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LETTERS „ 
 
 w ■««#'{_ 
 
 ON- 
 
 EARLY EDUCATION 
 
 ADDRESSED TO J. P. GREAVES, ESQ. 
 
 -BY- 
 
 .,,,, v^ J/^^ 
 
 SXALOZZI 
 
 Translated from the German Man-uscript 
 
 SYKACUSE, K. Y. 
 
 C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 
 
 1898 
 
 Copyright, 1898, by C. W. Bardeen 
 
 WO COPIES RECEIVED. 
 
^1 
 
 
 7312 
 
DEDICATED TO MOTHEES 
 
 Then why resign into a stranger's hand 
 A task so much within your own command 
 That God and Nature, and your feelings too, 
 Seem with one voice to delegate 1o you?" 
 
PUBLISHER'S XOTE 
 
 The German originals of these letters have never 
 been published, and they are probably no longer in 
 existence. 
 
 In Seyffarth's edition of Pestalozzi's complete works, 
 Blandenburg, 1872, this book under its English title 
 is mentioned in the supplementary bibliography on 
 page 395 of V^ol. 16. The edition is given as of Lon- 
 don, 1851. In Mann's edition, Langensalza, 1883, I 
 find no reference whatever to this book. In the col- 
 lective edition of Pestalozzi's works published from 
 1819 to 1823, there is no mention of these letters. 
 The 9th volume, published in 1822, contains miscel- 
 laneous writings with other letters, but no reference 
 to these. 
 
 Biber in his Life of Pestalozzi (1831) remarks, 
 page 467 : 
 
 " His letter on religious education, from which the 
 above abstract is taken, closes the work ' How Ger- 
 trude Teaches Her little Ones ', and that work itself 
 closes the series of Pestalozzi's writings so far as they 
 come within the plan of the present volume. The 
 few publications connected with our subject which ap- 
 peared subsequently under Pestalozzi's name are as we 
 have already hinted the productions of his school rather 
 
 (1) 
 
2 Letters ox Early Education 
 
 than those of his own mind, and have therefore no claim 
 to onr notice on the present occasion except inasmuch 
 as they might tend to throw light upon the practical 
 part of the latter." 
 
 Christoffel's " Pestalozzi's Leben und Ansichten ", 
 Zurich, 1846, makes no reference either to Greaves or 
 to this book. 
 
 Von Raumer's " Life and System of Pestalozzi ", 
 translated by A. Tilleard, London, 1835, makes this 
 statement on page 66 : 
 
 " An Englishman of the name of Greaves visited 
 Yverdun in 1819; he offered to teach these poor Swiss 
 children English without remuneration, and his offer 
 was accej)ted. On this step Pestalozzi himself re- 
 marks, ' This created an impression which, consider- 
 ing the original destination of these children, led us 
 very far astray.' " 
 
 Ebenezer Cooke in his introduction to the English 
 translation of " How Gertrude Teaches Her Children " 
 ( Syracuse, 1894 ), quotes ( p. xxviii ) from V^ulliemin's 
 " Reminiscences ": 
 
 " Clendy fell. There was a man there who had taken 
 part in the short-lived enterprise, a man of Christian 
 spirit and enlightened understanding. This man, who 
 was an Englishman, by name Greaves, carried the ideas 
 he had gathered at Clendy back to England, where 
 they took root, and became the origin of infant schools. 
 
Publisher's Xote 3 
 
 I^^rom England these schools returned to us, first to 
 Geneva, then to Xyon, then everywhere. We had not 
 understood Pestalozzi, but when his methods came 
 hack from England, though they had lost something 
 of their original spirit, their meaning and application 
 were clear." 
 
 In De Guimps's " Pestalozzi, his Aim and Work " 
 (Syracuse, 1889), Appendix B (pp. 300-302) is devoted 
 to this book. It begins thus : " Mr. G. Greaves visited 
 Clendy and took great interest in the work there. On 
 his return to England he corresponded with Pestalozzi 
 (between 1818 and 1820), and the letters have been 
 published in English. They are now out of print. 
 They deal with the subject of Infant Education and 
 the direction of Mothers in the training of their chil- 
 dren." A synopsis of the book by chapters follows. 
 
 This translation is therefore the only authority we 
 have for these letters. The present volume is a reprint 
 from the London edition of 1827. The headlines and 
 table of contents are added. As a w^hole it is more 
 perspicuous than most of the translations of Pesta- 
 lozzi's difficult German. As it is the last, so it is in 
 some respects the fullest exposition of Pestalozzi's 
 views ; and its value is especially great now when so 
 much effort is making to enlist the co-operation of 
 mothers in the early education of children. 
 
 Syracuse, X. Y., Aprils, 1898 
 
CO^TEl^TS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Education iu school less important than that by 
 
 mothers 9 
 
 II. Maternal love qualifies the mother for teaching 12 
 
 III. Development of the child's faculties 16 
 
 IV. How to train these faculties toward true happiness. . 20 
 V. All faculties to be cultivated according to the spirit- 
 ual nature 25 
 
 VI. The growth of faith and love 30 
 
 VII. Kindness the agent in education, arousing sympathy. 35 
 
 VIII. The child is innately noble 40 
 
 IX. The animal nature must not be allowed to rule 47 
 
 X. Joy and sympathy the tokens of man's nature 52 
 
 XI. Kindness the ruling principle 57 
 
 XII. Education in self-denial 61 
 
 XIII. Fear and awe not proper motives 65 
 
 XIV. Affection the primitive motive 70 
 
 XV. Instinctive love to be developed into piety 74 
 
 XVI. Self-denial the criterion of maternal education 79 
 
 XVII. Self-denial inculcated through kindness, not severity 83 
 
 XVIII. Separation of the child from the mother 88 
 
 XIX. The first step the child takes toward the mother 93 
 
 XX. Development of thought and of opinion 96 
 
 XXI. Harmonious development of all the faculties 101 
 
 XXII. Physical education ; need of gymnastics 106 
 
 (5) 
 
6 Letteks ok Eakly Educatioi^^ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXIII. Education of the senses ; importance of music. . . .111 
 
 XXIV. Drawing and modelling; geometry, geography. . .118 
 XXV. Importance of the education of mothers 124 
 
 XXVI. What uneducated mothers may do ; home object- 
 lessons 129 
 
 XXVII. The education of women 135 
 
 XXVIII. Memorizing without understanding. Things be- 
 fore words 140 
 
 XXIX. Encourage intellectual self-activity ; talk with 
 
 children, not to them 146 
 
 XXX. Let education be work, but make it interesting. . . .151 
 
 XXXI. Lessons in number, form, language 155 
 
 XXXII. Independence of miud ; wdiat constitutes happiness. 162 
 
 XXXIII. Fear and ambition as motives 167 
 
 XXXIV. Christian education 174 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 When the Transhitor at the request of his much- 
 respected friend to whom the following Letters are 
 addressed undertook to revise the manuscript with 
 view to its publication, he was fortunate enough to 
 obtain from Pestalozzi permission to make any altera- 
 tions that might become necessary from the circum- 
 stances under which the letters had originally been 
 written. 
 
 Of this privilege the Translator has availed himself 
 freely — but not more so than he considered himself 
 authorized by the state in which he found the manu- 
 script, and his familiarity with Pestalozzi 's views which 
 the study of his works and the recollection of the days 
 spent in his society have tended to produce. However, 
 as he who might have sanctioned the execution, as he 
 had encouraged the design, is now no more, the Trans- 
 lator has the satisfaction to state that the following 
 sheets previously to their publication have been sub- 
 mitted to the eye of some of the warmest as well as 
 most enlightened friends of Pestalozzi. 
 
 And here the Translator might address himself to 
 the indulgence of his readers, and call their attention 
 
 (7) 
 
8 Letters ox Early Educations' 
 
 to the difficulties which as a foreigner he must neces- 
 sarily have had to encounter in writing in a language 
 not his own ; but he prefers an appeal to their sense of 
 justice, and earnestly solicits, whenever the sentiment 
 may be Avanting in perspicuity or the expression in 
 correctness, — whenever, from an attempt at distinct- 
 ness the impressive eloquence of the original may have 
 been " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," — 
 that these blemishes may be visited solely on him, the 
 Translator, and that the candid readers may be guided 
 by those passages which come home to their bosoms 
 with the genuine force of truth, and by those only, in 
 forming an idea of the views of the truly venerable 
 author. 
 
 LoKDOK, Aug. 21^ 1827 
 
LETTER I 
 
 Yyerduk, October, 1, 1818.- 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 You require of me to point out to you, in a series 
 of letters, my views concerning the development of 
 the infant mind. 
 
 I am happy to see that you acknowledge the import- 
 ance of education in the earliest stage of life : a fact 
 that has almost universally been overlooked. The 
 philanthropic efforts, both of a former age, and of our 
 own, have been directed in general to the improvement 
 of schools, and their various modes of instruction. It 
 will not be expected that I should say anything tend- 
 ing to depreciate such endeavors : the greater part of 
 my life has been devoted to the arduous aim at their 
 3ombination; and the results and acknowledgments 
 [ have obtained, are such as to convince me that my 
 .abor has not been in vain. But I can assure you, 
 fny dear friend, from the experience of more than half 
 I century, and from the most intimate conviction of 
 □ay heart, founded upon this experience, that I should 
 
 (9) 
 
10 Letters o^ Early Education, I 
 
 not consider our task as being half accomplished, I 
 should not anticipate half the consequences for the real 
 benefit of mankind, as long as our system of improve- 
 ment failed of extending to the earliest stage of educa- 
 tion: and to succeed in this, we require the most pow- 
 erful ally of our cause, as far as human power may 
 contribute to an end which eternal love and wisdom 
 have assigned to the endeavours of man. It is on this 
 altar that we shall lay down the sacrifice of all our efforts ; 
 and if our gift is to be accepted, it must be conveyed 
 through the medium of maternal love. 
 
 Yes! my dear friend, this object of our ardent de- 
 sires will never be attained but through the assistance 
 of the mothers. To them we must appeal ; with them we 
 must pray for the blessing of heaven; in them try to 
 awaken a deep sense of all the consequences of all the 
 self-denials, and of all the rewards attached to their 
 interesting duties. Let each take an active part in that 
 most important sphere of influence. Such is the as- 
 piration of an aged man, who is anxious to secure what- 
 ever good he may have been allowed to promote or to 
 conceive. Your heart will unite with his: I feel it will. 
 I shake hands with you, as with one who fervently em- 
 braces this cause — not -my cause, nor that of any other 
 mortal, — but the cause of Him who would have the 
 children of His creation, and of His providence, led to 
 Himself in the ways of love. 
 
The Mothers must be en^listed 11 
 
 Happy should I be, if I might one day speak through 
 your voice to the mothers of Great Britain How does my 
 glowing heart expand at the opening prospect which has 
 this moment filled my imagination! To behold a great 
 and mighty nation known of old to appreciate with 
 equal skill the glory of powerful enterprise, and the 
 silent joys of domestic life, intent upon the welfare of 
 the rising generation ; establishing the honor and hap- 
 piness of those who shall one day stand in their place ; 
 securing to their country her glory and her liberty, by 
 a moral elevation of her children! And shall not the 
 heart of a, mother hound in the consciousness that she too is to 
 have her share in this immortal work f 
 
LETTER II 
 
 October 3, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 Our great object is the development of the infiint 
 mind, — and our great means, the agency of mothers. 
 
 A most important question then presents itself at the 
 very outset of our inquiries. Has the mother the quali- 
 fications requisite for the duties and exercises we would 
 impose on her ? 
 
 I feel myself bound to enter into this question, and 
 to give it, if possible, an answer fully decisive, request- 
 ing your attention to the subject, as I feel persuaded 
 that if my views concede with your own, you will 
 agree with the reasoning founded on my statement. 
 
 Yes! I would say, the mother is qualified, and quali- 
 fied by her Creator himself, to become the principal 
 agent in the development of her child. The most ar- 
 dent desire for its good is already implanted in her 
 heart; and what power can be more influential, more 
 stimulative, than maternal love f — the most gentle, and, 
 at the same time, the most intrepid power in the whole 
 system of nature. Yes: the mother is qualified, for 
 
 (12) 
 
A Thinking Maternal Love 13 
 
 Providence has also gifted her with the faculties re- 
 quired for her task. And here I feel it necessary to 
 explain what is the task I refer to as peculiarly hers. 
 It is not anything beyond her reach I would demand, 
 — it is not a certain degree or description of knowledge, 
 usually implied in what is vulgarly called a ^mW^ed edu- 
 cation; though, if she happened to possess such knowl- 
 edge, the day will come for opening her treasury and 
 giving to her childi'en what she ma}^ choose : but at the 
 period w^e speak out, all the knowledge acquired in the 
 most accomplished education would not facilitate her 
 task ; for what I would demand of her is only — a think- 
 ing love. 
 
 Love, of course, I presume to be the first requisite, 
 and that which will always present itself, — only modi- 
 fied, perhaps, under various forms. All I would re- 
 quest of a mother would be, to let her love act as 
 strongly as it may, but to season it, in the exercise, 
 with thought. 
 
 And 1 should indeed entreat a mother, by the very 
 love w^hich she bears to her children, to bestow a mo- 
 ment of calm reflection on the nature of her duties. I 
 do not mean to lead her into an artificial discussion ; 
 maternal love might be lost in the maze of philosophical 
 investigation. But there is that in her feelings, which, 
 in a shorter way, by a more direct process, may lead 
 her to truth. To this I would appeal. Let it not be 
 
14 Letters ox Earlt Educatiois^, II 
 
 concealed from lier, that her duties are both easy and 
 difficult; but I hope there is no mother who has not 
 found the highest reward in overcoming impediments 
 in such a cause: and the whole of her duties will 
 gradually open before her, if she will but dwell upon 
 that simple, yet awful and elevating idea, " My child- 
 ren are born for eternity, and confided expressly to 
 me, that I may educate them for being children of 
 God/' 
 
 " Mother!" I would say to her, " responsible mother I 
 look around thee! what diversity of pursuits, what 
 variety of calling! some agitated in the turmoil of a 
 restless life; others courting repose in the bosom of 
 retirement. Of all the different actors that surround 
 thee, whose vocation appears most sacred, most solemn, 
 most holy? ' Doubtless his,' thou art ready to exclaim, 
 ' whose life is dedicated to the spiritual elevation of 
 human nature. How happy must he be, whose calling 
 it is to lead others to happiness, and happiness ever- 
 lasting.' Well! happy mother! his calling is thine. 
 Shrink not at the idea, — tremble not at the comparison. 
 Think not I arrogate for thee a station beyond thy 
 deserts, — fear not lest temptations to vanity lie hid 
 in my suggestion, — but raise thy heart in gratitude to 
 Him who has entrusted thee with so high a province, — 
 try to render thyself worthy of the confidence reposed 
 in thee. Talk not of deficiencies in thy knowledge, — 
 
The Mothek as a Teachee 15 
 
 love shall supply them ; — of limitations in thy means, — 
 Providence shall enlarge them; — of weakness in thy 
 energies ; — the Spirit of Power himself shall strengthen 
 tliem: — look to that Spirit for all that thou dost want, 
 and especially for those two grand, pre-eminent requi- 
 sites, courage and humility. ^^ 
 
LETTER III 
 
 October 7, 1818. 
 My dear Greayes, 
 
 Every mother who is^aware of the importance of her 
 task, will, I presume, be ready to devote to it all her 
 zeal. She will think it indispensable to attain a clear 
 view of the end for which she is to educate her children. 
 
 I have pointed out this end in my last letter. But 
 much remains to be said on the means to be employed 
 in the first stage of education. 
 
 A child is a being endowed with all the faculties of 
 human nature, but none of them developed: a bud not 
 yet opened. AYhen the bud uncloses, every one of the 
 leaves unfolds, not one remains behind. Such must 
 be the process of education. 
 
 'No faculty in human nature but must be treated 
 with the same attention ; for their co-agency alone can 
 ensure their success. 
 
 But how shall the mother learn to distinguish and 
 to direct each faculty, before it appears in a state of 
 development sufficient to give a token of its own ex- 
 istence? 
 
 (16) 
 
Deyelopmekt of the Child's Faculties 17 
 
 Xot indeed from books, but from actual observation. 
 
 I would ask every mother who has observed her 
 child with no other end but merely to watch over its 
 safety, whether she has not remarked, even in the first 
 era of life, the progressive advancement of the faculties? 
 
 The first exertions of the child, attended with some 
 pain, have yet enough of pleasure to induce a repeti- 
 tion gradually increasing in frequency and power ; and 
 when their first efforts, blind efforts as it were, are 
 once over, the little hand begins to play its more per- 
 fect part. From the first movement of this hand, from 
 the first grasp which avails itself of a plaything, how 
 infinite is the series of actions of which it will be the 
 instrument! not only employing itself in everything 
 connected with the habits and comforts of life, but as- 
 tonishing the world, perhaps, with some masterpiece of 
 art, or seizing ere they escape the fleeting inspirations 
 of genius and handing them down to the admiration of 
 posterity. 
 
 The first exertion of this little hand then opens an 
 immense field to a faculty which now begins to manifest 
 itself. 
 
 In the next place the attention of the child is now 
 visibly excited and fixed by a great variety of exter- 
 nal impressions: the eye and the ear are attracted 
 wherever a lively color, or a rousing animating sound, 
 may strike them, and they turn, as if to inquire the 
 
18 Letters on Early Education, III 
 
 cause of that sudden impression. A'ery soon the features 
 of the child, and its redoubled attention, will betray 
 the pleasure with which the senses are affected by the 
 brilliant colors of a flower, or the pleasing sounds of 
 music. Apparently the first traces are now making 
 of that mental activity which will hereafter employ 
 itself in the numberless observations and combinations 
 of events, or in the search of their hidden causes, and 
 which will be accessable to all the pleasing or painful 
 sensations which life in its various shapes may excite, j 
 
 Every mother will recollect the delight of her feelings 
 on the first tokens of her infant's consciousness and 
 rationality ; indeed maternal love knows not a higher 
 joy than that arising from those interesting indica- 
 tions. Trifling to another, to her they are of infinite 
 value. To her they reveal an eventful futurity; they 
 tell her the important story, that a spiritual being, 
 dearer to her than life, is opening as it were the eye of 
 intelligence and saying in its silent, but tender and 
 expressive language, " I am born for immortality." 
 
 But the last and highest joy, the triumph of mater- 
 nal love, remains yet to be spoken of. It is the look 
 of the child to the eye of the mother — that look so full 
 of love, so full of hearty which speaks most emphatically [I 
 of its elevation in the scale of being. It is now a 
 subject for the best gift bestowed on human nature. 
 The voice of conscience will speak within its breast; 
 
The Birth of Co:n^sciexce 19 
 
 religion will assist its trembling steps and raise its 
 eye to Heaven. With these convictions the heart of 
 the mother expands with delight and solicitnde: she 
 again hails in her offspring not merely the citizen of 
 earth: " Thou art born," she cries, "for immortality 
 and an immortality of happiness : such is the promise 
 of thy heaven-derived faculties; such shall be the con- 
 summation of thy Heavenly Father's love." 
 
 These then are the first traces of human nature 
 unfolding in the infantine state. The philosopher 
 may take them as facts constituting an object of 'study : 
 he may use them as the basis of a system ; but they are 
 originally designed for the mother, — they are a hint 
 from above, intended at once as her blessing and en- 
 couragement : 
 
 "For all her sorrows, all her cares, 
 An over-payment of delight ! " 
 
LETTEE IV 
 
 October 18, 1818. 
 My Dear Greaves, 
 
 When a mother has observed in her child the first 
 traces of development, new questions suggests them- 
 selves: — How sJiall these expanding faculties be directed f 
 Which' of them call for the most diligent attention, and 
 which may follow their natural course without requiring 
 any peculiar care bestowed on their growth and regula- 
 tion ? Which, too, have the most important bearing 
 on the future welfare of the child ? 
 
 The last question, I suppose, will be decided unani- 
 mously in favor of the heart. I cannot suppose that 
 any mother is so morally and intellectually blind as 
 consciously to decide on providing for the external and 
 temporal benefit of her child at the expense of his 
 inward and eternal well-being. But she may never- 
 theless be puzzled as to the relative importance of the 
 faculties under her charge, and the consequent propor- 
 tion of attention they separately demand. 
 
 The heart has, indeed, a pre-eminent claim on her 
 attention. But is not the child directed and admon- 
 
 (20) 
 
Religious Tkainii^g 21 
 
 ished by the voice of conscience within? Is he not 
 able to decide the great question of right and wrong, 
 merely by listening to this voice, without any partic- 
 ular instruction from another? And will not the time 
 arrive when he becomes receptive of the truths of 
 Religion, to confirm that voice within, and to give 
 him that moral elevation, the very idea of which is at 
 present so far beyond his reach? 
 
