the child is surrounded by a moral atmosphere 
 like this, he will derive a strong moral life from it, 
 and a satisfaction to his highest moral faculties which 
 it is scarcely possible that he should forego for the 
 pleasures of sin. The indolent child will, in such a 
 home, lose all idea of pleasure in being idle, and soon 
 find no pleasure till his work is done. The slovenly 
 child will become uneasy under a dirty skin, and the 
 thoughtless one in being behind his time. Common 
 integrity we may suppose to be a matter of course in 
 a household like this ; and, as every virtuous faculty 
 naturally advances " from strength to strength," we 
 may hope that the abode will be blessed, as the chil- 
 dren grow up, with a very uncommon integrity. 
 
 Though the parent will avoid making the child 
 unnecessarily conscious of its own conscience, she 
 
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 167 
 
 (for tins is chiefly the mother's business) will remem- 
 ber that her child has his difficulties and perplexities 
 about the working of this, as of all his other imper- 
 fectly trained powers; and she will lay herself open 
 to his confidence. Sometimes he is not clear what 
 he ought to do : sometimes he feels himself too weak 
 to do it : sometimes he is miserable because he has 
 done wrong : and then again, he and some one else 
 may differ as to whether he has done wrong or right. 
 And again, he may have seen something in other 
 people's conduct which shocks, or puzzles, or delights 
 him. Oh ! let the mother throw open her heart to 
 confidences like these! Let her be sure that the 
 moments of such confidence are golden moments, for 
 which a mother may be more thankful than for any- 
 thing else she can ever receive from her child. Let 
 it be her care that every child has opportunity to 
 speak freely and privately to her of such things. 
 Some mothers make it a practice to go themselves to 
 fetch the candle when the children are in bed ; and 
 then, if wanted, they stay a few minutes, and hear 
 any confessions, or difficulties, and receive any dis- 
 closures, of which the little mind may wish to disbur- 
 den itself before the hour of sleep. Whether then 
 or at another time, it is well worth pondering what a 
 few minutes of serious consultation may do in en- 
 lightening and rousing or calming the conscience, — 
 in rectifying and cherishing the moral life. It may 
 be owing to such moments as these that humiliation 
 is raised into humility, apathy into moral enterprise, 
 pride into awe, and scornful blame into Christian 
 
168 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 pity. Happy is the mother who can use such moments 
 as she ought ! 
 
 There remains, after all, the dread and wonder what 
 such children are to think and do when they must 
 come to know what is the average conscientiousness 
 of the world. This is a subject of fear and pain to 
 most good parents. But they must consider that 
 their children will not see the world as they do all at 
 once : — not till they have learned, like their parents, 
 to allow for, and account for, what happens in the 
 world. The innocent and the upright put a good 
 construction on as much as possible of what they 
 see ; and are often more right in this than their 
 clearer-sighted elders who know more of the tenden- 
 cies of things. The shock will not come all at once. 
 They hear now of broken contracts, dishonest bar- 
 gains, venal elections, mercenary marriages, and, 
 perhaps, profligate seductions. They know that there 
 are drunkards, and cheats, and hypocrites, and cruel 
 brutes, in society : and these things hardly affect 
 them, are hardly received by them, because they are 
 surrounded by honest people, and cannot feel what is 
 beyond. And when they must become more truly 
 aware of these things, they will still trust in and 
 admire some whom they look up to, with more or 
 less reason. The knowledge of iniquity will come to 
 them gradually, and all the more safely the less sym- 
 pathy they have with it. 
 
 If it be the pain, and not the danger, of this 
 knowledge that the parents dread, they must make 
 up their minds to it for their children. Surely they 
 
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 1 69 
 
 do not expect them to go through life without pain : 
 and a bitter suffering it will be to them to see what 
 wretchedness is in the world through the vices and 
 ignorance of men ; through their want of conscien- 
 tiousness, or their errors of conscience. Such pain 
 must be met and endured : and who is likely to meet 
 it so bravely, and endure it so hopefully, as those 
 who are fully aware that every man's heaven or hell 
 is within him — giving a hope that heaven will expand 
 as wisdom grows — and who carry within themselves 
 that peace which the world " can neither give nor 
 take away ? " 
 
170 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.— ITS REQUISITES. 
 
 We are all accustomed to speak of the Intellect and 
 moral powers of man as if they were so distinct from 
 one another that we can deal with each set of powers 
 without touching the other. 
 
 It is true that there is a division between the 
 intellectual and moral powers of man, as there is 
 between one moral power and another. It is true 
 that we can think of them separately, and treat them 
 separately: but it does not follow that they will 
 work separately. No part of the brain will act alone, 
 no part begins its own action. It is always put in 
 action by another part previously at work, and it 
 excites in its turn some other portion. While we 
 sleep, that part of the brain is at work on which 
 depend those animal functions which are always 
 going on : and, as we know by our dreams, other 
 portions work with this, giving us ideas and feelings 
 during sleep — perhaps as many as by day, if we could 
 only recollect them. The animal portions of the 
 brain set the intellectual and moral organs to work, 
 and these act upon each other, so that there is no 
 separating their action, — no possibility of employing 
 one faculty at a time without help from any other. 
 As memory cannot act till attention has been 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.— ITS REQUISITES. 171 
 
 awakened, — in other words, as people cannot re- 
 member what they have never observed and received, 
 so the timid cannot understand, unless it is in a docile 
 and calm state ; nor meditate well without the 
 exercise of candour and truthfulness ; nor imagine 
 nobly without the help of veneration and hope. If 
 we take any great intellectual work and examine it, 
 we shall see what a variety of faculties, moral as well 
 as intellectual, have gone to the making of it. Take 
 Paradise Lost, a work so glorious for the loftiness of 
 its imagination, and the extent of its learning, and 
 the beauty of its illustrations, and the harmony of its 
 versification! These are its intellectual beauties: 
 but look what moral beauties are inseparable from 
 these. Look at the veneration, — not only towards 
 God, but towards all holiness, and power, and beauty ! 
 Look at the purity, the love, the hopefulness, the 
 strain of high honour throughout ! And this intel- 
 lectual and moral beauty are so blended, that we see 
 how impossible it would be for the one to exist with- 
 out the other. It is just so in the human character — 
 the intellect of a human being cannot be of a high 
 order (though some particular faculties may be very 
 strong) if the moral nature is low and feeble : and the 
 moral state cannot be a lofty one where the intellect 
 is torpid. 
 
 It does not follow from this that to be very good 
 a child must be exceedingly clever and " highly 
 educated," as we call it. There are plenty of highly - 
 educated people who are not morally good; and 
 there are many honest and amiable and industrious 
 
172 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 people who cannot read and write. The thing is, 
 we misuse the word " Education." Book-learning is 
 compatible with great poverty of intellect : and there 
 may be a very fine understanding, great power of 
 attention and observation, and possibly, though 
 rarely, of reflection, in a person who has never 
 learned to read, — if the moral goodness of that person 
 has put his mind into a calm and teachable and 
 happy state, and his powers of thought have been 
 stimulated by active affections : if, as we say, his 
 heart has quickened his head. These are truths very 
 important to know ; and they ought to be consolatory 
 to parents who are grieved and alarmed because they 
 cannot send their children to school, — supposing that 
 their intellectual part must suffer and go to waste for 
 want of school training and instruction from books. 
 I will say simply and openly what I think about this. 
 
 I think that no children, in any rank of life, can 
 acquire so much book-knowledge at home as at a 
 good school, or have their intellectual faculties so 
 well roused and trained. I have never seen an 
 instance of such high attainment in languages, mathe- 
 matics, history, or philosophy in young people taught 
 at home, — even by the best masters, — as in those who 
 have been in a good school. Without going into the 
 reasons of this, which would lead us out of our way 
 here, I would fully admit the fact. 
 
 There are two ways of taking it. First, it cannot 
 be helped. A much larger number of people are 
 unable to send their children to school than can do 
 so. The Queen cannot send her children to school : 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.— ITS REQUISITES. 173 
 
 and the children of the peerage are under great 
 disadvantage. The girls cannot, or do not, go from 
 home ; and the boys go only to one or another of a 
 very small choice of public schools, where they must 
 run tremendous risks to both morals and intellect. 
 Then there are multitudes of families, in town and 
 country, among rich and poor, where the children 
 must be taught at home. The number is much 
 larger of the children who do not go to school than 
 of those who do. If we consider, again, how large 
 a proportion of schools, taking them from the highest 
 to the lowest, are so bad that children learn little in 
 them, it is clear that the home-trained intellects are 
 out of all proportion more numerous than the school- 
 trained. 
 
 The other way of looking at the matter is in order 
 to inquire what school advantages may be brought 
 home — what there is in the school that children may 
 have the benefit of at home. 
 
 The fundamental difference between school and 
 home is clear enough. At school, everything is done 
 by rule ; by a law which was made without a view 
 to any particular child, and which governs all alike : 
 whereas, at home, the government is not one of law, 
 working on from year to year without change, but 
 of love, or, at least, of the mind of the parents, 
 varying with circumstances, and with the ages and 
 dispositions of the children. There is no occasion 
 to point out here how great are the moral advantages 
 of a good home in comparison with the best of 
 schools. Our business now is with the intellectual 
 
174 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 training. Can the advantages of school law be 
 brought into the home? 
 
 I think they may, to a certain extent : and I think 
 it of great importance that they should. Law will 
 not do all at home that it does at school. It is known 
 to be new made, for the sake of the parties under it ; 
 and it cannot possibly work so undeviatingly in a 
 family as in a school ; and the children of a family, 
 no two of whom are of the same age, cannot 
 have their faculties so stimulated to achieve irksome 
 labour as in a large class of comrades of the same 
 age and standing. But still, rule and regularity will 
 do much: and when we consider the amount of 
 drudgery that children have to get through in 
 acquiring the elements of knowledge, we shall feel 
 it to be only humane and fair to give them any aid 
 that can be afforded through the plans of the house- 
 hold. 
 
 Those kinds and parts of knowledge which interest 
 the reasoning faculties and the imagination are not 
 in question just now. They come by and by, and 
 can better take care of themselves, or are more sure 
 to be taken care of by others, than the drudgery 
 which is the first stage in all learning. The drudgery 
 comes first; and it is wise and kind to let it come 
 soon enough. The quickness of eye, and tenacity 
 and readiness of memory, which belong to infancy 
 should be made use of while at their brightest, for 
 gaining such knowledge as is to be had by the mere 
 eye, ear, and memory. How easily can the most 
 ordinary child learn a hymn or other piece of poetry 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. — ITS REQUISITES. 175 
 
 by heart ; — sometimes before it can speak plain, and 
 very often indeed before it can understand the mean- 
 ing! What a pity that this readiness should not 
 be used, — that the child, for instance, should not 
 learn to count, and to read, and to say the multi- 
 plication table, while it can learn these things with 
 the least trouble ! We must remember that while 
 we see the child to be about a great and heavy work, 
 the child himself does not know this, and cannot be 
 oppressed by the thought. All he knows about is 
 the little bit he learns every day. And that little 
 bit is easy to him, if the support of law be given him. 
 It is here that law must come in to help him. He 
 should, if possible, be saved all uncertainty, all 
 conflict in his little mind, as to his daily business. 
 If there is a want of certainty and punctuality about 
 his lessons, there will be room for the thought of 
 something which, for the moment, he would like 
 better; and again, his young faculties will become 
 confused and irregular in their working from un- 
 certainty of seasons and of plans. If there can be 
 a particular place, and a particular time for him, 
 every day but Sundays, and he is never put off, 
 his faculties will come to their work with a fresh- 
 ness and steadiness which nothing but habit will 
 secure. A law of work which leaves him no choice, 
 but sets all his faculties free for his business, saves 
 him half the labour of it ; as it does in after life to 
 those who are so blessed as to be destined to neces- 
 sary, and not voluntary labour. In houses where 
 there cannot be a room set apart for the lessons 
 
176 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 perhaps there may be a corner. If there cannot be 
 any place, perhaps there may be a time ; and the 
 time should be that which can best be secured from 
 interruption. Where the father is so fond of his 
 children, and so capable of self-denial for their sakes, 
 as to devote an hour or two of his evenings to the 
 instruction of his children, he may rely upon it that 
 he is heaping up blessings for himself with every 
 minute of those hours. His presence, the presence 
 of the worker of the household, is equal to school 
 and home influence together. The scantiness of 
 his leisure makes the law ; and his devotedness in 
 using it thus makes the inestimable home influence. 
 Under his teaching, if it be regular and intelligent, 
 head and heart will come on together, to his encou- 
 ragement now, and his great future satisfaction. 
 
 When I come to speak of habits, by and by, it 
 will be seen that this introduction of law at home 
 is to relate only to affairs of habit, and intellectual 
 attainment. The misfortune of school is that the 
 affections and feelings must come under the control 
 of law, instead of the guidance of domestic love. It 
 would be a wanton mischief indeed to spoil the free- 
 dom of home by stretching rule and law there beyond 
 their proper province. 
 
 There are houses, many houses, and not always 
 very poor ones, where the parents think they cannot 
 provide for the intellectual improvement of their 
 children, and mourn daily over the thought. I 
 wish such parents could be induced to consider well 
 what intellectual improvement is, and then they 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.— ITS REQUISITES. 177 
 
 would see how much they may do for their chil- 
 dren's minds without book, pen, or paper. It goes 
 against me to suppose children brought up without 
 knowledge of reading and writing ; and I trust 
 this is not likely to be the fate of any children of 
 the parents who read this. But it is as well to 
 suppose the extreme case, in order to see whether 
 even people who cannot read and write must 
 remain ignorant and debarred from the privileges 
 of mind. 
 
 In America I saw many families of settlers, where 
 the children were strangely circumstanced. There 
 was always plenty to eat and drink ; the barns were 
 full of produce, and there were horses in the meadow ; 
 and every child would have hereafter a goodly 
 portion of land: but there were no servants, and 
 there could be no " education," because the mother 
 and children had to do all the work of the house. 
 In one of these homes the day was spent thus. — 
 The father (a man of great property) went out upon 
 his land, before daylight, taking with him his little 
 sons of six and seven years old, who earned their 
 breakfast by leading the horses down to water, and 
 turning out the cows, and sweeping the stable ; and 
 when the milking was done (by a man on the farm, 
 I think), they brought up the milk. Meantime, 
 their mother, an educated English lady, took up the 
 younger children, and swept the kitchen, lighted 
 the fire, and cooked the beef-steak for her husband's 
 breakfast, and boiled the eggs which the little ones 
 brought in from the paddock. Soon after seven, 
 
 12 
 
178 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the farmer and boys were gone again ; and then 
 the mother set down in the middle of the kitchen 
 floor a large bowl of hot water and the breakfast 
 things ; and the little girl of four, and her sister of 
 two, set to work. The elder washed the cups and 
 dishes, and the younger wiped them, as carefully 
 and delicately as if she had been ten years older. 
 She never broke anything, or failed to make all 
 bright and dry. Then they went to make their 
 own little beds : they could just manage that, but 
 not the larger ones. Meantime, their mother was 
 baking, or washing, or brewing, or making soap, — 
 boiling it in a cauldron over a fire in the wood. 
 There were no grocers' shops within scores of miles. 
 In the season, the family had to make sugar in the 
 forest from their maple -trees ; and wine from the 
 fruit they grew : and there were the apples, in 
 immense quantities, to be split and cored, and hung 
 up in strings for winter use. Every morning in 
 the week was occupied with one or another of these 
 employments ; and in the midst of them, dinner 
 had to be cooked, and ready by noon : another 
 beef-steak, with apple-sauce or onions, and hot 
 " corn " bread (made of Indian meal), and a squash 
 pie, or something of the sort. There was enough 
 to do all the afternoon in finishing off the morning's 
 w r ork : and there must be another steak for tea or 
 supper. The children had been helping all day : 
 and now their parents wished to devote this time, — 
 after six r. m. — to their benefit. It is true, the 
 mother had now to sew ; this being her only time 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.— ITS REQUISITES. 179 
 
 for making and mending : but she got out the slates 
 and lesson-books, and put one little girl and boy 
 before her, while their father took the other two, 
 and set them a sum and a copy on the slate. But 
 alas ! by this time, no one of the party could keep 
 awake. They did try. The parents were so ex- 
 tremely anxious for their children that they did 
 strive : but nature was overpowered. After a few 
 struggles, the children were sent to bed ; and in the 
 very midst of a sentence, the mother's head would 
 sink over her work, and the father's down upon the 
 table, in irresistible sleep. Both had been very fond 
 of chess in former days ; and the husband bade his 
 wife put away her work, and try a game of chess. 
 But down went the board, and off slid the men, in 
 the middle of a game ! Now, what could be done 
 for the children's education here? In time, there 
 was hope that roads and markets would be opened, 
 where the produce of the farm might be sold, and 
 money obtained to send the children to schools, some 
 hundreds of miles off: or, at least, that neighbours 
 enough might settle round about to enable the town- 
 ship to invite a schoolmaster. But what could be 
 done meantime ? 
 
 So much might be, and was, done as would 
 astonish people who think that intellectual educa- 
 tion means school learning. I do not at all wish 
 to extenuate the misfortune of these children in 
 being doomed to write a bad hand, if any; to be 
 slow at accounts; to have probably no taste for 
 reading; and no knowledge, except by hearsay, of 
 
 12—2 
 
180 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the treasures of literature. But I do say that they 
 were not likely to grow up ignorant and stupid. 
 They knew every tree in the forest, and every bird, 
 and every weed. They knew the habits of all 
 domestic animals. They could tell at a glance how 
 many scores of pigeons there were in a flock, when 
 clouds of these birds came sailing towards the wood. 
 They did not want to measure distances, for they 
 knew them by the eye. They could give their 
 minds earnestly to what they were about, and ponder, 
 and plan, and imagine, and contrive. Their faculties 
 were all awake. And they obtained snatches of 
 stories from father and mother, about the heroes of 
 old times, and the history of England and America. 
 They worshipped God and loved Christ, and were 
 familiar with the Bible. Now, there are some things 
 here that very highly educated people among us 
 might be glad to be equal to : and the very busiest 
 father, the hardest-driven mother in England may 
 be able, in the course of daily business, to rouse and 
 employ the faculties of their children, — their atten- 
 tion, understanding, reflection, memory and imagi- 
 nation, — so as to make their intellects worth more 
 than those of many children who are successful at 
 school. Their chance is doubled if books are opened 
 to them : but if not, there is nothing to despair 
 about. 
 
 I was much struck by a day's intellectual education 
 of a little boy of seven who was thrown out of his 
 usual course of study and play. The family were 
 in the country, — in a house which they had to them- 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.— ITS REQUISITES. 181 
 
 selves for a month, in beautiful scenery, where they 
 expected to be so continually out of doors that the 
 children's toys were left at home. Some days of 
 unintermitting, drenching rain came ; and on one 
 of these days, the little fellow looked round him, 
 after breakfast, and said, "Papa, I don't exactly 
 see what I can do." He would have been thankful 
 to say his lessons : but papa was absolutely obliged 
 to write the whole day ; and mamma was upstairs 
 nursing his little sister, who had met with an accident. 
 His papa knew well how to make him happy. He 
 set him to find out the area of the house, and of 
 every room in it. He lent him a three-foot rule, 
 showed him how he might find the thickness of the 
 walls, and gave him a slate and pencil. This was 
 enough. All day, he troubled nobody, but went 
 quietly about, measuring and calculating, and writing 
 down ; — from morning till dinner, — from dinner till 
 supper : and by that time he had done. When they 
 could go out to measure the outside, they found 
 him right to an inch : and the same with every 
 room in the house. — This boy was no genius. He 
 was an earnest, well-trained boy : and who does 
 not see that if he and his parents had lived in an 
 American forest, or in the severest poverty at home, 
 he would have been, in the best sense, an educated 
 boy ! He would not have understood several lan- 
 guages, as he does now : but his faculties would 
 have been busy and cultivated, if he had never in 
 his life seen any book but the Bible. — Anxious parents 
 may take comfort from the thought that nothing ever 
 
182 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 exists or occurs which may not be made matter ol 
 instruction to the mind of man. The mind and 
 the material being furnished to the parents' hands, 
 it is their business to bring them together, whether 
 books be among the material or not 
 
183 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. ORDER OF DEVELOP- 
 MENT. THE PERCEPTIVE FACULTIES. 
 
 In beginning a child's intellectual education, the 
 parent must constantly remember to carry on his 
 care of the frame, spoken of in a former chapter. 
 The most irritable and tender part of a child's frame 
 is its brain ; and on the welfare of its brain every- 
 thing else depends. It should not be forgotten that 
 the little creature was born with a soft head ; and 
 that it takes years for the contents of that skull to 
 become completely guarded by the external bones, 
 and sufficiently grown and strengthened to bear much 
 stress. Nature points out what the infant's brain 
 requires, and what it can bear ; and if the parents 
 are able to discern and follow the leadings of nature, 
 all will be well. The most certain thing is that 
 there is no safety in any other course. 
 
 In their anxiety to bring up any lagging faculty, 
 — to cherish any weak power, — parents are apt to 
 suppose those faculties weak, for whose development 
 they are looking too soon. It grieves me to see 
 conscientious parents, who govern their own lives 
 by reasoning, stimulating a young child to reason 
 long before the proper time. The reflective and 
 reasoning faculties are among the last that should 
 
184 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 naturally come into use; and the only safe way is 
 to watch for their first activity, and then let it 
 have scope. One of the finest children I ever saw, — 
 a stout handsome boy, with a full set of vigorous 
 faculties, — was, at five years old, in danger of being 
 spoiled in a strange sort of way. The process was 
 stopped in time to save his intellect and his morals ; 
 but not before it had strewn his youthful life with 
 difficulties from which he need never have suffered. 
 This boy heard a great deal of reasoning always 
 going on ; and he seldom or never saw any children, 
 except in parties, or in the street. His natural 
 imitation of the talk of grown-up people was en- 
 couraged ; and from the time he could speak, he 
 saw in the whole world, — in all the objects that 
 met his senses, — only things to reason about. He 
 gathered flowers, not so much because he liked them 
 as because they might be discoursed about. He 
 could not shut the door, or put on his pinafore 
 when bid, till the matter was argued, and the desired 
 act proved to be reasonable. The check was, as I 
 have said, given in time: but he had much to do 
 to bring up his perceptive faculties and his mechanical 
 habits to the point required in even a decent educa- 
 tion. He had infinite trouble in learning to spell, 
 and in mastering all the elements of knowledge which 
 are acquired by the memory : and his writing a good 
 hand, and being ready at figures, or apt at learning 
 a modern language by the ear, was hopeless. He 
 would doubtless have done all these well, if his 
 faculties had been exercised in their proper order ; — 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 185 
 
 that is, in the order which nature indicates, — and 
 vindicates. 
 