 It would not be difficult to answer these questions, 
 and to put the whole subject in its true light. But I 
 would not offer to a mother any detailed plan for her 
 guidance, considering it as highly essential that she 
 should feel herself untrammelled by anything like sys- 
 tem, the principles of which, not being her own, might 
 only prejudice and confine her opinions and practice, 
 without convincing her of any fitness or adaptation in 
 the given means to the end proposed. Why should 
 her mind be merely the reflection of another's, whose 
 views, perhaps, she can neither fathom nor appreciate? 
 Is she not a mother? and has her Creator, in furnish- 
 ing her with the springs of natural life for His chil- 
 dren, left her unqualified for administering to that 
 spiritual life which is the very end and essence of all 
 being? Is her relation to humanity of so responsible 
 a character, and shall not her intelligence and energy 
 be concentrated in this one focus? Shall not her 
 whole existence be absorbed in the exalted purpose. 
 
22 Letters on Early Education, IV 
 
 the unwearying effort, to accomplish the end of her 
 creation? Xature, benevolence, religion, all demand 
 it! and so unanimously, as to set the question for 
 ever at rest. 
 
 I would entreat of every mother to take a general 
 survey of life in all its varieties of aspect : and wherever 
 happiness presents itself, not merely in semblance but 
 in substance, then to pause and examine, if possible, 
 how that happiness is constituted, and whence it 
 originates. 
 
 It is more than probable, that she will feel rather 
 dissatisfied with the results of her first investigation ; 
 she will find it almost impossible, amidst such distract- 
 ing multiplicity of pursuits and of characters, to se- 
 lect any specimens on which her eye might repose as it 
 were from the scrutinizing search, and gather light 
 truly illustrative of the subject. She would fain with- 
 draw her contemplations from this scene of confusion, 
 and direct them again into their former channel, to 
 dwell with unmingled delight on that being so dear to 
 her affections. 
 
 But the dearer your child is to you, fond mother! 
 the more urgently would I insist on your examining 
 that life into which he will one day be thrown. Do 
 you find it replete with danger? You must encompass 
 him with a shield that shall preserve his innocence. 
 Do you find it a maze of error? You must show him \ 
 
How Men^ gai:n^ Happiness 23 
 
 that magic clue which shall lead to the fountain of 
 truth. Do you find it lifeless, and dead, under all its 
 busy superficies? You must try to nourish in him that 
 spirit of activity which shall keep his powers alive, 
 and impel him forwards to improve, though all 
 around him should be lost in the habitual mechanism 
 of a stationary idleness. Again, therefore, enquire 
 what may be the experience life can afford you? Look 
 for a moment at those who have distinguished them- 
 selves from the rest of their species. Surely you would 
 not wish your child to be one of the many of whom 
 nothing can be said but that they lived and died, 
 passing through life ingloriously, and uncharacterized 
 by any quality, or any action than can dignify human- 
 ity. Your child can be in no class of society where 
 the most honorable distinction is not attainable. The 
 fertile spreading tree, however low may be the valley 
 it grows in, is not the less welcome to the way-worn 
 traveller who hails its luscious fruits and grateful 
 shades. 
 
 Even among the inferior stations, you will find many 
 who have really distinguished themselves by the in- 
 dustry and energy displayed in their employment, 
 however little may be its intrinsic dignity; but their 
 skill and perseverance have gained and secured to them 
 the attention and perhaps respect of their neighbors 
 and superiors. 
 
24 Letteks on Early Educatioi^^, IV 
 
 Others will arrest your observation, placed in the 
 more exalted ranks of society, whose amazing grasp of 
 intelligence will appear to you as almost supernatural. 
 You may occasionally remark it compassing extraor- 
 dinary ends, with ordinary and even limited means; 
 directing with facility the helm of national power, or 
 over-ruling the decisions of national wisdom, or stem- 
 ming the currents of national policy ; and in these, or 
 any other varieties of its character and action, you will 
 have to admire the triumphs of mind. 
 
 These prominent actors on the stage of life are to a 
 great number, whose destiny seems to be in their power, 
 objects of terror: but you will scarcely find any one 
 disposed to withhold the tribute of admiration due to 
 their lofty endowments. As their persons are regarded 
 with respect^ or possibly with fmy, by others of their 
 kind, so you will meet with many an individual who 
 inspires his observers and acquaintances with no other 
 sentiment than love : his natural goodness of disposi- 
 tion, and his unvarying kindness of attention, will 
 never fail of producing this appropriate effect : being 
 every man's well-wisher, he has gained the secret of 
 access to every man's affections. • 
 
 Your own acquaintance will furnish you with the 
 original of at least one individual in each of these 
 three classes. 
 
 Are they all happy, or any one superlatively so? 
 
LETTER V 
 
 October 24, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 I do not mean to anticipate the answer of the 
 mother. Bnt it is highly probable that her inquiries 
 will terminate in sad conviction that none of the in- 
 dividuals in question seem to be invested with that hap- 
 piness, true, essential, and indisturbed, which she so 
 ardently aspires after as the future portion of her 
 child. 
 
 Here, then, she will sigh over the imperfections of 
 human nature, the inconsistencies of human pursuits. 
 Is it possible, she will exclaim, that with all this fertility 
 of genius, all this comprehension of mind, all these char- 
 ities of heart, happiness should still be unattained? 
 
 ^ow this is precisely the point to which I would 
 bring her. 
 
 " How is it possible r^ is a phrase so common with us, 
 that we quite forget its original meaning. It is a 
 question, but we never fail to evade its legitimate 
 answer. It is a question to ourselves, but we consciously 
 shrink back from the task of meeting it with a fair and 
 open reply. Let it be otherwise in the present in- 
 
 (25) 
 
26 Letteks on^ Early Educatioint, V 
 
 stance. Let the mother go on to examine the nature 
 of this possibility, and she will soon be sensible of her 
 approximation to the truth she is in search of. She 
 must be aware that mere executive talent, however 
 splendid; mere mental capacity, however vast; mere 
 good nature, however diffusive, are still endowments 
 infinitely inferior to the conditions of human happiness. 
 And here I am about to allude to a fundamental error 
 which prevails in education, as well as in our Judg- 
 ment of men and things. 
 
 What, I would ask, can be the true, intrinsic use of 
 the utmost possible exertions unless regulated by ac- 
 curacy of ideas, elevated and universal perceptions, and, 
 above all, under the control of and founded on the 
 noblest sentiments of the heart, a firm and steady will? 
 And again, I ask, what can be the real use and merit of 
 schemes however deep or ingenious, if the energy of 
 exertion be not equal to the boldness and skill of the 
 conception, or even if the two powers are combined 
 but are not working for an end worthy of themselves 
 and propitious to humanity? It is obvious then, that 
 a mere cultivation of the talents of our animal and intel- 
 lectual nature will be found absolutely inefficient as a 
 substitute for the heart. 
 
 This, then, will appear to be the true basis of human 
 happiness. But I must even here warn you'against a 
 possible mistake, by pointing out the features of a 
 
The True Standard of Activity 
 
 •^v 
 
 character likely to mislead you, and which is so often 
 met with in our passage through life that none of us 
 shall dispute the existence of an original. I refer to one 
 whose mind is pregnant with good intentions, his heart 
 overflowing with amiable dispositions, and his zeal ever 
 ready to patronize and promote any worthy enterprize 
 that has for its object the benefit of society. I need 
 not name to you all the admirable points of such a 
 character ; so much kindness, benevolence, and warmth, 
 cannot fail of seeming to you irresistibly attractive. 
 And yet it is a fact, but too often confirmed by ex- 
 perience, that all this constellation of excellencies may 
 glow and sparkle in vain ; that such a temperament, 
 however finely constituted, may yet live and move to 
 little purpose in reference to others, and to itself fail 
 of securing that happiness which is asserted to be the 
 inseparable concomitant of virtue. 
 
 The reason is evident : the heart, the grand wheel in 
 the human mechanism, may have been long and actively 
 at work, but for want of being connected in due time 
 with those other powers of human nature whose co- 
 operation is equally essential it has failed of producing 
 that health and vitality which would otherwise have 
 pervaded the system. The faculties of man must be 
 so cultivated that no one shall predominate at the ex- 
 pence of another but each be excited to the true stand- 
 ard of activity; and this dandard is the spirUwd mdure 
 of man. 
 
28 Letters on^ Early Education, Y 
 
 And here allow me to expatiate again on the princi- 
 pal results of these important truths; again to touch 
 upon them in order to the character I am addressing. 
 
 " Happy mother ! thou art delighting thyself in the 
 first efforts of thy child and they are delightful ; muse 
 upon them; pass them not by, — they are the gems of 
 future action; they are all-important to thee and to 
 him, and should furnish thee with many a long train 
 of prolific thought. 
 
 " God has given to thy child all the faculties of our 
 nature but the grand point remains yet undecided ! 
 How shall this heart, this head, these hands, be em- 
 ployed ? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A 
 query, the answer to which involves a futurity of hap- 
 piness or unhappiness to the life so dear to thee. 
 
 " God has given thy child a spiritual nature; that is 
 to say. He has implanted in him the voice of con- 
 science ; and He has done more, — He has given him the 
 faculty of attending to this voice. He has given him 
 an eye whose natural turn is heavenward ; teaching 
 thee, in this alone, the elevation of his destiny; and 
 disclaiming for him all affinity to the inferior creatures 
 whose downward looks speak as expressively of the 
 earth whither they are tending. 
 
 " Thy child, then, was created, not for earth, but 
 for heaven. Dost thou know the way that leads 
 thither? Thy child would never find it, nor would any 
 
The Spiritual Xature of Majs^ 29 
 
 other mortal be able to lead the way, if divine mercy 
 did not reveal it to him. But it is not enough to 
 know this way ; thy child must learn to walk in it. 
 
 " It is recorded, thou knowest, that God opened the 
 heavens to one of the patriarchs of old, and showed him 
 a ladder leading to their azure heights ! Well, this ladder 
 is let down to every descendant of Abram ; it is tendered 
 to thy child. But he must be taught to climb it. 
 And let him take heed not to attempt it nor think to 
 scale it by cold calculations of the head, — nor be com- 
 pelled to adventure it by the mere impulse of the 
 heart: — but let all these powers combine, and the 
 noble enterprise will be crowned with success. 
 
 " All these powers are already bestowed on him : but 
 thine is the province to assist in calling them forth. 
 Let the ladder leading to heaven be constantly before 
 thine eyes, even the ladder of Faith^ on which thou 
 mayest behold ascending and descending the angels of 
 Hope and Love. ' ' 
 
LETTER VI 
 
 October 31, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 Had I been more anxious, on some former occa- 
 sions, to suit my words to the taste of the one, and to 
 the theories of others, I might perhaps have secured 
 the approbation of those who are at present inclined 
 to put upon my principles a less favorable construc- 
 tion, or to reject them altogether. But I have not 
 been taught to refer to systems for the proof of what 
 experience- suggested or practice confirmed to me. If it 
 has been my lot, as I humbly hope that it has been, to 
 light upon truths little noticed before, and principles 
 which, though almost generally acknowledged, were 
 yet seldom practised, I confess that I was little quali- 
 fied for that task by the precision of my philosophical 
 notions, but supported rather by a rich stock of ex- 
 perience, and guided by the impulse of my heart. If, 
 therefore, I am frequently recurring to an appeal to 
 the feelings of a mother, you will easily conceive that, 
 while I would court the examination of my principles 
 by those who are qualified for it by intellectual superi- 
 
 (30) 
 
Faith and Love in^ the Infai^t 31 
 
 ority, I would yet look for sympathy chiefly to those 
 whose exertions are kindred to mine, — being sprung 
 from the same feelings, and directed to the same end. 
 
 Let me then proceed to lay before you my views, 
 not indeed with the elaborate accuracy that might sat- 
 isfy the criticism of a stranger, but with the warmth 
 that may speak to the heart of a friend. 
 
 I would, in the first place, direct your attention to 
 the existence and the early manifestation of a spirit- 
 ual principle, even in the infant mind. I would put it 
 in the strongest light, that there is in the child an 
 active power of faith and love : the two principles by 
 which, under the divine guidance, our nature is made 
 to participate in the highest blessings that are in»store 
 for us. And this power is not in the infant mind, as 
 other faculties are, in a dormant state. While all 
 other faculties, whether mental or physical, present 
 the image of utter helplessness, of a weakness which in 
 its first attempts at exertion only leads to pain and 
 disappointment, that same power of faith and love dis- 
 plays an energy, an intensity, which is never surpassed 
 by its most successful efforts when in full growth. 
 
 1 am fully aware that what I have called just now 
 a principle of faith and love in the infant is frequently, 
 and indeed generally, degraded by the name of a 
 merely animal or instinctive feeling. But I confess 
 that I look upon the instinctive agency of the infant. 
 
32 Letters ox Early Educatiox, VI 
 
 in its first stage of existence, as the wonderful dispen- 
 sation of a benign and all-wise Providence. In this 
 wise, and, I repeat it, wonderful dispensation, we 
 may indeed admire, with feelings of veneration, the 
 free gift of the Creator to man — a gift which, however 
 man may prevert it, is yet, in its primitive agency, an 
 incalculable blessing. And if the feeling I am alluding 
 to, be called animal, I confess that such appears to 
 have been the intention of the Creator, that however 
 low the first state of human existence might rank, it 
 might yet adumbrate, in its primitive forms, the suc- 
 cessive development of its spiritual nature. 
 
 This principle, however, for the existence of which 
 I cofitend, is by no means absolutely ripened and 
 purified in the child. If it were to remain among the 
 inferior faculties it would fail of acting as a constant 
 preservative of faith and love. It must, therefore, 
 derive its nourishment and increase from nature; it 
 must be cherished by the sacred power of innocence 
 and truth. This must constitute the atmosphere in 
 which the child is living. 
 
 This daily nourishment of the child's love and faith 
 will in time unfold all the germs of the purest virtues. 
 The infant is obedient, active, patient, — I should 
 almost have said, wise and pious, before it has been 
 taught to understand the nature or merit of these 
 
Gratitude, Sympathy, Resig:n^atiox 33 
 
 virtues. The highest and strongest power of spiritual 
 elevation of which the soul of man is capable under 
 the influence of the divine doctrine of Christ, is com- 
 municated to the child in tender infancy, by a kind of 
 revelation. It has a foretaste of the most sublime vir- 
 tues, the power of which it is not yet able to conceive. 
 
 Thus the true dignity of Christianity may be said to 
 be implanted in the child before it has an idea of the 
 full growth of its yet tender germs in its breast. The 
 sacred feeling of gratitude is active in the child in the 
 moment of gratification, when it feels its animal life 
 appeased and its animal wants supplied. The sacred 
 power of sympathy, which is superior to the fear of 
 danger and death, is active in the child: it would die 
 in the arms of the mother, to relieve her from immi- 
 nent pain, the feeling of which is strongly marked on 
 her features, — it would die for her, before it could 
 conceive what is sympathy, or death. In the child 
 there is even an antepast of the feeling of tranquillity 
 and delight which is the reward of a resignation of 
 our own desires, of a subordination of all our hopes 
 and wishes, under the supreme and ruling principles 
 of love and faith. 
 
 This act of resignation, trifling as may be its im- 
 mediate object, is the first step towards the conscious 
 and principled exercise of self-denial. 
 
34 Letters on Early Education, VI 
 
 On the arms of the mother, the infant is actuated 
 and as it were inspired by this principle, which may 
 become its second nature while the mind is yet far 
 from a consciousness of that power which, in its 
 further development, may produce the most glorious 
 efforts of self-denial. 
 
LETTER VII 
 
 November 8, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 I have in my last letter stated it is my firm convic- 
 tion that there is in the infant a principle which may, 
 under the divine guidance, enable him not only to stand 
 distinguished among his fellow-men, but also to fulfil 
 the highest command of his Maker, to walk in the light 
 of faith, and to have his heart overflowing with that 
 love which " beareth all things, believeth all things, 
 hopeth all things, endureth all things," — the love 
 which " never faileth." 
 
 I have called this principle, even as it is manifested 
 in the earliest stage of human life, a principle of love 
 and faith. I am aware that these terms will meet with 
 contradiction by some, and perhaps with derision by 
 others. I should feel truly obliged to anyone who would 
 give me two other terms more appropriate, — more ex- 
 pressive of the idea that I have formed on the subject, 
 after the closest and most earnest observation of many 
 years. In the mean time, may I venture at least to 
 hope that no one will deny the fact, merely on account 
 of the insufficiency of the terms which I may have had 
 the misfortune to apply to the description of it. 
 
 (85) 
 
3G Letters ok Early Educatioi^, VII 
 
 I shall try to explain my idea in a manner which will 
 scarcely leave a doubt on the nature of the fact to 
 which it is my wish to call the attention of all persons 
 engaged in education. They will be ready to admit, 
 from past experience, that if you treat a child with 
 kindness, there is a greater chance of succeeding than 
 if you try by any other means. 
 
 Xow this is all that I would wish to have granted to 
 me; and "on this simple and undeniable fact 1 would 
 ground whatever there is of theory, or of principle, in 
 my views on infant development. 
 
 If you succeed by Jxindness^ more than by any other 
 means, there must, I would say, be a something in the 
 child that answers as it were to your call of kindness. 
 Kindness must be the most congenial to his nature : 
 kindness must excite a sympathy in his heart. Whence 
 is that something derived ? I have no hesitation in 
 saying, from the Giver of all that is good. It is indeed 
 to that same j)rinciple in man that He has always ad- 
 dressed His call, both by the voice of conscience, and 
 whenever He has, by His infinite mercy, spoken to man- 
 kind, '' at sundry times, and in divers manners ". 
 And if otherwise, how are we to satisfy ourselves with 
 regard to the meaning of the Divine authority, by 
 which it is said, that " of such is the kingdom of 
 Heaven;" and that, " Whosoever shall not receive the 
 
 
Effect of Kindn^ess 37 
 
 kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter 
 therein." 
 
 We shall have the more reason to think so, if we 
 consider the manner in which that power of kindness 
 acts upon even the infant mind. 
 
 If the infant were not actuated by any other impulse 
 l)ut the mere instinct of self-preservation; if his at- 
 tachment to the mother were grounded merely upon a 
 consciousness of his helplessness, of his animal wants, 
 and the observation that she was the first to relieve, 
 to protect, to gratify them; if thence sprang his smile, 
 and all the little tokens of affection so dear to the 
 mother's heart; if the infant were really that selfish, 
 calculating creature, turning to the gratification of his 
 own desires the affection of others ; then indeed Avould 
 1 cease for ever to speak of the stamina of love in his 
 heart, or of the antepast, hoAvever distant, of faith; 
 then would I cease for ever to address the mother as 
 the principal agent in the cause of humanity. Such a 
 cause then could no longer exist. Then I would no 
 longer exhort her to weigh her duty, and to consider 
 the means by which to accomplish it. Any means 
 would do for what would then be her province, — to 
 nurture up in her infant that same cold and unnatural 
 selfishness which might be lurking in her owm bosom 
 under the deceitful mask of maternal love. 
 
38 Letters on Early Education, VII 
 
 But let the mother tell what her heart says to such 
 a doctrine. Let her tell if she does not believe that 
 God himself has implanted in her that feeling of 
 maternal love. Let her tell if she does not feel her- 
 self nearest to God in those moments in which her love 
 is most intense and active ; and if it is not this feeling 
 which alone enables her to be unremitting in her 
 duties, and to undergo self-denials which have no 
 name, which we may attempt to describe, but which 
 none but a mother can feel, and none but a mother can 
 undergo. Let her tell, whether she is not firmly con- 
 vinced, by that same feeling, that there is, in the heart 
 of her infant, a gratitude, and a confidence, and an 
 attachment, which is better than selfish, which is im- 
 planted as is her own love by her Heavenly Father. 
 
 I know the cold and heartless doctrine which does 
 not deny the existence of such a feeling, but which 
 accounts for it by calling it a salutary deception, in- 
 tended to induce the mother to be careful in the fulfil- 
 ment of her duty. Have I called this doctrine cold 
 and heartless ? Then let me add that I do not wish 
 to cast an imputation on those who may hold it, from 
 whatever motives it may be : but I cannot bring myself 
 to sympathize with them. 
 
 Let others advocate the theory that evil may be done 
 that good may come of it. Let man try to palliate by 
 this theory his own weakness : but let him not presume 
 
Matek:n^al Love 39 
 
 to transfer that principle to the works of Him who is 
 all wisdom, all power, and all love. 
 
 Xo: I will never believe that God, to endear to her 
 by a pleasing delusion her difficult and often painful 
 duty, — I will never believe that the Father of Truth has 
 implanted a lying spirit in the heart of the mother. 
 
LETTEE VIII 
 
 ]S^OVEMBEIl 15, 1818. 
 
 My dear Ge'eaves, 
 
 I would call upon the mother to be thankful to God 
 that He has so much facilitated her task by implant- 
 ing in her infant's heart those germs which, under 
 His guidance and with His blessing, it will be her duty 
 to develop, to protect, and to strengthen, until they 
 may be matured into real fruits of faith and love. 
 
 For it will be her task in a world of corruption to 
 guard infant innocence, and to mature it into princi- 
 ple. In a world of inconstancy, of distrust, of unbe- 
 lief, it will be incumbent on her to be assiduous that 
 the serene, the amiable security of that innocence with 
 which it now reposes in her arms, may one day grow 
 into unshaken confidence in all that is good here be- 
 low, and in all that is sacred above. And in a world 
 of selfishness, hers will be the care to direct and expand 
 the instinctive attachment of her infant into the spring 
 of active benevolence, which in a good cause will 
 shrink from no self-denials, and think no sacrifice too 
 
 great. 
 
 (40) 
 
Innate Xobleness 41 
 
 How could she hope to succeed in this, the great end 
 of education, if the Creator had not instructed the 
 child with those faculties which will admit of judicious 
 direction and development ? The requisite for educa- 
 tion does not consist only in the qualification of those 
 who undertake the task ; it consists in the qualification 
 of the child also, in whose nature that must be found 
 which proclaims louder than anything else the great 
 end of Infinite Wisdom in the creation of man. First 
 of all, therefore, let the mother rejoice that whatever 
 may be the weakness of human nature, however great 
 may be the temptations, yet there is in her child a 
 something, the origin of which, as a gift of God, dates 
 prior to temptation or to corruption. Let her re- 
 joice, that in her child there is that, which 
 
 " nor prems, nor stores of gold, 
 
 "^ Nor purple state, nor culture, can bestow: 
 But GOD alone !— when first His active hand 
 Imprints the secret bias of the soul." 
 
 But will this doctrine be equally acceptable to all as 
 it is to myself, and as I trust that it will be to you ? 
 
 I have heard it said, my dear friend, that there are 
 many in my own country, and in yours, who will reject 
 it altogether, because they will say that it is not ortho- 
 dox. 
 
 Xow I would ask who the men are who think they 
 are privileged to say that their views alone are ortJio- 
 dox f that their doctrine alone, to the exclusion of all 
 
42 Letters on Early Education, VIII 
 
 others, is the right one ? I could wish them to come 
 forward and tell us what are their credentials; cre- 
 dentials, not indeed signed by the hand of men, how- 
 ever wise, for the wisest are liable to error; — however 
 powerful, for the most powerful may be tempted into 
 pride; — but testimonials that will fully bear them out 
 in their assumed character as the exclusive owners, as 
 the sole interpreters of His truth who wishes all His 
 children " to take the water of life freely;" and not 
 ^' hew out cisterns that have no water," nor to be 
 " tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind 
 of doctrine." If they have any such credentials, it is 
 fit that we should know them, and bow to their author- 
 ity. If not, it is fit, at least, that they should not 
 pretend to what does not belong to them, any more 
 than it does to us, — exclusive authority, — and that 
 they should, in their turn, grant to us what nobody 
 will think of withholding from them — the right of 
 freedom of conscience and private judgement. 
 
 I do indeed hope, that the time is at length come 
 when it will no longer be asked whether a theory does 
 or does not agree with the interest of one class of men, 
 or with the preconceived opinions of another; but, 
 whether it rests on observation, on experience, on a 
 right use of reason and an unbiased view of revelation ; 
 disdaining the comments of men, and acknowledging, 
 as its only basis, the word of God. 
 
Orthodox Belief tx Ixjs^ate Depravity 43 
 
 Thus I would meet one class of objections. But I 
 anticipate another class of doubts, of a far different 
 nature, — not arising from a disposition in those who 
 hold them to over-rate their own judgment, and con- 
 sequently to slight that of others ; but rather from the 
 consideration of the weakness of all human reasoning, 
 and from an unwillingness to part with views which 
 have been adopted in early youth, and conscientiously 
 preserved as the sacred legacy perhaps of those who 
 are no more ; views which have grown upon their es- 
 teem, and which are now connected with the best in- 
 terests of their heart, because they have seen those who 
 held them set an example which no event ever 
 obliterate from their memory, and which no difficulty 
 shall ever discourage them from imitating. 
 
 I can easily fancy that upon similar grounds a 
 mother might be inclined not so much to dispute the 
 correctness of tlie theory, but rather to question the 
 right of giving way to it in opposition to what she has 
 been in the habit of revering as uncontroverted truth. 
 " Shall she abandon princi})les held by tiiose who 
 watched with anxiety the first dawn of her own mind, 
 when an infant, and who were unremitting in their 
 exertions to form it, and to direct it to truth ? Shall 
 she give up her mind to the examination of theories, 
 and those perhaps the theories of a stranger, rather 
 than follow the wishes of her friends ? Is it so neces- 
 
44 Letters ox Early Educattox, YIII 
 
 sary to inquire into the existence of facts, instead of 
 being guided by the practice of those whom experience 
 has taught her to respect, and whom her heart prompts 
 her to love ? Should it be so difficult to succeed ? 
 should not maternal love make up for a deficiency of 
 knowledge? And, if so, God forbid that her princi- 
 ples of education should in any way be connected with 
 views which she has been taught to consider as erron- 
 eous, perhaps as dangerous and altogether opposite to 
 divine truth."' 
 
 To such doubts, and thus brought forward, I should 
 answer: " Mother! I congratulate you on your 
 doubts, although they tend to alienate you from views 
 which I hold, and which thousands have held before 
 me. But your doubts betray that feeling to which uf 
 all others I should wish to see the heart of every mother 
 alive. Do not then turn away on your arduous path 
 from the proffered hand of one who, though he partici- 
 pates not in your reasoning, yet honors your feelings, 
 and would fain assist you, as far as in him lies, in your 
 endeavors. It is probable that I may never know you. 
 My days may be numbered, my glass may be run, long 
 before you may chance to hear that in a far distant 
 land, in a valley between his native Alps, there lived, 
 and lived to old age, a man who knew not a cause of 
 higher interest or of greater importance than that 
 in Avhich you are now engaged; whose life has been 
 
Pestalozzi's Picture of Himself 45 
 
 spent in endeavors, weak perhaps, but in which was 
 concentrated all his strength, to assist in their task the 
 mothers and those who may act in their place, and 
 those on whom may develop the duty of guiding the 
 mind at a more advanced period of youth; a man, 
 who wishes that others may take up what he has com- 
 menced, and succeed where he may have failed; who 
 trusts that his friends will speak where his voice could 
 not have gained a hearing, and act where his own 
 efforts would have passed unnoticed; a man who 
 firmly believes that there is an invisible tie to unite 
 all those whose hearts have embraced the same sacred 
 cause, and who would hail with delight their appear- 
 ance, to whatever nation they may belong, to whatever 
 opinions they may be addicted; a man, who, in his 
 dreams, (and, if dreams they were, more pleasing 
 dreams there cannot exist,) has thought of such as you, 
 whose heart is warm, whose piety is genuine, but who 
 differ from him, and perhaps widely, in opinion. 
 
 '' And on account of that difference, should there 
 be no communion between us ? 
 
 " Do not think that I have a wish to make you a 
 convert to my opinions. Xo, never swerve for one 
 moment from the principles which you now follow 
 from motives that reasoning alone may suggest, unless 
 your heart concur in it. Let this be the test by which 
 you examine the notions that you may hear from 
 
46 Letters ox Early Education, VIII 
 
 others; and always act up to the best of your knowl- 
 edge, as your conscience directs you. 
 
 " Let this be the test by which you examine the 
 ideas now before you. Adopt of them as much as your 
 heart wdll warrant you. As to the rest of them, you 
 may perhaps be inclined to believe that they have 
 proceeded from conviction as sincere, and from inten- 
 tions no less benevolent. 
 
 " But you may consider them erroneous, — some of 
 them, perhaps, even mischievous. You may even 
 lament that those should have held them whom you 
 might wish to meet on a ground where you now must 
 secede from them. 
 
 " I, for my own part, rejoice that my creed does 
 not countenance any such apprehension in me with re- 
 gard to you. For it is my hope, in which I rejoice, 
 that those who have been earnest in their wish and 
 steadfast in their attempts to do good, not indeed rely- 
 ing upon any strength or merit of their own, but 
 acknowledging their own failings, and giving God the 
 glory of their success; it is my hope, that they may, 
 in humbleness of heart, ^but with the confidence of 
 faith, address themselves, "^in every situation of their 
 life, and in their expectation for days to come, to 
 Divine Mercy." 
 
LETTER IX 
 
 November 20, 1818. 
 My Dear Greaves, 
 
 I shall try in this, and in some subsequent letters, 
 to describe the facts which may be considered as the 
 first manifestation of the good principle of which I 
 have spoken. I shall then proceed to point out the 
 common mistake by which it is frequently either alto- 
 gether overlooked, or even perverted by injudicious 
 treatment, so that, instead of acting as a moral pre- 
 servative, instead of being instrumental to the spiritual 
 elevation, it is rendered contributive to the corruption 
 of the best powers of human nature. 
 
 It will be unpleasant to dwell upon this topic; it 
 will be necessary to allude to the source of all the 
 mental and moral misery which our flesh is heir to; it 
 will be indispensable to convince many a fond mother, 
 that what was well meant is not always well done, and 
 strongly to impress upon her mind the fact that by a 
 mode of proceeding flowing from the most benevolent 
 motives, but which would not have stood the test of a 
 matured judgment, she may entail on her children all 
 that misery against which it was her only wish to pro- 
 tect them. 
 
 (47) 
 
48 Letters ox Early Education, IX 
 
 But if, in going over the ground now before us, Ave 
 shall have frequent occasion to lament the short-sight- 
 edness of some, and the indolence of others, we shall 
 also have occasion to rejoice that the means by Avhich 
 so much misery may be avoided, and by which a still 
 greater portion of happiness may be secured, are by no 
 means out of the reach of the mother. Indeed, when- 
 ever I have met with a mother who distinguished 
 herself by the care which she gave to the education of 
 her children, and by the success which she obtained, 
 I have always found that the principles upon which 
 she acted and the means which she employed were 
 not the result of a long and difficult search, but rather 
 of a resolution adopted in time, and constantly fol- 
 low^ed, to do no step without pausing for a moment to 
 reflect : and I have not found that this led to an over- 
 anxiety on her part, or to that state of continual agita- 
 tion which we sometimes observe preying on the heart 
 of a mother who is always calculating the remote con- 
 sequences of trifles with almost feverish apprehension. 
 
 This last mentioned state of mind, which must mar the 
 cheerfulness of her spirits so essential for a judicious 
 and effective education, generally ensues upon a prior 
 want of discretion, that may have led to consequences 
 which, in their turn, give rise to needless apprehen- 
 sions. Xothing, on the contrary, is so w^ell calculated 
 to secure to the mind an imperturbable tranquillity 
 
The Xew-Born^ Child 49 
 
 as a timely exercise of judgment and a constant habit 
 of reflection. 
 
 I know not if philosophers wonld think it worth 
 their while, but I feel confident that a mother would 
 not decline following us to the consideration of the 
 state in which the infant remains for some time after 
 his birth. 
 
 This state, in the first place, strikes us as a state of 
 utter helplessness. The first impression seems to be 
 that of pain, or, at least, of a sensation of uneasiness. 
 There is not yet the slightest circumstance that might 
 remind us of any other faculties except those of the 
 animal nature of man ; and even these are in the very 
 lowest stage of development. 
 
 Still there is in this animal nature an instinct which 
 acts with greater security, and which increases in 
 strength as the functions of animal life are repeated, 
 day by day : this animal instinct has been known to 
 make the most rapid progress, and to arrive very early 
 at the highest point of strength and intensity, even 
 when little or no attention has been paid to protect the 
 infant from surrounding dangers, or to strengthen it 
 by more than ordinary nourishment and care. It is a 
 well-known fact that among savage nations the animal 
 powers of children are capable of exertion and are de- 
 veloping with a rapidity which proves sufficiently that 
 this part of human nature goes altogether parallel 
 
50 Letters ox Early Education, IX 
 
 with the instinct in the rest of the animal creation. 
 
 So striking is this similarity, that we frequently find 
 every attempt to discover any trace of another faculty 
 treated with ridicule. Indeed while Ave are assiduous 
 in our attention to that part of human nature in the 
 earliest stage of life which would recjuire but little of 
 our care, Ave are but too apt to OA^erlook and to neg- 
 lect that which in its first appearance is certainly very 
 weak, but which is, by its very Aveakness, entitled to 
 our care and support, and Avhich may Avell ins|)ire us 
 Avith an interest in its development that Avill amply 
 reward us for our labors. 
 
 Eor, striking as this similarity may be, Ave can never 
 be justified in overlooking the distinction that exists 
 betAveen the infant, even in the first era of life, and 
 the animal, which apparently may have made a more 
 rapid progress, and may be far superior in qualifica- 
 tions which constitute a sound and comfortable state 
 of animal existence. 
 
 The animal Avill for ever remain on that point of 
 bodily strength and sagacity to which its instinct has 
 conducted it so rapidly. For the Avhole duration of 
 its life, its enjoyments, and exertions, and, if we may 
 say so, its attainments, will remain stationary. It may 
 through old age, or through unfavorable circumstances, 
 be thrown back ; but it will never advance beyond that 
 line of physical perfection which is attendant on its 
 
The Animal Xature must k^ot Rule 51 
 
 full growth. A new faculty, or an additional agency 
 of t]ie former ones, is an event unheard of in the 
 natural history of the animal creation. 
 
 It is not the same with man. 
 
 In him there is something which will not fail, in due 
 time, of making itself manifest by a series of facts al- 
 together independent of animal life. While the animal 
 is for ever actuated by that instinct to which it owes 
 its preservation and all its powers and enjoyments, a 
 something will assert its right in man to hold the em- 
 pire over all his powers ; to control the lower part of 
 his nature, and to lead him to those exertions which 
 will secure for him a place in the scale of moral being. 
 
 The animal is destined by the Creator to follow the 
 instinct of its nature. Man is destined to follow a 
 higher principle. His animal nature must no,, longer 
 be permitted to rule him, as soon as his spiritual 
 nature has commenced to unfold. 
 
 It will be the object of my next letter to point out 
 to the mother the epoch at which she may expect the 
 first tokens of a spiritual nature in her infant. 
 
LETTER X 
 
 November 27, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 I have frequently heard it observed that there is 
 not a more humiliating consideration than that of the 
 first condition of man, when he has entered this world 
 a helpless stranger, equally unable to speak his wants, 
 or to think of supplying them, or to give any token by 
 which he might be recognized as a member of the 
 rational creation. 
 
 I admit that all this must strongly remind us of the 
 weakness of our nature, that it may guard us against 
 the presumption of trusting in our own powers ; and I 
 think it right to encourage any reflection which may 
 call back to our mind what we are but too apt to forget. 
 But though this consideration is by no means flattering 
 to our vanity, yet I cannot see why it should be so 
 peculiarly humiliating. 
 
 Let the case be put as strongly as observation may 
 warrant us to do. Let it be granted that weeks must 
 pass before the infant will give any proof of any 
 faculty superior to those of irrational animals. Let it 
 
 (52) 
 
Helplessness of the Infant 5;j 
 
 be added that no animal is so physically helpless, so 
 destitute of power, as the infant for some time after 
 his birth. And thus let the commencement of human 
 life occupy the lowest place even in the scale of mere 
 animal existence. 
 
 Still I confess that, in a moral point of view, I can- 
 not find any thing humiliating in this fact. 
 
 To see a rationed being brutedized — that indeed may be 
 called the severest lesson to anyone who has a wish to 
 vindicate the moral character of human nature. But 
 this most humiliating observation will bear no compari- 
 son with the fact now before us. 
 
 For who is not aware of the immense difference be- 
 tween a state of animal existence to which the mani- 
 festation of spiritual life will succeed, and a high 
 moral and responsible existence in which the germs 
 of that life have been suppressed, and blighted. In the 
 one instance, we look forward to progressive elevation ; 
 in the other, we turn away from successive degrada- 
 tion. Before the light of intelligence has appeared, 
 before the voice of conscience has spoken, neither error 
 nor corruption can exist; but where the one has been 
 darkened, and the other is slighted, there may we 
 lament over the blindness, the selfishness of man. 
 
 Instead therefore of dwelling exclusively on the 
 want of an intellectual and moral principle, we ought 
 rather to watch its first appearance ; instead of reviling 
 
54 Letters ox Early Edtjcatio;n^, X 
 
 the work of the Creator, we ought to acknowledge his 
 wisdom in opening at whateA^er period it may please 
 Him the eyes of his creatures, and unclosing to them 
 both a visible world full of miracles, and a spiritual 
 world full of blessings: instead of complaining, than 
 which nothing can be more wrong and more unwise, 
 that He has not created us more perfect, we ought 
 rather to examine ourselves, how far we are still from 
 that point of perfection which He has placed within 
 our reach. 
 
 I have said thus much because the subject affords 
 frequent scope to thoughtless and frivolous remarks, 
 which might perhaps in some measure contribute to 
 dampen the zeal and interest of mothers. But I trust 
 that a mother will always consult her own experience : 
 and her ow^n heart, rather than the sophistry of those 
 who cannot feel with her. 
 
 Let her then consider the stranger on her breast as 
 a being destined for a better existence than the one in 
 which he now unconsciously looks up to her for that 
 support which Providence has placed it in her means 
 to give. Let her not only follow that instinctive 
 affection which could not allow her to be insensible 
 to the wants of her infant ; let her look forward to the 
 time in which her infant shall be alive to a sense of 
 duty in this, and to hope for another world : and let 
 her not forget that while such is the destination of 
 
Joy ant> Sympathy are Man's 55 
 
 her infant, on her involves the task of preparing and 
 of teaching him the first and most difficnlt steps of 
 his path. 
 
 And when the first weeks of anxiety on her part, and 
 of nnconscionsness on that of her infant, are over; 
 when the attention which is required, becomes mo- 
 notonous and wearying; then will the mother feel a 
 longing for something to animate the scene, to en- 
 chance the interest and to encourage her to new 
 exertions. 
 
 Xor shall she be disappointed; for the day will 
 come, when the infant will no longer apply to the 
 mother only because her attention and her support 
 are to him a source of animal gratification. The day 
 will come when his eye will catch the eye of the 
 mother ; when it will read there a language new and 
 yet not unknown; when that look of love w411 call into 
 life the first smile to play round the lips of the infant. 
 
 With this fact a new era begins in the infant's life. 
 With it a new world opens to his view. He has 
 entered a new stage of existence ; he has vindicated his 
 character as a being superior to the rest of the animal 
 creation. 
 
 The smile of joy and the tear of sympathy are denied 
 to the animal race. They are given to man ; they con- 
 stitute a tacit language, common to all and understood 
 
56 Letters ox Early Education, X 
 
 because felt by all. They are the earliest signs of 
 feelings which belong exclusively to man. 
 
 They are the early witnesses whose meaning cannot 
 be mistaken of internal emotions. The character of 
 these emotions may change ; they may be momentary 
 or permanent and their objects may extend to endless 
 variety; but the signs which Nature has appointed for 
 them remain the same; and thus they will continue 
 through life the never-failing indexes of feeling, 
 whether it be clouded in silent grief, or wrapped in 
 tranquil serenity; whether it make the bosom throb 
 with agony, or heave with delight. 
 
LETTEE XI 
 
 December o, 1818. 
 My dear Greayes, 
 
 I have tried in my last letter to justify on philo- 
 sophical grounds the importance which every mother 
 is inclined to attach to the epoch when the eye of her 
 infant for the first time meets her own ; when the ex- 
 pression of love in her own countenance for the first 
 time calls into play a similar expression in the features 
 of the infant. 
 
 This fact, which a mother will always hail with a de- 
 light inconceivable to those who cannot share in her 
 feelings, may lead her to a train of considerations 
 which she will never repent of having duly weighed, 
 and in which I shall now attempt to follow her. 
 
 The first great truth, which cannot but strike her 
 at the very outset, is this : — it was by kindness, by a 
 manifestation of maternal love, that she has produced 
 the first visible impression on the eye and the features 
 of her infant. She will be fully justified by experience, 
 if she recognizes in this impression the first influence 
 of her individual conduct on the mind and the heart 
 
 of the infant. 
 
 (57) 
 
58 Letters on Early Education, XI 
 
 Let her never lose sight of this fact. Providence by 
 ordering that it should be thus in the course of nature 
 has pointed out to her a leading truth, if she will but 
 advert to it, which she may lay down as a never-f ailing- 
 principle of education. Ii\ the formation of character, 
 as well as in the mode of giving instruction, kindness 
 ought to be the first and ruling principle. It certainly 
 is the most powerful. Fear may do much, and other 
 motives may be employed with apparent success ; but 
 to interest the mind and to form the heart, nothing is 
 so permanently influential as affection : it is the easiest 
 way to attain the highest ends. 
 
 I have called the fact of which I am now speaking 
 a manifestation of the spiritual nature in man. As 
 such, it will invite the mother to take a new view of 
 her relation to the child. 
 
 Her child is, like herself, a being endowed with 
 spiritual faculties — with faculties superior to and in a 
 great measure independent of animal life. The less 
 they are developed in their present state, the greater 
 is the attention which they require. 
 