 And now, — what is that order ? 
 
 The Perceptive faculties come first into activity. 
 Do we not all remember that colours gave us more 
 intense pleasure in our early childhood than they 
 have ever done since? Most of us can remember 
 back to the time when we were four years old, — or 
 three; and some even two. What is it that we 
 remember? With one, it is a piece of gay silk, 
 or printed cotton or china ; or a bed of crocuses ; — or 
 we remember the feel of a piece of velvet or fur, or 
 something rough ; — or the particular shape of some 
 leaf ; — or the amazing weight of a globule of quick- 
 silver ; — or the immense distance from one end of the 
 room to the other. I, for one, remember several 
 things that happened when I was between two and 
 three years old : and most of these were sensations, 
 exciting passions. I doubt whether I ever felt keener 
 delight than in passing my fingers round a flat button, 
 covered with black velvet, on the top of a sister's 
 bonnet. I remember lighting upon the sensation, if 
 one may say so ; and the intense desire afterwards to 
 be feeling the button. And just at that time I was 
 sent into the country for my health ; and I can now 
 tell things about the first day in the cottage which no 
 one can ever have told to me. I tried to walk round 
 a tree (an elm, I believe), clasping the tree with both 
 arms : and nothing that has happened to-day is more 
 vivid to me than the feel of the rough bark to the 
 palms of my hands, and the entanglement of j:he grass 
 
186 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 to my feet. And then at night there was the fearful 
 wonder at the feel of the coarse calico sheets, and at 
 the creaking of the turn-up bedstead when I moved. 
 After I came home, when I was two years and nine 
 months old, I saw, one day, the door of the spare 
 bed-room ajar, and I pushed it open and went in. I 
 was walking about the house because I had a pair of 
 new shoes on, and I liked to hear their pit-pat, and 
 to make sure that I could walk in them, though they 
 were slippery. The floor of the spare room was 
 smooth and somewhat polished ; and it was — (at least 
 to my eyes — ) a large room. I was half frightened 
 when I saw that the blinds were down. But there 
 was a fire ; and standing by the fire, at the further 
 end, was an old woman — (or to me she looked old) — 
 with a muslin handkerchief crossed over her gown : 
 and in her arms she held a bundle of flannel. The 
 curtains of the bed were drawn ; — the fawn-coloured 
 moreen curtains with a black velvet edge, which I 
 sometimes stroked for a treat. The old woman 
 beckoned to me ; and I wished to go ; but I thought 
 I could never walk all that way on the polished floor 
 without a tumble. I remember how wide I stretched 
 out my arms and how far apart I set my feet, and 
 how I got to the old woman at last. With her foot 
 she pushed forwards a tiny chair, used as a footstool, 
 embroidered over with sprawling green leaves ; and 
 there I sat down : and the old woman laid the bundle 
 of flannel across my lap. With one hand she held it 
 there safe, and with the other she uncovered the little 
 red face of a baby. Though the sight set every 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 187 
 
 pulse in my body beating, I do not remember feeling 
 any fear, — though I was always afraid of everything. 
 It was a passionate feeling of wonder, and a sort of 
 tender delight ; — delight at being noticed and having 
 it on my lap, perhaps, as much as at the thing itself. 
 How it ended, I do not know. I only remember 
 further seeing with amazement, that somebody was 
 in the bed, — that there was a nightcap on the pillow, 
 — though it was day-time. These details may seem 
 trifling : but, if we want to know what faculties are 
 vigorous in infancy, it is as well to learn, in any way 
 we can, what children feel and think at the earliest 
 age we can arrive at. One other instance of vivid 
 perception stands out among many in my childhood 
 so remarkably as to be perhaps instructive : and the 
 more so because I was not endowed with quick senses, 
 or strong perceptive powers, but, on the contrary, 
 discouraged my teachers by dullness and inattention, 
 and a constant tendency to reverie. I was always 
 considered a remarkably unobservant child. 
 
 I slept with the nursemaid in a room at the top of 
 the house which looked eastwards : and the baby 
 brother mentioned above, now just able to walk, slept 
 in a crib by the bedside. One summer morning I 
 happened to wake before sunrise, and thought it very 
 strange to see the maid asleep ; the next thing I 
 remember was walking over the boards with bare feet, 
 and seeing some little pink toes peeping out through 
 the rails of the crib. I gently pinched them, and 
 somehow managed to keep the child quiet when he 
 reared himself up from his pillow; he must have 
 
188 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 caught some of the spirit of the prank, for he made 
 no noise. I helped him to scramble down from the 
 crib, and led tarn to the window, and helped him to 
 scramble upon a chair : and then I got up beside him ; 
 and, by using all my strength, I opened the window. 
 How chill the air was ! and how hard and sharp the 
 window-sill felt to my arms ! We w T ere so high 
 above the street that I dared not look down ; but oh ! 
 what a sight we saw by looking abroad over the tops 
 of the houses to the rising ground beyond ! The sun 
 must have been coming up, for the night-clouds were 
 of the richest purple, turning to crimson ; and in one 
 part there seemed to be a solid edge of gold. I have 
 seen the morning and evening skies of all the four 
 quarters of the world, but this is, in my memory, the 
 most gorgeous of all, though it could not in fact have 
 been so. I whispered all I knew about God making 
 the sun come up every morning; and I certainly 
 supposed the child to sympathize with me in the 
 thrilling awe of the moment : but it could not have 
 been so. I have some remembrance of the horrible 
 difficulty of getting the window down again, and of 
 hoisting up my companion into his crib : and I can 
 distinctly recal the feelings of mingled contempt and 
 fear with which I looked upon the maid, who had 
 slept through all this ; and how cold my feet were 
 when I crept into bed again. 
 
 Now, if this is what children are, it seems plain 
 that the faculties by which they perceive objects so 
 vividly should be simply trained to a good use. The 
 parent has little more to do than to see that Nature 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 189 
 
 is not hindered in her working: to see that the 
 faculties are awake, and that a sufficient variety is 
 offered for them to employ themselves upon. Nothing 
 like what is commonly called teaching is required 
 here, or can do anything but harm at present. If 
 the mother is at work, and the children are running 
 in and out of the garden, it is only saying to the little 
 toddler, " Now bring me a blue flower ; — now bring 
 me a yellow flower ; — now bring me a green leaf." 
 At another time, she will ask for a round stone; or a 
 thick stick ; or a thin stick. And sometimes she 
 will blow a feather, and let it fall again : or she 
 will blow a dandelion-head all to pieces, and quite 
 away. If she is wise, she will let the child alone, to 
 try its own little experiments, and learn for itself 
 what is hard and what is soft ; what is heavy and 
 light, hot and cold ; and what it can do with its 
 little limbs and quick senses. Taking care, of course, 
 that it does not injure itself, and that it has objects 
 within reach in sufficient variety, she cannot do 
 better, at this season of its life, than let it be busy 
 in its own way. I saw a little fellow, one day, 
 intently occupied for a whole breakfast-time, and some 
 time afterwards, in trying to put the key of the house- 
 door into the key-hole of the tea-caddy. When he 
 gave the matter up, and not before, his mother helped 
 him to see why he could not do it. If she had taken 
 the door-key from him at first, he would have missed 
 a valuable lesson. At this period of existence, the 
 children of rich and poor have, or may have, about 
 equal advantages, under the care of sensible parents. 
 
190 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 They can be busy about anything. There is nothing 
 that cannot be made a plaything of, and a certain 
 means of knowledge, if the faculties be awake. If 
 the child be dull, it must, of course, be tempted to 
 play. If the faculties be in their natural state of 
 liveliness, the mother has only to be aware that the 
 little creature must be busy while it is awake, and to 
 see that it has variety enough of things (the simpler 
 the better) to handle, and look at, and listen to, and 
 experiment upon. 
 
 The perceptive faculties have a relation to other 
 objects than those which are presented to the five 
 senses. It is very well for children to be picking up 
 from day to day knowledge about colours and forms, 
 and the hardness and weight of substances, and the 
 habits of animals, and the growth of plants ; — the 
 great story, in short, of what passes before their eyes, 
 and appeals to their ears, and impresses them through 
 the touch : but there is another range of knowledge 
 appropriate to the perceptive faculties. There are 
 many facts that can be perceived through another 
 medium than the eye, the ear, or the hand. Facts 
 of number and quantity, for instance, are perceived 
 (after a time, if not at first) without illustration by 
 objects of sight or sound : and it is right, and kind 
 to the child, to help him to a perception of these facts 
 early, while the perceiving faculties are in their first 
 vigour. There is no hardship in this, if the thing is 
 done in moderation : and in many cases, this exertion 
 of the perceptive faculties is attended with a keen 
 satisfaction. I have known an idiot child, perfectly 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 191 
 
 infantine in his general ways, amuse himself half the 
 day long with employing his perceptions of number 
 and quantity. He, poor child, was incapable of being 
 taught anything as a lesson : he did not understand 
 speech, — beyond a very few words : but the exercise 
 of such faculties as he had (and the strongest he 
 had were those of Order, and Perception of number, 
 quantity and symmetry) was the happiness of his 
 short and imperfect life : and the exercise of the same 
 faculties, — moderate and natural exercise, — may make 
 part of the happiness of every child's life. 
 
 It is very well to use the faculty of eye and ear as 
 an introduction to the use of the inner perceptions, — 
 so to speak. For instance, it is well to teach a child 
 the multiplication-table, by the ear as well as the 
 understanding : — to teach it by rote (as one teaches 
 a tune without words), as an avenue to the mystery 
 of numbers: but the pleasure to the pupil is in 
 perceiving the relations of numbers. In the same 
 manner, the eye may be used for the same purpose ; 
 as when the mother teaches by pins on the table, or 
 by peas, or peppercorns, that two and two make four; 
 and that three fours, or two sixes, or four threes, all 
 make twelve : but the pleasure to the pupil is in 
 perceiving the relations of these numbers without 
 pins or peppercorns, — in the head ; and in going 
 on till he has mastered all the numbers in the mul- 
 tiplication-table, — perceiving them in the depths of 
 his mind, without light or sound, — without images 
 or words. Children who are capable of mental arith- 
 metic delight in it, before their minds are tired, — and 
 
192 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the moment the mind is tired, the exercise should 
 stop. 
 
 About quantity, the same methods may be used. 
 At first, there must be measurement, to prove to the 
 child the relation of quantities : but to what a point 
 of precision the mind may arrive, after having once 
 perceived the truth of quantities and spaces, is seen 
 in the fact that astronomers can infallibly predict 
 eclipses centuries before they happen. Another 
 department of what is called exact knowledge com- 
 prehends the relations of time. This is another case 
 in which idiots have proved to us that there is an 
 inner perception of time, — a faculty which works 
 pleasurably when once set to work. One idiot who 
 had lived near a striking clock, and was afterwards 
 removed from all clocks, and did not know a watch 
 by sight, went on to the end of his life imitating the 
 striking of the hour regularly, with as much pre- 
 cision as the sun marks it upon the dial. Another 
 who never had sense enough to know of the existence 
 of clock or watch, could never be deceived about the 
 precise time of day. Under all changes of place and 
 households with their habits, he did and looked for 
 the same things at exactly the same moment of every 
 day. And by this faculty it is that even little chil- 
 dren learn the clock ; — a process which, from its 
 very nature, could never be learned by rote. In 
 these matters, again, the children of the poor can be 
 as well trained as those of the rich. Everywhere, 
 and under all circumstances, people can measure and 
 compute. The boy must do it if he is to practise 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 193 
 
 any art or trade whatever ; and in every household, 
 there is, or ought to be, enough of economy, — of 
 measuring, and cutting out, and counting and calcu- 
 lating, for the girl to exercise her faculty of percep- 
 tion of number and quantity. The understanding of 
 money is no mean exercise, in itself. In one rank, 
 we see the able builder, carpenter, and mechanician, 
 practised in these departments of perception : and in 
 another we see the astronomer detecting and marking 
 out the courses of the stars, and understanding the 
 mighty mechanism of the heavens, as if he had him- 
 self trodden all the pathways of the sky. It is wise 
 and kind to use the early vigour of these faculties — 
 the powers which perceive facts, — up to the limit of 
 satisfaction, stopping short always of fatigue. 
 
 This is the season too, and these are the faculties, 
 to be employed in learning by rote. Learning by 
 rote is nothing of a drudgery now compared with 
 what it is afterwards ; — for the ear is quick, the eye 
 is free and at liberty ; the memory is retentive, and 
 the understanding is not yet pressing for its gratifica- 
 tion. At this season too, as has been before observed, 
 the child does not look forward, nor comprehend 
 what it is attempting. The present hour, with its 
 little portion of occupation, is all that it sees : and it 
 accomplishes vast things, bit by bit, which it would 
 never attempt if it knew the sum of the matter. No 
 one would learn to speak if he knew all that speech 
 comprehends : yet every child learns to speak, easily 
 and naturally. Thus it is with every art, every 
 science, every department of action and knowledge. 
 
 13 
 
194 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 The beginning, — the drudgery — should be got over 
 at the time when it costs least fatigue. And this is 
 why we teach children early to read ; — so early that, 
 but for this consideration, it is of no consequence 
 whether they can read or not. We do it while the 
 eye is quick to notice the form of the letters, and 
 while the ear is apt to catch their sound, and before 
 the higher faculties come in with any disturbing con- 
 siderations. My own opinion is that, on account of 
 the feebleness and uncertainty of the hand, writing 
 had better be taught later than it usually is ; — that 
 is, when the child shows an inclination to draw or 
 scribble, — to describe any forms on slate or paper, or 
 on walls or sand. But whatever depends mainly on 
 eye, ear, and memory, should be taught early, when 
 the learning causes the most gratification and the 
 least pain. The help that this arrangement gives to, 
 and receives from, the formation of habits of regu- 
 larity and industry will come under notice when I 
 speak hereafter of the Care of the Habits. 
 
 According to what has been said, a child's first 
 intellectual education lies in varied amusement, with- 
 out express teaching. This is while its brain is 
 infantine and tender, and its nature restless and alto- 
 gether sensitive. When it shows itself quieter and 
 more thoughtful, it may be expressly taught, a little 
 at a time, with cheerful steadiness and tender 
 encouragement. What it should learn, a healthy 
 well-trained child will, for the most part, indicate 
 for itself, by its inquiries, and its pleasure in learning. 
 What the parent has to impose upon it is that which, 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 195 
 
 being artificial, it cannot indicate for itself, — the art 
 of reading, and the names and forms of numbers, 
 and such arrangements of language as are found in 
 simple poetry, or other useful forms which may be 
 committed to memory. It is impossible to lay down 
 any rule as to the age to be comprehended in this 
 period ; and it might be dangerous to do so ; — so 
 various are the capacities and temperaments of chil- 
 dren ; but, speaking quite indeterminately, I may say 
 that I have had in view the period, for ordinary 
 children, from the opening of the faculties to about 
 seven years old. 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 13—2 
 
196 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL TEAINING. — THE CONCEPTIVE 
 FACULTIES. 
 
 Up to this point, and for some way beyond it, chil- 
 dren are better off at home than at school ; and no 
 parent should be induced to think otherwise by what 
 is seen to be achieved at Infant Schools. At some 
 Infant Schools, little children who can scarcely speak, 
 are found able to say and do many wonderful things 
 wdrich might make inexperienced mothers fear that 
 their little ones at home had not been done justice to, 
 and must be sadly backward in their education : but if 
 the anxious mother will consider a little, and keep on 
 the watch, she will perceive that her children are 
 better at home. These Infant Schools were set on 
 foot with the most benevolent of intentions; and 
 they are really a vast benefit to a large class in 
 society : but it does not follow that they afford the 
 best training for infants. In their very nature they 
 cannot do so. When we stand in the midst of such 
 an assemblage, we feel what a blessing it is that 
 little creatures who would be locked up in garrets 
 all day while the parents were at work, liable to falls 
 or fire, or who would be tumbling about in the streets 
 or roads, dirty, quarrelsome, and exposed to bad 
 company, should be collected here under safe guar- 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 197 
 
 dianship, and taught, and kept clean, and amused 
 with harmless play: but we cannot help seeing, at 
 the same time, that there is something unnatural in 
 the method; and whatever is unnatural is always 
 radically bad. Nature makes households, family 
 groups where no two children are of the same age, 
 and where, with the utmost activity, there is a certain 
 degree of quietness, retirement, and repose ; whereas, 
 in the Infant School there is a crowd of little crea- 
 tures, dozens of whom are of the same age ; and 
 quietness can be obtained only by drilling, while 
 play occasions an uproar which no nerves can easily 
 bear. The brain and nerves of infants are tender 
 and irritable; and in the quietest home, a sensible 
 mother takes care that the little creature is protected 
 from hurry, and loud noises, and fear, and fatigue of 
 its faculties. She sees when it begins to look pale, 
 or turns cross or sick, and instantly removes it from 
 excitement But it is impossible thus to protect each 
 child in a school : and the consequence is that the 
 amount of mortality in Infant Schools, as in every 
 large assemblage of infants, is very great. There is 
 no saying whether as many might not perish from 
 accident and some kind of misery, if they were left 
 in their garrets and street haunts ; but the facts show 
 that home is the proper place for little children whose 
 parents make a real home for them ; and no apparent 
 forwardness of school infants can alter the case. 
 
 In truth, school is no place of education for any 
 children whatever till their minds are well put in 
 action. This is the work which has to be done at 
 
198 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 home, and which may be done in all homes where the 
 mother is a sensible woman. This done, a good 
 school is a resource of inestimable advantage for 
 cultivating the intellect, and aiding the acquisition of 
 knowledge : but it is of little or no use without pre- 
 paration at home. So at the age of which we speak, 
 parents may be satisfied that they have the matter 
 in their own hands. 
 
 We have seen that the Perceptive faculties are the 
 first of the intellectual powers which act : and that 
 there is plenty of material for their exercise every- 
 where, and all day long. 
 
 The next set of faculties comes pretty early into 
 operation, and so much of the future wealth of the 
 mind depends on their cultivation that they ought to 
 have the serious attention of parents. I refer to the 
 Conceptive faculties. The time has come when the 
 child is perhaps less intensely impressed by actual 
 objects, while it becomes capable of conceiving of 
 something that it does not see. At this period, the 
 little boy drags about the horse that has lost head 
 and tail and a leg or two : and the little girl hugs 
 a rag bundle which she calls her doll. The boy does 
 not want a better horse, nor the girl a real doll. 
 The idea is everything to them, by virtue of their 
 conceptive faculty. Staring, meagre pictures please 
 them now,— better than the finest ; and stories, with 
 few incidents and no filling up. The faculty is 
 so vigorous, while, of course, very narrow in its 
 range, from the scantiness of the child's knowledge, 
 that the merest sketch is enough to stimulate it to 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 199 
 
 action ; the rudest toys, the most meagre drawing, 
 the baldest story. The mother's business is now 
 clear and easy. Her business is to supply more and 
 more material for these faculties to work upon; — 
 to give, as occasion arises, more and more know- 
 ledge of actual things, and furnish representations 
 or suggestions in the course of her intercourse with 
 the child. Nothing is easier ; for in fact she has 
 only to make herself the child's cheerful companion : 
 and in a manner which can go on while she is 
 employed in her household occupations, or walking 
 in the fields or the streets. The child asks a myriad 
 of questions ; and she must make some kind of cheer- 
 ful answer to them all, if she lets him talk at all. 
 She will often have to tell him that she does not 
 know this or that ; for a child's questions reach far 
 beyond the bounds of our knowledge : but she must 
 not leave him without some sort of answer to appease 
 his restless faculties. And his questions will suggest 
 to her a multitude of things to tell him which he 
 will be eager to hear, as long as they hang upon 
 anything real which he knows already. Stories 
 and pictures (including toys, which to him are pic- 
 tures) are what he likes best; and she will make 
 either stories or pictures, — short and vivid, — of what 
 she tells him. The stories and pictures of her con- 
 versation must be simple and literal ; and so must 
 any sketches she may make for him with pencil 
 and paper, or a bit of chalk upon the pavement. 
 She may make four straight strokes, with two hori- 
 zontal lines above, and a circle for a head, and call 
 
200 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 it a horse ; and a horse it will be to him, because it 
 calls up the image of a horse in his mind. But if she 
 draws it ever so well, and puts wings to it, he will not 
 like it half so much, even if she tells him that its 
 name is Pegasus, and there are some pretty stories 
 about such a horse. Perhaps he will be afraid of it. 
 
 There can scarcely be a stronger instance of the 
 power of such a child's conceptive faculty than in 
 his own attempts to draw. He draws the cat, or a 
 soldier, and is in raptures with it. Mark his surprise 
 when his mother points out to him that the cat's head 
 is bigger than her body, and that the soldier is all 
 legs and arms and gun, and has no body at all. He 
 sees this, and admits it, and draws a better one : but 
 he would not have found out for himself that there 
 was anything amiss the first time. The idea was 
 complete in his mind; and he thought he saw its 
 representation on the paper, till his mother roused his 
 perceptive powers by making him observe the real 
 cat and soldier, and their proportions. I remember 
 once being amused at seeing how very short a time 
 was necessary to bring the perceptive faculties into 
 their due relation to the conceptive. A little boy 
 who had taken a journey, was exceedingly delighted 
 with the river-side inn at Ferrybridge in Yorkshire ; 
 and he must draw it. When he was a hundred 
 miles further north, he must draw it again : and 
 diligently enough he persevered, kneeling on a chair, 
 — drawing the river and the bridge, and a house, 
 and a heap of coals, — each coal being round, and 
 almost as big as the house. When his paper was 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 201 
 
 nearly all scrawled over, he went unwillingly away 
 to his dinner, from which he hastened back to his 
 drawing. But, oh ! what consternation there was in 
 his face, and what large tears rolled down his cheeks, 
 till he hid his face with his pinafore. He wailed and 
 sobbed : — " Somebody had spoiled his drawing." 
 When asked what made him think so, and assured 
 that nobody had touched it, he sobbed out, * I'm sure 
 I never made it such a muddle." Before dinner, he 
 saw his work with the conceptive, — after dinner with 
 the perceptive faculties ; and it is no wonder that he 
 thought two persons had been at it. 
 