 Providence has instructed her with the means of 
 supplying the animal wants of the child. We have 
 seen that the child also is instructed with an animal 
 instinct, which facilitates the task. But the eye of 
 the child when it meets that of the mother does not 
 seek for the mere gratification of a present want, or 
 
Kindness the Euling Prixciple 59 
 
 for relief from a present sensation of uneasiness: it 
 seeks for something more ; it speaks of the first want 
 of spiritual nature ; it seeks for sympathy. 
 
 The animal instinct is a principle which knows no 
 higher object than self. Self-preservation is the first 
 point which it tries to secure ; and in its progressive 
 desire of enjoyment self is still the centre of its agency. 
 
 It is not the same with the mind or with the affec- 
 tions of the heart. The fact which speaks most 
 unquestionably for the spiritual nature of man is the 
 sacrifice of personal comfort or enjoyment for the hap- 
 piness of others ; the subordination of individual desire 
 to higher purposes. 
 
 A moral philosopher has said that whenever the mind 
 reflects on the future or the invisible in preference to 
 the present and to visible objects, then the spirit as- 
 serts its right. 
 
 If we connect this observation with the preceding 
 remarks, we may deduce from them a few plain and 
 practical rules by which the mother may be enabled 
 without any pretensions to deep and laborous research 
 to do much that will prove truly beneficial to the 
 highest interests of her infant and to the better part 
 of its nature. 
 
 Any measure that we would recommend her at so 
 early a period must of course be practicable without 
 anything like instruction; it must not induce her to 
 
(50 Letters ox Early Education, XI 
 
 go out of the way which Providence has assigned to 
 her; it must not be of a nature that could be modified 
 or rendered more difficult by her situation in life, Avhat- 
 ever it may be : it must in fact be limited to the man- 
 ner and the spirit in which that is done which every 
 mother has both the wish and the faculty of doing for 
 her infant. 
 
LETTER XII 
 
 December 8, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 We have seen that the animal instinct is always 
 intent on instantaneous gratification, without ever ad- 
 verting to the comfort or interest of others. 
 
 As long as no other faculty is awake, this instinct 
 and its exclusive dominion over the child cannot prop- 
 erly be considered as faulty ; there is not yet any con- 
 sciousness in it : if it be selfish in appearance, it is 
 not wilfully so ; and the Creator himself seems to have 
 ordained that it should be so strong, and indeed 
 exclusively prevailing, while consciousness and other 
 faculties could not yet contribute to secure even the 
 first conditions of animal life — self-preservation. 
 
 But if after the first indication of a higher principle 
 this instinct be still allowed to act unchecked and un- 
 controlled as before, then it will commence to be at 
 war with conscience, and every step in which it is 
 indulged will carry the child farther in selfishness, at 
 the expense of his better and more amiable nature. 
 
 I wish this to be clearly understood; and I shall 
 (61) 
 
62 Letters ois" Early Education, XII 
 
 perhaps better succeed in explaining the rules which I 
 conceive to flow from it for the use of the mother, 
 than in dwelling longer on the abstract position. In 
 the first place, let the mother adhere steadfastly to the 
 good old rule, to be regular in her attention to the 
 infant ; to pursue as much as possible the same course ; 
 never to neglect the wants of her child when they are 
 real, and never to indulge them when they are imag- 
 inary, or because they are expressed with importunity. 
 The earlier and the more constant her adherence to 
 this practice, the greater and the more lasting will be 
 the real benefit for her child. ^ 
 
 The expediency and the advantages of such a plan 
 will soon be perceived, if it is constantly practised. 
 
 ^'^" It seems plain to me that the principle of all vir- 
 tue and excellence lies in a power of denying ourselves 
 the satisfaction of our own desires, where reason does 
 not authorize them. This power is to be got and im- 
 proved by custom, made easy and familiar by an earhi 
 'practice. If, therefore, I might be heard, I would ad- 
 vise that, contrary to the ordinary way, children 
 should be used to submit their desires and go with- 
 out their longings even from their early cradles. If the 
 world commonly does otherwise, I cannot help that. I 
 am saying what I think should be done, which, if it 
 were already in fashion, I sho'uld not need to trouble 
 the world with a discourse on this subject." — Locke on 
 Education, ^ 28. 
 
Education" ij^ Self-Dekial 6e3 
 
 The first advantage will be on the part of the mother. 
 She will be subject to fewer interruptions; she will be 
 less tempted to give way to ill-humor ; though her pa- 
 tience may be tried, yet her temper will not be ruffled: 
 she will upon all occasions derive real satisfaction from 
 her intercourse with her child; and her duties will not 
 more often remind her than her enjoyments that she 
 is a mother. 
 
 But the advantage will be still greater on the part of 
 the child. 
 
 Every mother will be able to speak from experience 
 either to the benefit which her children derived from 
 such a treatment or to the unfavorable consequences 
 of a contrary proceeding. In the first instance their 
 wants will have been few and easily satisfied; and 
 there is not a more infallible criterion of perfect good 
 health. But if on the contrary that rule has been neg- 
 lected ; if from a wish to avoid anything like severity 
 a mother has been tempted to give way to unlimited 
 indulgence, it will but too soon appear that her treat- 
 ment, however well-meant, has been injudicious. It 
 will be a source of constant uneasiness to her without 
 giving satisfaction to her child; she will have sacrificed 
 her own rest without securing the happiness of her 
 ohild. 
 
 Let the mothers who have been unfortunate enough 
 to fall into this mistake tell whether they have not had 
 
64 Lettees oin" Early Education, XII 
 
 frequent occasion to repent of their ill-timed indul- 
 gence, unless they had the still greater misfortune of 
 substituting in its place the other extreme — a habit of 
 indolence and cold neglect. And let the children who 
 were brought up in early youth under an excess of 
 indulgence, tell whether they have not been suffering 
 under the consequences; whether hurrying on from 
 excitement to excitement, they have ever felt that 
 health and tranquillity, that evenness of spirits, which 
 is the first requisite to rational enjoyment and to last- 
 ing happiness. 
 
 Let them tell whether such a system is apt to give a 
 relish for the innocent sports, for the never-to-be- 
 forgotten feats of boyhood ; whether it imparts energy 
 to withstand the temptation, or to share in the noble 
 enthusiam of youth ; whether it ensures firmness and 
 success to the exertions of manhood. 
 
 We are not all born to be philosophers; but we 
 aspire all to a sound state both of mind and body, and 
 of this the leading feature is — to desire little, and to be 
 satisfied ivith even less. 
 
LETTER XIII 
 
 December 12, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 The greatest benefit that results from a treatment 
 of the child such as the good old rule enjoins is of a 
 moral nature. 
 
 When I speak of moral benefit or of moral deteriora- 
 tion, I do not lose sight of the tender age to which I 
 would ascribe it. I am not now speaking of a child in 
 whom reason has in some degree been developed, and 
 to whom you may attempt with some hope of success 
 to explain the ideas of right or wrong on which our 
 private duties and the fabric of our social system are 
 founded. 
 
 No; I am speaking of that period of infancy at 
 which many and perhaps most philosophers would con- 
 tend that a moral faculty is either totally wanting or 
 at least dormant. 
 
 If, therefore, what I have to say on the subject shall 
 appear altogether visionary, I have only to reply that 
 I am ready to give it up whenever I shall stand con- 
 victed of its nullity by experience. 
 
 (65) 
 
66 Letters on Early Education, XIII 
 
 Till then I mean to hold that the better nature of 
 the infant must be encouraged as early as possible to 
 struggle against the over-growing power of the animal 
 instinct, which I consider as the basis of the lower 
 nature of man. 
 
 The agency of this animal instinct will become more 
 manifest with every subsequent day of the infant's life. 
 This instinct, now no more content with its first 
 efforts which were necessary to self-preservation, is 
 rapidly increasing in strength. The eagerness of this 
 crainng of an infant form.'^ a stroiig contrast with the weaJc- 
 ness of its physical poivers. It would grasp every object 
 which it perceives; there is nothing that strikes its 
 curiosity but that at the same time excites its desires ; 
 and the inconceivable obstinacy of this craving in- 
 creases in the same measure as the object is placed out 
 of its reach. 
 
 AYhatever there is ungainly and unamiable in a little 
 child Avill be found in some way or other connected 
 with the agency of this animal instinct. For even the 
 impatience of the infant while under the influence of 
 circumstances which may cause physical pain, is no 
 more than a reaction of that instinct. 
 
 If we consider the state of the infant, with its desires 
 and its impatience, we shall see that it furnishes a 
 striking parallel to the image of man under the influ- 
 ence of his passions. 
 
XoT Fear but Love 67 
 
 It is customary to say that passion should be over- 
 come by principle, and that our desires should be regu- 
 lated by reason. But at a time when we cannot yet 
 appeal to either, Providence has supplied a still more 
 powerful agent in their stead, — maternal love. 
 
 The only influence to which the heart is accessible 
 long before the understanding could have adopted or 
 rejected it as a motive, is affection. And it is a fact 
 that no person can be so well qualified at an early 
 period to gain the affection of a child as the mother. 
 
 If, therefore, I find it asserted by an eminent writer 
 that in order to settle your authority over your chil- 
 dren, " Fear and awe ought to give you the first power 
 over their minds, and love and friendship in riper 
 years to hold it^' " — I can only imagine, that a mistake 
 has led that writer into a statement which is openly at 
 war with the enlightened sentiments expressed in so 
 many other pages of his valuable work. 
 
 For even supposing for a moment, that the course 
 which appears to be recommended in the above passage 
 were found expedient and beneficial, as I am convinced 
 that it will not be, still I cannot see how" it should even 
 be practicable at the time that I am speaking of. 
 
 "Fear" implies a knowledge of the consequences 
 of an action or an eveiit. It implies a consciousness 
 
 ^ Locke, §42. 
 
C)S Letters on Early Education, XIII 
 
 of causality; and causality, in its turn, pre-supposes a 
 faculty of observing, comparing, and combining a 
 variety of facts, and of deducing from them a con- 
 clusion. 
 
 Surely the ingenious writer from whom I have 
 quoted could not have given credit to the infant for a 
 course of reasoning so complicated, so foreign to the 
 state of its mental faculties. 
 
 " Fear," then, we shall be obliged to dismiss at 
 once. Even if it were net, as a motive of action, un- 
 worthy of a human being, it would be inapplicable at 
 the first and certainly not the least important period 
 of life. 
 
 By " awe " may be understood either an indistinct 
 and vague feeling, which casts a veil over the mind, 
 and while it works upon the imagination and the nerv- 
 ous system, has nothing to do with reasoning, and is 
 not fit to direct the faculties to a certain line of action ; 
 or else, " awe " may be said to originate in a convic- 
 tion of the moral superiority of another being that per- 
 vades the mind and prompts the heart to look with 
 veneration on subjects which the intellect is unable to 
 scan, and to follow precepts which have received their 
 sanction from Infinite Wisdom. 
 
 That awe, in the first mentioned sense, has some 
 affinity with the first sensations of an infant, I admit. 
 But everything of that sort that may be said to belong 
 
Parej^ts not to be held in Awe 69 
 
 to infancy originates in a feeling of helplessness, or of 
 occasional pain. It may then be said to be a mere 
 physical phgenomenon : and as snch I conceive that it 
 wonld be little qualified for a motive to be employed 
 in moral education. But besides, it could not serve as 
 a motive, because from its nature it is a mere tran- 
 sient sensation, and cannot of course lead to a constant 
 line of conduct, or contribute to form a moral habit. 
 Awe, in the other sense, again seems to pre-suppose 
 more than one idea to which the infant is yet and must 
 for some time continue to be a stranger. Moral worth 
 can only be appreciated when there is a consciousness 
 of moral energy. And if divested from its character 
 as a moral feeling, it will be dissolved into fear. But 
 in the better sense the feeling of awe, which is essential 
 in the formation of religious ideas and in the communi- 
 cation of religious impressions, ought to be reserved for 
 that period when it will be first excited by a considera- 
 tion of that Being to Whom with the exclusion of all 
 finite beings, that feeling may be said to be due in a 
 pre-eminent degree. 
 
LETTER XIV 
 
 December 17, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 From the reasons stated in my last letter, I think it 
 right to assume that maternal love is the most power- 
 ful agent, and that affection is the primitive motive in 
 early education. 
 
 In the first exercise of her authority, the mother will 
 therefore do well to be cautious that every step may 
 be justified by her conscience and by experience; she 
 will do well to think of her responsibility, and of the 
 important consequences of her measures for the future 
 welfare of her child ; she will find that the only correct 
 view of the nature of her own authority is to look upon 
 it as a duty rather than as a prerogative, and never to 
 consider it as absolute. 
 
 If the infant remains quiet, if it is not impatient or 
 troublesome, it will do so for the sake of the mother. 
 
 I would wish every mother to pay attention to the 
 difference between a course of action adopted in com- 
 pliance with the authority and a conduct pursued for 
 
 the sale of another. 
 
 (70) 
 
Affection the Pkimitive Motive 71 
 
 The first j^i'oceecls from reasoning, the second flows 
 from affection. The first may be abandoned, when the 
 immediate cause may have ceased to exist ; the latter 
 will be permanent, as it did not depend upon circum- 
 stances or accidental considerations, but is founded in a 
 moral and constant principle. 
 
 In the case now before us, if the infant does not 
 disappoint the hope of the mother it will be a proof, 
 first of affection, and secondly, of confidence. 
 
 Of affection — for the earliest and the most innocent 
 wish to please is that of the infant to please the 
 mother. If it be questioned whether that wish can at 
 all exist in one so little advanced in development, I 
 would again, as upon almost all occasions, appeal to 
 the experience of mothers. 
 
 It is a proof also of confidence. Whenever an in- 
 fant has been neglected, when the necessary attention 
 has not been paid to its wants, and when, instead of 
 the smile of kindness, it has been treated with the 
 frown of severity, it will be difficult to restore it to 
 that quiet and amiable disposition in which_^it will wait 
 for the gratification of its desires without impatience, 
 and enjoy it without greediness. 
 
 If affection and confidence have once gained ground 
 in the heart, it will be the first duty of the mother to 
 do everything in her power to encourage, to strengthen, 
 and to elevate this principle. 
 
72 Letters on Early Education, XIY 
 
 She must encourage it, or the yet tender emotion 
 will subside, and the strings which are no longer at- 
 tuned to sympathy will cease to vibrate and sink into 
 silence. But affection has never yet been encouraged 
 except by affection; and confidence has never been 
 gained except by confidence : the tone of her own mind 
 must raise that of her child's. 
 
 For she must be intent also upon strengthening that 
 principle. Xow there is one means only for strength- 
 ening any energy, and that means is practice. The 
 same effort, constantly repeated, will become less and 
 less difficult, and every power, mental or physical, will 
 go through a certain exercise with more assurance and 
 success, the more it grows familiar with it by custom. 
 There cannot, therefore, be a safer course for the 
 mother to pursue than to be careful that her proceed- 
 ings may without interruption or dissonance be calcu- 
 lated to excite the affection and secure the confidence 
 of her child. She must not give way to ill humor or 
 tedium, not for one moment; for it is difficult to say 
 how the child may be affected by the most trifling cir- 
 cumstance. It cannot examine the motives, nor can 
 it anticipate the consequences, of an action : with little 
 more than a general impression of the past it is entirely 
 unconscious of the future; and thus the present bears 
 upon the infant mind with the full weight of pain, or 
 soothes it with the undiminished charm of pleasing 
 
Affectio^nt and Cokfiden^ce 7'S' 
 
 emotions. If the mother consider this well, she may 
 spare her child the feeling of much pain which, though 
 not remembered as occasioned by special occurences, 
 may yet leave a cloud as it were upon the mind, and 
 gradually weaken that feeling which it is her interest 
 as well as her duty to keep awake. 
 
 But it is not enough for her to encourage and 
 strengthen, — she must also elevate that same feeling. 
 
 She must not rest satisfied with the success which 
 the benevolence of her own intentions, and perhaps the 
 disposition and temper of her child, may have facili- 
 tated : she must recollect that education is not a uni- 
 form and mechanical process, but a work of gradual 
 and progressive improvement. Her present success 
 must not betray her into security or indolence ; and 
 the difficulties which she may chance to meet with 
 must not dampen her zeal, or stop her endeavors. She 
 must bear in mind the ultimate ends of education ; she 
 must always be ready to take her share in the work 
 which as a mother she stands pledged to forward — the 
 elevation of the moral nature of man. 
 
LETTER XV 
 
 December 24, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 Of all the affections of our nature, the most deserv- 
 ing of encouragement, the most kindred to the stand- 
 ard of true humanity, are no doubt those which are 
 not confined to perishable objects; which do not solely 
 act upon the imagination, but which are apt to expand 
 the mind and inspire the heart with a noble zeal for 
 all that is truly excellent. 
 
 This consideration is of incalculable importance for 
 the interest of moral education. It should form the 
 very basis of all that a plan of education may propose 
 or a system comprehend. 
 
 If it is necessary to store the mind with knowledge, 
 to enlighten the intellect, and to explain correct prin- 
 ciples of morality ; if it is desirable to form the taste ; 
 it is still more so, it is indeed indispensable, to direct, 
 to purify, to elevate the affections of the heart: and 
 we cannot commence at too early a period to proceed 
 upon this principle. 
 
 I have been led into these remarks by the idea ex- 
 
 (74) 
 
Moral Educatiox 75 
 
 pressed in the concluding part of my last letter, — that 
 the affection and confidence which the infant bears to 
 the mother should be elevated as well as encouraged 
 and strengthened. It will not perhaps be superfluous 
 to say a few words more in explanation of that proposi- 
 tion. 
 
 If the affections of the child were to remain for ever 
 concentrated in the focus of his love of the mother ; if 
 his confidence were for ever confined to her; however 
 well she may have deserved the tribute of never-fail- 
 ing gratitude, it is obvious that the child must earlier 
 or later in his career experience the most severe pain 
 and disappointment, for which with that exclusive 
 direction of his moral nature he could then find no 
 remedy. The time must come when the tie, however 
 sacred, which unites him visibly with his mother must 
 be broken : and whether it may be so ordained that it 
 be rudely snapped or gently and gradually loosened, 
 still the ultimate effect would be the same, equally 
 painful and afflicting. 
 
 Xot even the most sincere advocate for filial affec- 
 tion, than which few feelings can be purer or deeper, 
 — not even he who is most intimately penetrated by 
 that sentiment, would wish to contend for the exclu- 
 sive and constant ascendancy of that principle over 
 the mind. If we do not mean to lose sight entirely of 
 the higher destination and of the most exalted duties 
 
76 Letters ox Early Education, XY 
 
 of mail, we cannot conceal from ourselves that man is 
 not created " so noble in reason, so infinite in facul- 
 ties " to give up liis wliole existence to liis aifection 
 for any one individnal, while the most comprehensive 
 view of his duties, both to his Maker and to his fellow- 
 men, is clearly laid before him by a thousand witnesses, 
 whose voices he cannot but hear. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that the afiection of the child 
 to the mother is only to be appreciated in proportion 
 as it serves to impress the infant mind with those emo- 
 tions, and afterwards to render familiar to it those 
 considerations, which belong to the ultimate ends, as 
 far as we may understand them, of the Creator in the 
 formation of man. 
 
 If a mother is conscious of this, she will not find it 
 difficult to take the right view of the affection which 
 Providence has implanted in her child. She will con- 
 sider it as the germ on which every better feeling must 
 be engrafted. She will be led to consider herself as 
 the instrument which Providence has chosen to purify 
 that affection, to transfer its most intense agency to a 
 still worthier object. She will then begin to under- 
 stand why the most unlimited confidence springs so 
 early and voluntarily from the very nature of the 
 child. She will begin to understand that the infant 
 is taught so early to confide in order that one day this 
 confidence may be centred and elevated to the confi- 
 
Through Affectio^n^ to Religion 77 
 
 (lence of a faith that will stand unshaken by danger 
 and unsullied by corruption. 
 
 • Let me here allude, my dear friend, to an occasional 
 circumstance which would have invited me to these re- 
 flections, even if I had not been engaged in conversing 
 with you on the same theme. The date of this letter 
 will, perhaps, remind you of a custom of my country 
 which you have observed while living amongst us. 
 The days on which the Xativity of our Lord is com- 
 memorated in our churches have been adopted, since 
 time immemorial, as a season at which the children in 
 every family receive from their parents and from each 
 other little tokens of affection. Need I recall to your 
 recollection those scenes of innocent and heartfelt joy 
 with which you were so much pleased when you wit- 
 nessed them among our children ? They will convey to 
 the mind of every observer a striking proof how little 
 is requisite to give the most intense satisfaction and to 
 afford infinite gratification, where there is a real stock 
 of aifection, and where that simplicity of heart is still 
 left which it should be the care of education to pre- 
 serve as long as possible. You have seen'that those 
 days are amongst us a real festival of aifection, in its 
 fullest and most pleasing sense : and you will certainly 
 not have found that the children Avhose hearts were 
 just then under the influence of affection were less ac- 
 cessible to the call of sincere and heartfelt devotion. 
 