 Without going over again any of the ground 
 traversed in the chapter on Fear, I may just observe 
 that at this period children are particularly liable to 
 fear. Almost any appearance suffices to suggest 
 images ; and the repetition of any image invariably, 
 at any time or place, is in itself terrifying to those 
 of older nerves than the children we are thinking of. 
 Now is the time when portraits seem to stare at the 
 gazer, and to turn their eyes wherever he moves. 
 Now is the time when a crack in the plaster of 
 a wall, or an outline in a chintz pattern or a paper- 
 hanging, suggests the image of some monster, and 
 perhaps makes the child afraid of his room or his 
 bed, while his mother has no perception of the fact. 
 The mother should be on the watch, without any 
 appearance of being so. 
 
 I have spoken of only the early stage of the 
 activity of the conceptive faculties. We see how it 
 goes on in the appetite for fiction which is common 
 
202 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 to all children, — in the eagerness of boys for books 
 of voyages and travels, and for playing soldiers, and 
 schoolmaster, and making processions, while the girls 
 are playing schoolmistress, and dressing up, and pre- 
 tending to be the Queen. The whole period is, or 
 ought to be, very precious to the parents ; for it is 
 the time for storing their children's minds with 
 images and ideas, which are the materials for the 
 exercise of the higher faculties at a later time. The 
 simple method of management is to practise the old 
 maxim, "Live and let live." The mother's mind 
 must be awake, to meet the vivacious mind of the 
 child : * and she must see that the child's is lively and 
 natural, and be careful neither to over-excite it by 
 her anxiety to be always teaching, nor to baulk and 
 depress it by discouraging too much its sometimes 
 inconvenient loquacity and curiosity. It is well that 
 there should be times when children of six and up- 
 wards should amuse themselves and one another 
 without troubling their elders ; but a vivacious child 
 must talk and inquire a great deal every day, or, if 
 repressed, suffer from some undue exercise of its 
 mental activity. 
 
 It should never be forgotten that the happier 
 a child is, the cleverer he will be. This is not only 
 because, in a state of happiness, the mind is free, and 
 at liberty for the exercise of its faculties, instead of 
 spending its thoughts and energy in brooding over 
 troubles ; but also because the action of the brain is 
 stronger when the frame is in a state of hilarity : the 
 ideas are more clear ; impressions of outward objects 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 203 
 
 are more vivid ; and the memory will not let them 
 slip. This is reason enough for the mother to take 
 some care that she is the cheerful guide and com- 
 forter that her child needs. If she is anxious or 
 fatigued she will exercise some control over herself, 
 and speak cheerfully, and try to enter freely into the 
 subject of the moment ; — to meet the child's mind, in 
 short, instead of making his sink for want of com- 
 panionship. A rather low instance of the effect of 
 the stimulus of joy in quickening the powers occurred 
 within my knowledge ; a rather low one, but illus- 
 trative enough. A little girl, the youngest of her 
 class at school, did her French lessons fairly ; but, 
 as a matter of course, was always at or near the 
 bottom, while a tall girl, five years older, clever and 
 industrious, was always, as a matter of course, at the 
 top. One day, there happened to be a long word in 
 question in the vocabulary, which nobody knew but 
 the little girl ; so she went to the top. There was 
 not much excitement of ambition in the case : she felt 
 it to be an accident merely, and the tall girl was 
 very kind to her ; — there could hardly be less of the 
 spirit of rivalry in such a case than there was here. 
 But the joy of the child was great ; and her surprise, 
 — both at the fact of her position, and at the power 
 she found in herself to keep it ; — and keep it she did 
 for many weeks, though the tall girl never missed 
 a word in all that time. The dull French vocabulary 
 suddenly became to the child a book of living imagery. 
 The very letters of the words impressed themselves 
 like pictures upon her memory; and each word, 
 
204 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 becoming suddenly interesting of itself, called up 
 some imagery, which prevented its being forgotten. 
 All this was pleasant; and then there was the com- 
 fort and security about the lesson being perfect. 
 The child not only hoped every day that she should 
 get well through, but felt it impossible that she 
 should ever forget a word of it. When at last she 
 failed, it was through depression of spirits. While 
 she was learning her lesson at home, her baby-sister 
 was ill, and crying sadly. It was impossible to get 
 any impression out of the book: — the page turned 
 into common French vocabulary again ; and the next 
 morning, not only the tall girl stepped into her proper 
 place, but the little one rapidly passed down to her 
 old stand at the bottom. 
 
 Children who read from the love of reading are 
 usually supremely happy over their book. A wise 
 parent will indulge the love of reading, not only from 
 kindness in permitting the child to do what it likes 
 best, but because what is read with enjoyment has 
 intense effect upon the intellect. The practice of 
 reading for amusement must not begin too soon : and 
 it must be permitted by very slow degrees, till the 
 child is so practised in the art of reading as to have 
 its whole mind at liberty for the subject, without 
 having to think about the lines or the words. Till 
 he is sufficiently practised for this, he should be read 
 to : and it will then soon appear whether he is likely 
 to be moderate when he gets a book into his own 
 hands. — My own opinion is that it is better to leave 
 him to his natural tastes, — to his instincts, — when 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 205 
 
 that important period of his life arrives which makes 
 him an independent reader. Of course, his proper 
 duty must be done ; — his lessons, or work of other 
 kinds, and his daily exercise. But it seems to me 
 better to abstain from interfering with that kind of 
 strong inclination than to risk the evils of thwarting 
 it. Perhaps scarcely any person of mature years can 
 conceive what the appetite for reading is to a child. 
 It goes off, or becomes changed in mature years, to 
 such a degree as to make the facts of a reading child- 
 hood scarcely credible in remembrance, or even when 
 before the eyes. But it is all right ; and the process 
 had better not be disturbed. The apprehension of a 
 child is so quick, his conceptive faculty is so ravenous 
 for facts and pictures, or the merest suggestions, and 
 he is so entirely free from those philosophical checks 
 which retard in adults the process of reception from 
 books, that he can, at ten years old, read the same 
 book twice as fast as he can, — if he duly improves 
 meanwhile, — twenty years later. I have seen a young 
 girl read Moore's' Lalla Roohh through, except a very 
 few pages, before breakfast, — and not a late break- 
 fast; and not a passage of the poem was ever for- 
 gotten. When she had done, the Arabian scenes 
 appeared to be the reality, and the breakfast table 
 and brothers and sisters the dream : but that was 
 sure to come right ; and all the ideas of the thick 
 volume were added to her store. I have seen a 
 school-boy of ten lay himself down, back uppermost, 
 with the quarto edition of Thalaba before him, on 
 the first day of the Easter holidays, and turn over 
 
206 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the leaves, notwithstanding his inconvenient position, 
 as fast as if he was looking for something, till, in a 
 very few hours, it was done, and he was off with it 
 to the public library, bringing back the Curse of 
 KeJiama. Thus he went on with all Southey's 
 poems, and some others, through his short holidays, 
 — scarcely moving voluntarily all those days except 
 to run to the library. He came out of the process so 
 changed, that none of his family could help being 
 struck by it. The expression of his eye, the cast of 
 his countenance, his use of words, and his very gait 
 were changed. In ten days, he had advanced years in 
 intelligence: and I have always thought that this 
 was the turning-point of his life. His parents wisely 
 and kindly let him alone, — aware that school would 
 presently put an end to all excess in the new 
 indulgence. I can speak from experience of what 
 children feel towards parents who mercifully leave 
 them to their own propensities, — forbearing all re- 
 proach about the ill manners and the selfishness of 
 which the sinners are keenly conscious all the while. 
 Some children's greediness for books is like a 
 drunkard's for wine. They can no more keep their 
 hands off a beloved book than the tippler from the 
 bottle before him. The great difference as to the 
 safety of the case is that the child's greediness is sure 
 to subside into moderation in time, from the develop- 
 ment of new faculties, while the drunkard's is sure to 
 go on increasing till all is over with him. If parents 
 would regard the matter in this way, they would 
 neither be annoved at the excess of the inconvenient 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 207 
 
 propensity, nor proud of any child who has it. It is 
 no sign yet of a superiority of intellect ; much less of 
 that wisdom which in adults is commonly supposed 
 to arise from large book-knowledge. It is simply a 
 natural appetite for that provision of ideas and images 
 which should, at this season, be laid in for the exercise 
 of the higher faculties which have yet to come into 
 use. — As I have said, I know from experience the 
 state of things which exists when a child cannot help 
 reading to an amount which the parents think exces- 
 sive, and yet are unwilling, for good reasons, to 
 prohibit. One Sunday afternoon, when I was seven 
 years old, I was prevented by illness from going to 
 chapel; a circumstance so rare that I felt very strange 
 and listless. I did not go to the maid who was left 
 in the house, but lounged about the drawing-room, 
 where, among other books which the family had been 
 reading, was one turned down upon its face. It was a 
 dull-looking octavo volume, thick, and bound in calf, 
 as untempting a book to the eyes of a child as could 
 well be seen : but, because it happened to be open, I 
 took it up. The paper was like skim milk, — thin 
 and blue, and the printing very ordinary. Moreover, 
 I saw the word Argument, — a very repulsive w r ord to 
 a child. But my eye caught the word " Satan ; " 
 and I instantly wanted to know how anybody could 
 argue about Satan. I saw that he fell through chaos, 
 found the place in the poetry; — and lived heart, mind 
 and soul in Milton from that day till I was fourteen. 
 I remember nothing more of that Sunday, vivid as 
 is my recollection of the moment of plunging into 
 
208 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 chaos : but I remember that from that time till a young 
 friend gave me a pocket edition of Milton, the calf- 
 bound volume was never to be found because I had 
 got it somewhere ; and that, for all those years, to 
 me the universe moved to Milton's music. I wonder 
 how much of it I knew by heart — enough to be 
 always repeating some of it to myself, with every 
 change of light and darkness, and sound and silence, 
 — the moods of the day, and the seasons of the year. 
 It was not my love of Milton which required the 
 forbearance of my parents, — except for my hiding 
 the book, and being often in an absent fit. It was 
 because this luxury had made me ravenous for more. 
 I had a book in my pocket, — a book under my pillow; 
 and in my lap as I sat at meals : or rather, on this last 
 occasion it was a newspaper. I used to purloin the 
 daily London paper before dinner, and keep posses- 
 sion of it, — with a painful sense of the selfishness of 
 the act ; and with a daily pang of shame and self- 
 reproach, I slipped away from the table when the 
 dessert was set on, to read in another room. I 
 devoured all Shakspere, sitting on a footstool, and 
 reading by firelight, while the rest of the family were 
 still at table. I was incessantly wondering that this 
 was permitted; and intensely, though silently grateful 
 I was for the impunity and the indulgence. It never 
 extended to the omission of any of my proper business. 
 I learned my lessons ; but it was with the prospect of 
 reading while I was brushing my hair at bedtime ; 
 and many a time have I stood reading, with the brush 
 suspended, till I was far too cold to sleep. I made 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 201) 
 
 shirts with due diligence, — being fond of sewing; but 
 it was with Goldsmith, or Thomson, or Milton open 
 on my lap, under my work, or hidden by the table, 
 that I might learn pages and cantos by heart. The 
 event justified my parents in their indulgence. I 
 read more and more slowly, fewer and fewer authors, 
 and with ever-increasing seriousness and reflection, 
 till I became one of the slowest of readers, and a 
 comparatively sparing one. Of course, one example 
 is not a rale for all ; but the number of ravenous 
 readers among children is so large, and among adults 
 so small in comparison, that I am disposed to consider 
 it a general fact that when the faculties, naturally 
 developed, reach a certain point of forwardness, it is 
 the time for laying in a store of facts and impressions 
 from books which are needed for ulterior purposes. 
 
 The parents' main business during this process 
 is to look to the quality of the books read : — I 
 mean merely to see that the child has the freest 
 access to those of the best quality. Nor do I mean 
 only to such as the parent may think good for a 
 child of such and such an age. The child's own 
 mind is a truer judge in this case than the parents' 
 suppositions. Let but noble books be on the shelf, — 
 the classics of our language, — and the child will get 
 nothing but good. 
 
 The last thing that parents need fear is that the 
 young reader will be hurt by passages in really 
 good authors which might raise a blush a few years 
 later. Whatever children do not understand slips 
 through the mind, and leaves no trace ; and what 
 
 14 
 
210 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 they do understand of matters of passion is to them 
 divested of its mischief. Purified editions of noble 
 books are monuments of wasted labour: for it ought 
 to be with adults as it is with children ; — their purity 
 should be an all-sufficient purifier. 
 
 The second stage in the Intellectual Education 
 of the Household children, then, seems to be that 
 in whicfa the young creatures, having learned to 
 use their own limbs and senses, and acquired the 
 command of speech, begin to use their powers for 
 the acquisition of materials for future thought. They 
 listen, they look about them, they inquire, they read; 
 and, above all, they dream. Life is for them all 
 pictures. Everything comes to them in pictures. 
 In preparation for the more serious work to come, 
 the parent has chiefly to watch and follow Nature ; — 
 to meet the requirements of the child's mind, put 
 the material of knowledge in its w 7 ay, and furnish 
 it with the arts necessary for the due use of its 
 knowledge and its nobler powers : — the arts of reading, 
 ready writing, and the recording and working of 
 numbers ; and the knowledge of the grammar of 
 some one language, at least. Besides this, these 
 best days of his memory should be used for storing 
 up word-knowledge, and technical rules, and, as a 
 luxury after these dry efforts, as much poetry as 
 the pupil is disposed to learn ; which will be a 
 good deal, if the selection is, in any degree, left to 
 his own choice: and some portion of it may well 
 be so. 
 
 Thus far, here is nothing that may not be supplied 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 211 
 
 in the most homely Household in the land, where 
 there is any value for the human intellect, and any 
 intention to educate the children. It is difficult to 
 say what more could be done in the school -room 
 of a palace. The intellect of the high and low is 
 of the same nature, and develops itself in the same 
 modes. While its training depends on the love and 
 good sense of parents, as in this stage, it depends 
 simply on the quality of the parents whether the 
 children of the palace or of the cottage are the better 
 educated. 
 
 "No mystery is here ; no special boon 
 For high and not for low ; for proudly graced, 
 And not for meek of heart." 
 
 14—2 
 
212 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.— THE REASONING 
 FACULTIES. — FEMALE EDUCATION. 
 
 The time comes at last, — sooner with one child, later 
 with another, — when the superior faculties begin to 
 show their activity ; when the young pupil attempts 
 to reason, and should be helped to reason well. The 
 preparation for this time ought to have gone on 
 during all the preceding years, in the establish- 
 ment of a perfect understanding between his parents' 
 minds and his own. He ought to have received 
 nothing but truth from them, in their intellectual, 
 as in all their other intercourse. What I mean is 
 this. From the time he could speak, the child has 
 no doubt asked the Why of everything that interested 
 him. Now, no one knows the ultimate Why of any- 
 thing whatever ; and it is right to say this to the 
 inquirer, — telling him as much as he can under- 
 stand of the How; and it is but little that the 
 wisest of us know of the How. For instance, the 
 little thing cries out, " Oh ! there is a robin ! " "A 
 robin ! and what is it doing ? " " It is hopping about. 
 It has picked up something. Oh ! it is a worm. 
 What does it get the worm for ? " " To eat it. 
 Robins eat a great many worms." " Why do they 
 eat worms ? Why does this robin eat that worm ? " 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 213 
 
 * Because it is hungry." No intelligent child will 
 stop here. He will want to know why the robin 
 does not eat anything rather than worms ; why the 
 robin is hungry; and certainly he will sooner or 
 later wonder why there are robins at all. About 
 these latter mysteries, the parent knows no more 
 than the questioner : and he should say so. He 
 may tell something of the how ; — how the robin 
 and all other living creatures are impelled to eat; 
 how food gives nourishment; and so on. He may 
 or may not, according to his judgment, give infor- 
 mation, as far as he has it himself: but it ought 
 not to be a matter of choice with him whether to 
 put off a child with an unsatisfactory answer, or 
 to declare truthfully his own ignorance. He must 
 never weary of replying, " I don't know," if fairly 
 brought to this point, after telling what he does 
 know. If he tells all that is understood of a tree 
 and its growth, so that he thinks his child cannot 
 possibly have more to ask, he will find there are 
 other questions still to come. " Why are trees 
 green ? " If they are not all green, " Why is the 
 red beech red, and the pine black ? " " Why does 
 a tree grow, instead of being always tall ? " " Why 
 is John Smith handsome while Tom Brown is ugly ? " 
 " Why do people exist when they could not tell 
 beforehand whether they should like it or not ? " 
 Now, it will not do, if the child's mind is to be 
 fairly dealt with, to give a dogmatical answer; to 
 put off the inquirer with a form of words, or any 
 assurance of anything that is not absolutely known 
 
214 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 to be true. " I do not know," is the answer which 
 parental fidelity requires. " Does anybody know ? " 
 is the next question. "Nobody." "Shall I ever 
 know ? " "I don't think you will : but you can try 
 when you grow up, if you like." Of course, the 
 child determines to try when he is a man: and 
 meantime, he is satisfied for the present. There 
 is an understanding between his parent and him- 
 self, which will be of infinite use to him when his 
 time comes for finding out truth for himself by a 
 comparison of abstractions ; — that is, by reasoning. 
 
 With some abstractions every child becomes early 
 familiar ; as the days of the week. Perhaps the 
 first which he is able to use for purposes of reasoning 
 are numbers. They are at least eminently useful 
 as a link between tangible objects and those which 
 are ideal. A child sees on the table that two pins 
 added to two make four pins : and then that a button 
 and a thimble put down beside a marble and a half- 
 penny make four things, as well as if they were all of 
 the same sort. He thus receives into his mind the 
 abstract notion of numbers. Whenever by his own 
 thought, or by inquiry of others, he clearly sees 
 that, because two sixes make twelve, four threes 
 must make twelve, he has begun to reason. He 
 has found out a truth by comparing an abstraction 
 with an abstraction : that is, he has begun to reason. 
 Having begun — having once satisfaction in grasping 
 an invisible truth in this way — he will be disposed 
 to go on : and I, for one, would allow him to do so, 
 at his own pace. Nothing can be more foolish than 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 215 
 
 to stimulate the reasoning faculties too early: but 
 I do not see why their natural action should be 
 repressed because of a theory that the reasoning 
 faculties should not come into activity till such or 
 such an age. I know how painful such repression is 
 to a thoughtful child, and how useless is the attempt 
 to stop the process, which will only be carried on 
 with less advantage, instead of being put an end to. 
 I knew a girl of eleven, thoughtful and timid, seldom 
 venturing to ask questions, or to open her mind about 
 what occupied it most, — who, on some unusual in- 
 citement to confidence during a summer evening 
 walk, opened a theme of perplexity, to get a solution 
 from a grown-up brother, whom she regarded as 
 able to solve anything. She told him that she could 
 not see how, if God foreknew everything, and could 
 ordain everything, men could ever be said to sin 
 against him, or be justly punished for anything they 
 did : and then she went on to the other particular 
 of that problem, — how, if God was all powerful to 
 create happiness, and all good to desire it, there 
 came to be any suffering in the world. Her brother 
 answered her with kindness in his tone, but inju- 
 diciously. He told her that that was a very serious 
 question which she was too young to consider yet ; 
 and that some years hence would be time enough. 
 She was dissatisfied and hurt, — not from pride, but 
 because she felt it hard to be left in a perplexity 
 from which she fully supposed her brother could 
 relieve her. She felt that if she could ask the ques- 
 tion, — thus put in a definite form, — she must be 
 
216 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 capable of understanding the answer. And so she 
 undoubtedly was. If the brother held the doctrine 
 of free will, he should have replied that he did not 
 know ; — that he could not understand the perplexity 
 any more than herself. If he held the necessarian 
 doctrine, he should have imparted it to her ; for her 
 question showed that she was capable of receiving 
 it. The end of the matter was that she suffered for 
 years under that reply, never again venturing to 
 propose her difficulty to any one. She worked her 
 way through the soluble half of the question alone 
 at last, — thinking first, and then reading, and then 
 meditating again, till all was clear and settled ; and 
 in her mature years she found herself fast anchored 
 on the necessarian doctrine, — rather wondering how 
 she could have been so long in satisfying herself 
 about a matter so clear, but aware that she had 
 found an inestimable gain, — which she might have 
 reposed upon some years earlier, if the natural work- 
 ing of her faculties had been trusted as it might have 
 been. 
 
 Our enjoyment of our faculties appears to me to 
 be more proportioned to their quality than their 
 strength: that, whether any one of us has the 
 reasoning power, or the imagination stronger or 
 weaker than the perceptive and conceptive faculties, 
 he enjoys most the exercise of the higher. Certainly, 
 children whose faculties are developed freely and 
 fairly have an intense relish for reasoning, while the 
 mind remains unwearied. The commonest topics 
 voluntarily chosen are conduct and character; be- 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 217 
 
 cause the most familiar and interesting abstractions 
 ar.fi those which are connected with morals. How 
 boys and girls will debate by the hour together 
 about the stoicism of Junius Brutus, and the patriotism 
 of Brutus and Cassius ; and about all the suicides 
 of all Romans, and all the questionable acts of all 
 heroes ! The mother is the great resource here, 
 because she is always at hand ; and these matters 
 are of such pressing importance to the little people, 
 that they cannot wait till their father comes in, or 
 can give them some of his evening leisure. These 
 topics are good as an exercise of both the moral and 
 intellectual powers ; but they do not yield full satis- 
 faction to the reasoning faculty, because, they can 
 never be brought to any certain and evident issue. 
 The conclusions of morals are clear enough for 
 practical guidance ; but they are not proveable. 
 For the full satisfaction of the reasoning faculties, 
 therefore, children must set to work elsewhere. — 
 They may get something of it out of their lessons 
 in grammar, if they are trusted with the sense of 
 the grammar they are taught: lighting upon an 
 accusative case and a verb in a Latin sentence, they 
 know there must be a nominative: and there it is 
 presently, accordingly. Finding an ablative abso- 
 lute, they are confident of finding some sort of pro- 
 position : and there it is to their hand. The words 
 on the page before them are as real to the sense as 
 the written numerals on their slates : but behind 
 both there is a working of unseen laws, — indepen- 
 dent of the signification of either words or numerals, 
 
218 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 — whose operation and issue it is a deep-felt pleasure 
 to follow and apprehend. The rules of grammar, 
 and the laws of numbers, — the rules of arithmetic, 
 in short, — are abstractions proceeding from abstrac- 
 tions ; and their workings bring out a conclusion 
 clear to the pupil's apprehension, and unquestionable. 
 This is all exercise of the reasoning powers ; and it 
 is this exercise of those powers, or the use of ear and 
 memory only, which makes the difference between a 
 pupil who learns grammar and arithmetic with the 
 understanding or by rote. 
 
 I once witnessed a curious instance of the differ- 
 ence between the reasoning pupils of a class at school 
 and the learners by rote. The test was, I think, 
 designed by the master to be a test ; and it answered 
 his purpose even better than our strenuous exercises 
 in grammar and arithmetic. Our master proposed 
 to give some of us an idea of English composition, 
 and said he would next week explain to us how to 
 set about it. Some of us, however, were all on fire 
 with the idea of writing essays, and were by no 
 means disposed to wait. The next time our master 
 entered the school-room, eight or ten pairs of be- 
 seeching eyes were fixed upon him ; and he, being a 
 good-natured man, asked what we wished. What 
 we wanted was to be allowed immediately to write 
 an essay on Music. He had no objection ; but he 
 asked for some precision in the object of the essay ; 
 — proposed that it should be the Uses of Psalmody, 
 or some such topic, w 7 hich could be treated in the 
 limits of a school theme ; — but no, he saw by the 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 219 
 
 faces and manner of the class that it must be an 
 essay on Music. I was the youngest of the class, 
 who ranged from eleven to sixteen : and I wondered 
 whether the elder ones felt as I did when I saw the 
 little smile at the corners of the mouth, amidst the 
 careful respect of our kind master. I felt that we 
 were somehow doing something very silly, though 
 I could not clearly see what. It was plain enough 
 when we brought up our themes. Our master's 
 respect and kindness never failed : and he now was 
 careful to say that there was much that was true 
 
 in each essay ; but . We saw the " but " for 
 
 ourselves, and were ready to sink with shame ; for 
 nobody had courage to begin to laugh at our folly. 
 Such a mass of rhapsody and rhodomontade as we 
 presented to our master ! Such highflying, inco- 
 herent nonsense ! Each was pretty well satisfied 
 with her own rhapsody till she heard the seven or 
 nine others read. " Now, perhaps you perceive," 
 our master began: and indeed we saw it all; — the 
 lack of order and object — the flimsiness — and our 
 own presumption. We were now more ready to 
 be taught. Some, however, could not yet learn ; and 
 others liked this lesson better than any they had 
 ever attempted. This is the difference which induces 
 me to tell the story here. We were taught the parts 
 of a theme, as our master and many others approved 
 and practised them, in sermons and essays ; and the 
 nature and connexion of these parts were so clearly 
 pointed out, that on the instant it appeared to me 
 that a sudden light was cast at once on the pro- 
 
220 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 cesses of thought and of composition, — for both of 
 which I had before an indistinct and somewhat 
 oppressive reverence. I saw how the Proposition, 
 the Reason, the Example, the Confirmation, and the 
 Conclusion led out the subject into order and clear- 
 ness, and, in fact, regularly emptied our minds of 
 what we had to say upon it. From that day till 
 our school was broken up (and my heart nearly 
 broken with it) a year and a half afterwards, the joy 
 of my life was writing themes — or rather composing 
 them; for the act of writing was terribly irksome. 
 But that which some of us eminently enjoyed was 
 altogether burdensome to others, from the procedure 
 of the task being utterly unintelligible. I suppose 
 their reasoning faculties were yet unawakened, — 
 though they were not so very young. The Propo- 
 sition they usually wrote down in the words in which 
 our subject was given to us; — the mere title of 
 the theme. The Reason was any sort of reason 
 about any affair whatever, — the authors protesting 
 that a reason was a reason any day. The Examples 
 were begged, or copied out of any history book. 
 The Confirmation was omitted, or declared to con- 
 sist in "the universal experience of mankind," — 
 whatever the subject might be : and as for the Con- 
 clusion, that was easy enough : — it was only to say 
 that for all the reasons given, the author concluded 
 so and so, — in the words of the title. This was a 
 case in which it would have been better to wait 
 awhile, till the meaning of the task and its method 
 should dawn upon the minds yet unready. But, for 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 221 
 
 those who were capable, it was a task of great 
 pleasure and privilege ; and we loved our master for 
 testing and trusting our faculties in a direction so 
 new to us. 
 
 Those studies which require reasoning as a means 
 to a proveable issue are of a high order, as regards 
 both profit and pleasure : and boys and girls will be 
 the better through life for whatever mathematical 
 training their parents can procure for them. Be it 
 little or be it much, they will have reason to be 
 grateful as long as they live for what they 
 can obtain. I mention girls, as well as boys, confi- 
 dent that every person able to see the right, and 
 courageous enough to utter it, will sanction what I 
 say. I must declare that on no subject is more 
 nonsense talked (as it seems to me,) than on that of 
 female education, when restriction is advocated. In 
 works otherwise really good, we find it taken for 
 granted that girls are not to learn the dead languages 
 and mathematics, because they are not to exercise 
 professions where these attainments are wanted ; and 
 a little further on we find it said that the chief 
 reasons for boys and young men studying these 
 things is to improve the quality of their minds. I 
 suppose none of us will doubt that everything possible 
 should be done to improve the quality of the mind of 
 every human being. — If it is said that the female 
 brain is incapable of studies of an abstract nature, — 
 that is not true : for there are many instances of 
 women who have been good mathematicians and 
 good classical scholars. The plea is indeed nonsense 
 
222 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 on the face of it ; for the brain which will learn 
 French will learn Greek ; the brain which enjoys 
 arithmetic is capable of mathematics. — If it is said 
 that women are light-minded and superficial, the 
 obvious answer is that their minds should be the 
 more carefully sobered by grave studies, and the 
 acquisition of exact knowledge. — If it is said that 
 their vocation in life does not require these kinds of 
 knowledge, — that is giving up the main plea for the 
 pursuit of them by boys ; —that it improves the 
 quality of their minds. — If it is said that such studies 
 unfit women for their proper occupations, — that again 
 is untrue. Men do not attend the less to their 
 professional business, their counting-house or their 
 shop, for having their minds enlarged and enriched, 
 and their faculties strengthened by sound and various 
 knowledge; nor do women on that account neglect 
 the work-basket, the market, the dairy, and the 
 kitchen. If it be true that women are made for 
 these domestic occupations, then of course they will 
 be fond of them. They will be so fond of what 
 comes most naturally to them that no book-study (if 
 really not congenial to their minds) will draw them 
 off from their homely duties. For my part, I have 
 no hesitation whatever in saying that the most 
 ignorant women I have known have been the worst 
 housekeepers ; and that the most learned women I 
 have known have been among the best, — wherever 
 they have been early taught and trained to house- 
 hold business, as every woman ought to be. A 
 woman of superior mind knows better than an 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 223 
 
 ignorant one what to require of her servants, how to 
 deal with tradespeople, and how to economize time: 
 she is more clear-sighted about the best ways of doing 
 things ; has a richer mind with which to animate all 
 about her, and to solace her own spirit in the midst 
 of her labours. If nobody doubts the difference in 
 pleasantness of having to do with a silly and narrow- 
 minded woman and with one who is intelligent and 
 enlightened, it must be clear that the more intelligence 
 and enlightenment there is, the better. One of the 
 best housekeepers I know, — a simple-minded, affec- 
 tionate-hearted woman, whose table is always fit for 
 a prince to sit down to, whose house is always neat 
 and elegant, and whose small income yields the 
 greatest amount of comfort, is one of the most 
 learned women ever heard of. When she was a little 
 girl, she was sitting sewing in the window-seat while 
 her brother was receiving his first lesson in mathe- 
 matics from his tutor. She listened, and was delighted 
 with what she heard ; and when both left the room, 
 she seized upon the Euclid that lay on the table, ran 
 up to her room, went over the lesson, and laid the 
 volume where it was before. Every day after this, 
 she sat stitching away and listening, in like manner, 
 and going over the lesson afterwards, till one day she 
 let out the secret. Her brother could not answer a 
 question which was put to him two or three times ; 
 and, without thinking of anything else, she popped 
 out the answer. The tutor was surprised, and after 
 she had told the simple truth, she was permitted to 
 make what she could of Euclid. Some time after, 
 
224 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 she spoke confidentially to a friend of the family, — a 
 scientific professor, — asking him, with much hesita- 
 tion and many blushes, whether he thought it was 
 wrong for a woman to learn Latin. " Certainly not," 
 he said ; " provided she does not neglect any duty 
 for it. — But why do you want to learn Latin ? " She 
 wanted to study Newton's Principia : and the professor 
 thought this a very good reason. Before she was 
 grown into a woman, she had mastered the Principia 
 of Newton. And now, the great globe on which we 
 live is to her a book in which she reads the choice 
 secrets of nature ; and to her the last known wonders 
 of the sky are disclosed : and if there is a home more 
 graced with accomplishments, and more filled with 
 comforts, I do not know such an one. Will anybody 
 say that this woman would have been in any way 
 better without her learning? — while we may confi- 
 dently say that she would have been much less 
 happy. 
 
 As for women not wanting learning, or superior 
 intellectual training, that is more than any one should 
 undertake to say in our day. In former times, it 
 was understood that every woman (except domestic 
 servants,) was maintained by her father, brother, or 
 husband ; but it is not so now. / The footing of 
 women is changed, and it will change more. For- 
 merly, every woman was destined to be married ; and 
 it was almost a matter of course that she would be : 
 so that the only occupation thought of for a woman 
 was keeping her husband's house, and being a wife 
 and mother. It is not so now. From a variety of 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 225 
 
 causes, there is less and less marriage among the 
 middle classes of our country ; and much of the 
 marriage that there is does not take place till middle 
 life. A multitude of women have to maintain them- 
 selves who would never have dreamed of such a 
 thing a hundred years ago. This is not the place for 
 a discussion whether this is a good thing for women 
 or a bad one ; or for a lamentation that the occupa- 
 tions by which women might maintain themselves 
 are so few ; and of those few, so many engrossed 
 by men. This is not the place for a speculation 
 as to whether women are to grow into a condition 
 of self-maintenance, and their dependence for support 
 upon father, brother and husband to become only 
 occasional. With these considerations, interesting as 
 they are, we have no business at this moment. 
 What we have to think of is the necessity, — in all 
 justice, in all honour, in all humanity, in all prudence, 
 — that every girl's faculties should be made the most 
 of, as carefully as boys'. While so many women are 
 no longer sheltered, and protected, and supported, in 
 safety from the world (as people used to say), every 
 woman ought to be fitted to take care of herself. 
 Every woman ought to have that justice done to 
 her faculties that she may possess herself in all the 
 strength and clearness of an exercised and enlightened 
 mind, and may have at command, for her subsistence, 
 as much intellectual power and as many resources as 
 education can furnish her with. Let us hear nothing 
 of her being shut out, because she is a woman, from 
 any study that she is capable of pursuing : and if one 
 
 15 
 
226 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 kind of cultivation is more carefully attended to than 
 another, let it be the discipline and exercise of the 
 reasoning faculties. From the simplest rules of 
 arithmetic let her go on, as her brother does, as far 
 into the depths of science, and up to the heights of 
 philosophy as her powers and opportunities permit; 
 and it will certainly be found that the more she 
 becomes a reasoning creature, the more reasonable, 
 disciplined and docile she will be: the more she 
 knows of the value of knowledge and of all other 
 things, the more diligent she will be; — the more 
 sensible of duty, — the more interested in occupations, 
 the more womanly. This is only coming round to 
 the points we started from ; that every human being 
 is to be made as perfect as possible: and that this 
 must be done through the most complete development 
 of all the faculties. 
 
227 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.— THE IMAGINATIVE 
 FACULTIES. 
 
 The young mind is very well entertained for a time 
 by the exercise of its reasoning powers, — if, instead 
 of being baffled, they are encouraged and trained. 
 But, there is a higher set of faculties still which 
 begin to work ere long; and usually in such pro- 
 portion to the reasoning powers as would seem to 
 indicate some connexion between them. Or it may 
 be that the moral fervour which gives great advan- 
 tage to the reasoning powers is exactly that which is 
 essential to the development of the highest of human 
 faculties, — the Imagination. Certain it is that the 
 children who most patiently and earnestly search out 
 the reasons of things, — either looking deep into 
 causes, or following them high up to consequences, 
 are those who most strongly manifest the first stir- 
 rings of the heavenly power which raises them highest 
 in the ranks of being known to exist. They may, or 
 they may not, have shown a power of Fancy before 
 this time. They may, or they may not, have mani- 
 fested a strong conceptive faculty ; a power of forming 
 images of objects already well known or clearly 
 described ; but, if they can so think of unseen things, 
 so compare them and connect them, as to bring truth 
 
 15—2 
 
228 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 out at last, — if, in short, they reflect and reason well, 
 the probability is that they will prove to have a good 
 portion of the higher faculty of Imagination. At 
 least, we may be sure that a child of high imagina- 
 tive faculty has good reasoning powers. 
 
 During the first exercise of the reasoning powers 
 a child may, and probably will, become thoughtful. 
 He will look grave at times, and be buried in reflec- 
 tion for awhile : but this gravity does not make him 
 less cheerful ; and when he has done thinking about 
 the particular thing his head was full of, he is as 
 merry as ever. But a little later, and his thoughtful- 
 ness becomes something quite different from this. If 
 there is some mingling of melancholy with it, the 
 parents must not be uneasy. It is all natural, and 
 therefore right. He is beginning to see and to feel 
 his position in the universe ; to see and to feel that by 
 the powers within him he is connected with all that 
 exists, and can conceive of all that may exist : and 
 his new consciousness gives a light to his eye and a 
 meaning to his countenance that were never seen 
 there before. While he was an infant, he was much 
 like any other young animal for his thoughtless and 
 unconscious enjoyment of all the good things that 
 were strewed in his daily path. Then, he began to 
 see deeper, — into the reasons of things and their con- 
 nexions ; and now he had become higher than other 
 young animals, — for they cannot perceive the truths 
 of numbers, or discover by thought anything not 
 before known in any science. But now, he has 
 become conscious of himself; he can contemplate 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 223 
 
 himself as he can contemplate any other object of 
 thought ; and he is occupied in connecting his own 
 thoughts, — his own mind — with every object of 
 thought. It is upon his consciousness and his thoughts 
 united that his imaginative power has to act. By it, 
 he sees everything in a new light, and feels every- 
 thing with a new depth : and though he often finds 
 this a glorious pleasure, he is sometimes much 
 oppressed by it : and then comes the kind of gentle 
 melancholy before referred to. 
 
 See the difference, to the child of dull imagination, 
 or of an age too young for it, and the child superior 
 in years or in faculty, — when they contemplate 
 Nature, or Human Life, or anything whatever; — 
 when they read the History of England, or Conver- 
 sations on Chemistry, or Shakspere's Plays, or any- 
 thing you please. Show them the sky as you are 
 coming home at night. The one will learn to know 
 the constellations as easily perhaps as the other, and 
 will show somebody else the next night which is the 
 Great Bear, and which is Orion : but the duller or 
 younger child sees nothing more than what is before 
 its eyes ; or, if told that all those stars are worlds, 
 believes it without seeing or feeling anything beyond 
 the mere fact as conveyed in the words. But at the 
 same moment the faculty of Imagination in the other 
 child is kindling up within him, — and kindling all his 
 other powers. He sees, by his mind, far far beyond 
 the bounds of human measurement and the human 
 sight ; — sees the universe full of rolling suns ; worlds 
 for ever moving in their circles, and never clashing ; 
 
230 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 worlds of which there are myriads vaster than our 
 own globe. All this he sees, not by gazing at the 
 sky ; for he sees it better when his head is on his 
 pillow, — or when his hands are busy with some 
 mechanical employment, the next day. If he feels 
 how, with all his busy mind and swelling heart, and 
 whole world of ideas, he is yet but an atom in this 
 great universe, almost too small for notice, is not this 
 enough to make him thoughtful ? and if there is a 
 tinge of melancholy in his seriousness, may it not be 
 allowed for ? Again, in reading the History of 
 England, — the duller or younger child may remem- 
 ber the kings, and the great men, and the great 
 battles, and the great famine and plague ; and per- 
 haps almost all the events told : and, if he has some 
 considerable conceptive faculty, he may have pictures 
 in his mind of the ancient Britons, and then of King 
 Alfred and his people; and then of the Normans 
 coming over and landing, and establishing themselves 
 in our island. But the superior child sees all this, 
 and very much more. The minds of all the people 
 he reads of are as manifest to him as the events of 
 their lives. He feels the wild valour of the old 
 Britons while he reads of them ; and his soul melts 
 in reverence, and grief, and pity for King Alfred ; 
 and then it glows with courage ; and then it grows 
 calm with faith as he sees the courage and faith that 
 were in King Alfred. And so on, through the whole 
 history. And even more than this. He sees more 
 than the individuals of whom he reads could see of 
 themselves. The kingdom and the nation are ideas 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 231 
 
 in his mind, as vivid as his idea of the personage lie 
 reads of. He feels when the nation is rising or fall- 
 ing ; rejoices when a great and good man — a sage, or 
 a patriot, or a martyr — arises to bless his race, and 
 burns with indignation and grief when the wicked 
 have their own way. Is there not something here to 
 make him thoughtful ? and if there is a tinge of 
 melancholy in his seriousness, may it not be allowed 
 for ? Suppose these two to read Conversations on 
 Chemistry, or Scientific Dialogues, — they will see and 
 feel as differently as in the former cases. The infe- 
 rior child will find some entertainment, and particu- 
 larly if allowed to try chemical experiments : but 
 these experiments will be to him a sort of cookery ; — 
 a putting things together, in order to succeed in 
 producing some result, — amusing or pretty. His 
 smattering of Chemistry is to him now a plaything, 
 whatever it may become when he is wiser. But how 
 different is it with the elder one, whose awakened 
 imagination now silently enters with him into every 
 chamber of his own mind and every scene of nature 
 — opening his vision with a divine touch, and showing 
 him everything in its vastness and its inner truth ! 
 He does not want to try chemical experiments. He 
 would rather think quietly of the great agents of 
 Nature, and see them, with the eye of his mind, for 
 ever at their work ; — Heat, spreading through all 
 things, and even hiding in the polar ice ; — Electricity, 
 darting and streaming through all substances, and 
 being the life of all that lives; and the flowing 
 together and mixing of three airs to make air that we 
 
232 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 can breathe, — this flowing together and mixing hav- 
 ing gone on ever since there were breathing creatures 
 on the globe; — these great images, and those of the 
 forces of the waters, the pressure of the atmosphere, 
 the velocities of motion, — the mechanical action, in 
 short, of the great forces of Nature, occupy and move 
 him more than any outward methods of proof of what 
 has been laid open to him. Or, if he tries experi- 
 ments, the thing that impresses him is something far 
 higher than amusement : — it is wonder and awe, and 
 perhaps delight that he can put his hand in among 
 the forces of Nature, and take his share, and set 
 Nature to work for him. Is it any wonder that his 
 heart throbs, and his eyes swim or kindle, and that he 
 had rather think than speak ? And may he not be 
 left undisturbed at such a moment, till his mind takes 
 a lower tone ? 
 
 It is this faculty which has produced the highest 
 benefits to the human race that it has ever enjoyed. 
 The highest order of men who have lived are those 
 in whom the power of Imagination has been the 
 strongest, the most disciplined, and the most elevated. 
 The noblest gifts that have been given to men are 
 the ideas which have proceeded from such minds. 
 It is this order of mind alone that creates. Others 
 may discover, and adapt, and improve, and establish : 
 but it is the imaginative order of mankind that 
 creates, — whether it be the majestic steam-engine, or 
 the immortal picture, or the divine poem. It should 
 be a joyful thing to parents, — though it must be a 
 very serious one, — to see clear tokens in any child of 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 233 
 
 the development of this faculty, — the faculty of 
 seeing things invisible, — of " seeing things that are 
 not as though they were." If it is only of average 
 strength, it is a true blessing, inasmuch as it ennobles 
 the views and the life of the individual, if its benefit 
 extends no further in a direct manner. If it appears 
 in any marked degree, the parents' hearts cannot but 
 be elated, though they may be anxious. It is a sign 
 of natural nobility, — of a privilege higher than here- 
 ditary or acquired honour: and greater than a 
 monarch can bestow. Through it, if it be rightly 
 trained, its possessor must enjoy the blessings of 
 largeness of heart and wealth of mind, and pro- 
 bably of being a benefactor more or less, to his race. 
 
 Now, — what are the tokens of this endowment? 
 and how should it be treated ? 
 
 When a young person's views extend beyond the 
 objects immediately presented to him, it is naturally 
 seen in his countenance, manner, speech and habits. 
 The questions he asks, the books he reads, his 
 remarks on what he reads or hears, all show whether 
 his mind is deeply employed. He is probably a 
 great reader ; and if he has been religiously brought 
 up, he probably becomes intensely religious about 
 the time of the development of his higher faculties. 
 — He must be treated with great consideration and 
 tenderness. If he is of an open disposition, apt to 
 tell of his daydreams and aspirations, there must be 
 no ridicule, — no disrespect from any part of the 
 household. There ought to be none ; for it is pretty 
 certain that any daydreams and aspirations of his 
 
 tTNIVERSITT 
 
234 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 are more worthy of respect than any ridicule with 
 which they can be visited. The way to strengthen 
 and discipline his mind is not, as we have often said 
 already, to repress any of its faculties, but to employ 
 them well. In no case is this management more im- 
 portant than in the present. 
 
 Now, in this important period of youthful life, it is 
 the greatest possible blessing if the son or daughter 
 be on terms of perfect confidence with the mother. 
 It is a kind of new life to a mother who has kept her 
 mind and heart active and warm amidst her trials 
 and cares, to enter into sympathy with the aspira- 
 tions and imaginations of her ripening children. She 
 has a keen enjoyment in the revival of her own 
 young feelings and ideas ; — some of the noblest she 
 has known : and things which might appear extrava- 
 gant at another time or from other persons, will be 
 noble and animating as coming from those whose 
 minds, — minds which she has watched from their 
 first movements, — are now rapidly opening into com- 
 parative maturity. To her, then, the son or daughter 
 need not fear to speak freely and openly. To her 
 they may pour out their admiration of Nature, their 
 wonder at the sublimities of science ; their specula- 
 tions upon character ; their soundings in the abysses 
 of life and death ; their glorious dreams of what they 
 will be and do. The more she sympathizes with 
 them in their intellectual pleasures and tendencies, 
 the more will her example tell upon them as a con- 
 scientious doer of the small duties of life : and thus 
 she may silently and unconsciously obviate one of the 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 235 
 
 chief dangers of this period of her children's lives. 
 If they see that the mother who glows with the 
 warmth of their emotions, and goes abroad through 
 the universe hand in hand, as we may say, with them 
 to note and enjoy all that is mighty and beautiful, all 
 that is heroic and sweet, — is yet as punctual in her 
 everyday duty as the merest plodder and worldling, 
 they will take shame to themselves for any reluctance 
 that they feel to commonplace ideas and what seems 
 to them drudgery. Full confidence and sympathy are 
 the first requisites of the treatment of this period. 
 