78 Letters on Early Education, XV 
 
 I have mentioned this circumstance, because it would 
 afford a copious theme for reflection on the subject 
 that I have been treating of. 
 
 It is upon facts like this, which experience will at 
 some time or other suggest to every parent, that I 
 would ground the practical proof for the proposition 
 that the affections, and especially the early affection 
 of children to their parents, might be intimately con- 
 nected with and essentially conducive to their being 
 imbued with those impressions, the object of which 
 is more important than every human consideration, 
 and more sacred than every human tie. 
 
 1 
 
LETTER XVI 
 
 December 31, 1818. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 If the mother has once accustomed herself to take 
 the view to which I alluded in my last, of the affection 
 and the confidence of her infant, all her duties will 
 appear to her in a laew light. 
 
 She will then look upon education, not as a task 
 which to her is invariably connected with much labor 
 and difficulty, but as a work of which the facility and 
 in a great measure the success is dependent on herself. 
 She will look upon her own efforts in behalf of her 
 child not as a matter of indifference or of convenience, 
 but as a most sacred and most weighty obligation. She 
 will be convinced that education does not consist in a 
 series of admonitions and corrections, of rewards and 
 punishments, of injunctions and directions, strung to- 
 gether without unity of purpose or dignity of execu- 
 tion; but that it ought to present an unbroken chain 
 of measures, originating in the same principle, — in a 
 knowledge of the constant laws of our nature; prac- 
 tised in the same spirit, — a spirit of benevolence and 
 firmness ; and leading to the same end, — the elevation 
 of man to the true dignity of a spiritual being. 
 
 (79) 
 
80 Letters ox Eaely Education, XVI 
 
 But will the mother be able to spiritualize the un- 
 folding faculties, the rising emotions of lier infant ? 
 Will she be able to overcome those obstacles which the 
 preponderance of the animal nature will throw in her 
 way ? 
 
 Not unless she has first lent her own heart to the in- 
 fluence of a higher principle; not unless the germs of 
 a spiritual love and faith which she is to develop in 
 her child have first gained ground in the better affec- 
 tions of her own being. 
 
 Here, then, it will be necessary for the mother to 
 pause and examine herself, how far she may expect to 
 succeed in inculcating that to which in her own prac- 
 tice she may have been a stranger more than she would 
 wish to confess to herself. But let her be sincere, for 
 once; and if the result of her examination be less 
 favorable to her own expectations and less flattering to 
 her self-love, let her resolution be the more sincere and 
 vigorous to discard for the future all those minor pre- 
 dilections, to check all those wishes which might alien- 
 ate her from her new task ; and to give her whole heart 
 to that which will promote her own final happiness and 
 that of her child. 
 
 HoAvever difficult it may appear at first to resign, to 
 dismiss the thought of some hopes, and to defer the 
 accomplishment of others, still that struggle is for the 
 very best cause, and if serious cannot be unsuccessful : 
 
Criteeion of the Mother's Ixflue]s^ce 81 
 
 for there is not an act of resignation, there is not a 
 single fact in the moral world, however distinguished, 
 to which maternal love conld not furnish a parallel. 
 
 If the mother is but conscious of the sincerity of 
 her own intentions, if she has raised the tone of her 
 own mind and elevated the affections of her being 
 above the sphere of subordinate and frivolous pursuits, 
 she will soon be enabled to ascertain the efficacy of her 
 influence on the child. 
 
 Her best and almost infalliljle criterion will be 
 whether she really succeeds in accustoming her child 
 to the practice of self-denial. 
 
 Of all the moral habits which may be formed by a 
 judicious education, that of self-denial is the most 
 difficult to acquire and the most beneficial when 
 adopted. 
 
 I call it a habit; for though it rests upon a principle, 
 yet it is only by engendering a habit that that princi- 
 ple gives evidence of its vitality. The practice of all 
 other virtues, and more especially many of the actions 
 which are admired and held out as examples, may be 
 the result of a well-understood moral rule which had 
 long been theoretically known before it was applied in 
 a practical case ; or again they may have flown from a 
 momentary enthusiasm, which acts with irresistible 
 power on a mind alive to noble sentiments. But a 
 practice of self-denial, conscientiously and cheerfully 
 
82 Earlt Letters on Education, XVI 
 
 pursued, can be the fruit only of a long and constant 
 habit. 
 
 The greatest difficulty which the mother will find in 
 her early attempts to form that habit in her infant 
 does not rest with the importunity of the infant, but 
 with her own weakness. 
 
 If she is not herself able to resign her own comfort 
 and her own fond desires to her maternal love, she 
 must not think of obtaining such a result in the infant 
 for her own sake. It is impossible to inspire others 
 with a moral feeling if she is not herself pervaded with 
 it. To endear any virtue to another she must herself 
 look upon her own duty with pleasure. If she has 
 known Virtue only as the awe-inspiring Goddess, — 
 
 "• With gate and garb austere, 
 And threatening brow severe".— 
 
 she will never obtain that mastery over the heart which 
 is not yielded up to authority but bestowed as the free 
 gift of affection. 
 
 But if the mother has in the discipline of early years 
 or in the experience of life herself gone through a school 
 of self-denial ; if she has nourished in her own heart 
 the principle of active benevolence ; if she knows resig- 
 nation, not by name only but from practice ; then her 
 eloquence, her look of maternal love, her example, 
 will be persuasive, and the infant will in a future day 
 bless her memory and honor it by virtues. 
 
LETTER XVII 
 
 January 7, 1819. 
 My dear Grp]aves, 
 
 I am anxious to elucidate some statements of a pre- 
 ceding letter, concerning the early practice of self- 
 denial. iVllow me for this purpose to resume the 
 subject of my last; and if I shall appear to have dwelt 
 too long on a favorite theme or to have recurred to it 
 too often, may I hope that you will ascribe this cir- 
 cumstance at least not xoleUi to the loquaciousness of 
 old age, but also to my conviction of the vital import- 
 ance of the subject. 
 
 The more I have seen of the mental and moral 
 misery under which thousands of our fellow-creatures 
 are suffering; the more frequenty I have observed the 
 wealth without content, the splendor without happiness, 
 among the higher classes ; the closer I have investigated 
 into the first springs of those mighty convulsions which 
 have shaken the world and made even our peaceful 
 valleys ring with the shouts of war and with the wail- 
 ing of despair ; the more have I been confirmed in the 
 view that the immediate causes of all this and of much 
 misery that yet remains unmentioned have arisen from 
 
 (83) 
 
84 Letters on Early Education^, XVII 
 
 an undue superiority which the desires of the lower 
 nature of" man have assumed over the energies of the 
 mind and the better affections of the heart. 
 
 And I cannot see any remedy placed within the reach 
 of human power to check the further progress of this 
 misery and the ulterior demoralization of our race, hut 
 the early influence of mothers, to break by firmness the 
 increasing power of animal selfishness, and to overconic 
 it by affection. 
 
 This is the end to which I would wish the practice 
 of self-denial to contribute. For this reason I insist 
 on the circumspection to be employed by mothers in 
 controlling the cravings of infants. 
 
 For this reason I would again and again request the 
 mother to be watchful in her care, to do all in her 
 power and to do it with cheerfulness, that none of its 
 real wants may rest unattended to. For it is not only 
 her duty to do so in order to provide for the physical 
 well-being of the child ; but a neglect of this duty is 
 to be still more anxiously avoided because it might 
 cast a shadow on her own affection, and provoke, if 
 not doubts, at least a feeling of uneasiness which might 
 afterwards lead to them. 
 
 But for this same reason I would entreat a mother 
 to be constantly on her guard against her own weak- 
 ness ; never to indulge the appetite of the child with 
 what may be stimulating to further desire or what is 
 
Educatiox IX Self-Dexial 85 
 
 cit best superfluous; and never to encourage importun- 
 ity.* 
 
 AYliat I call weakness she may perhaps call affection. 
 
 But let her be persuaded that the character of true 
 affection is far different. The affection for which she 
 would ])lead is merely animal : it is a feeling for which 
 she cannot account and which she cannot resist. It 
 may become to her also the basis of a more elevated 
 feeling of spiritualized maternal love. But to experi- 
 ence the latter she must have opened her own heart to 
 the influence of spiritual views and ^^rinciples. She 
 must herself know how to bear and forbear, to resign and 
 be humble. Slie must know a higher object of her 
 wishes, a purer source of enjoyment than present grati- 
 fication. She must weigh the experience of the past 
 and ponder the duties of the future. Her own interest 
 and her own desires must not interfere with more 
 
 '^" An infallible Avay of rendering a child unhappy, 
 is to indulge it in all its demands. Its desires multi- 
 ply by gratification, without ever resting satisfied : it 
 is lucky for the indulging parents, if it demand not 
 the moon for a plaything. You cannot give every- 
 thing ; and your refusal is more distressing than if you 
 had stopped short at first. A child in pain is entitled 
 to great indulgence ; but beware of yielding to fancy ; 
 the more the child is indulged, the more headstrong it 
 grows, and the more impatient of a disappointment." 
 — Lord Kaines (Loose Hints on Educaflon), i. 54. 
 
86 Letters on Early Education, XVII 
 
 momentous obligations, or weaken her attachment and 
 her zeal for the welfare of others. Her affections 
 must not be centred in self ; her wishes and her hopes 
 must not be limited to the things of this world. 
 
 What is born of the fle>ih must perish. If such be her 
 affection to her child, it will die away before she is 
 able to do anything for its real interest. But if her 
 affection is of a higher origin ; if its efforts bear the 
 stamp of a calm, a mild, and a conscientious spirit, 
 it will enable her to conquer her own weakness, and 
 to elevate by a judicious control the rising emotions of 
 her infant. 
 
 To those who have not had an opportunity of ob- 
 serving it frequently, it is impossible to form an idea 
 of the rapidity and eagerness with which the animal 
 instinct grows, if left to itself without the salutary 
 check of maternal influence. But the means so frequently 
 emploj/ed cren hji mothers to re>^train its growth hy the fear 
 of j)uni4nnent can tend only to make the evil worse. The 
 mere act of forbidding is a strong excitement to desire. 
 Fear can never act as a moral restraint ; it can act only 
 as a stimulus to the physical appetite ; it exasperates 
 and alienates the mind. 
 
 This then is gained by severity.* Its consequences 
 
 -'^ " I absolutely prohibit severity ; which will render 
 the child timid, and introduce a habit of dissimmula- 
 
Affection ai^d Firmj^ess 87 
 
 are no doubt as mischievous as those of indulgence. 
 Against an excess of both I can only repeat the recom- 
 mendation of affection and firmness. 
 
 From these two guiding principles the mother will 
 derive the satisfaction to see that when her infant 
 from an inability to understand her motives cannot yet 
 respect her as a wise mother, it will for the kindness of 
 her manner obey her as a loving mother. 
 
 tion, — the worst of habits. If such severity be exer- 
 cised, so as to aleinate the child's affections, there 
 is an end to education; the parent, or keeper, is 
 transformed into a cruel tyrant over a trembling slave. 
 Beware, on the other hand, of betraying any uneasiness 
 in refusing what a child calls for unreasonably : per- 
 ceiving your uneasiness, it will renew its attempt, hop- 
 ing to find you in better humor. Even infants, some 
 at least, are capable of this artifice; therefore, if an 
 infant explains by signs, what it ought to have, let it 
 be gratified instantly, with a cheerful countenance. If 
 it desire what it ought not to have, let the refusal be 
 sedate, but firm. Regard not its crying: it will soon 
 give over, if not listened to. The task is easier with a 
 child, who understands what is said to it: say only 
 with a firm tone, that it cannot have what it desires; 
 but without showing any heat on the one hand, or 
 concern on the other. The child, believing that the 
 thing is impossible, will cease to fret." — Loose Hints 
 on Education, i. 48. 
 
LETTER XVIII 
 
 Januaky 14, 1819. 
 My dear Great es, 
 
 I have already alluded to the period when the child 
 is separated from the immediate influence of maternal 
 love. 
 
 It is natural for a mother to look forward to that 
 period with much anxiety. The time will come, and 
 come when it may it will always be too soon for her, ' 
 when she must give up the satisfaction of herself 
 directing every step, of watching and assisting the 
 progress of her child. A thousand apprehensions will 
 he excited in her breast; a thousand dangers real or 
 imaginary will appear to beset every step ; and a thous- 
 and temptations will seem to lurk under the joys and 
 the tasks of life into which her child is now to enter. 
 These apprehensions will be felt at an earlier time for 
 a son, because the present system of society dismisses 
 him earlier from the immediate influence of the mother. 
 And though he may still be under the care of an affec- 
 tionate parent or of judicious and benevolent teachers, 
 yet will a mother feel a void on the occasion when he 
 is for the first time separated from her side. 
 
 (88) 
 
Separatio:n" from the Mother 89 
 
 Then she will be disposed to retrace all the different 
 stages of his gradual development: the little history of 
 his present habits, the moments in which she best suc- 
 ceeded in giving salutary impressions and in which his 
 affection promised fair to overcome the less amiable 
 part of his temper : she will be disposed to dwell more 
 particularly on those facts which may justify a hope 
 that her labor has not been in vain ; that one day she 
 shall see the fruits of her early care. 
 
 But while she will be disposed thus to dwell on the 
 exhilarating prospect before her, her imagination and 
 indeed her affection will be busy in sketching out the 
 various scenes of his future life. The next few years 
 may perhaps be an object altogether of less solicitude; 
 but how should not a mother be strongly affected by 
 the idea that soon, very soon, he whose tender infancy 
 she had been protecting will have to meet life unpre- 
 pared, unless it be by the advice of his friends, by the 
 vital energy of his principles, and by a small but per- 
 haps dearly-bought stock of experience. Kecollections 
 of the past and anticipations of the future will crowd 
 before her eyes, and as she may dismiss or resume them 
 her bosom will be alive to the emotions of alternate 
 hope and fear. 
 
 " The golden morning of his days, 
 A mother's watchful care surveys ; 
 But shafts fly quickly from the string, 
 And years are fast upon the wing : 
 
90 Letters ox Early Education, XVIIT 
 
 He tears him from a mother's side, 
 
 Eager on stormy life to roam. 
 With pilgrim steps he wanders wide. 
 
 Returns a stranger to his home." 
 
 But a thinking mother will not wait till these con- 
 siderations are suggested by the necessity of a separa- 
 tion which can no longer be postponed. She will at 
 an early period have occasion to reflect on the nature 
 and the duration of her connection with the child. 
 And far from giving rise to unpleasant or even painful 
 feelings, this train of thought may enable her to take 
 not only a just, but also a gratifying view of the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 In a previous letter I have spoken of the first con- 
 nection of the mother and the child after its birth as 
 being merely a phenomenon of animal nature. By 
 this I understand that in both the power which unites 
 them is in its origin instinctive. In the infant it is 
 constantly excited by a feeling of want ; in the mother 
 it is strongly supported by a consciousness of duty. 
 
 If in the mother also I ascribe to it a sort of instinct- 
 ive agency, observation will I think furnish many facts 
 which will clearly prove it. Among them it is not the 
 least remarkable that in a person who has from circum- 
 stances been called upon to act as a mother to the in- 
 fant of a stranger, the same affection is very frequently 
 engendered as if it had been her own child. And this 
 has been observed not only in cases when the nurse had 
 
Mutual Affection 91 
 
 been much grieved for the separation from her own 
 child, but when at first she had even evinced decided 
 aversion to the child now confided to her care. So 
 that the maternal instinct would seem to be transfera- 
 ble, as it were, to another object; an observation which 
 argues at once for its original energy, and for its pri- 
 ority to the circumstances under which a sense of duty 
 alone might have led to the same efforts. 
 
 But if in the infant this instinct is manifested before 
 a distinct sensation of its wants was possible, and if it 
 has acted in the mother before she has reflected on her 
 duties, there is yet as we have seen one feature, and 
 that of a pleasing kind, by which the character of this 
 instinct is distinguished. This feature is no other than 
 affection. 
 
 This affection, again, we may call instinctive, in its 
 first origin. In the infant it is at first quite exclusive ; 
 its only object is the mother. 
 
 Still more : not only is the attachment of the infant 
 limited to the mother, but it seems to be accessible to no 
 kind of sensation unless in some manner connected with 
 her. Unpleasant sensations immediately make it look 
 for relief or protection to her; and however earnestly 
 strangers may exert themselves to amuse the infant, it 
 is well known how difficult it is for them to fix its at- 
 tention without distressing instead of pleasing. 
 
 But this state of things cannot continue very long. 
 
92 Letters ox Early Education, XVIII 
 
 The more the child grows physically independent of 
 the mother, the more it gets accustomed to use its 
 senses and also its faculties, the less chance will there 
 be for its affection to continue still exclusively confined 
 to the mother. 
 
 And here it A\dll become necessary for the mother to 
 be cautious as well against the temptation of monopo- 
 lizing as against the danger of alienating its affection. 
 
LETTER XIX 
 
 Januaky 19, 1819. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 I have in my last letter supposed an infant to be ar- 
 rived at the period when the immediate connection 
 with the mother begins gradually to loosen itself. 
 
 The different degrees of the relaxation of this tie must 
 in a great measure depend on the natural disposition 
 and even on the physical constitution of the child. A 
 sickly child, or one whose first movements are marked 
 by timidity, will for a long time know of affection or 
 confidence in no other person than the mother. 
 
 But children of a healthy constitution will soon give 
 signs of an inclination to make themselves independent 
 of the assistance of others. They will be found to 
 observe a great many objects to which their attention 
 has not in. any way been called; next to observation, 
 or rather together with it, will come desire; and in- 
 stead of expressing this by their usual signs and wait- 
 ing patiently till it is complied with, they will make 
 attempts to reach the object and appropriate it to 
 themselves. These exertions, which at first are very 
 imperfect and sometimes ludicrous to the beholders, 
 
 (93) 
 
94 Letters on Early Education, XIX 
 
 will be repeated every time with greater energy till at 
 length they succeed, and if it is impossible to succeed, 
 the desire instead of subsiding will be only increased. 
 
 I have already alluded to these cravings of the in- 
 fant, and spoken of the necessity to counteract them 
 by firmness and benevolence. 
 
 But I did not then mean to describe them as some- 
 thing which in itself was bad or blamable. I described 
 them as the necessary effects of the animal instinct, of 
 which even an excess, though to be prevented, yet 
 conld not at that tender age be punishable; and from 
 this reason, while I recommended an affectionate mode 
 of connteracting them, or rather of substituting 
 something better in their place, I decided against every 
 measure that might proceed from severity. 
 
 If on such a plan a mother has succeeded in repress- 
 ing the inordinate cravings, she will not then have 
 the least occasion to look with other feelings than those 
 of gratification on those little attempts at independ- 
 ence. They are the most unquestionable signs of the 
 progress which a child has been making. And if they 
 are well directed, she may look upon them as the pre- 
 cursors of a long and laudable activity. 
 
 All the faculties will appear to take part in the de- 
 velopment of the child. They will all be called into 
 play by circumstances which surround the child every 
 day and almost every hour. 
 
The First Step toward the Mother 95 
 
 Who knows not that it is an event in the life of every 
 one of ns to be able for the first time to walk without 
 assistance ? It is an event which is commemorated in 
 the family and related to all the friends, who severally 
 express their joy at the long-wished-for consummation. 
 
 I would certainly not wish to spoil their joy at the 
 event : I am far from underrating its importance : but 
 I would at the same time wish to bestow in addition 
 to their congratulations a few moments upon a more 
 serious consideration. 
 
 The time when a child first begins to walk without 
 assistance is indeed an epoch in the history of his edu- 
 cation. It is evident that it is the most marked step 
 of physical independence of others. But at the same 
 time it occasions a new mode of manifestation of the 
 affection. 
 
 The child, who is now able to move as he chooses, is 
 also able to come to the mother. Instead of seeking 
 for her with the eye only, or stretching out the little 
 arms after her, the child is now enabled to seek the 
 presence of the mother; and the more this has the ap- 
 pearance of a free and voluntary effort, the more 
 endearing will it be to the mother as a new sign of 
 affection, which continues and may long continue a 
 bond between them, when the last trace has disap- 
 peared of the helplessness which had first claimed it. 
 
LETTEE XX 
 
 Jaxuaky 25, 1819. 
 My deae Greaves, 
 
 In describing the manner in which the immediate 
 influence of the mother is gradually weakened, and the 
 connection between her and the child loosened, we 
 must not stop at the enumeration of those facts which 
 I have detailed in my last. 
 
 It is not the mere physical growth, the acquirement 
 of the full use of all the faculties of the body, which 
 constitutes the independence of the child. The off- 
 spring of the animal creation have indeed reached the 
 highest point of their development when they are 
 strong enough to subsist and provide for themselves. 
 But it is far otherwise with the offspring of man. 
 
 In the progress of time the child not only is daily 
 exercising its physical faculties, but begins also to 
 feel intellectually and morally independent. 
 