 But the wise parent will have laid up material for 
 the employment of the imaginative faculty, long 
 before it can appear in any strength. The child will 
 have been familiarized with a high and noble order 
 of ideas ; and especially of moral ideas : for the 
 picturesque or scientific will be pretty sure to make 
 themselves duly appreciated by the awakened ideal 
 faculties. Whatever the parent can tell of heroic 
 conduct, of lofty character, of the grave crises and 
 affecting changes of human life, will be so much 
 material laid in for the virtuous and salutary use of 
 those awakening faculties which might otherwise be 
 occupied in selfishness and other mischief. Let the 
 mind be abundantly ministered to. This may be 
 done in the most homely households where there is 
 any nobility of mind. Every parent has known some 
 person who is noble and worthy of contemplation for 
 character and conduct. Every parent can tell some 
 moving or striking tale of a human lot. To all, the 
 heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that in them 
 
236 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 is, are open for contemplation. In every household, 
 there is the bible : and in the houses of all who read 
 this, there is, no doubt, Milton, on the shelf beside 
 the Bible. With these, parents have means enough 
 for the education of their children's highest faculties. 
 In these they hold a greater treasure than any other 
 that can be found in royal abodes : and the kingdom 
 of Nature is a field which their children have free 
 licence to rove with the highest. Let them have and 
 enjoy these treasures abundantly. Let them read all 
 tales of noble adventure that can be obtained for 
 them; — of the heroes that have struggled through 
 Polar ice and burning African sands ; that have 
 sailed on past the horizon of hope in the discovery of 
 new continents, and have succeeded through faith, 
 courage and patience. Let the reading of good fiction 
 be permitted, where the desire is strong. Some of 
 the highest interests of English history have been 
 opened to the present generation by the novels of 
 Scott, as to many a preceding one by the Plays of 
 Shakspere. My own opinion is that no harm is done, 
 but much good, by an early reading of fiction of a 
 high order : and no one can question its being better 
 than leaving the craving mind to feed upon itself, — 
 its own dreams of vanity or other selfishness, — or to 
 seek an insufficient nourishment from books of a 
 lower order. The imagination, once awakened, must 
 and will work, and ought to work. Let its working be 
 ennobled and not debased, by the material afforded to it. 
 In the parents' sympathy must be included for- 
 bearance ; forbearance with the uncertainty of temper 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 237 
 
 and spirits, the extravagance of ideas, the absurd 
 ambition, or fanaticism, or (as it is generally called) 
 " romance," which show themselves more or less, on 
 the opening of a strong imaginative faculty. It should 
 be remembered that the young creature is half-living 
 in a new world ; and that the difficulty of reconciling 
 this beloved new world with the familiar old one is 
 naturally very trying to one who is just entering 
 upon the struggles of the mind and of life. He can- 
 not reconcile the world and its ways and its people 
 with the ideals which are presenting themselves to 
 him; and he becomes, for a time, irritable, or scornful, 
 or depressed. One will be fanatical, for a time, and 
 sleep on the boards, and make and keep a vow never 
 to smile. Another will be discontented, and apparently 
 ungrateful, for a time, in the idea that he might be a 
 hero if he had certain advantages which are not given 
 him. Another looks down already on all his neigh- 
 bours on account of the great deeds he is to do by 
 and by: and all are convinced, — every youth and 
 maiden of them all, — that nobody can enter into their 
 feelings, — nobody understand their minds, — nobody 
 conceive of emotions and aspirations like theirs. At 
 the moment, this is likely to be true ; for their ideas 
 and emotions are vast and stirring, beyond their own 
 power to express ; and it can scarcely happen that 
 any one is at hand, just at the right season, to receive 
 their outpourings, and give them credit for more 
 than they can tell. — With all the consequences of 
 these new movements of the mind, the parents must 
 have forbearance, — even to the point (if it must be) 
 
238 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 of witnessing an intimacy with some young com- 
 panion, not very wise, who is the depositary of more 
 confidence than is offered to those who should be 
 nearest and dearest. These waywardnesses and follies 
 may have their day, and prove after all to have been, 
 in their way, wholesome discipline. Every way- 
 wardness brings its smart ; and every folly leaves its 
 sting of shame in the mind that is high enough to 
 manifest any considerable power of imagination. 
 They will punish and cure themselves ; and probably 
 in a short time. Nature may be trusted here, as 
 everywhere. If we have patience to let her work, 
 without hindrance and without degradation, she will 
 justify our confidence at last. Give her free scope, — 
 remove out of her way everything that is low and 
 sordid, and needlessly irritating, and minister to her 
 everything that is pure and gentle, and noble and 
 true, and she will produce a glorious work. In the 
 wildest flights of haughty and undisciplined imagi- 
 nation, the young aspirant will take heed enough to 
 the beauty and dignity of a lowly, and dutiful and 
 benignant walk in life, to come down and worship it 
 when cruder visions have passed away. It is only 
 to wait, in gentleness and cheerfulness, and the wild 
 rhapsodist, or insolent fanatic will work his way 
 through his snares into a new world of filial, as well as 
 other duty, and, without being less of a poet, but because 
 he is more of one, will be a better son and brother 
 and neighbour, — making his life his highest poem. 
 
 It will be said that we have here, in treating of the 
 training of the Intellectual faculties, recurred to the 
 
INTELLECTUAL TRAINING. 239 
 
 department of morals. And this is true. No part 
 of human nature can work in isolation ; and when 
 we treat of any function by itself, it is for the 
 convenience of our understandings, and not as a 
 following of nature. No intellectual faculty can act 
 independently of the moral ; and the higher the 
 faculties, the closer we find their interaction ; till we 
 arrive at the fact that Veneration, Benevolence, Hope, 
 Conscientiousness and Firmness cannot act to per- 
 fection except in company with a vigorous faculty of 
 Imagination, and strong Reflective powers: and again, 
 that the Reasoning and Imaginative powers can never 
 work to their fullest capacity unless the highest of the 
 moral powers are as active as themselves. In all 
 true poetry, there is a tacit appeal to the sanction of 
 Conscience, and Veneration and Benevolence are the 
 heavenly lights which rise upon the scene : while, on 
 the other hand, no Reverence is so deep, Benevolence 
 so pure, as those which are enriched by the profoundest 
 Thought, and refined and exalted by the noblest 
 Idealism. 
 
 These truths bring us to a practical consideration 
 as serious as any which our minds can receive and 
 dwell upon. My own sense of it is so strong, and so 
 confirmed by the experience of a life, that I feel that 
 if I had the utmost power of thought and language 
 that were ever possessed by the human being, I could 
 do no justice to it: — that the only means of improving 
 the morale to the utmost is by elevating the ideal of 
 the individual. It is well to improve the conduct, 
 and satisfy the conscience of the child by calling upon 
 
240 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 its resolution to amend its faults in detail, — to control 
 its evil tempers, and overcome its indolence and 
 laxity: but this is a temporary method, insufficient 
 for its ultimate needs. The strength of resolution 
 fails when the season of youth is past, or is employed 
 on other objects ; and it is rare, as we all know, to 
 see faults amended, and bad habits overcome in 
 mature years : and then, if improvement proceeds, 
 radically and continuously, it is by the mind being 
 placed under good influences, operating both power- 
 fully and continuously. Of good influences, the 
 most powerful and continuous is the presence in the 
 mind of a lofty ideal. This is the great central fire 
 which is always fed by the material it draws to itself, 
 and which can hardly be extinguished. When the 
 whole mind is possessed with the image of the god- 
 like, ever growing with the expansion of the in- 
 telligence, and ever kindling with the glow of the 
 affections, every passion is consumed, every weakness 
 grows into the opposite strength ; and the entire force 
 of the moral life, set free from the exclusive care of 
 the details of conduct, and from the incessant anxiety 
 of self-regards, is at liberty to actuate the whole 
 harmonious being in its now necessary pursuit of the 
 highest moral beauty it can conceive of. To this god- 
 like inspiration, strong and lofty powers of Thought 
 and Imagination are essential : and if parents desire 
 that their children should be what they are made to 
 be, — " but a little lower than the angels," — they must 
 cherish these powers as the highest sources of moral 
 inspiration. 
 
241 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 CARE OF THE HABITS.— IMPORTANCE OF HABIT. 
 
 The importance of Habit is an old subject ; as old as 
 any in morals. For thousands of years, moralists and 
 philosophers have written and preached about it ; and 
 everybody is convinced by what they say. But I 
 much doubt whether, even yet, many penetrate into 
 the depth of the matter. Everybody sees, and every- 
 body has felt the difficulty of breaking bad habits, 
 and that there is no security to virtue so strong as 
 long- formed good habits: but my observation compels 
 me to think that scarcely anybody is aware of the 
 whole truth ; — that every human being (except such 
 as are born defective) might be made perfectly good 
 if his parents were wise enough to do all that might 
 be done by the power of Habit. This seems a bold 
 thing to say, but I am convinced that it is true. 
 
 I am aware that we cannot expect to see any 
 parents wise enough to know how to make the fullest 
 use of this power : and perhaps there are none, even 
 of the tenderest parents, who can keep themselves up 
 to an incessant vigilance over their infants, without 
 any carelessness or nagging. Sometimes they are 
 busy ; sometimes they are tired ; sometimes they are 
 disheartened. They are not perfectly wise and good 
 themselves ; and therefore they must sink below the 
 
 16 
 
242 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 mark, more or less. But I am sure it would be a 
 great help to their strength, and vigilance, and 
 heartiness, if they could clearly see how easily their 
 children may be made anything they please. 
 
 The great points, for conscientious parents, are to 
 be fully convinced of the supreme importance of the 
 formation of Habits, and to begin early enough. If 
 they will begin early enough, they will be sure to 
 be convinced. But a pretty strong conviction may 
 be had beforehand, by observation of the history and 
 character of mankind. 
 
 Habits of Belief are the most important of all : 
 and everybody thinks so : and of all Beliefs thost 
 which relate to Duty, — those which are called religiom 
 — are the highest. Now look round the world, and 
 see how many individuals you can find who have 
 inquired out for themselves what they think they 
 believe. As for nations, — a nation of independent 
 thinkers is a thing never dreamed of. Such a spec- 
 tacle as that has never been seen in the wildest 
 visions of the most sanguine of poets and moralists. 
 I have travelled among heathens, Mohammedans, 
 Jews, and many kinds of Christians; and I have 
 found them all believing what they were taught, 
 before they could reason, to hold as sacred truth; 
 and this was exactly what their teachers were them- 
 selves taught to suppose (for one cannot call this 
 Belief) in the same manner. The Red Indian, on 
 the shores of the American lakes, and on the wide 
 prairie, is brought up, from the time he can under- 
 stand language at all, to believe that there is a Great 
 
CAKE OF THE HABITS. 243 
 
 Spirit who lives far away over the waters or beyond 
 the forests, who is jealous and angry if the people 
 do not offer to him whatever they like best; — who 
 forbids them to touch whatever he wants for him- 
 self; — who has favourites among their warriors, and 
 is most pleased with those who most torture their 
 bodies, to show their bravery. The Indian believes 
 in a good many inferior spirits, who do him good or 
 harm, and mingle more in his affairs than the Great 
 Spirit does. This is the Indian way of thinking; 
 and every Indian child grows up to think in the 
 same way, upon the whole, though one may be 
 §nore sure than another of one or another part of 
 the doctrine. No one of the whole tribe asks for 
 any proof that things are so. The early habit of 
 taking these doctrines for granted, as something 
 solemn and sacred, which somebody must have 
 known for true a long time ago, prevents any one 
 but a thoughtful person here and there ever inquiring 
 whether there is really any knowledge existing about 
 the matter at all, or only superstition. Then, there 
 are the Jews. Not one Jew in ten thousand ceases 
 to be a Jew in religion ; and nobody out of the 
 Jewish body ever gets to think as they do ; — to 
 hold their doctrines, and their traditions, and their 
 superstitions. Next, in order of time, come the 
 Christians. There are many bodies of Christians, 
 differing as much from one another as if they held 
 faiths called by different names. There are the 
 Christians of the Greek Church, worshipping many 
 gods under the name of saints ; — some thinking it 
 
 16—2 
 
244 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 blasphemy not to adore the Emperor of Russia next 
 to God, and some paying their first homage to the 
 Virgin with Three Hands. There are the Christians 
 of the Romish Church, who are shocked at the 
 Emperor of Russia for not being one of them; 
 and shocked at the Protestants for not worshipping 
 the bones and toe-nails of their saints. And there 
 are the Protestant Christians, who are shocked at 
 the superstitions of the Romish Church on the one 
 hand, and at the doctrines of every Protestant sect 
 but their own, on the other. Then come the Moham- 
 medans, who think it exactly as impious in all Chris- 
 tians not to receive Mohammed, their prophet, whom 
 they think a greater than Christ, as the Christians 
 think it impious in the Jews not to receive Christ, 
 whom they hold to be greater than Moses. The 
 children of all these multitudes (except in an ex- 
 tremely rare case, here and there,) receive what 
 they are early told, as their parents received it 
 before them ; and no one supposes that any one of 
 those vast multitudes would think and feel as he 
 does on matters of religion if he were not early 
 habituated to think and feel as he does. Can we 
 imagine any one of ourselves, concluding for our- 
 selves, for instance, that the most solemn and sacred 
 of human duties was to go through a set of prostra- 
 tions and gestures, like those of the Mohammedans, 
 five times a day as long as we live, unless we were 
 taught, from early infancy, to consider such acts to 
 be in the highest degree virtuous ? Can we imagine 
 ourselves thinking, as the Mohammedans do, that 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 245 
 
 every man who does not go through this set of 
 gestures five times every day, is careless abouti 
 goodness altogether, — is an Infidel (which is the^ 
 Mohammedan name for a Christian) — is wicked, 
 and must be cast into hell ? More persons in the 
 world believe this than believe in the gods of the 
 Red Indian, and the faith of the Jews, and the 
 doctrines of all bodies of Christians put together. 
 Yet it is incredible that any man would so believe, — 
 so undoubtingly, so solemnly, if he had not been 
 habituated to such a belief from the very beginning. 
 If the beliefs of the majority of mankind are thus 
 dependent upon habit, — if their faith and their views 
 of duty and happiness (the most important of all 
 views,) have this origin, how is it possible to over- 
 rate the importance of Habit? If, turning away 
 from the Greek Christians and the Mohammedans, 
 we contemplate in our imagination a large sect or 
 nation who should have been habituated, from the 
 first dawning of intelligence, to regard perfect good- 
 ness as the most sacred and solemn and beautiful 
 thing that the human mind can conceive of, — as a 
 thing the most interesting and important to every 
 human being, — and a thing within the reach of every 
 one of us, is it conceivable that such a people would 
 not be the most virtuous ever seen on earth? Let 
 it not be said that children are so taught, — that such 
 is the habit of their minds in our Christian country : 
 for alas ! it is very much otherwise. They are occa- 
 sionally told, indeed, that Christ desired his followers 
 to be perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect ; 
 
246 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 but this is not the aim steadily and cheerfully set 
 before any child, as a hopeful enterprise, — as the 
 best thing in the world, and as a thing which must 
 be done. No child sees that this object is what his 
 parents are living for, in comparative disregard of 
 everything else ; and that this is what he ought to 
 live for, and is expected certainly to accomplish, 
 according to his means. While he is told, and pretty 
 often, that the best thing in the world is to be good, 
 he is habituated, by what he sees and hears almost 
 all day long, to believe that it is a hopeless thing 
 to become perfectly good, and that everybody tries, 
 in fact, for something else, with more zeal and expec- 
 tation ; — to get knowledge, to get reputation, to 
 get employment and comfort, — to get all manner of 
 pleasant things by their own desires and exertions, 
 while they trust that some power will make them 
 good, without that unremitting desire and exertion 
 on their parts which alone can make them so. 
 
 I have before me the Remarks of a conscientious 
 and affectionate father on the essential and unlimited 
 power of Habit in the rearing of Children ; — a truth 
 which he had heard of all his life, but never fairly 
 estimated till he had employed his energies on the 
 education of his own family. I do not know who 
 he is ; but I see by the pamphlet before me * that he 
 is earnest and intelligent, and qualified to speak from 
 experience. Earnest he must be, for it appears that 
 it was his constant habit, during the infancy of his 
 
 * "Remarks on the Advantages of early Training and Manage- 
 ment of Children." By a Colonist. Ollivier, 59, Pall Mall. 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 247 
 
 children, to rise in the night, to see that they were 
 well, and sleeping peacefully: and he invariably 
 went with them to school, and met them at the school 
 door, to bring them home again, — more than a 
 mile, — though he was a busy man, — obliged to work 
 for their bread and his own. This earnest observer 
 says, " I now repeat the opinion that every child 
 born, not insane or idiotic, might, to a moral certainty, 
 be trained to be a gentle, a benevolent, and a pious 
 adult. Of the correctness of this opinion I have long 
 ceased to have any doubt. Holding this opinion to 
 be positively correct, I next held that the universal 
 belief of its correctness would soon lead to an amount 
 of improvement in the several conditions of human 
 existence that would exceed even my own sanguine 
 expectations. The encouragement which this belief 
 would give to parents would bring into active and 
 affectionate exertion an amount of attention and 
 devotion to the training of the infant feelings 
 and propensities of their offspring, such as heretofore 
 has never been exercised, or perhaps ever imagined. 
 I would, therefore, spread this belief among all man- 
 kind, by every means in my power to employ, and 
 with it my opinions of the kind of teaching, or rather 
 training, by which such blessed results might be 
 produced. To describe this kind of teaching, or 
 training, is not at present in my power to do, to a 
 due extent. 1 will but give one brief rule, namely : 
 ' What you wish a child to be, be that to the child.' 
 And I would impress upon the mind of the mother, 
 the nurse, or other teacher, the importance of so 
 
248 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 training each desire or propensity as to bring it as 
 early as possible into habitual obedience to the dictates 
 of the religious and moral sentiments, — those senti- 
 ments being guided by the enlightened intellect of 
 such mother, nurse, or teacher. These teachers 
 should be aware of the fact that the mind of a child 
 is continually acquiring habits of thought, as its limbs 
 are habits of action, whether by the spontaneous and 
 unguided efforts of its own mind and body, or by 
 following the training of those having the care of it. 
 They should be continually improving themselves in 
 the art of so guiding the infant dispositions, and the 
 exercises and actions of their charge, as to form the 
 disposition as early as possible; and this course of 
 training would effectually preserve the child from 
 every approach to the formation of any other habits 
 than those inculcated by the teacher. — (Remarks, &c, 
 pp. 11, 12.) 
 
 Next to the Beliefs established by early habit, 
 come the propensities. Under this head, nothing 
 more can be necessary than to relate an anecdote 
 which teaches much more eloquently than any thing 
 I can say out of my own convictions. In North 
 America, a tribe of Indians attacked a white settle- 
 ment, and murdered the few inhabitants. A woman 
 of the tribe, however, carried away a very young 
 infant, and reared it as her own. The child grew 
 up with the Indian children, different in complexion, 
 but like them in everything else. To scalp the 
 greatest possible number of enemies was, in his view 
 the most glorious and happy thing in the world 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 249 
 
 While he was still a youth, he was seen by some 
 white traders, and by them conducted back to 
 civilized life. He showed great relish of his new way 
 of life, and, especially, a strong desire of knowledge, 
 and a sense of reverence which took the direction of 
 religion ; so that he desired to become a clergyman. 
 He went through his college course with credit, and 
 was ordained. He fulfilled his function well, and 
 appeared happy and satisfied. After a few years, he 
 went to serve a settlement somewhere near the seat 
 of war, which was then going on between Great 
 Britain and the United States ; and before long, 
 there was fighting not far off. I am not sure 
 whether he was aware that there were Indians in the 
 field (the British having some tribes of Indians for 
 allies), but he went forth to see how matters were 
 going; — went forth in his usual dress, — black coat, 
 and neat white shirt and neckcloth. When he 
 returned, he was met by a gentleman of his acquain- 
 tance, who was immediately struck by an extra- 
 ordinary change in the expression of his face; — by 
 the fire in his eye, and the flush on his cheek; — 
 and also by his unusually shy and hurried manner. 
 After asking news of the battle, the gentleman 
 observed, " but you are wounded. — Not wounded ! — 
 why, there is blood upon the bosom of your shirt." 
 The young man crossed his hands firmly, though 
 hurriedly, upon his breast ; and his friend, supposing 
 that he wished to conceal a wound which ought to be 
 looked to, pulled open his shirt and saw — what made 
 the young man let his hands fall in despair. From 
 
 ^UJf'^N 
 
250 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 between his shirt and his breast, the gentleman took 
 out — a bloody scalp. " I could not help it," said 
 this poor victim of early habit, in an agonized voice. 
 He turned, and ran too swiftly to be overtaken ; 
 betook himself to the Indians, and never more 
 appeared among the whites. No one supposes that 
 there was any hypocrisy in this man while he was a 
 clergyman. No one doubts that he would have 
 lived a contented life of piety, benevolence and study, 
 if he had never come within sight or sound of war. 
 When he did so, up rose his early habitual combative 
 and destructive propensities, overthrowing in an 
 instant all later formed convictions and regenerated 
 feelings. By the extent of victory here, we may 
 form some idea of the force of early Habit, or be 
 duly warned by the question whether we can form 
 any idea of it. 
 
 The first habit to be formed is, — as is self-evident, 
 — that of obedience ; for this is a necessary prelimi- 
 nary to the formation of all other habits. If mothers 
 would but believe it, there is nothing in the world 
 easier than to form a habit of implicit obedience in 
 any child. Every child, — dependent and imitative, — 
 is obedient as a matter of course if nature is not early 
 interfered with, and put out of her way. Every one 
 must see that good sense on the part of the mother is 
 absolutely necessary, — to observe what the course of 
 nature is, and to adapt her management to it. For 
 instance, — there is no way in which infants are more 
 frequently, or so early, taught disobedience as by 
 being teased for kisses. The mother does so love her 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 251 
 
 infant's kiss, — to see the little face put up when the 
 loving desire is spoken, — that she can never have 
 enough of it. But her sense, and her sympathy with 
 her little one show her that it is not the same thing 
 with the child. Well as it loves caresses in due 
 measure, it can easily be fretted by too many of 
 them ; and if the mother persists in requiring too 
 many while the infant is eager after something else, 
 she will first have to put up with a hasty and reluc- 
 tant kiss, and will next have to witness the struggles 
 of the child to avoid it altogether. If too } r oung to 
 slip from her arms, he will hide his face : — if he can 
 walk, he will run away, and not come back when she 
 calls. She has made him disobedient by asking of 
 him more than he is yet able to give. If the training 
 begins by pleasantly bidding him do what it is easy 
 and pleasant to him to do, he will do it, as a matter 
 of course. When it is to him a matter of course to 
 do as he is bid, he will prove capable of doing some 
 things that he does not like, — if desired in the usual 
 cheerful and affectionate tone. He will go to his 
 tub in the cold morning, and take physic, and be 
 quiet when he wants to romp; — all great efforts to 
 him. And he will get on, and become capable of 
 greater and greater efforts, if his faculties of oppo- 
 sition and pride be not roused by any imprudence, 
 and if his understanding be treated with due respect 
 by the appeals to his obedience being such only as 
 are moderate and reasonable. 
 
 He must be left as free as reason and convenience 
 allow, that his will may not be too often crossed, and 
 
252 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 his temper needlessly fretted. What he is not to 
 have, but would certainly wish for, must be put out 
 of his sight, if possible. If there are any places 
 where he must not go, he should see it to be impossible 
 to get into them: — for instance, it is better that the fire 
 should be well guarded than the child forbidden to 
 go upon the rug; — and in either case, his gay play- 
 things should not stand on the mantlepiece, tempting 
 him to climb for them. — And so on, — through the 
 round of his day. Let his little duties and obligations 
 be made easy to him by sense and sympathy on the 
 part of his parents ; and then let them see that the 
 duty is done, — the obligation fulfilled. 
 
 All this is easy enough; and certainly, from all 
 that I have ever been able to observe, I am convinced 
 that success, — perfect success in forming a habit of 
 obedience is always possible. Where a whole house- 
 hold acts in the same good spirit towards the little 
 creature who has to be trained, — where no one spoils 
 him and no one teases him, — he will obey the bidding 
 of the voice of gentle authority in all he does, as 
 simply as he obeys the bidding of Nature when he 
 eats and sleeps. 
 
 So much for this preliminary habit, which is essen- 
 tial to the formation of all others that the parents wish 
 to guide and establish. I will now speak briefly of the 
 Personal and Family Habits which are the manifes- 
 tation of those conditions of mind of which I have 
 treated in my preceding chapters. 
 
253 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CARE OF THE HABITS.— PERSONAL HABITS. 
 
 It requires some little consideration to feel suffi- 
 ciently that it is as necessary to be explicit and ear- 
 nest about the personal habits of children as about 
 their principles, temper, and intellectual state. Our 
 personal habits have become so completely a second 
 nature to us, that it requires some effort to be aware 
 how far otherwise it is with the young, — how they 
 have every tiling to learn ; and what a serious thing 
 it is to everybody at some time of his life to learn to 
 wash his own face and button his own jacket. The 
 conviction comes across one very powerfully in great 
 houses, where little lords and ladies are seen to need 
 teaching in the commonest particulars of manners 
 and habits, as much as any young creatures about 
 a cottage door. Every one knows this as a matter 
 of fact ; but still, there is something odd in seeing 
 children in velvet tunics and lace frocks, and silk 
 stockings and satin shoes, holding up their little 
 noses, — or not holding them up — to the maternal 
 pocket-handkerchief; or dropping fruit-stones and 
 raisin-stalks into papa's coat-collar, by climbing up 
 behind his chair. To see this natural rudeness in 
 those to whom consummate elegance is hereafter to 
 appear no less natural, makes one thoughtful for the 
 
254 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 sake of such as are to remain comparatively rude 
 through life; and also because it reminds one that 
 there is nothing in regard to all personal habits, that 
 children have not to learn. 
 
 It is so very serious a matter to them, — the attain- 
 ment of good personal habits, — that they ought to be 
 aided to the utmost by parental consideration. This 
 consideration is shown first in the actual help given 
 to the child by its mother's hands ; and afterwards 
 by making all the arrangements of the household as 
 favourable as possible to good habits in each indi- 
 vidual. 
 
 The tender mother makes the times of washing 
 and dressing gay and pleasant to her little infant by 
 the play and caresses which she loves to lavish even 
 more than the child delights to receive. She can 
 hardly overvalue the influence of these seasons on the 
 child's future personal habits. Hurry, rough handling, 
 silence, or fretfulness may make the child hate the 
 idea of washing and dressing, for long years after- 
 wards ; while the associations of a season of play and 
 lovingness may help on the little creature a long way 
 in the great work of taking care of its own person. 
 When the time comes, — the proud time, — when it 
 may stand by itself to wash, the pride and novelty 
 help it on ; and it is rather offended if help interferes, 
 to prevent its being exposed too long to the cold. 
 All this is very well ; but there comes a time afterwards 
 when the irksomeness of washing and dressing, and 
 cleaning teeth, and brushing hair, becomes a positive 
 affliction to some children, such as no parents that 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 255 
 
 I have known seem to have any idea of. We grown 
 people can scarcely remember the time when these 
 operations were not to us so purely mechanical as 
 that our minds are entertained by ideas all the time, 
 as much as if we were about any other business. 
 But children are not so dexterous, in the first place ; 
 in the next, all labour of which they know the extent 
 is very oppressive to them : and again, any incessant 
 repetition of what they in any degree dislike is really 
 afflictive to them. We must remember these things, 
 or we shall not understand the feebleness of will 
 which makes a boy neglect some part of his morning 
 washing, and a girl the due hair-brushing in the 
 evening, though both are aware that they suffer more 
 in conscience as it is, than they could from the 
 trouble, if they could rouse themselves to do the 
 business properly. I have known one child sick of 
 life because she must, in any circumstances, clean 
 her teeth every day ; — every day for perhaps seventy 
 years. I have known of a little boy in white frocks 
 who sat mournfully alone, one autumn day, laying 
 the gay fallen vine-leaves in a circle, and thinking 
 how tired he was of life, — how dreadfully long it was, 
 and full of care. Its machinery overpowered him. 
 I knew a girl, old enough to be reproached for the 
 badness of her handwriting, — (and she was injudi- 
 ciously reproached, without being helped to mend it) 
 — who suffered intensely from this, and even more 
 from another grief; — she had hair which required 
 a good deal of care, and she was too indolent to keep 
 it properly. These were the two miseries of her life; 
 
256 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 and they did make her life miserable. She did not 
 think she could mend her handwriting; but she 
 knew that she might have beautiful hair by brushing 
 it for ten minutes longer every night : yet she could 
 not do it. At last, she prayed fervently for the 
 removal of these two griefs, — though she knew the 
 fable of the Waggoner and Hercules. Now, — in 
 cases like these, help is wanted. Remonstrance, 
 disgrace, will not do, in many cases where a little 
 sympathy and management will. Cannot these times 
 be made cheerful, and the habit of painful irresolution 
 broken, by putting the sinner into the company of 
 some older member of the family, or by employing 
 the thoughts in some pleasant way while the mecha- 
 nical process is going on? — I mean only while the 
 difficulty lasts. When habits of personal cleanliness 
 have become fixed and mechanical, it is most desirable 
 (where it can by any means be managed) for each 
 child to be alone, — not only for the sake of decency, 
 but for the benefit of the solitude and silence, morning 
 and night, which are morally advantageous for every- 
 body old enough to meditate. 
 
 I fear it is still necessary to teach and preach that 
 nobody has a right to health who does not wash all 
 over every day. This is done with infants ; and the 
 practice should never be discontinued. Every child 
 of a family should look upon this daily complete 
 washing in cold water as a thing as completely of 
 course as getting its breakfast. There was a time, 
 within my remembrance, when even respectable 
 people thought it enough to wash their feet once a 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 257 
 
 week ; and their whole bodies when they went to 
 the coast for sea-bathing in August. In regard to 
 popular knowledge of the Laws of Health, our woi id 
 has got on : and, after the expositions, widely pub- 
 lished, of those who enable us to understand the Laws 
 of Health, we may hope that washing from head to 
 foot is so regular an affair with all decent people as 
 to leave no doubt or irresolution in children's minds 
 about how much they shall wash, any day of the 
 year. — As for the care of the teeth, — parents ought 
 to know that, in the opinion of dentists, all decay of 
 the teeth proceeds from the bone of which the teeth 
 are composed not being kept purely clean and bright. 
 This happens oftenest when teeth overlap, or grow 
 so that every part cannot be reached. Much of this 
 may be remedied, if not all of it, by early application 
 to a dentist. But parents to whom this precaution is 
 impossible can do much to save their children from 
 future misery from toothache, and indigestion through 
 loss of teeth, by seeing that the tooth-scrubbing is 
 properly performed. This is more important than 
 the polishing of knives and brass knockers. — As for 
 the brushing of a girl's long hair, it really is a very 
 irksome business till it becomes mechanical ; and a 
 mother may consider a little effort at amusement well 
 bestowed till the habit of doing it properly is securely 
 formed, and the mind is rich enough to entertain 
 itself the while. 
 
 Readers begin to yawn or skip when they meet, in 
 any book, with praises of early rising. Yet how can 
 I pass over this particular of personal habits, when I 
 
 17 
 
258 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 think it of eminent importance? — I believe it is rare 
 to see such early rising as I happen to think desirable. 
 I believe it is rare to see families fairly at their daily 
 work by eight o'clock, — after having had out-door 
 exercise and breakfast ; and this, every morning in 
 the year. The variety of objects presented for the 
 observation and enjoyment of children (and of every- 
 body else) in the early morning hours, far surpasses 
 that which can be seen at any other time of day. 
 Even town-bred children can see more pure sky, and 
 quieter streets, and the country seems to have come 
 nearer. And in the country, there are more animals 
 abroad, — more squirrels, more field mice, more birds, 
 than at noon or in the evening. The rooks fly higher 
 in the dawn than at any other time ; the magpies are 
 bolder and droller ; the singing birds in the thickets 
 beyond measure more gleeful ; and one need not tell 
 that this is the hour for the lark. All except very 
 young children can keep themselves warm in the 
 mid-winter mornings, and will enjoy the delight of 
 being out under the stars, and watching the last 
 fragment of the moon, hanging over the eastern 
 horizon, clear and bright in the breaking dawn. 
 When these children come in, warm, rosy, and 
 hungry, at seven o'clock, or half-past, and sit down 
 to their breakfast, they seem hardly of the same 
 order of creatures with such as come sauntering down 
 from their chambers, when their parents have half 
 done their meal ; — sauntering because they are tired 
 with dressing, or have had bad dreams, and have not 
 recovered their spirits. And what a difference it 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 259 
 
 makes in the houses of rich and poor whether the 
 breakfast things are standing about till nearly ten 
 o'clock, or whether the family have by that time 
 been at work for nearly two of the brightest, and 
 freshest, and quietest hours of the day ! 
 
 In every industrious household there should be a 
 bell. This is an admonition which tries no tempers, 
 and gives no personal offence. If the father himself 
 rings the family up in the mornings, it is a fine thing 
 for everybody. If he cannot, — if he is too weary 
 with his day's work for early rising, or if the mother 
 is disturbed with her baby in the night, — if neither 
 parent can be early in the morning, then let it not be 
 insisted on that the children shall be so. It is a less 
 evil that they should forego all the advantages of 
 early rising than that any contest on the subject 
 should take place between them and their parents. 
 I have seen cases where the parents could not, or did 
 not, appear till nine o'clock or later, but yet made it 
 a point of conscience with the children to be early ; — 
 with the most disastrous effect. The children were 
 conscientious, and they did try. When they now and 
 then succeeded, they were satisfied and triumphant, 
 and thought they should never fail again. But the 
 indolence of the growing season of life was upon 
 them : and there was the languor of waiting for 
 breakfast. In the summer mornings, they were chilly 
 and languid over their books ; and in the winter, the 
 fire made them sleepy. They grew later and latex ; 
 they were rebuked, remonstrated with, — even warned 
 against following the example of their parents : but 
 
 17—2 
 
260 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 they sank deeper into indolence. At last, the 
 suffering of conscience became so great that it was 
 thrown off by a most audacious effort. I happened 
 to be a witness to the incident; and I have never 
 lost the impression of it. The two girls were only 
 half-dressed at half-past eight. They heard their 
 mother's door open, and looked at each other. She 
 came (herself only half- dressed) to say that she had 
 been defied long enough, and she would be obeyed. 
 She slapped them heartily. As she shut the door, 
 the younger sister, all horror and dismay, stole a 
 look at the elder. The elder laughed; and the 
 younger was evidently delighted to join. I saw, on 
 the instant, that it was all over with the mother's 
 authority. The spirit of defiance had risen, and 
 burst the bonds of conscience. Late rising, — the 
 very latest, — curse as it is, — is better than this. 
 What a struggle is saved in such cases — what a cost 
 of energy, and health, and conscience, by a complete 
 establishment of good habits, through the example of 
 the parents ! If the father be but happy enough to 
 be able to take out his little troop into the fields, or 
 merely for a stretch along the high road, in the fresh- 
 ness of the morning, what a gain there is on every 
 hand ! He has the best of their affections, if he can 
 make himself their companion at this most cheery 
 hour of the day ; and they will owe to him a habit 
 which not only enhances the enjoyment of life, but 
 positively lengthens its duration. Then, after their 
 walk of a mile or two, they find mother and breakfast 
 awaiting them at home, — the house in order and 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 261 
 
 already aired ; and everything ready for business 
 when the morning meal is done. They are in the 
 heart of their work, whatever it be, when their 
 neighbours are opening their chamber doors. In 
 London, I am aware, one meets with the plea, in 
 every case, that early rising is impossible, on account 
 of the lateness of the hours of everybody else. I 
 only know that when I lived in lodgings in London, 
 I used to boil my coffee on the table at seven o'clock, 
 - — giving no trouble to servants, — and that I used to 
 think it pleasant to have my pen in hand at half-past 
 seven, — the windows open to the fresh watered streets, 
 and shaded with summer blinds, and the flower-girls 
 stationing themselves below, — their gay baskets of 
 roses still wet with dew. I think London streets 
 pleasanter in the dawn than at any other time. In 
 country towns, I know that families can and do keep 
 early hours, without any real difficulty : and in the 
 country, everybody can do as he pleases. I need not 
 say that growing children must have their breakfast 
 before they feel any exhaustion for want of it. I do 
 not understand the old-fashioned method of early 
 rising ; — working hard for three or four hours before 
 eating anything at all. If adults can bear this, it is 
 certain that children cannot. I may mention here 
 that a prime means of health for persons of all ages is 
 to drink abundance of cold water on rising, and during 
 the vigorous exercise of the early morning. This 
 morning regimen, if universally adopted, would save 
 the doctors of our island half their work. 
 
 There is no part of the personal habits of children 
 
262 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 more important than that which relates to their eat- 
 ing. We must remember how vivid the pleasures of 
 the senses are to children, — how strong their desire 
 of every kind of gratification, — and how small their 
 store, as yet, of those intellectual and moral resources 
 which make grown people careless of the pleasures of 
 sense. If we look back to our own childhood, and 
 remember our intense pleasure in looking at brilliant 
 colours, and at hearing sweet sounds, unconnected 
 with words and ideas, — such as the chords of an 
 Eolian harp, — and the thrill of pleasure we had at the 
 sight of a favourite dish upon the table, we shall be 
 aware that, however ridiculous such emotions appear 
 to us now, they are realities which must be taken into 
 account in dealing with children. — The object is so to 
 feed children as to give them the greatest amount of 
 relish which consists with their health of body and 
 mind. If their appetites are not considered enough, 
 they will suffer in body ; if too much, they will suffer 
 infinitely more in mind. I have seen both extremes ; 
 and I must say, I think the consequences so important 
 as to deserve more consideration than the subject 
 usually meets with. 
 
 In one large family which I had for some time the 
 opportunity of observing, there was a pretty strict 
 discipline kept up throughout, with excellent effect 
 on the whole ; but in some respects it was carried too 
 far. Some of the children were delicate, particularly 
 in stomach ; and the intention of the parents was that 
 this should be got over, as better for the children than 
 yielding to it. Three or four of the children throve 
 
CAKE OF THE HABITS. 263 
 
 well on the basin of bread and milk, which was the 
 breakfast of them all ; but there was one little girl 
 who never could digest milk well ; and the suffering 
 of that child was evident enough. She did not 
 particularly dislike milk ; and she never asked for 
 anything else. That would have been, in her eyes, 
 a piece of shocking audacity. She had a great reve- 
 rence for rides ; and she seemed never to dream of 
 any rule being set aside for her sake, however hardly 
 it might bear upon her. So she went on for years 
 having the feeling of a heavy lump in her throat 
 for the whole of every morning, — sometimes choking 
 with it, and sometimes stealing out into the yard to 
 vomit ; and, worse than the lump in the throat, she 
 had depression of spirits for the first half of every 
 day, which much injured the action of her mind at 
 her lessons, and was too much for her temper. She 
 and her friends were astonished at the difference in 
 her when she went, at, I think, twelve years old, to 
 stay for a month in a house where she had tea-break- 
 fasts. She did, to be sure, cast very greedy looks at 
 her cup of tea when it was coming; and she did make 
 rather a voracious breakfast ; but this was wearing 
 off before the end of the month. She went home to 
 her milk-breakfasts, her lump in the throat, and her 
 morning depression of spirits and irritability. But 
 at last the time came when she was tall enough 
 to have tea with the older ones ; and in a little 
 while, she showed no signs of greediness, and 
 thought no more about her breakfast than anybody 
 else. 
 
264 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 I remember another case, where a similar mistake 
 appeared more broadly still in its bad effects. In a 
 family where it was the custom to have a great rice- 
 pudding every Saturday, and sometimes also on the 
 other baking day, — Wednesday, — there was a little 
 fellow who hated rice. This was inconvenient. His 
 mother neither liked to see him go without half his 
 dinner, nor to provide a dish for him ; for the child 
 was disposed to be rather greedy, and troublesome 
 with fancies about his eating. But in the case of the 
 rice, the disgust was real, and so strong that it would 
 have been better to let it alone. His mother, how- 
 ever, saw that it would be a benefit to him if he could 
 get over it : and she took advantage of a strong desire 
 he had for a book, to help him over his difficulty. 
 The little fellow saw at a shop-window a copy of 
 the Seven Champions of Christendom, with a gay 
 picture of the dragon and St. George : and his longing 
 for this little book was of that raging sort which I 
 suppose only children ever feel. He was to have 
 this book if he would eat rice-pudding. He eagerly 
 promised ; feeling at the moment, I dare say, when 
 there was no rice within sight, as if he could live 
 upon it all his days, to get what he wanted. When 
 Saturday came, I watched him. I saw how his 
 gorge rose at the sight of the pudding : but he fixed 
 his eyes upon the opposite wall, gulped down large 
 spoonfuls, wiped his mouth with disgust, and sighed 
 when he had done, demanded his fee, ran for the 
 book, and alas ! had finished it, and got almost tired 
 of it, before bed-time. The worst of it was, — he 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 265 
 
 never again tasted rice. Here was the moral injury. 
 He was perfectly aware that his bargain was to eat 
 rice-pudding whenever it was upon table ; and he 
 meant to do it. But it required more fortitude than 
 he could command when the desire for the book was 
 gratified and gone : and his honour and conscience 
 were hurt. Another bad consequence of this mis- 
 take about two or three of his dislikes was that he 
 thought too much about eating and drinking; was 
 dainty in picking his meat, and selfish about asking 
 for the last bit, or the last but one, of anything 
 good. Of course, I do not speak in censure, when 
 I give such anecdotes. I blame nobody where 
 nobody meant any harm. On the one side there was 
 a mistake; and it was followed by its inevitable 
 consequences on the other. 
 
 In such a case, where there is a large family, with 
 a plain common table, I should think the best way 
 is for a child in ordinary health to take his chance. 
 If there is enough of meat, potatoes, and bread to 
 make a meal of, he may very well go without pudding, 
 and should, on no account, have one provided 
 expressly for himself: but he should be allowed 
 to refuse it without remark. Where the mother 
 can, without expense and too much inconvenience, 
 consider the likings and dislikes of her children 
 in a silent way, her kindness will induce her to 
 do it : but it must be in a quiet way, or she 
 will lead them to think too much about the thing; 
 and to suppose that she thinks it an important 
 matter. 
 
266 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 This affair of the table is one worth a good deal of 
 attention, as it regards the temper and manners of 
 the household, and the personal habits of each. There 
 is no reason why the father's likings as to food 
 should not be seen to be cared for. If he is a selfish 
 eater, he will ensure that the matter is duly attended 
 to. If he is above such care for himself, — if it is 
 clear that his pleasure at his meals is in having his 
 family about him, — that is a case in which the mother 
 need not conceal her desire to provide what is liked 
 best. The father, who never asks or thinks about 
 what is for dinner, is most likely to be the one to 
 find before him what he particularly relishes ; a dish 
 cooked, perhaps, by his wife's or his little daughter's 
 hands. And, again, if the little daughters see that 
 their mother never thinks about her own likings, 
 perhaps they will put in a word on market-day, 
 or at such times, to remind her that somebody 
 cares for her tastes. Then, again, in middle-class 
 families, where the servants dine after the family, 
 they should always be openly considered. After the 
 pudding has been helped round once, and some quick 
 eaters are ready for a second plateful, it must be an 
 understood thing that enough is to be left for the 
 servants. — On the ground of the danger of causing 
 too much thought about eating and drinking, it is 
 desirable that, where the family take their meals 
 together, all should fare alike. If there is anything 
 at table which the younger children ought not to have, 
 it is better that they should, if possible, dine by them- 
 selves. This is the plan in great houses, where the 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 267 
 
 little ones dine at one o'clock, eating freely and with- 
 out controversy of what is on the table, because there 
 is nothing there that can hurt them. If the family 
 dine together, and there are two or more dishes of 
 meat on the table at the same time, all must learn the 
 good manners of dividing their choice, so that the 
 father may not have to send a helping of goose to 
 everybody, w T hile none is left for himself, but that 
 the mother's boiled mutton may have left half the 
 goose for the choice of the parents. All this is clear 
 enough : but, if a present arrives of anything nice, — 
 oysters, or salmon, or oranges, or such good things as 
 relations and friends often send to each other, it 
 seems best for all the household to enjoy the treat 
 together, who are old enough to relish it. 
 