 From observation and memory there is only one step 
 to reflection. Though imperfect, yet this operation is 
 frequently found among the early exercises of the in- 
 fant mind. The powerful stimulus of inquisitiveness 
 prompts to exertions which if successful or encouraged 
 
 by others will lead to a habit of thought. 
 
 (96) 
 
The Questions of Children 97 
 
 If we inquire into the cause of the habit of thought- 
 lessness which is so frequently complained of, we shall 
 find that there has been a want of judicious encourage- 
 ment of the first attempts at thought. 
 
 Children are troublesome; their questions are of 
 little consequence ; they are constantly asking about 
 what they do not understand; they must not have 
 their will; they must learn to be silent. 
 
 This reasoning is frequently adopted, and, in conse- 
 quence, means are found to deter children from the 
 provoking practice of their inquisitiveness. 
 
 I am certainly of the opinion that they should not 
 be indulged in a habit of asking idle questions. Many 
 of their questions certainly betray nothing more than 
 a childish curiosity. But it would be astonishing if it 
 were otherwise; and the more judicious should be the 
 answers which they receive. 
 
 You are acquainted with my opinion that as soon as 
 the infant has reached a certain age, every object that 
 surrounds him might be made instrumental to the ex- 
 citement of thought. You are aware of the principles 
 which I have laid down, and the exercises which I have 
 pointed out to mothers. "^ You have frequently expressed 
 
 ^" The best practical explanation, in English, of 
 
 these details will be found in the several numbers of 
 
 the publication, ' Hints to Parents. In the spirit of 
 Pestalozzi's method.' " 
 
98 Letters ox Early Educatioj^, XX 
 
 your astonishment at the success with which mothers 
 who followed my plan, or who had formed a similar one 
 of their own, were constantly employed in awakening in 
 very young children the dormant faculties of thought. 
 The keenness with which they followed what was laid 
 before them, the regularity with which they went 
 through their little exercises, has given you the con- 
 viction that upon a similar plan it would be easy not 
 only for a mother to educate a few, but for a teacher 
 also to manage a large number of very young children. 
 But I have not now to do with the means which may 
 ■be best appropriated to the purpose of developing 
 thought. I merely want to point to the fact that 
 thought will spring up in the infant mind; and that 
 though neglected or even misdirected, yet a restless 
 intellectual activity must sooner or later enable the 
 child in more than one respect to grow intellectually 
 independent of others. 
 
 But the most important step is that which concerns 
 the aifections of the heart. 
 
 The infant very soon commences to show by signs and 
 by its whole conduct that it is pleased with some per- 
 sons, and that it entertains a dislike, or rather that it 
 is in fear of others. 
 
 In this respect habit and circumstances may do much ; 
 but I think it will be generally observed that an infant 
 will be easily accustomed to the sight and the atten- 
 
Growth of Opiis^ioi^ 99 
 
 tions of those whom it sees frequently and in friendly 
 relation to the mother. 
 
 Impressions of this kind are not lost upon children. 
 The friends of the mother soon become those of the in- 
 fant. An atmosphere of kindness is the most kindred 
 to its own nature. It is unconsciously accustomed to 
 that atmosphere, and from the undisturbed smile and 
 the clear and cheerful glance of the eye it is evident 
 that it enjoys it. 
 
 The infant, then, learns to love those whom the 
 mother considers with affection. It learns to confide 
 in those in whom the mother shows confidence. 
 
 Thus it will go on for some time. But the more the 
 child observes, the more distinct are the impressions 
 produced by the conduct of others. 
 
 It will therefore become possible even for a stranger, 
 and one who is a stranger also to the mother, by a 
 certain mode of conduct to gain the affection and the 
 confidence of a child. To obtain them, the first requi- 
 site is constancy in the general conduct. It would 
 appear scarcely credible, but it is strictly true, that 
 children are not blind to, and that some children re- 
 seAt, the slightest deviation, for instance, from truth. 
 In like manner, bad temper once indulged may go a 
 great way to aleinate the affection of the child, which 
 can never be gained a second time by flatteries. This 
 fact is certainly astonishing ; and it may also be quoted 
 
100 Letters ois" Early Educatiois^, XX 
 
 as evidence for the statement that there is in the infant 
 a pure sense of the true and tlie right, which struggles 
 against the constant temptation arising from the weak- 
 ness of human nature to falsehood and depravity. 
 
 The child, then, begins to judge for himself not of 
 things only but also of men; he acquires an idea of 
 character; he grows more and more morally independent. 
 
LETTER XXI 
 
 February 4, 1819. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 If education is understood to be the work not of a 
 certain course of exercises resumed at stated times but 
 of a continual and benevolent superintendence; if the 
 importance of development is acknowledged not only 
 in favor of the memory and the intellect and a few 
 abilities which lead to indispensable attainments, but 
 in favor of all the faculties, whatever may be their 
 names, or nature, or energy, which Providence has 
 implanted; its province, thus enlarged, will yet be with 
 less difficulty surveyed from one point of view, and 
 will have more of a systematic and truly philosophical 
 character, than an incoherent mass of exercises, ar- 
 ranged without unity of principle, and gone through 
 without interest, — which frequently, not very appropri- 
 ately, receives the name of education. 
 
 We must bear in mind that the ultimate end of edu- 
 cation is not perfection in the accomplishments of 
 the school, but fitness for life; not the acquirement of 
 habits of blind obedience and of prescribed diligence, 
 
 (101) 
 
102 Letters ox Early Education, XXI 
 
 but a preparation for independent action. We must 
 bear in mind that whatever class of society a pupil 
 may belong to, whatever calling he may be intended 
 for, there are certain faculties in human nature com- 
 mon to all, which constitute the stock of the funda- 
 mental energies of man. We have no right to withhold 
 from any one the opportunities of developing all his 
 faculties. It may be judicious to treat some of them 
 with marked attention, and to give up the idea of 
 bringing others to high perfection. The diversity of 
 talent and inclination, of plans and pursuits, is a suffi- 
 cient proof for the necessity of such a distinction. But 
 I repeat that we have no right to shut out the child 
 from the development of those faculties also which we 
 may not for the present conceive to be very essential 
 for his future calling or station in life. 
 
 Who is not acquainted with the vicissitudes of human 
 fortune which have frequently rendered an attainment 
 valuable that was little esteemed before, or led to re- 
 gret the want of application to an exercise that had 
 been treated with contempt ? Who has not at some 
 time or other experienced the delight of being able to 
 benefit others by his advice or assistance, under cir- 
 cumstances when but for his interference they must 
 have been deprived of that benefit ? And who, even 
 if in practice he is a stranger to it, would not at least 
 in theory acknowledge that the greatest satisfaction 
 
Development of all the Faculties 108 
 
 man can obtain is a consciousness that lie is pre-emin- 
 ently qualified to render himself useful ? 
 
 But even if all this were not deserving of attention ; if 
 the suiBficiency of ordinary acquirements for the great 
 majority were vindicated on grounds perhaps of partial 
 experience and of inference from well-known facts, I 
 would still maintain that our systems of education 
 have for the most part been laboring under this incon- 
 venience, that they did not assign the due proportion 
 to the different exercises proposed by them. 
 
 The only correct idea of this subject is to be derived 
 from the examination of human nature with all its facul- 
 ties. AYe do not find in the vegetable or the animal 
 kingdom any species of objects gifted with certain 
 qualities which are not in some stage of its existence 
 called into play, and which do not contribute to the 
 full development of the character of the species in the 
 individual. Even in the mineral kingdom the wonders 
 of Providence are incessantly manifested in the num- 
 berless combinations of crystallization; and thus even 
 in the lowest department of created things, as far as 
 we are acquainted with them, a constant law, the means 
 employed by Supreme Intelligence, decides upon the 
 formation, the shape, and the individual character of a 
 mineral, according to its inherent properties. Although 
 the circumstances under which a mineral may have 
 been formed or a plant may have grown or an animal 
 
104 Letters on Early Education, XXI 
 
 may have been brought up may influence and modify, 
 yet they can never destroy that result which the com- 
 bined agency of its natural energies or qualities will 
 produce. 
 
 Thus education, instead of merely considering what 
 is to be imparted to children, ought to consider first 
 what they may be said already to possess, if not as a 
 developed, at least as an involved faculty capable of 
 development. Or if, instead of speaking thus in the 
 abstract, we will but recollect that it is to the great 
 Author of life that man owes the possession and is re- 
 sponsible for the use of his innate faculties, education 
 should not only decide what is to be made of a child, 
 but rather inquire, what is a child qualified for ? what 
 is his destiny, as a created and responsible being ? what 
 are his faculties as a rational and moral being ? what 
 are the means pointed out for their perfection and the 
 end held out as the highest object of their efforts by 
 the Almighty Father of all, both in the creation and 
 in the page of revelation ? 
 
 To these questions the answer must be simple and 
 comprehensive. It must combine all mankind, — it 
 must be applicable to all, without distinction of zones 
 or nations in which they may be born. It must ac- 
 knowledge in the first place the rights of man, in the 
 fullest sense of the word. It must proceed to show 
 that these rights, far from being confined to those ex- 
 
Development of all the Faculties 105 
 
 terior advantages which have from time to time been 
 secured by a successful struggle of the people, embrace 
 a much higher privilege, the nature of which is not yet 
 generally understood or appreciated. They embrace 
 the rightful claims of all classes to a general diffusion 
 of useful knowledge, a careful development of the in- 
 tellect, and judicious attention to all the faculties of 
 man, physical, intellectual, and moral. 
 
 It is in vain to talk of liberty, when man is un- 
 nerved, or his mind not stored with knowledge, or his 
 judgment neglected; and above all, when he is left un- 
 conscious of his rights and his duties as a moral being. -'^ 
 
 *" We entertain a firm conviction, that the princi- 
 ples of liberty, as in government and trade, so also in 
 education, are all-important to the happiness of man- 
 kind. To the triumph of those principles we look 
 forward, not, we trust, with a fanatical confidence, 
 but assuredly with a cheerful and steadfast hope. 
 Their nature may be misunderstood; their progress 
 may be retarded. They may be maligned, derided, 
 nay, at times exploded, and apparently forgotten. 
 But we do, in our souls, believe that they are strong 
 with the strength, and quick with the vitality of truth; 
 that when they fall, it is to rebound ; that when they 
 recede, it is to spring forward with greater elasticity ; 
 that when they seem to perish, there are the seeds of 
 renovation in their very decay." — Edinhurgh Bcrieir, 
 March, 1826. 
 
LETTER XXII 
 
 February 10, 1819. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 If according to correct principles of education all 
 the faculties of man are to be developed and all his 
 slumbering energies called into play, the early atten- 
 tion of mothers must be directed to a subject which is 
 generally considered to require neither much thought 
 nor experience, and therefore is generally neglected. 
 I mean the physical education of children. 
 
 Who has not a few general sentences at hand which 
 he will be ready to quote, but perhaps not to practise, 
 on the management of children ? I am aware that 
 much has been done away with that used to exercise 
 the very worst influence on children. I am aware that 
 the general management of them has become much 
 more rational, and that their tasks and amusements 
 have been much improved by a judicious attention to 
 their wants and their faculties. But much still re- 
 mains to be done ; and we shall deserve little credit 
 for a real wish to improve if we suffer ourselves to rest 
 satisfied with the idea that all is not so bad as it might 
 be or as it may have been. 
 
 (106) 
 
Physical Education^ 107 
 
 The revival of gymnastics is in my opinion the most 
 important step that has been done in that direction. 
 The great merit of the gymnastic art is not the facility 
 with which certain exercises are performed or the quali- 
 fication which they may give for certain exertions that 
 require much energy and dexterity; though an attain- 
 ment of that sort is by no means to be despised. 
 
 But the greatest advantage resulting from a practice 
 of those exercises is the natural progress which is ob- 
 served in the arrangement of them, beginning with 
 those which while they are easy in themselves yet lead 
 as a preparatory practice to others which are more 
 complicated and more difficult. There is not perhaps 
 any art in which it may be so clearly shown that ener- 
 gies which appear to be wanting are to be produced, 
 as it were, or at least are to be developed by no other 
 means than practice alone. 
 
 This might afford a most useful hint to all those who 
 are engaged in teaching any object of instruction, and 
 who meet with difficulties in bringing their pupils to 
 that proficiency which they had expected. Let them 
 recommence on a new plan, in which the exercises shall 
 be differently arranged and the subjects brought for- 
 ward in a manner that will admit of the natural pro- 
 gress from the easier to the more difficult. When 
 talent is wanting altogether, I know that it cannot be 
 imparted by any system of education. But I have 
 
108 Letters ox Early Education, XXII 
 
 been taught by experience to consider the cases in 
 which talents of any kind are absolutely wanting but 
 very few. And in most cases, I have had the satisfac- 
 tion to find that a faculty which had been quite given 
 Over, instead of being developed had been rather ob- 
 structed in its agency by a variety of exercises which 
 tend to perplex or to deter from further exertion. 
 
 And here I would attend to a prejudice which is 
 common enough concerning the use of gymnastics : it 
 is frequently said that they may be very good for those 
 who are strong enough ; but that those who are s'uif er- 
 ing from weakness of constitution would be altogether 
 unequal to and even endangered by a practice of gym- 
 nastics. 
 
 Xow I will venture to say that this rests merely upon 
 a misunderstanding of the first principles of gymnas- 
 tics : . the exercises not only vary in proportion to the 
 strength of individuals ; but exercises may be and have 
 been devised for those also who were decidedly suffer- 
 ing. And I have consulted the authority of the first 
 physicians, who declare that in cases which had come 
 under their personal observation individuals aft'ected 
 with pulmonary complaints, if these had not already 
 proceeded too far, had been materially relieved and 
 benefited by a constant practice of the few and simple 
 exercises which the system in such cases proposes. 
 
 And for this very reason, that exercises m.iy be de- 
 
Advaj^taCxE of Gymnastics 109 
 
 vised for every age and for every degree of bodily 
 strength, however reduced, I consider it to be esssn- 
 tial that mothers should make themselves acquainted 
 with the principles of gymnastics, in order that among 
 the elementary and preparatory exercises they may be 
 able to select those which according to circumstances 
 will be most likely to suit and benefit their children. 
 
 I do not mean to say that mothers should strictly 
 adhere to those exercises only which they may find 
 pointed out in a work on gymnastics; they may of 
 course vary them as they find desirable or advisable ; 
 but I would recommend a mother much rather to con- 
 sult one who has some experience in the management 
 of gymnastics with children, before she decides upon 
 altering the course proposed, or adopting other exer- 
 cises of which she is unable to calculate the exact de- 
 gree of strength which they may require or the benefit 
 that her children may derive from them. 
 
 If the physical advantage of gymnastics is great and 
 uncontrovertible, I would contend that the moral ad- 
 vantage resulting from them is as valuable. I would 
 again appeal to your own observation. You have^een 
 a number of schools in Germany and Switzerland of 
 which gymnastics formed a leading feature; and I 
 recollect that in our conversations on the subject you 
 made the remark, which exactly agrees with my own 
 experience, that gymnastics, well conducted, essentially 
 
110 Letters ox Early Education, XXII 
 
 contributes not only to render children cheerful and 
 healthy, which for moral education are two all-import- 
 ant points, but also to promote among them a certain 
 spirit of union and brotherly feeling which is most 
 gratifying to the observer: habits of industry, open- 
 ness and frankness of character, personal courage, and 
 a manly conduct in suffering pain, are also among the 
 natural^ and constant consequences of an early and a 
 continued practice of exercises on the gymnastic sys- 
 tem. 
 
LETTEE XXIII 
 
 February 18, 1827. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 Physical education ought by no means to be coji- 
 fined to those exercises which now receive the denomi- 
 natit)n of gymnastics. By means of them strength and 
 dexterity will be acquired in the use of the limbs in 
 general; but particular exercises ought to be devised 
 for the practice of all the senses. 
 
 This idea may at first appear a superfluous refinement, 
 or an unnecessary encumbrance of free development. 
 We have acquired the full use of our senses, to be 
 sure, without any special instruction of that sort: but 
 the question is not whether these exercises are indis- 
 pensable, but whether under any circumstances they 
 will not prove useful. 
 
 How^ many are there of us whose eye would without 
 any assistance judge correctly of a distance, or of the 
 proportion of the size of different objects ? How many 
 are there who distinguish and recognize the nice shades 
 of colors, without comparing the one with the other; 
 or whose ear will be alive to the slightest variation of 
 
 (111) 
 
112 Letters o^ Early Education^, XXIII 
 
 sound ? Those who are able to do this with some de- 
 gree of perfection will be found to derive their facility 
 either from a certain innate talent, or from constant 
 and laborious practice. Xow it is evident that there is 
 a certain superiority in these attainments which 
 natural talent gives without any exertion, and which 
 instruction could never impart though attended by the 
 most diligent application. But if practice cannot do 
 everything, at least it can do much ; and the earlier it 
 is begun, the easier and the more perfect must be the 
 success. 
 
 A regular system of exercises of this description is 
 yet a desideratum. But it cannot be difficult for a 
 mother to introduce into the amusements of her chil- 
 dren a number of these exercises, calculated to 
 develop and perfect the eye and the ear. For it is 
 desirable that everything of that kind should be treated 
 as an amusement, rather than as anything else. The 
 greatest liberty must prevail, and tlie whole must be 
 done with a certain cheerfulness, without which all 
 these exercises, as gymnastics themselves, would be- 
 come dull, pedantic, and ridiculous. 
 
 It will be well to connect these exercises very early 
 with others tending to form the taste. It seems not 
 to be sufficiently understood that good taste and good 
 feelings are kindred to each other, and that they re- 
 ciprocally confirm each other. Though the ancients 
 
Education of the Seis^ses 113 
 
 have said that " to study those arts which are suited 
 to a free-born mind soothes the character and takes 
 away the roughness of exterior manners," yet little has 
 been done to open a free access to those enjoyments 
 or accomplishments to all, and especially to the major- 
 ity of the people. If they must not be expected to be 
 able to give much of their attention to subordinate or 
 ornamental pursuits, while so much of it is engrossed 
 in providing for Iheir first and necessary wants, still 
 this does not furnish a conclusive reason why they 
 should be shut out altogether from every pursuit above 
 the toil of their ordinary vocations. 
 
 Yet I know not a more gratifying scene than to see, 
 as I have seen among the poor, a mother spreading 
 around her a spirit of silent but serene enjoyment, 
 diffusing among her children a spring of better feel- 
 ings, and setting the example of removing everything 
 that might offend the taste, not indeed of a fastidious 
 observer but yet of one used to move in another sphere. 
 It is difficult to describe by what means this can be 
 effected. But I have seen it under circumstances 
 which did not promise to render it even possible. 
 
 Of one thing I am certain, that it is only through 
 the true spirit of maternal love that it can be obtained. 
 That feeling, of which I cannot too frequently repeat 
 that it is capable of an elevation to the standard of the 
 very best feelings of human nature, is intimately con- 
 
114 Letters ox Early Education, XXIII 
 
 nected with a happy instinct that will lead to a path 
 equally as remote from listlessness and indolence as it 
 is from artificial refinement. Refinement and fastid- 
 iousness may do much, if upheld by constant watch- 
 fulness; a nature, however, a truth will be wanting; 
 and even the casual observer will be struck with a re- 
 straint incompatible with an atmosphere of sympathy. 
 
 Xow that I am on the topic, I will not let the 
 opportunity pass by without speaking of one of the 
 most effective aids of moral education. You are aware 
 that I mean music, and not only are you acquainted 
 with my sentiments on that subject, but you have also 
 observed the very satisfactory results which we have 
 obtained in our schools. The exertions of my excellent 
 friend Xageli, who has with equal taste and judgment 
 reduced the highest principles of his art to the sim- 
 plest elements, have enabled us to bring our children 
 to a proficiency which on any other plan must be the 
 work of much time and labor. 
 
 But it is not this proficiency which I would describe 
 as a desirable accomplishment of education. It is the 
 marked and most beneficial influence of music on the 
 feelings, which I have always observed to be the most 
 efficient in preparing, or as it were attuning, the mind 
 for the best impressions. The exquisite harmony of 
 a superior performance, the studied elegance of the 
 execution, may indeed give satisfaction to a connois- 
 
Importance of Music 115 
 
 seiir ; but it is the simple and untaught grace of melody 
 which speaks to the heart of every human being. Our 
 own national melodies, which have since time imme- 
 morial been resounding in our native valleys, are fraught 
 with reminiscences of the brightest page of our history 
 and of the most endearing scenes of domestic life. 
 
 But the effect of music in education is not only to 
 keep alive a national feeling: it goes much deeper; if 
 cultivated in the right spirit it strikes at the root of 
 every bad or narrow feeling, of every ungenerous or 
 mean propensity, of every emotion unworthy of 
 humanity. 
 
 In saying so I might quote an authority which com- 
 mands our attention on account of the elevated char- 
 acter and genius of the man from whom it proceeds. 
 It is well-known, that there was not a more eloquent 
 and warm advocate of the moral virtues of music than 
 the venerable Luther. But though his voice has made 
 itself heard and is still held in the highest esteem 
 among us, yet experience has spoken still louder and 
 more unquestionably to the truth of the proposition 
 which he was among the first to vindicate. Experience 
 has long since proved that a system proceeding upon the 
 principle of sympathy would be imperfect if it were to 
 deny itself the assistance of that powerful means of 
 the culture of the heart. Those schools or those fam- 
 ilies in which "music ' has retained the cheerful and 
 
116 Early Letters ox Educatioi^, XXIII 
 
 chaste character which it is so important that it should 
 preserve have invariably displayed scenes of moral 
 feeling and consequently of happiness which leave no 
 doubt as to the intrinsic value of that art, which has 
 sunk into neglect or degenerated into abuse only in 
 the ages of barbarism or depravity. 
 
 I need not remind you of the importance of music 
 in engendering and assisting the highest feelings of 
 which man is capable. It is almost universally 
 acknowledged that Luther saw the truth when lie 
 pointed to music, devoid of studied pomp and vain 
 ornament, in its solemn and impressive simplicity, as 
 one of the most efficient means of elevating and puri- 
 fying genuine feelings of devotion. 
 
 We have frequently in our conversations on this 
 subject been at a loss how to account for the circum- 
 stance that in your own country, though that fact is as 
 generally acknowledged, yet music does not form a 
 more prominent feature in general education. It would 
 seem that the notion prevails that it would require 
 more time and application than can conveniently be 
 bestowed upon it, to make its influence extend also 
 on the education of the people. 
 
 Xow I would appeal with the same confidence as I 
 would to yourself to any traveller, whether he has not 
 been struck with the facility as well as the success with 
 which it is cultivated among us. Indeed there is 
 
Luther's Views ox Music 117 
 
 scarcely a village school throughout Switzerland, and 
 perhaps there is none throughout Germany or Prussia, 
 in which something is not done for an acquirement of 
 at least the elements of music on the new and more 
 appropriate plan. 
 
 This is a fact which it cannot be difficult to examine, 
 and which it will be impossible to dispute; and I will 
 conclude this letter by expressing the hope which we 
 have been entertaining together, that this fact will not 
 be overloolxfd in a country uhich h(i>> never been bachcarcl 
 in .sngf/esting or adopting improvement ivhen founded on 
 facts, and confirmed by experience. 
 
LETTER XXIV 
 
 February 27, 1819. 
 My dear Greayes, 
 
 In the branch of oducation of which I have been 
 treating in the two last letters, I conceive that to the 
 elements of music should be subjoined the elements of 
 drawing. 
 
 We all know from experience that among the first 
 manifestations of the faculties of a child are a desire 
 and an attempt of imitation. This accounts for the 
 acquirement of language, and for the first imperfect 
 utterance of sounds imitative of music which is com- 
 mon to most children when they have heard a ttne 
 with which they were pleased. The progress in both 
 depends on the greater or smaller portion of attention 
 which children give to the things that surround them, 
 and on their quickness of perception. In the very 
 same way as this applies to the ear and the organs of 
 speech, it applies also to the eye and the employment 
 of the hand. Children who evince some curiosity in 
 the objects brought before their eyes very soon begin, 
 to employ their ingenuity and skill in copying what 
 
 (118) 
 
Education ii>" Drawin^g 119 
 
 they have seen. Most children will manage to con- 
 struct something in imitation of a bnilcling, of any 
 materials they can lay hold of. 
 
 This desire, which is natural to them, should not be 
 neglected. It is like all the faculties capable of regu- 
 lar development. It is therefore well done to furnish 
 children with playthings which will facilitate these 
 their first essays, and occasionally to assist them. Xo 
 encouragement of that sort is lost upon them ; and en- 
 couragement should never be withheld when it promotes 
 innocent pleasure and when it may lead to useful occu- 
 pation. To relieve them from the monotonousness of 
 their daily and hourl}^ repeated trifles, and to introduce 
 variety into their little amusements, acts as a stimulus 
 to their ingenuity and sharpens their observation 
 wdiiie it gains their interest. 
 
 As soon as they are able to make the attempt there 
 is nothing so well calculated for this object as some 
 elementary practice of drawing. 
 
 You have seen the course of pi'eparatory exercises by 
 which some of my friends have so well succeeded in 
 facilitating these pursuits for quite young children. It 
 would be unreasonable to expect that they should begin 
 by drawing any object before them as a whole. It is 
 necessary to analyze for them the parts and elements 
 of which it consists. Whenever this has been at- 
 tempted the progress has been astonishing, and 
 
120 Letters o>^ Early Educatio:n^, XXIV 
 
 equalled only by tlie delight with which the children 
 followed this their favorite pursuit. My friends Ram- 
 sauer and Boniface "-^ have undertaken the very useful 
 work of arranging such a course in its natural progress 
 from the easiest to the most complicated exercises; and 
 the number of schools in which their method has been 
 successfully practised confirms the experience which 
 Ave have made at Yverdun of its merits. 
 
 The general advantages resulting from an early jDrac- 
 tice of drawing are evident to every one. Those who 
 are familiar with the art are known to look upon almost 
 every object with eyes different as it were from a com- 
 mon observer. One who is in the habit of examining 
 the structure of plants and conversant with a system of 
 botany will discover a number of distinguishing char- 
 acteristics of a flower, for instance, which remain 
 wholly unnoticed by one unacquainted with that science. 
 
 * Both these gentlemen have since published sev- 
 eral works, the first in German, and the second in 
 French, with illustrations. Their princi2)les, which 
 were first applied in the Pestalozzian schools, are now 
 very generally adopted in the best schools of Germany 
 and France ; and their works, especially that of Ram- 
 sauer, would well deserve a translation into English. 
 The superiority of their method has been generally ac- 
 knowledged by the Englishmen Avho have seen it prac- 
 tised in the Pestalozzian institutions. 
 
Drawi:n^g develops Observation 121 
 
 It is from the same reason that even in common life a 
 person who is in the habit of drawing, especially from 
 Xatnre, will easily perceive many circumstances which 
 are commonly overlooked, and form a much more cor- 
 rect impression even of such objects as he does not 
 stop to examine minutely, than one who has never 
 been taught to look upon what he sees with an inten- 
 tion to reproduce a likeness of it. The attention to 
 the exact shape of the whole and the proportion of the 
 parts which is requisite for the taking of an adequate 
 sketch is converted into a habit, and becomes in many 
 cases productive of much instruction and amusement. 
 
 In order to attain this habit, it is material and almost 
 indispensable that children should not be confined to 
 copying from another drawing, but permitted to sketch 
 from Xature. The impression which the object itself 
 gives is so much more striking than its appearance in 
 an imitation that it gives a child much more pleasure 
 to exercise his skill in attempting a likeness of what 
 surrounds him and of what he is interested in, than to 
 labor at a copy of what is but a copy itself, and has less 
 of life or interest in its appearance. 
 
 It is likewise much easier to give an idea of the im- 
 portant subject of light and shade and of the first 
 principles of perspective, as far as they influence the 
 representation of every object, by placing it immedi- 
 ately before the eye. The assistance which is given 
 
122 Letters ox Early Education, XXIV 
 
 should by no means extend to a direction in the ex- 
 ecution of every detail ; but something should be left 
 to the ingenuity, something also to patience and 
 perseverance: an advantage that has been found out 
 after some fruitless attempts is not easily forgotten; 
 it gives much satisfaction and encouragement to new 
 efforts; and the joy at the ultimate success derives a 
 zest from previous disappointment. 
 
 ^N'ext to the exercises of drawing come those of 
 modelling, in whatever materials may be most conven- 
 iently employed. This is frequently productive of 
 even more amusement. Even where there is no dis- 
 tinguished mechanical talent, the pleasure of being- 
 able to do something at least is with many a sufficient 
 excitement : and both drawing and modelling, if taught 
 on principles which are founded in nature, will be of 
 the greatest use when the pupils are to enter upon 
 other branches of instruction. 
 
 Of these I shall here only mention two — geometry 
 and geography. The preparatory exercises by which 
 we have introduced a course of geometry present an 
 analysis of the various combinations under which the 
 elements of form are brought together, and of which 
 every figure or diagram consists. These elements are 
 already familiar to the pupil who has been taught to 
 consider an object with a view to decompose it into its 
 original parts and to draw them separately. The pupil 
 
Geometry a^b Geography 123 
 
 of course will not be a stranger to the materials of 
 which he is now to be taught the combinations and 
 proportions. It must be easier to understand the 
 properties of a circle, for instance, or of a square, for 
 one who not only has met with these figures occasion- 
 ally, but is already acquainted with the manner in 
 which they are formed. Besides, the doctrine of 
 geometrical solids, which cannot in any degree be 
 satisfactorily taught without illustrative models, is 
 much better understood and much deeper impressed 
 on the mind when the pupils have some idea of the 
 construction of the models, and when they are able to 
 work out at least those which are less complicated. 
 
 In geography, the drawing of outline maps is an 
 exercise which ought not to be neglected in any school. 
 It gives the most accurate idea of the proportional 
 extent and the general position of the different coun- 
 tries; it conveys a more distinct notion than any de- 
 scriptio]!, and it leaves the most permanent impression 
 on the memory. 
 
LETTEE XXV 
 
 March 5, 1819. 
 My dear G reaves, 
 
 To the courses of exercises Avhich I have recom- 
 mended, I anticipate that an objection will be raised 
 which it is necessary for me to meet before I proceed 
 to speak of intellectual education. 
 
 Granting that these exercises may be as the phrase 
 is useful in their way ; granting even that it might be 
 desirable to see some of the knowledge they are 
 intended to convey diffused among all classes of society ; 
 yet where, it will be asked, and by what means can 
 they be expected to become general among any other 
 than the higher classes ? There you may expect to 
 find mothers competent, if at all inclined, to undertake 
 the superintendence of such exercises with their chil- 
 dren. But considering the present state of things is 
 it not absolutely chimerical to imagine that among the 
 people mothers should be found who are qualified to 
 do anything for their children in that direction ? 
 
 To this objection I would answer in the first place 
 that it is not always legitimate to conclude from the 
 
 024) 
 
UNEDUCATED MOTHEES 125 
 
 present state of things to the f ntnre ; and whenever as 
 in the case before ns the present state of things can be 
 proved to be faulty and at the same time capable of 
 improvement, every friend of humanity will concur 
 with me in saying that such a conclusion is inad- 
 missible. 
 
 It is inadmissible ; for experience speaks against it. 
 The page of history to a thinking observer presents 
 mankind laboring under the influence of a chain of 
 prejudice of which the links are successively broken. 
 
 The most interesting events in history are but the 
 consummation of things which had been deemed impos- 
 sible. It is in vain to assign limits to the improve- 
 ments of ingenuity ; hut it is still more so to circumscribe 
 the exertions of henerolence. 
 
 Such a conclusion then is inadmissible. And history 
 speaks more directly to the point. The most conse- 
 quential facts plead in favor of our wishes and our 
 hopes. The most enlightened, the most active philan- 
 thropists, two thousand years ago, could not have fore- 
 seen the change that has taken place in the intellectual 
 world : tliey could not have anticipated those facilities 
 by which not only is the research of a few encouraged, 
 but the practical results of that research are with won- 
 derful rapidity communicated to thousands in the 
 remotest countries of the globe. They could not have 
 foreseen the glorious invention by which ignorance and 
 
126 Letters ox Eaely Educations", XXV 
 
 superstition have been driven out of their stronghoki,. 
 and knowledge and truth diffused in the most universal 
 and the most effective channels. They could not have 
 foreseen that a spirit of inquiry would be excited even 
 among those who had formerly been doomed to blind 
 belief and to passive obedience. 
 
 Indeed, if there is one feature by which this present 
 age bids fair to redeem its character and to heal the 
 wounds which it has inflicted on the suffering nations 
 it is this, — that we see efforts making in every direc- 
 tion with a zeal and to an extent hitherto unparallelled 
 to assist the people in acquiring that portion of intel- 
 lectual indej^endence without which the true dignity 
 of the human character cannot be maintained nor its 
 duties adequately fulfilled. There is something so 
 cheering in the prospect of seeing the number of those 
 for whom it is destined extending with the range of 
 knowledge itself, that there is scarcely a field left of 
 which men of superior talent have not undertaken to 
 cull the flowers and to store the fruits for those who 
 have not time or faculty to toil at the elements or fol- 
 low up the refinements of science ; and the still more 
 material object, to facilitate the first steps, to lay the 
 foundation, to ensure the slow but solid progress, and 
 to do this in the manner best adapted to the nature of 
 the human mind, and to the development of its facul- 
 ties: — this object has been pursued with an interest 
 
Domestic Educatiox 127 
 
 and an ardor that even the results which I have seen 
 in my own immediate neighborhood are a sufficient 
 pledge that the pursuit will not be abandoned, and 
 that it is now not far from its ultimate success. 
 
 This prospect is cheering: but, my dear friend, it is 
 not upon this prospect that I have built the hopes of 
 my life. It is not the diffusion of knowledge, whether 
 it be grudgingly doled out in schools on the old plan, 
 or more liberally supplied in establishments on a new 
 principle, or submitted to the examination, and laid 
 open for the improvement of the adults; — it is not the 
 diffusion of knowledge alone to which I look up for the 
 welfare of this or any generation. Xo : unless we suc- 
 ceed in giving a new impulse, and raising the tone of 
 Domedlc Education ; unless an atmosphere of sympathy, 
 elevated by moral and religious feeling, be diffused there ; 
 unless maternal love be rendered more instrumental 
 in early education than any other agent; unless mothers 
 will consent to follow the call of their own better feel- 
 ings more readily than those of pleasure or of thought- 
 less habit; unless they will consent to be mothers, and 
 to act as mothers — unless such be the character of edu- 
 cation, all our hopes and exertions can end only in 
 disappointment. 
 
 Those have indeed widely mistaken the meaning of 
 all my plans and of those of my friends who suppose 
 that in our labors for popular education we have not a 
 
128 Letters ox Early Educattoj^, XXV 
 
 higher end in view than the improvement of a system 
 of instruction, or the perfection as it were of the gym- 
 nastics of the intellect. We have been busily engaged 
 in reforming the schools, for we consider them as essen- 
 tial in the progress of education: but we consider the 
 fireside circle as far more essential. We have done all 
 in our power to bring up children with a view to be- 
 come teachers, and we have every reason to congratu- 
 late the schools that were benefited by this plan: but 
 Ave have thought it the most important feature and the 
 first duty of our own schools and of every school, to 
 develop in the pupils confided to our care those feelings 
 and to store their minds with that knowledge which, 
 at a more advanced period of life, may enable them to 
 give all their heart and the unwearied use of their 
 powers to the diffusion of the true spirit which should 
 prevail in a domestic circle. In short, whoever has 
 the welfare of the rising generation at heart cannot do 
 better than consider as his highest object the Educa- 
 tion of Mothers. 
 
LETTER XXVI 
 
 March 15, 1819. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 Let me repeat that we cannot expect any real im- 
 provement in education that shall be felt throughout 
 an extensive sphere and that shall continue to spread 
 in the progress of time, increasing in vigor as it pro- 
 ceeds, unless we begin by educating mothers. 
 
 It is their duty in the domestic circle to do what 
 school instruction has not the means of accomplishing; 
 to give to every individual child that degree of attention 
 which in a school is absorbed in the management of the 
 whole ; to let their heart speak in cases where the heart 
 is the best judge; to gain by affection what authority 
 could never have commanded. 
 
 But it is their duty also to turn all the stock of their 
 knowledge to account, and to let their children have 
 the benefit of it. 
 
 I am aware that under the present circumstances 
 many mothers would either declare themselves or would 
 be looked upon by others as incompetent to attempt 
 any such thing; as so poor in knowledge and so un- 
 
 (129) 
 
130 Letters on Early Education, XXVI 
 
 practised iu communicating knowledge that such an 
 undertaking on their part would appear as vain and 
 presumptuous. 
 
 Xow this is a fact, which, as far as exjjerience goes, 
 I am bound to deny. I am not now speaking of those 
 classes or individuals whose education has been if not 
 very diligently at least in some measure attended to. 
 I have now in view a mother whose education has from 
 some circumstances or other been totally neglected. I 
 will suppose one who is even ignorant of reading and 
 writing, though in no country in which the schools are 
 in a proper state would you meet with an individual 
 deficient in this respect. I will add, a young and un- 
 experienced mother. 
 
 Xov/ I will venture to say that this poor and wholly 
 ignorant, this young and inexperienced mother, is not 
 quite destitute of the means of assisting even in the intel- 
 lectual development of her child. 
 
 However small may be the stock of her experience, 
 however moderate her own faculties, she must be 
 aware that she is acquainted with an infinite number of 
 facts, such we will say as they occur in common life, 
 to which her infant is yet a stranger. She must be 
 aware that it will be useful to the infant to become soon 
 acquainted with some of them, such for instance as re- 
 fer to things with which it is likely to come into con- 
 tact. She must feel herself able to give her child the 
 
OBeTECT LeSSON^S AT HOME 131 
 
 possession of a variety of names, simply by bringing the 
 objects themselves before the child, prononncing the 
 names, and making the child repeat them. She must 
 feel herself able to bring such objects before the child 
 in a sort of natural order — the different parts for in- 
 stance of a fruit. Let no one despise these things be- 
 cause they are little. There was a time when we were 
 ignorant even of the least of them ; and there are those 
 to whom we have reason to be thankful for teaching us 
 these little things. 
 
 But I do not mean to say that a mother should stop 
 there. Even the mother of whom we are speaking, 
 that wholly ignorant and inexperienced mother, is 
 capable of going much farther, and of adding a variety 
 of knowledge which is really useful. After she has 
 exhausted the stock of objects which jiresented them- 
 selves first, after the child has acquired the names of 
 them, and is able to distinguish their parts, it may 
 probably occur to her that something more might still 
 be said on every one of these objects. She will find 
 herself able to describe them to the child with regard 
 to form, size, color, softness or hardness of the outside, 
 sound when touched, and so on. 
 
 She has now gained a material point; from the mere 
 knowledge of the names of objects, she has led the 
 infant to a knowledge of their qualities and properties. 
 Nothing can be more natural for her than to go on and 
 
13-2 Letters ox Early Education, XXVI 
 
 compare different objects with regard to these qualities, 
 and the greater or smaller degree in which they belong 
 to the objects. If the former exercises were adapted 
 to cnltivate the memory, these are calculated to form 
 the observation and judgment. 
 
 She may still go much farther: she is able to tell her 
 child the reasons of things, and the causes of facts. 
 She is able to inform it of the origin and the duration 
 and the consequences of a variety o£ objects. The 
 occurrences of every day and of every hour will furnish 
 her with materials for this sort of instruction. Its use 
 is evident; it teaches the child to inquire after the 
 causes, and accustoms it to think of the consequences 
 of things. 
 
 I shall have an opportunity in another place to 
 speak of moral and religious instruction; I will there- 
 fore only remark in a few words that this last-men- 
 tioned class of exercises, which may be varied and 
 extended in an almost endless series, will give frequent 
 occasion for the simplest illustration of truths belong- 
 ing to that branch. It will make the child reflect on 
 the consequences of actions; it will render the mind 
 familiar with thought; and it will frequently lead to 
 recognize in the objects before the child the effects of 
 the infinite wisdom of that Being whom long before 
 the piety of the mother if genuine must have led him 
 to revere and to love " with all his heart, and with all 
 
Development of Reasoning llio 
 
 y 
 
 his soul, and with all his strength, ajicl with all his 
 mind." 
 
 I am afraid that the enumeration of these first essays 
 of a mother will he found tedious by other readers 
 than yourself, whom I have never seen weary of watch- 
 ing nature and drawing instruction from the inexhaus- 
 tible spring of experience. I think that we sympathize 
 on this subject; that we feel greater interest in the 
 unsophisticated consciousness of a pure intention than 
 in the most splendid exhibition of refinement of knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 And I know not a motive which might render those 
 efforts more interesting than the desire of a mother to 
 do all in her power for the mental as well as the physi- 
 cal and moral development of her children. However 
 circumscribed her means, and however limited at first 
 may be her success, still there is something that will 
 and must prompt her not to rest, that will stimulate 
 her to new efforts, and that will at last crown them 
 with fruits which are the more gratifying, the more 
 they were difficult to obtain. 
 
 Experience has shown that mothers in that seemingly 
 forlorn situation which I have described have succeeded 
 beyond their own expectation. I look upon this as a 
 new proof of the fact that nothing is too difficult for 
 maternal love, animated by a consciousness of its 
 purity, and elevated by a confidence in the power of 
 
134 Letters ox Early Education, XXVI 
 
 Him who has inspired the mother's heart with that 
 feeling. I do indeed consider it as a free gift of the 
 Creator, and I firml}' believe that in the same measnre 
 as maternal love is ardent and indefatigable, in the 
 same measnre as it is inspired with energy and enhanced 
 by faith, — I firmly believe that in the same measnre 
 maternal love will be strengthened in its exertions, and 
 snpplied with means, even where it appears most 
 destitnte. 
 