 It can scarcely be necessary to mention that the 
 earliest time is the best for training children to proper 
 behaviour at table, as everywhere else. Every one 
 of them has to be trained ; for how are the little 
 things to know, unless they are taught, that they are 
 not to put their fingers in their plates, or to drain 
 their mugs, or to make shapes with their potato, or 
 to crumble their bread, or to kick their chairs, or 
 to run away to the window before dinner is done ? 
 They will require but little teaching, if they see every- 
 body about them sitting and eating properly ; but it 
 is hard upon children when they have been allowed 
 to take liberties and be rude at the nursery dinner, 
 and then have everything to learn, under painful 
 constraint, as they are growing up. 
 
 I have been sometimes struck with the conviction 
 
268 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 that the bad manners I have seen at the school-room 
 table arise from a misconception as to what dinner is. 
 In one house, you see the busy father hurry from his 
 work to table, hardly stopping to wash his hands, 
 turning over to his wife the task of helping the 
 children, or even pushing round the dish for them 
 to help themselves, — throwing his dinner down his 
 throat, and after it his solitary pint of porter; snatch- 
 ing his hat, and off again to business, almost without 
 saying "good-bye" to any one. When he is gone, 
 the others think they have liberty to do as they please ; 
 and a pretty scene of confusion there is, — one child 
 scraping a dish, another kneeling on a chair to reach 
 over for something, a third at the window : and the 
 mother with baby on her arm, coming at last to carry 
 off the dishes, saying that she is sure dinner has 
 been about quite long enough, while some of the 
 children are perhaps really wanting more. — Again : 
 one sees in a rich gentleman's family, ill-managed, a 
 great mistake as to dinner. The bell is rung at the 
 nominal dinner-hour, — or probably a good deal after 
 it : for servants can hardly be punctual under such 
 management. The soup is on the table, and one or 
 two of the family are in their seats, waiting for the 
 rest. One young lady has her fancy-work in her 
 hand: another has the newspaper. Papa comes in 
 for luncheon. He will have a plate of soup. The 
 reader jumps up to help him; but the soup is cold. 
 As nobody seems to wish for any cold soup, it is 
 sent away ; but turned back at the door by a hungry 
 boy, who has only just learned that dinner is ready, 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 269 
 
 and is ravenous for the first thing he can get to 
 eat. While the joint is helped, one drops in from 
 the stable, — another from the music-lesson ; a third 
 from botanizing in the wood ; and the first comers 
 run away to look for something in the library, or 
 to have a turn on the gravel walk, saying that they 
 do not care for pudding, and will come back for 
 cheese. Altogether, it is an hour and a half before 
 the cloth is removed, and the weary governess can 
 get her charge in order for the Italian master, — if 
 indeed he be not come and gone in the interval. 
 This is an extreme, but not an impossible case : and 
 in such a case, the plea we shall hear is that it is 
 a waste of time for a whole family to sit doing no- 
 thing but eating their dinners in the middle of the 
 day : and that formality makes eating of too much 
 importance. Such is the plea; and here lies the 
 mistake. The object of dinner is not only eating, 
 but sociable rest. The dinner hour is a seasonable 
 pause amidst the hurry of -the busy day; and the 
 harder people have to work, the completer should 
 be the pause of the dinner hour. The arrangement 
 is very important to health ; for the largest meal of 
 the day is best digested when it is eaten with regu- 
 larity, at leisure, and in a cheerful mood of mind; 
 and when a space of cheerful leisure is left after it. 
 And more important still is the arrangement to the 
 manners and tempers and dispositions of the family. 
 It is a great thing that every member of a household 
 should be habituated to meet the rest in the middle 
 of the day, neatly dressed and refreshed; — the boys' 
 
270 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 coats brushed^ and the girls' frocks changed or set 
 straight; the hair smoothed, and face and hands 
 just washed. It is a great thing that they should 
 take their chief nourishment of the day in the midst 
 of the most cheerful conversation, and at a time so 
 set apart as that nobody is hankering after doing 
 anything else. When we consider, too, that after 
 dinner is the only time between Sunday and Sunday 
 that the working father has for play with his infants, 
 who are in their beds, or too sleepy for fun, when he 
 comes home in the evening, — we shall own that there 
 is no waste of time in the dinner hour, even if 
 nothing whatever is done but eating and talking. 
 In fact, it is this time which, from its importance, 
 ought to be saved from all encroachment. The 
 washed faces, and the cloth on the table, and the 
 hot dinner should all be in readiness when the 
 father appears. Not a minute of his precious hour 
 should be lost or spoiled by any one's unpunctuality, 
 or anybody's ill-manners. All should go smoothly 
 at his table by everyone's gentleness and cheerfulness 
 and good-breeding. When the meal is finished, all 
 the clearing away should be quickly and quietly 
 done, that he may have yet a clear half-hour for rest, 
 or for play with the little ones. Where this hour is 
 managed as it ought to be (and nothing is easier 
 under the care of a sensible mother), the busy father 
 goes forth to his work again with his mind even more 
 refreshed by his hour of cheerful rest than his body 
 is strengthened by food. 
 
 On the remaining topic of Personal Habits,—* 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 271 
 
 Modesty, — Decency — it cannot be necessary to say 
 much. The points of mistake which strike me the 
 most are two : — I think that in almost every part 
 of the world, people herd too much and too con- 
 tinually together : — and I think that few people are 
 aware how early it is right to respect the modesty 
 of an infant. 
 
 . As to the first point; — it is one of the heaviest 
 misfortunes of our country, — I speak advisedly, — 
 that among whole classes of our people, poverty or 
 want of space from other causes, compels them to 
 herd together in crowds, night and day. No words 
 are needed to show how little hope of health there 
 can be when people live in this way ; and even less 
 hope of good morals. Among classes more favoured 
 than these, it appears that there is little thought of 
 making the provision that might easily be made for 
 more privacy than people are yet accustomed to. I 
 fear it is the wish that is wanting : for " where there's 
 a will there's a way ; " and I have been in many 
 houses, both at home and abroad, where the requisite 
 privacy might have been had, if any wish for it had 
 existed. In the factory villages in the United States, 
 I was painfully struck by this. I saw good and 
 pretty houses built from the savings of the factory 
 girls, — with their shady green blinds, and their 
 charming piazzas without; and places within for 
 book-shelves, piano and pictures and work-tables; 
 but not a corner of any house was there where 
 any young woman of the household could sit by 
 herself for ten minutes in a day, or say her prayers, 
 
272 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 or wash. The beds were ranged in dormitories; 
 or four or six in a room : and there were not 
 even washing-closets. Here, there was no excuse 
 of inability ; and at home I too often see the 
 same thing, where there is no sufficient excuse of 
 inability. 
 
 Where each child cannot possibly have a room, 
 or the use of a dressing-closet to itself, arrangements 
 may easily be made, by having folding screens, to 
 secure absolute privacy to every member of a house- 
 hold, for purposes of the mind, as well as the body. 
 When I see how indispensable it is to the anxious 
 and hard-worked governess to have a room to her- 
 self, and how earnestly she (very properly) insists 
 upon it, I am always sorry when I remember how 
 many have to go without this comfort, — which should 
 be considered a necessity of life. When I think of 
 the schoolboy, with his burden of school cares upon 
 him, and the young girl, thoughtful, anxious and 
 irritable, as most people are, at times, in entering 
 upon the realities of life ; and of the wearied servant 
 maid, and of the child in the first fervours of his self- 
 kindling piety, I pity them if they have no place 
 which they can call their own, for ever so short a 
 time in the day, where they can be free from the 
 consciousness of eyes being upon them. The thing 
 may be done. Mrs. Taylor of Ongar, the wife of 
 a dissenting minister, and mother of a large family, 
 who from an early age worked for their bread, — did 
 contrive, by giving her mind to it, to manage separate 
 sleeping places for a wonderful number of her children; 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 273 
 
 and, where this could not possibly be accomplished 
 for all, she so arranged closets and hours as that every 
 one could have his or her season of retirement, secure 
 from disturbance. 
 
 As for the case of the infant, to which I alluded 
 above, — I believe it to be this. The natural modesty 
 of every human being may be left to take care of 
 itself; if only we are careful that it is really left 
 entirely free. It is the simplest matter in the world 
 for the mother to give this modesty its earliest direc- 
 tion during the first weeks, months, and year or two 
 of life. After that, it will not fail, if only it be duly 
 respected. That this respect should begin very early 
 is desirable, not because the innocent little creature 
 has then any consciousness which can be injured 
 by anything it sees or is allowed to do ; but because 
 as it grows up, it should be unable ever to remember 
 the time when everything was not arranged with the 
 same modesty and decorum as at a later period. 
 Again, in order to the preservation of true modesty, 
 the smallest possible amount of thought should be 
 bestowed upon it. All transactions, personal and 
 domestic, should go on with the smoothness of per- 
 fect regularity, propriety, and consequent freedom 
 of mind and ease of manners. And it conduces 
 much to this that there should never have been a 
 time when the child was conscious of any particular 
 change in its management. It should never have 
 seen much of anybody's personal cares ; and the 
 more gradually it slides into the care of its own 
 person, with its accompanying privacy, the better 
 
 18 
 
274 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 is the chance that it will not dwell on such matters 
 at all, but have its mind free for other subjects, 
 wearing its modesty as unconsciously as it carries 
 the expression of the eye, or utters the tones of its 
 voice. 
 
275 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CAKE OF THE HABITS. — FAMILY HABITS. 
 
 It is difficult to keep a distinction between personal 
 and family habits. In our last chapter, on Personal 
 Habits, we got to the family dinner-table ; and here, 
 in speaking of Family Habits, we shall doubtless fall 
 in with the characteristics of individuals. 
 
 First ; as to occupations. Unless I knew for what 
 class of readers I was writing this, it is difficult to 
 assume what their occupations may be. In one class, 
 the father may be busy in his office ; and the mother 
 in ordering a large household, taking care of the 
 poor in her neighbourhood, and in study or keeping 
 up her accomplishments ; while the boys are with 
 their tutor, and the girls with their governess, and 
 the infants in the nursery. — In another, the mother 
 may be instructing her girls, while busy at her needle ; 
 and the boys may be at a day-school, and the father 
 in his warehouse or shop. — And again, this may be 
 read by parents who cannot spare their children from 
 home, because they keep no servants, and who charge 
 themselves with teaching their young people, in such 
 hours as can be spared from the actual business of 
 living. One thing, however, is common to all these ; 
 and it is enough to proceed upon. All these are 
 occupied. They have all business to do which ought 
 
 IS— 2 
 
276 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 to engage their faculties, regularly and diligently: 
 so that the great principles and rules of family morals 
 cannot fail to apply. 
 
 The first great point concerns them all equally : — 
 Economy of Time. Nobody yet ever had too much 
 time ; and the rich need all they can save of it as 
 much as the poorest. And the methods by which 
 time is to be made the most of are universally the 
 same. This seems to be everywhere felt, except 
 among the ignorant. The most remarkable care, 
 as to punctuality, is actually found, in our country, 
 among the highest classes. It has been said that 
 i( punctuality is the politeness of the great : " and 
 so it is. It shows their consideration for other 
 people's time and convenience : but there is more 
 in it than that. The Queen, who is extraordinarily 
 punctual, and statesmen, and landed proprietors, and 
 all who bear a burden of very important duty, are 
 more sensible than those who have less responsibility 
 of the mischief of wasting minutes which are all 
 wanted for business; and yet more, of the waste 
 of energy and freedom of thought, and of composure 
 and serenity, which are caused by failures in punc- 
 tuality. For my own part, I acknowledge that not 
 only is any compulsory loss of time the trial, of 
 all little trials, that I most dislike, but that nothing 
 whatever so chafes my temper as failure in punctuality 
 in those with whom I have transactions. And to 
 me, one of the charms of intercourse with enlightened 
 and high-bred people is their reliableness in regard 
 to all engagements, and their exact economy of time. 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 277 
 
 To go from a disorderly household where no one 
 seems to have any time, and where one has to try 
 hard all day long to keep one's temper, to a great 
 man's house, where half a hundred people move 
 about their business as if they were one; where 
 all is quiet and freedom and leisure, as if the business 
 of life went on of itself, leaving minds at liberty 
 for other work, is one of the most striking contrasts 
 I have met with in society. And I have seen the 
 same order and punctuality prevail, with much the 
 same effect, in very humble households, where, instead 
 of a score or two of servants, there were a few well- 
 trained children to do the work. It is a thing which 
 does not depend on wealth, but on intelligence. 
 There is (here and there, but not often) a great 
 house to be seen where you cannot get anything 
 you want till you have rung half a dozen times, 
 and waited half an hour ; where you are pretty 
 sure to leave some of your luggage behind you, 
 or be too late for the train, without any fault of 
 your own; and where the meals, notwithstanding 
 all the good cookery, are comfortless, from the rest- 
 lessness and uncertainty of family and guests, and 
 the natural discouragement of the servants. And 
 there are houses of four rooms, where all goes 
 smoothly from the politeness which arises from 
 intelligence and affectionate consideration. When 
 a new Administration came into office, some years 
 ago, the Ministers agreed that not one of them should 
 ever be waited for, on any occasion of meeting. At 
 the first Cabinet dinner, the party went to table as 
 
278 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 the clock finished striking, though the Prime Minister 
 had not arrived. The Prime Minister was only half 
 a minute late ; but he apologized, as for an offence 
 against good manners. What would be thought of 
 this in homes where the young people come dropping 
 down to breakfast when their parents have half done, 
 or where father or mother keeps the children fretting 
 and worrying because they are waiting for break- 
 fast when they ought to be about their morning 
 business ! 
 
 It may be said that the fretting and worrying 
 are the greater offence of the two : and this is very 
 true. So much the worse for the unpunctuality 
 which causes a greater sin than itself. Why be 
 subject to either ? If a young person, no longer 
 manageable as a child, continues, after all reason- 
 able methods have been tried, to annoy his family 
 by a habit of wasting his own time and theirs, there 
 is no use in losing temper about it. Scolding and 
 fretfulness will not bring him round, if other methods 
 have failed. He must be borne with (though by 
 no means indulged) and pitied as the slave of a 
 bad habit. But how much better to avoid any such 
 necessity ! And it might always be avoided. 
 
 The way in which people usually fall into un- 
 punctual habits, is, I think, from interest in what 
 they are about, whether it be dreaming in bed, or 
 enjoying a walk, or translating a difficult passage, 
 or finishing a button-hole in a shirt, or writing a 
 postscript to a letter. In households were punc- 
 tuality is really a principle, it should be a truth 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 279 
 
 ever before all eyes that whatever each individual 
 is about is of less importance than respect to the 
 whole family. In a school, when the bell rings, 
 one girl leaves off in the middle of a bar of music, 
 another at the middle line of a repetition, and a third 
 when she is within two figures of the end of her 
 sum. The time and temper of mistress and com- 
 panions must be respected first, and these things 
 finished afterwards. And so it is in a well-ordered 
 household. The parents sacrifice their immediate 
 interest in what they are about; and so must the 
 children. And so they will, and with ease, when 
 the thing is made an invariable habit, from the earliest 
 time they can remember. 
 
 It is this punctuality, this undeviating regularity, 
 which is the greatest advantage that school has over 
 home education, in regard to study. In a large 
 family, where there is much business of living and 
 few servants, it really is very difficult to secure 
 quiet and regularity for the children's lessons. It 
 seems at any one moment of less importance that 
 the sum should be done, and the verb conjugated, 
 just for that once, than that the boy should run 
 an errand, or the girl hold the baby. Now this 
 will never do : and the small progress in learning 
 usually made by the home-taught shows that it does 
 not answer. The consideration is not of the par- 
 ticular sum, or practice in saying the verb, but of 
 the habit of the children's minds. It is of conse- 
 quence in itself that sums should be done and verbs 
 learned in their proper season, because they cannot 
 
280 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 be so easily mastered afterwards ; and there is plenty 
 to be done afterwards ; but much more important 
 is it that the children should acquire that punctuality 
 of faculties which grows out of punctuality of habits : 
 and this can never be when there is any uncertainty 
 or insecurity about the inviolability of their lesson- 
 time. I know how difficult it is to manage this 
 point, and how very hard it is for the mother to 
 resist each day's temptation, if she has not fortified 
 herself by system and arrangement, and by keeping 
 constantly before her mind that nothing that her 
 children can do by being called off from their books 
 can be so important as what they sacrifice at every 
 interruption. If it is possible for her to find any 
 corner of the house where they may be undisturbed, 
 and any hour of the day when she will allow no 
 person whatever to call off her attention from them, 
 she may do them something like justice : but she 
 never can, though the books and slates may be about 
 all the morning, if she admits any neighbour, or 
 allows any interruption whatever. If possible, she 
 will fix upon an hour when she may settle down 
 with her plain-sewing, which requires no attention; 
 and when her neighbours all know that they will 
 not be admitted. One single hour, diligently em- 
 ployed, may effect a great deal. And it need not 
 be all that the children give to study, though it be 
 all that she can spare. They may learn at some 
 other time in the day the lessons which she is to 
 hear during the hour: and in that case, she must 
 see that they are protected in their time of learning, 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 281 
 
 as well as of repeating their lessons. Whether they 
 are in their own rooms, or in the common sitting 
 room, or she can spare any place for a schoolroom, 
 she must see that they have their minds to them- 
 selves, to do their business properly. If the father 
 relieves her of the teaching, and hears the lessons 
 at night, she will see more reason than ever for 
 doing all she can to facilitate their being well learned. 
 If the time for lessons be necessarily but one hour 
 in the day, let not the parents be uneasy, however 
 much they might wish that their children should have 
 their six hours of study, like those of richer people. 
 Perhaps they can give both boys and girls educa- 
 tional advantages which those of the rich have not ; — 
 advantages which offer themselves in the natural 
 course of humble life. I have witnessed a process 
 of education for boys in a middle-class home which 
 could not well be instituted in a great house, and 
 among a multitude of servants, but which was of 
 extraordinary benefit to the lads, who were made 
 happy by it. Their father gave into their charge 
 some of the departments of the comforts of the house. 
 One had charge of the gas-pipes and lamps. He 
 was responsible for their good condition ; and he was 
 paid the same sum per annum that supervision by a 
 workman would have cost. Another had charge of 
 the locks and keys, the door-handles, sash-lines and 
 window-bolts, bells and bell-wires : and he was paid 
 in the same manner. Each had his workbench and 
 tools in a convenient place ; and, if every part of his 
 province was always in order, so that there were no 
 
282 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 expensive repairs, he had some money left over, — « 
 which was usually spent in buying materials for 
 mechanical handiworks. These lads were happier 
 than poor Louis XVI. of France, who was so fond 
 of making locks that he had a complete locksmith's 
 workshop fitted up in a retired part of his palace: 
 and delighted to spend there every hour that he 
 could command. He was obliged to conceal his pur- 
 suit, both from the absurdity and the uselessness of 
 it in his position ; while these lads had at once the 
 gratification of their faculties, and the dignity of 
 usefulness. There are many offices about every 
 house which may well be confided to boys, if they 
 are intelligent and trustworthy ; — that is, well edu- 
 cated up to the point required; and the filling of 
 such offices faithfully is in itself as good a process of 
 education as need be wished. 
 
 There is no need to declare the same thing about 
 girls ; for I suppose nobody questions it. I go further 
 than most persons, I believe, however, in desiring 
 thorough practice in domestic occupations, from an 
 early age, for girls. I do not see why the natural 
 desire and the natural faculty for housewifery which 
 I think I see in every girl I meet, should be baffled 
 because her parents are rich enough to have servants 
 to do and to superintend everything about the house. 
 If there was a king who could not help being a lock- 
 smith, I know of a countess who could not help being 
 a sempstress. She made piles of plain linen, just for 
 the pleasure of the work, and gave them away to her 
 friends. Now, it is a very serious thing to baffle 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 283 
 
 natural desires and abilities so strong as these, on 
 account of mere external fortunes. If a girl of any 
 rank has the economic faculties strong, it is hard 
 upon her that they may not find their natural exer- 
 cise in a direction, — that of household care, — which 
 is appropriate to every woman, be she who she may ; 
 and if these faculties are less strong than they are 
 usually found to be in girls, v there is the more reason 
 that they should be well exercised, as far as they 
 will go. 
 
 I am sure that some, — perhaps most, — girls have a 
 keener relish of household drudgery than of almost 
 any pleasure that could be offered them. They 
 positively like making beds, making fires, laying the 
 cloth, and washing up crockery, baking bread, pre- 
 serving fruit, clear-starching and ironing. And why 
 in the world should they not do it? Why should 
 not the little lady have her little ironing-box, and 
 undertake the ironing of the pocket-handkerchiefs? 
 I used to do this ; and I am sure it gave me a great 
 deal of pleasure, and did me nothing but good. — On 
 washing and ironing days, in houses of the middle 
 class, where all the servants are wanted in the wash- 
 house or laundry, why should not the children do 
 the service of the day ? It will be a treat to them to 
 lay the breakfast cloth, and bring up the butter from 
 the cellar, and toast the bread ; and, when breakfast 
 is over, to put everything in its place again, and 
 wash the china, and rub and polish the trays. They 
 may do the same again at dinner; and while the 
 servants are at meals, they may carry on the ironing 
 
284 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 in the laundry. And afterwards, there comes that 
 capital exercise of sense and patience and skill, — 
 the stocking-darning, which, done properly, is a much 
 higher exercise than many people suppose. And 
 when visitors come, why should not the girls have 
 the chief pleasure which " company " gives to them, 
 — the making the custard and the tarts, dishing up 
 the fruit, and bringing out the best table linen? 
 And what little girl is there in a market town who 
 does not like going to market with her father or her 
 mother, till she can be trusted to go by herself? 
 Does she not like seeing the butcher's cleverness in 
 cutting off what is wanted ; and trying to guess the 
 weight of joints by the look ; and admiring the fresh 
 butter, and the array of fowls, and the heaps of eggs, 
 and the piles of vegetables and fruit ? I believe it 
 is no small treat to a girl to jump up early on the 
 market-day morning, and reckon on the sight she is 
 going to see. The anxiety may be great when she 
 begins to be the family purchaser : but it is a proud 
 office too ; and when the first shyness is over, there 
 is much variety and pleasantness in it. 
 
 By all means, as I have said, let the girls' economic 
 faculties take the household direction, if they point 
 that way, whatever be their fortunes and expecta- 
 tions. It can never do any woman harm to know, 
 in the only perfect way, by experience, how domestic 
 affairs should be managed. But, when the thing is 
 done at all, let it be well done. Let the girl be 
 really taught, and not suffered to blunder her way 
 through, in a manner which could not be allowed 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 285 
 
 in regard to anything taught as a lesson. One reason 
 why girls know so much less than they should do, 
 and so much less than they wish to do about house- 
 hold affairs, is that justice is not done them by proper 
 teaching. The daughters of the opulent are at 
 school, and have no opportunity of learning till they 
 are too old to begin properly : but the case of middle 
 and lower class girls is hardly better. When the 
 mother is hurried, it is easier to do a thing herself 
 than to teach, or wait for an inexperienced hand : 
 but a girl will never learn, if her enterprise is taken 
 out of her hand at the critical moment. Nothing 
 is more easily learned, or more sure to be remem- 
 bered, than the household processes that come under 
 the hands of women : but then, they must be first 
 clearly understood and carried through. Here, then, 
 the mother must have a little patience. She must 
 bear to see a batch of bread or pastry spoiled, or 
 muslins ironed wrong side out, or a custard " broke," 
 or a loin of mutton mistaken for the neck, a few 
 times over, and much awkwardness and slowness 
 shown, before her little daughters become trusty 
 handmaids. But, if she be a true mother, she will 
 smile at this ; and the father will not be put out 
 if the pie is burned on one side, or the bread baked 
 too quick, if he is told that this is a first trial by 
 a new hand. He will say what he can that is 
 encouraging, and hope for a perfect pie or loaf next 
 time. 
 
 I believe it is now generally agreed, among those 
 who know best, that the practice of sewing has been 
 
 TJNIVERSITT 
 
286 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 carried much too far for health, even in houses where 
 there is no poverty or pressure of any kind. No 
 one can well be more fond of sewing than I am ; 
 and few, except professional sempstresses, have done 
 more of it: and my testimony is that it is a most 
 hurtful occupation, except where great moderation is 
 observed. I think it is not so much the sitting and 
 stooping posture as the incessant monotonous action 
 and position of the arms, that causes such wear and 
 tear. Whatever it may be, there is something in 
 prolonged sewing which is remarkably exhausting to 
 the strength, and irritating beyond endurance to the 
 nerves. This is only where sewing is almost the 
 only employment, or is carried on for several hours 
 together. When girls are not so fond of sewing 
 as I was in my youth, and use the needle only as 
 girls usually do, there is no cause for particular 
 anxiety : but the mother should carefully vary the 
 occupations of a girl disposed to be sedentary. If 
 pleasant reading or conversation can go on the 
 while, it is well. The family meals too, and other 
 interruptions, will break off the employment, pro- 
 bably, before it has gone too far. But, if there is 
 the slightest sign of that nervous distress called 
 " the fidgets " (which truly deserves the name of 
 " distress "), or any paleness of countenance, lowness 
 of spirits, or irritability of temper, there is reason 
 to suppose that the needle has been plied too far; 
 and, however unwilling the girl may be to leave 
 work which she is bent upon finishing, it is clearly 
 time that she was in the open air, or playing with 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 287 
 
 the baby, or about some stirring business in the 
 house. I have always had a strong persuasion that 
 the greater part of the sewing done in the world will 
 ere long be done by machinery. It appears much 
 more easy than many things that are done by 
 machinery now ; and when it is considered how 
 many minute stitches go to the making of a garment, 
 it seems strange that some less laborious and slow 
 method of making joins and edges has not been 
 invented before this. Surely it will be done in the 
 course of a few generations ; and a great blessing 
 the change will be to women, who must, by that 
 time, have gained admission to many occupations 
 now kept from them by men, through which they 
 may earn a maintenance more usefully and with less 
 sacrifice of health than by the present toils of the 
 sempstress. The progress made in spinning, weav- 
 ing, and especially knitting by machinery, and in 
 making water-proof cloaks and other covering with- 
 out the help of the needle, seems to point with 
 certainty to an approaching time when the needle 
 will be almost superseded. With this, and the 
 consequent saving of time, must come a greater 
 abundance of clothing, and an accompanying cheap- 
 ness, which will be a great blessing to a large class 
 by whom good and sufficient clothing cannot now be 
 obtained. Meantime, our ways are improved, by 
 the turning over of some of the work to machinery. 
 The sewing-schools to which young ladies were sent 
 in the last century, to sit six hours a day on hard 
 benches, too high for their feet to touch the ground, 
 
288 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 compelled to hold themselves upright, and yet to 
 pore over fine cambric and linen, to do microscopic 
 marking and stitching, are heard of no more. In 
 their day, they bent many spines, spoiled many eyes, 
 and plagued many a young creature with back -ache 
 for life ; so we may rejoice that they are gone, and 
 must take care that none of their mischief is done 
 at home, while all really useful good sewing can very 
 easily be taught there. 
 
 One change which has taken place in our society 
 since the peace has struck me much. Since, the 
 Continent was opened to us, almost all who can 
 afford to travel, more or less, have been abroad. 
 Struck with the advantages to themselves of having 
 their minds opened and enlarged by intercourse with 
 foreign nations, and by access to foreign literature, 
 art, and methods of education, in some respects 
 superior to our own, they have naturally desired to 
 give such advantages to their children, while they 
 were yet young enough to benefit fully by them. 
 Great numbers of children, and young people yet 
 growing, have been carried abroad by their parents, 
 and, of course, have obtained more or less of the 
 "advantages" for which they went. But at what 
 cost ? In my opinion, at a fatal one. Much might 
 be said of the danger to health and life of a complete 
 change of diet and habits at so early an age. A 
 friend of mine was telling me, and I was agreeing 
 with her, that she and I hardly know of a family of 
 children, who have travelled abroad for any length 
 of time, that has not been fatally visited with the 
 
/ 
 
 CARE OF THE HABITS. 289 
 
 dful bilious fever which, when it spares life, too 
 U does some irreparable injury to the frame, — to 
 i. or sense, or limbs. Bad as this is, it is not 
 tlifc worst. The practice is against Nature ; and 
 th-'ise who adopt it must bear the retribution for 
 feces against Nature's laws. Nature ordains a 
 | of vegetative existence for children till the 
 /ne is complete, and strengthened in its complete- 
 . The utmost regularity of habits (which by 
 J means implies dulness of life) produces, beyond 
 question, the most healthy frames, and there 
 mot be a sadder mistake than to suppose that 
 iy greater variety than the most ordinary life 
 ffords is necessary to the quickening or entertain- 
 ment of a child's faculties. Life, with all its objects, 
 is new to him. Its commonest incidents are deeply 
 nteresting to him. Birth and death are exciting to 
 him, and solemn be} 7 ond expression. The opening 
 and close of the seasons, and their varying pleasures 
 and pursuits ; the changes in the lives of the people 
 about him ; the evolution of his own little history, — 
 the expanding of his faculties, his achievements in 
 study, his entrance upon more and more advanced 
 duties and intercourses ; — these are enough to keep 
 his mind in full life and vigour : and he cannot 
 receive his experience of life into the depths of his 
 being unless he is at rest. If he is to commune with 
 his own heart, he must be still. If he is to gather 
 into his mind ripe observations of nature and man, 
 and to store them up reflectively, he must be still. 
 If his sentiments and emotions are to be the natural 
 
 19 
 
290 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 
 result of the workings of life upon him, he mu 
 still, that life may work upon him undisturly 
 have devoted a close attention to this subjec 
 I certainly conclude, from my own observati< 
 the intellectual and moral value of families wl 
 lived quietly at home (with due educational 
 ance) very far transcends that of young people 
 anxious parents have dragged them about the • 
 — catching at advantages here and advantages \ 
 unconscious of the sacrifice of the greatest aa 
 tage of all, — a natural method of life, with 
 quietude which belongs to it. I think that 
 untravelled have a deeper reflectiveness than 
 travelled, — a deeper sensibility, — a better woi 
 power, on the whole, — a better preparation foi 
 life before them. They have more prejudice, a 
 of course, less accomplishment than the travelled 
 but life and years are pretty sure to abate tl 
 prejudice; and a better timed travel may give th< 
 accomplishment. If not, however, — if there must 
 be a choice of good and evil at the outset of life, 
 who would not rather see the fault of narrowness 
 than of shallowness? A mind which has depth 
 must, in ordinary course, widen; while a shallow 
 mind, however wide, can never be worth much. 
 In the sensibility, the difference is as marked as in 
 the understanding : and no wonder ; for to the quiet 
 dweller at home life is an awful scroll, slowly and 
 steadily unrolling to disclose its characters of fire, 
 which burn themselves in upon the brain ; while, 
 to the young rover, life is but too much like a show- 
 
CARE OF THE IIABITS. 291 
 
 fc whose scenes shift too fast, and with too little 
 •val, to make much impression. I mention this 
 ! chiefly for the sake of parents who may feel 
 tn-.. .onal regrets that they cannot give to their 
 tn ; en what they suppose to be the "advantages" 
 ivel. My conviction is that their children are 
 ler than they suppose. A moment's thought 
 ; show them how few the rovers can be, — how 
 whelming must be the majority of those who 
 , St stay at home : and we may always be confident 
 at the lot of the great majority, duly improved, 
 ast be sufficient for all the purposes of human 
 , Nothing that I have said is meant at all in 
 approbation of those occasional changes of scene 
 I society which all young people require more 
 , less. On the contrary, I would indicate, as one 
 . ^)f the advantages of a regular home life, that it 
 prepares the novice to profit the more by such 
 3 occasional changes. It is a magnificent event in 
 the life of a quiet, industrious family when a house- 
 painting, or other domestic necessity, authorizes a 
 visit to the sea-side, or a plunge into the country 
 for a couple of months. It serves as a prodigious 
 stimulus to the intellect ; and the recollection never 
 loses its brilliancy, to the latest period of life. It is 
 worth more to novices than a whole year of conti- 
 nental travelling to practised rovers. The sunsets 
 have sunk deep. The lighthouse, the dip in the 
 waves, the shingle, the distant fleet — or the gorse on 
 the common, the wood paths, with their wild flowers, 
 the breezy down, the cottage in the lane, — call up 
 
 19—2 
 
292 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION". 
 
 a thrill in the heart of the town-bred child whenever 
 the images are called up. Such changes are good ; 
 but they are not roving in search of " advantages." 
 Again, when one child among several appears to pine 
 in any degree, becomes irritable or depressed, looks 
 pale, or ceases to grow, it is a sign that some change 
 is needed. If such a boy or girl should be invited 
 by some relation or friend on a visit of any length, 
 it is probable that all will come right. The mind 
 wants an airing, perhaps; and in a fresh abode, 
 among new objects, and kind friends, and different 
 companionship, and change of habits, without any 
 further excitement, brooding thoughts are dispersed, 
 domestic affections revive and strengthen, the mind 
 overflows with new ideas, and, after a time, home 
 becomes intensely longed for ; and the young absentee 
 returns home — to father's greeting, and mother's 
 side, and brothers and sisters' companionship, with 
 more rapture than the prospect of the journey ever 
 caused. Such a change as this is good ; but it is 
 not roving for educational " advantages." It is an 
 agreeable tonic medicine ; not a regimen of high 
 diet. 
 
 The case of the only child seems to ask a word 
 of kindness here. At the best, the case of the only 
 child is a somewhat mournful one, — somewhat for- 
 lorn, — because it is unnatural. If it is unnatural 
 for a multitude of children of the same age to herd 
 together in an Infant School, it is at least as much 
 so for a little creature to live alone among people 
 with full-grown brains, and all occupied with the 
 
CARE OF THE HABITS. 293 
 
 pursuits and interests of mature life. It is very well 
 for the father to romp with his child at spare times, 
 and for the mother to love it with her whole heart, 
 and sympathize with it, with all the sympathy that 
 such love can inspire. This is all well : but it does 
 not make them children, — nor, therefore, natural 
 companions for a child. In this case, above all 
 others, it is desirable that the child should be sent 
 to school, when old enough: and especially if the 
 only one be a boy. A good day school, where play 
 is included, may do much to obviate the disadvan- 
 tages of the position. If this cannot be done, it is 
 really hardly to be hoped that mischief will not be 
 done on the one side or the other, — of too much or 
 too little attention and sympathy. Some may wonder 
 at the idea of the only child being in danger of having 
 too little sympathy from its parents : but such cases 
 are very conceivable and are occasionally witnessed. 
 If everybody sees how an only child, — the light and 
 charm of the house, the idol of the mother, and the 
 pet of everybody, must unavoidably become of too 
 much importance in its own eyes, and suffer accord- 
 ingly, — who should feel this so anxiously and con- 
 stantly as the conscientious parents of an only child ? 
 and what is more probable than that, in their anxiety 
 not to spoil the mind they have under their charge, 
 they should carry the bracing system somewhat too 
 far, and depress the child by giving it less fostering 
 and sympathy than it needs ? They would not, for 
 its own sake, have it troublesome to their friends, 
 or self-important, or selfish ; and they keep it back. 
 
294 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 But alas ! if put back, the little thing is driven into 
 loneliness ; and children are not made for loneliness, 
 in any but a desert life. Give a child the desert 
 to rove in, with brown sheep to tend, and a young 
 camel to play with, and rocks and weeds, and springs 
 and stars and shrubby palms to live amongst, and he 
 may make a very pleasant life of it, all alone ; but 
 not if he lives in a street, and must not go out alone, 
 and passes his life among square rooms and stair- 
 cases, and the measured movements of grown-up 
 people. An only child must be troublesome, as long 
 as he is a child. He craves play, and sympathy, and 
 constant companionship: and he cannot do without 
 them — he must not be required to do without them. 
 If he is not sent to school, grown people must be his 
 companions and playfellows, — the victims to his rest- 
 lessness ; and he must be troublesome. — The case is 
 nearly the same, — only somewhat less desperate, — 
 with a girl. Her parents cannot, if they have eyes, 
 hearts, or consciences, see her pine. They must 
 either provide her with natural companionship, or 
 they must let themselves and their friends be appro- 
 priated by her as companions, till she grows up into 
 fitness to be a companion to them. — It is not included 
 in this necessity that there should be selfishness of 
 temper and manners. The more fully and naturally 
 the needs of the social nature are met and supplied, 
 the less is the danger of this kind arising from pecu- 
 liarity of position. 
 
295 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Is there any other department of Household Educa- 
 tion than those on which I have touched? No one 
 can be more aware than I am of the scantiness of 
 what I have said, when compared with the vastness 
 of the range and of the importance of the subject. 
 I could only, as I declared at the beginning, tell a 
 little of what I have seen and thought of the training 
 of families in private life : but, admitting the meagre 
 character of the whole, is there any one department 
 left untouched ? I am not aware of any that could 
 be treated of in a volume for general reading. 
 
 Some may, perhaps, ask for a chapter on Social 
 Habits: and an important subject it truly is. But 
 it appears to me to be included in that of Family 
 Habits and Manners. The same simplicity and 
 ingenuousness, the same respect and kindliness, the 
 same earnestness and cheerfulness, which should per- 
 vade the conduct and manners in the interior of the 
 household are the best elements of conduct and 
 manners in the world. I see no discretion and no 
 grace which is needed in wider social intercourses 
 that is not required by those of home. To the 
 parents there may be some anxiety and uneasiness 
 when their sons and daughters make intimacies out 
 
 7* OF THE ^ y 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
296 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 of the house. The warm friendships of youth may 
 not, perhaps, be such as the parents would have 
 chosen. They may be such as surprise and disap- 
 point the parents. But the very fact of the surprise 
 and disappointment should show them that there is 
 something more in the matter than they understand 
 or should seek to control. They cannot control the 
 sympathies of any one ; and no one being can fully 
 understand the affinities which exist between others. 
 The points to be regarded are clear enough : and 
 when the best is done that can be done, the rest may 
 be left without anxiety. 
 
 The main point is to preserve the full confidence 
 of the young people. If perfect openness and the 
 utmost practicable sympathy be maintained, all 
 must be safe. Young people must win their own 
 experience. They must find out character for them- 
 selves : they must try their own ground in social 
 life; they must be self-convicted of the prejudices 
 and partialities which belong to their immaturity ; 
 and, while their own moral rectitude and their 
 ingenuous confidence in their parents subsist, they 
 can take no permanent harm from casual associations 
 which may be far from wise. The parents should 
 remember, too, how very important a part of the 
 training of each individual is of a kind which the 
 parents have nothing to do with but to witness, and 
 to have patience with, as a piece of discipline to 
 themselves. 
 
 As has been observed before, there seems to be 
 a fine provision in human nature for rectifying home 
 
CONCLUSION. 297 
 
 tendencies which would otherwise be too strong, and 
 for supplying the imperfections of home experience 
 by the process which takes place, — the revolution of 
 moral tastes which ensues, — upon the introduction of 
 young people into a wider circle than that of home. 
 The parents have naturally, — unavoidably, — laid the 
 most stress in the training of their children on those 
 qualities which are strongest in themselves, and 
 slight, more or less, such as they disregard, or are 
 conscious of not excelling in themselves. When the 
 young people go out into the world, they are struck 
 by the novel beauty of virtues in full exercise which 
 they have seen and heard but little of, and fall in 
 love with them, and with those who possess them, 
 and, with a fresh enthusiasm, cherish them in them- 
 selves. Thus it is that we so often see whole families 
 of young people becoming characterized by the virtues 
 in which their parents are most deficient ; and also, 
 as a consequence, by the faults which are the natural 
 attendants of those virtues. I have seen a case of 
 parents, indulgent and faithful to their children, 
 virulently censorious to the rest of the world ; — the 
 children, while wearing pinafores, disgusting from 
 their gleeful gossip, picked up from the elders, 
 scorning and quizzing everybody's thoughts and 
 ways ; — and those same children, when abroad in the 
 world as men and women, growing first grave, — then 
 just and fair,— then philosophical, and at last indul- 
 gent, as the truly philosophical must ever be. They 
 preserved the keen insight into character and the 
 movements of mind in which they had been trained 
 
298 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 at home, after first recognizing, and then opening 
 their hearts to the beauty of charity. I have seen 
 the* children of imprudent, lavish, and embarrassed 
 parents turn out eminently correct in their manage- 
 ment of money matters: — the children of an untidy 
 mother turn out perfectly methodical ; — the children 
 of a too social father, remarkably retired and domestic ; 
 and so on. Very often the new and late virtue 
 becomes too prominent, excluding the hereditary 
 opposite qualities; and in that case, when these 
 young people become parents, the same process takes 
 place, and their children strongly resemble their 
 grandparents. It is a curious spectacle, — that of 
 such a moral oscillation ; — and it is so common that 
 every one may observe it. One of the pieces of 
 instruction that it yields is to parents ; — that they 
 must now let Nature work, and take off their hands 
 from meddling. They may themselves learn some- 
 thing if they will, in silence and sympathy, from the 
 spectacle of the expansion of their children ; and they 
 may take the lesson into a light and easy heart if 
 they have hitherto done their duty as well as they 
 know how. There is nothing in what they see to 
 hurt any but an improper pride : and they may make 
 sure of an increased reverence and love from their 
 children if they have the magnanimity to go hand in 
 hand with them into new fields of moral exercise and 
 enterprise, and to admit the beauty and desirableness 
 of what they see. 
 
 Here we have arrived at the ultimate stage of 
 Household Education, — that where the entire house- 
 
CONCLUSION. 299 
 
 hold advances together, in equal companionship, 
 towards the great object of human existence, the 
 perfecting of each individual in it. We set out with 
 the view that the education of a household compre- 
 hended the training and discipline of all its members ; 
 and here we find ourselves at the same point again 
 amidst a great difference in the circumstances. They 
 are no longer all under the same roof. One may be 
 in the distant town; another in a far country; a 
 third in the next street, but seen only on Sundays : 
 but still they are one Household company, living in 
 full confidence and sympathy, though their eyes may 
 seldom meet, and a clasp of the hand may be a rare 
 luxury. The mother who once received discipline 
 from her child when he was a wailing infant, keeping 
 her from her rest at midnight, receives another 
 discipline from him now when she sees him in earnest 
 pursuit of some high and holy aim, whose nobleness 
 had become somewhat clouded to her through the 
 cares of the world, and her very solicitude for him. 
 The father who had suffered, perhaps too keenly, from 
 some gross faults of his thoughtless boys in their 
 season of turbulence, receives from them now a new 
 discipline — a rebuke full of sweetness, — in the proof 
 they offer that he had distrusted Nature, — had failed 
 in faith that she would do her work well, if only the 
 way w r as duly kept open for her. There is a new 
 discipline for them in the gradual contraction of the 
 family circle, in the deepening quietness of the house, 
 and in the loss of the little hourly services which the 
 elderly people now r think they hardly valued enough 
 
300 HOUSEHOLD EDUCATION. 
 
 while they had them every hour. We can never say 
 that any part of the discipline of life is over for any- 
 one of us ; and that of domestic life is certainly not 
 over for affectionate parents whose children are 
 called away from their side, however unquestionable 
 the call may be. 
 
 As for the younger generation of- the household, — 
 their education by their parents never ceases while 
 the parents live : and the less assertion the parents 
 make of this, the deeper are the lessons they impress. 
 The deepest impressions received in life are supposed 
 to be those imparted to the sensitive and tenacious 
 mind of childhood: but the mature reverence and 
 affection of a manly mind are excited more effica- 
 ciously than the emotions of childhood can ever be 
 when the active men and women who were once the 
 children of a household see their grey-haired parents 
 in the midst of them looking up to Nature, and 
 reaching after Truth and Right with the humble 
 trust and earnest docility which spread the sweetest 
 charm of youth over the countenance of age. How- 
 ever many and however rich are the lessons they 
 have learned from their parents, assuredly, in such a 
 case, the richest is the last. 
 
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 RECMOrniT WAY jf £ B 
 
 17 
 
 
 mm MAY 131<K 
 
 2_ 
 
 
 OCT fl/? mon 
 
 
 
 g ° j u fa 7989 
 
 * 
 
 
 khssisc stp ftitoBI 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 FOPAA NO DD* <SOm 1 /R3 RFPKFI FY TA 94790 
 
YB 51848 
 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 mill! 
 
 BDD3D158flM 
 
 53Q00