 Thongh, as I have shown above, it is by no means 
 so difficnlt to direct the attention of children to nsefnl 
 objects, yet nothing is more common than the com- 
 plaint, " I can do nothing with children." If this 
 comes from an individnal who is not called npon by 
 his peculiar situation to occupy himself with education, 
 it is but fair to supjjose that he will be able to make 
 himself more useful in another direction than he could 
 have done by a laborious and persevering application 
 to a task for Avhich he is neither predisposed by inclina- 
 tion nor fitted by eminent talent. But those words 
 should never come from a mother. A mother is called 
 upon to give her attention to that subject. It is her 
 duty to do so; the voice of conscience in her own 
 breast will tell her that it is. The consciousness of a 
 duty never exists without the qualification to fulfil it ; 
 nor has a duty ever been undertaken with the spirit of 
 courage, of confidence, of love, that has not been ulti- 
 mately crowned with success. 
 
LETTER XXVII 
 
 March 20, 1819. 
 My dear Greayes, 
 
 If even an uneducated and totally unassisted mother 
 has it in her power to do so much for her child, how 
 much better qualified must she be, and how much 
 more confidently may she look forward to the results 
 of her maternal exertions, if her faculties have been 
 properly developed, and her steps guided by the exper- 
 ience of those who had engaged in that work before 
 her. 
 
 The fact therefore which I stated in my last letter, 
 far from rendering my proposition questionable, goes 
 directly to confirm its validity and to illustrate its ex- 
 pediency. I therefore repeat it, and I would address 
 it in the strongest language to all those who like my- 
 self are desirous of bringing about a change in our 
 present insufficient system of education. If you really 
 wish to embark with your facilities, your time, your 
 talents, your influence, in a cause likely to benefit a 
 large portion of your species — if you wish not to be 
 busy in suggesting palliatives but in effecting a per- 
 
 (135) 
 
136 Letters on Early Education, XXVII 
 
 manent cure of tlie evils under which thousands have 
 sunk and hundreds of thousands are still suffering; if 
 you wish not merely to erect an edifice that may at- 
 tract by its splendor and commemorate your name for 
 a while, but which shall pass away like " the baseless 
 fabric of vision"; but if on the contrary you prefer 
 solid improvement to momentary effect, and the last- 
 ing benefit of many to the solitary gratification of 
 striking results ; let not your attention be diverted by 
 the apparent wants — let it not be totally engrossed by 
 the subordinate ones — but let it at once be directed to 
 the great and general though little known source from 
 which good or evil flows in quantity incalculable and 
 rapidity unparallelled — to the manner in which the 
 earliest years of childhood are passed, and to the edu- 
 cation of those to whose care they are or ought to be 
 consigned. 
 
 Of all institutions, the most useful is one in which 
 the great business of education is not merely made a 
 means subservient to the various purposes of ordinary 
 life, but in which it is viewed as an object in itself de- 
 serving of the most serious attention and to be brought 
 to the highest perfection; a school in which the pupils 
 are taught to act as teachers and educated to act as 
 educators ; a school, above all, in which the female char- 
 acter is at an early period developed in that direction 
 
Educatioj^ of AVomen 137 
 
 wliicli enables it to take so prominent a part in early 
 education. 
 
 To effect this it is necessary that the female charac- 
 ter should be thoroughly understood and adequately 
 appreciated. And on this subject nothing can give a 
 more satisfactory illustration than the observation of 
 a mother who is conscious of her duties and qualified to 
 fulfil them. In such a mother the moral dignity of her 
 character, the suavity of her manners, and the firmness 
 of her principles will not more command our admiration, 
 than the happy mixture of judgment and feeling which 
 constitutes the simple but unerring standard of her 
 actions. 
 
 It is the great problem in female education to effect 
 this happy union in the mind, which is equally as far 
 from imposing any restraint on the feelings as it is 
 from warping or biasing the judgment. The marked 
 preponderance of feeling which is manifested in the 
 female character requires not only the most clear- 
 sighted but also the kindest attention from those who 
 wish to bring it into harmony with the development of 
 the faculties of the intellect and the will. 
 
 It is a mere prejudice to suppose that the acquire- 
 ment of knowledge and the cultivation of the intellect, 
 must either not be solid and comprehensive, or 
 must take away from the female character its simplic- 
 ity and all that renders it truly amiable. Every thing 
 
138 Lettees on Early Education, XXYII 
 
 depends on the motive from which and the spirit in 
 which knowledge is acquired. Let that motive be one 
 that does honor to human nature, and let that spirit 
 be the same which is concomitant to all the graces of 
 the female character, — 
 
 " Not obvious, not obtrusive,— but retired," — 
 
 and there will be modesty to ensure solidity of knowl- 
 edge, and delicacy to guard against the misdirection of 
 sentiment. 
 
 Eor an example, I might refer to one of the numer- 
 ous instances which are not the less striking because 
 they are not extensively known, in which a mother has 
 devoted much of her time and best abilities to the ac- 
 quirement of some branches of knowledge in which 
 her own education had been defective, but which she 
 conceived to be valuable enough to be brought forward 
 in the education of her own children. This has been 
 the case with individuals highly accomplished in many 
 respects, but still alive to every defect and desirous of 
 supplying it, if not for their own at least for the benefit 
 of their children. 
 
 And no mother has ever been known to have re- 
 pented of any pains that she took to qualify herself for 
 the most perfect education of those nearest and dear- 
 est to her heart. Even without anticipating the future 
 accomplishment of her wishes by their progress in 
 which she has undertaken to guide them she is amply 
 
Self-Educatiois^ of Motheks 139 
 
 repaid by the delight immediately arising from the 
 task, 
 
 "'to rear the tender thought. 
 
 And teach the young idea how to shoot." 
 
 I have here supposed the most powerful motive, that 
 of maternal love ; but it will be the task of early edu- 
 cation to supply motives which even at a tender age 
 may excite an interest in mental exertion, and yet be 
 allied to the best feelinsrs of human nature. 
 
LETTER XXVIII 
 
 March 27, 1819. 
 My DEA.K Greayes, 
 
 If a mother is desirous of taking an active part in the 
 intellectual education of her children, I would first 
 direct her attention to the necessity of considering, 
 not only what sort of knowledge, but in what manner 
 that knowledge should be communicated to the infant 
 mind. For her purpose the latter consideration is 
 even more essential than the former; for, however 
 excellent the information may be which she wishes to 
 impart, it will depend on the mode of her doing it 
 whether it will at all gain access to the mind, or 
 whether it will remain unprofitable, neither' suiting 
 the faculties nor being apt to excite the interest of the 
 child. 
 
 In this respect a mother should be able perfectly to 
 distinguish between the mere action of the memory and 
 that of the other faculties of the mind. 
 
 To the want of tliis distinction I think we may safely 
 ascribe much of the waste of time and the deceptive 
 exhibition of apparent knowledge which is so frequent 
 
 (140j 
 
Memorizing without TJn^derstaxdin^g. 141 
 
 in schools, both of a higher and a lower character. It is 
 a mere fallacy to conclude or to pretend that knowl- 
 edge has been acquired, from the circumstance that 
 terms have been committed to the memory which, if 
 rightly understood, convey the expression of knowl- 
 edge. This condition, if rightly understood, which is the 
 most material is the most generally overlooked. No 
 doubt a proceeding of this sort, when words are com- 
 mitted to the memory without an adequate explanation 
 being either given or required is the most commodious 
 evidence for the indolence or ignorance of those who 
 practise upon it as a system of instruction. Add to 
 which the powerful stimulus of vanity in the pupils, — 
 the hope of distinction and reward in some, — the fear of 
 exposure or punishment in others, — and we shall have 
 the principal motives before us owing to which this 
 system in spite of its wretchedness has so long been 
 patronized by those who do not think at all, and toler- 
 ated by those who do not sufficiently think for them- 
 selves. 
 
 What I have said just now of the exercise of the 
 memory exclusive of a well-regulated exercise of the 
 understanding, applies more especially to the manner 
 in which the dead languages have long been and in 
 some places still are taught ; a system of which, taking 
 it all in all, with its abstruse and unintelligible rules 
 and its compulsive discipline, it is difficult to say 
 
142 Early Letters on Educatioi^, XXVIII 
 
 whether it is more absurd in an intellectual, or more 
 detestable in a moral point of view.* 
 
 If such a system, enforcing the partial exercise of 
 the memory, is so absurd in its application and so det- 
 rimental in its consequences, at a period when the in- 
 tellect may be supposed to be able to make some pro- 
 gress at least without being so constantly and anxiously 
 attended to, an exclusive cultivation of the memory 
 must be still more misapplied at the tender age when 
 the intellect is only just dawning, when the faculty of 
 discerning is yet unformed and unable to consign to 
 the memory the notions of separate objects in their dis- 
 
 '^ " The boasted liberty we talk of, is but a mean re- 
 ward for the long servitude, the many heart-aches and 
 terrors to which our childhood is exposed in going 
 through a grammar school." — Spectator, Vol. II., No. 
 157. 
 
 On this subject, see Locke On Education, § 163-177. 
 
 " In teaching a language it is the universal practice 
 to begin with grammar, and to do everything by rule. 
 I affirm this to be a most perposterous method. Gram- 
 mar is contrived for men, not for children. Its natural 
 place is between language and logic : it ought to close 
 lectures on the former, and to be the first lectures on 
 the latter. It is a gross deception, that a language 
 cannot be taught without rules. A boy who is flogged 
 into grammar rules, makes a shift to apply them ; but 
 he applies them by rote like a parrot. Boys, for the 
 
Things before Words 143 
 
 tinction from each other. For a mother to guard 
 against an error of this kind the first rule is to teach 
 always })j things rather than by 'words. Let there be as 
 few objects as possible named to the infant unless you 
 are prepared to show the objects themselves. AVhen 
 you can show the object the name will be committed 
 to the memory, together with the recollection of the 
 impression which the object produced on the senses. 
 It is an old saying, and a very true one, that our atten- 
 tion is much more forcibly attracted and more perma- 
 nently fixed by objects which have been brought before 
 our eyes than by others of which we have merely gath- 
 
 knowledge they acquire of a language, are not indebted 
 to dry rules, but to practice and observation. To this 
 day I never think without shuddering of Disputer^s gram- 
 mar, which ivas my daily persecution during the most im- 
 portant period of life. Curiosity, when I was farther ad- 
 vanced in years, prompted me to look at a book that had 
 given me so much trouble. At this time I understood 
 the rules perfectly; and was astonished that formerly 
 they had been to us words ivithout meaning, which I had 
 been taught to apply mechanically, without knowing 
 how or why. Deplorable it is, that young creatures 
 should be so punished without being guilty of any fault 
 — more than sufficient to produce a disgust at learn- 
 ing, instead of promoting it. Whence then this absurd- 
 ity of persecuting boys with grammar rules ? " etc. — 
 Loose Hints on Education, p. 279. 
 
144 Letteks 0]s" Early Education, XXVIII 
 
 ered some notion from hearsay and description or from 
 the mention of a name. 
 
 But if a mother is to teach by things, she m^ust recollect 
 also that to the formation of an idea more is requisite 
 than the bringing the object before the senses. Its 
 qualities must be explained; its origin must be ac- 
 counted for ; its parts must be described, and their 
 relation to the whole ascertained; its use, its effects or 
 consequences, must be stated. All this must be done 
 in a manner at least sufficiently clear and comprehen- 
 sive to enable the child to distinguish the object from 
 other objects and to account for the distinction which 
 is made. 
 
 It is natural that the degree of perfection with which 
 the formation of ideas on this plan can be facilitated 
 depends upon circumstances which are not always under 
 the control of a mother; but something of the kind 
 should be attempted and must be, wherever education 
 is intended to take a higher character than mere 
 mechanical training of the memory. 
 
 Of objects which cannot be brought before the child 
 in reality, pictures should be introduced. Instruction 
 founded on pictures will always be found a favorite 
 branch with children, and if this curiosity is well 
 directed and judiciously satisfied it will prove one of 
 the most useful and instructive. 
 
 Whenever the knowledge of an abstract idea, which 
 
Pictures axd Stories 145 
 
 will not of course admit of any representation of that 
 kind, is to be communicated to the child, on the same 
 principle an equivalent of that representation should 
 be given by an exemplification through the medium of 
 a fact laid before the child. This is the original inten- 
 tion and the use of moral tales; and, this, too, agrees 
 with the excellent old adage, " The way by precept is 
 long and laborious, that by example short and easy." 
 
LETTER XXIX 
 
 Apkil 4, 1819. 
 My deak Greaves, 
 
 The second rule that I would give to a mother, re- 
 specting the early development of the infant mind is 
 this : Let the child not only be acted upon but let him 
 be an a(jeiit in intellectual education. 
 
 I shall explain my meaning. Let the mother bear 
 in mind that her child has not only the faculties of at- 
 tention to and retention of certain ideas or facts, but 
 also a faculty of reflection, independent of the thoughts 
 of others. It is well done to make a child read, and 
 write, and learn, and repeat, — but it is still better to 
 make a child thInJc.. We may be able to turn to account 
 the opinions of others, and we may find it valuable or 
 advantageous to be acquainted with them : we may profit 
 by their light ; but we can render ourselves most useful 
 to others and we shall be most entitled to the character 
 of valuable members of society by the efforts of our 
 own minds ; by the result of our own investigations ; by 
 those views and their application which we may call 
 our own intellectual property. 
 
 (146) 
 
Intellectual Self-Activity 147 
 
 I am not now speaking of those leading ideas which 
 are from time to time thrown ont, and by which science 
 is advanced or society benefited at large. I am speak- 
 ing of that stock of intellectual property which every 
 one may acquire, even the most unpretending individ- 
 ual and in the humblest walks of life. I am speaking 
 of that habit of reflection which guards against un- 
 thinking conduct under any circumstances, and which 
 is always active to examine that which is brought before 
 the mind; that habit of reflection which excludes the 
 self-sufficiency of ignorance or the levity of " a little 
 learning"; — which may lead an individual to the 
 modest acknowledgement that he knows but little, 
 and to the honest consciousness that he knows that 
 little well. To engender this habit, nothing is so 
 effective as an early development in the infant mind 
 of thought, — regular, self-active thought. 
 
 Let not the mother suffer herself to be detained from 
 this task by the objections of those who deem the infant 
 mind altogether incapable of any exertion of that kind. 
 I will venture to say that those who propose that objec- 
 tion, though they may be the profoundest thinkers or 
 the greatest theorists, will be found to have no practical 
 knowledge whatsoever of the subject nor any moral 
 interest in the investigation of it. And I, for one, 
 would trust more in the experimental knowledge of a 
 mother, proceeding from exertions to which she was 
 
148 Letters ox Eaely Educatiox, XXIX 
 
 prompted by maternal feeling — in that experimental 
 knowledge, even of an illiterate mother, I would trust 
 more than in the theoretical speculations of the most 
 ingenious philosophers. There are cases in which 
 sound sense and a warm heart see farther than a highly 
 refined, cold, and calculating head. 
 
 I would therefore call upon the mother to begin her 
 task, in spite of any objections that may be raised. It 
 will be enough if she is persuaded to bec/in ; she will 
 then continue of herself; she will derive such gratifi- 
 cation from her task that she will never think of relax- 
 ing. 
 
 While she unfolds the treasures of the infant mind 
 and uncloses the world of hitherto slumbering thought, 
 she will not envy the assurance of philosophers who 
 would have the human mind to be a " universal 
 blank ". Engaged in a task which calls into activity 
 all the energies of her mind and all the affections of 
 her heart, she will smile at their dictatorial specula- 
 tions and their supercilious theories. Without troub- 
 ling herself about the knotty question whether there 
 are any innate ideas, she will be content if she succeeds 
 in developing the innate faculties of the mind. 
 
 If a mother asks for the designation of the subjects 
 which might be profitably used as vehicles for the 
 development of thought, I would answer her that any 
 subject will do if it be treated in a manner suitable to 
 
Talk j^ot to but with a Child 149 
 
 the faculties of the child. It is the great art in teach- 
 ing, never to be at a loss for the choice of an object 
 for the illustration of a truth. There is not an object 
 so trivial that in the hands of a skilful teacher it might 
 not become interesting, if not from its own nature, at 
 least from the mode of treating it. To a child every- 
 thing is new. The charm of novelty, it is true, soon 
 wears off; and if there is not the fastidiousness of 
 matured years there is at least the impatience of in- 
 fancy to contend with. But then there is for the 
 teacher the great advantage of a combination of simple 
 elements, which may diversify the subject without 
 dividing the attention. 
 
 If I say that any subject will do for the purpose, I 
 mean this to be understood literally. Xot only there 
 is not one of the little incidents in the life of a child, 
 in his amusements and recreations, in his relations to 
 his parents and friends and playfellows, — but there is 
 not actually anything within the reach of the child's 
 attention, whether it belong to nature or to the em- 
 ployments and arts of life, that might not be made the 
 object of a lesson by which some useful knowledge 
 might be imparted, and, which is still more important, 
 by which the child might not be familiarized with the 
 habit of thinking on what he sees and speaking after 
 he has thought. 
 
 The mode of doing this is not by any means to talk 
 
150 Letters ox Early Education, XXIX 
 
 much to a child, but to enter into conversation vlth a 
 child; not to address to him many words, however 
 familiar or well chosen, but to bring him to express 
 himself on the subject ; not to exhaust the subject, but 
 to question the child about it, and to let him find out 
 and correct the answers. It would be ridiculous to 
 expect that the volatile spirits of an infant could be 
 brought to follow any lengthy explanations. The 
 attention of a child is deadened by long expositions but 
 roused by animated questions. 
 
 Let these questions be short, clear, and intelligible. 
 Let them not merely lead the child to repeat in the 
 same or in varied terms what he has heard just before. 
 Let them excite him to observe what is before him, to 
 recollect what he has learned, and to muster his little 
 stock of knowledge for materials for an answer. Show 
 him a certain quality in one thing, and let him find 
 out the same in others. Tell him that the shape of a 
 ball is called round ; and if, accordingly, you bring him 
 to point out other objects to which the same character 
 belongs you have employed him more usefully than by 
 the most perfect discourse on rotundity. In the one 
 instance he would have had to listen and to recollect; 
 in the other he has to observe and to think. 
 
LETTER XXX 
 
 April 10, 1819. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 When I recommend to a mother to avoid wearying 
 a child by her instructions, I do not wish to encourage 
 the notion that instruction should always take the 
 character of an amusement or even of play. I am 
 convinced that such a notion where it is entertained 
 and acted upon by a teacher will forever preclude 
 solidity of knowledge, and from a want of sufficient 
 exertion on the part of the pupils will lead to that 
 very result which I wish to avoid by my principle of a 
 constant employment of the thinking powers. 
 
 A child must very early in life be taught a lesson 
 which frequently comes too late and is then a most 
 painful one, — that exertion is indispensable for the 
 attainment of knowledge. But a child should not be 
 taught to look upon exertion as an unavoidable evil. 
 The motive of fear should not be made a stimulus to 
 exertion. It will destroy the interest and will speedily 
 create disgust. 
 
 This inferest in study is the first thing which a teacher, 
 (151) 
 
152 Letters on Early Education, XXX 
 
 and in the instances before us, which a mother should 
 endeavor to excite and keep alive. There are scarcely 
 any circumstances in which a want of application in 
 children does not proceed from a want of interest ; and 
 there are perhaps none under which a want of interest 
 does not originate in the mode of treating adopted by 
 the teacher. I would go so far as to lay it down for a 
 rule that whenever children are inattentive and appar- 
 ently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher should 
 always first look to himself for the reason. When a 
 quantity of dry matter is before a child, when a child 
 is doomed to listen in silence to lengthy explanations or 
 to go through exercises which have nothing in them- 
 selves to relieve or attract the mind, this is a tax upon 
 his spirits which a teacher should make it a point to 
 abstain from imposing. In the same manner if the 
 child from the imperfection of his reasoning powers or 
 his unacquaintance with facts is unable to enter into 
 the sense or to follow the chain of ideas in a lesson, 
 when he is made to hear or to repeat what to him is 
 but " sound without sense " — this is perfectly absurd. 
 And when to all this the fear of punishment is added, 
 — besides the tedium, which in itself is punishment 
 enough, — this becomes absolutely cruel. 
 
 Of all tyrants, it is well known that little tyrants 
 are the most cruel ; and of all little tyrants the most 
 cruel are >>chool tyrant.^. Xow in all civilized countries 
 
Teachers at Fault for Lack of Interest 153 
 
 cruelty of every description is forbidden, and even 
 cruelty to animals is properly punished, in some by 
 the law of the land, and in all stigmatised by public 
 opinion. How then comes cruelty to children to be so> 
 generally overlooked, or rather thought a matter of 
 course ? 
 
 Some, forsooth, will tell us that their own measures 
 are wonderfully humane, — that their punishments are 
 less severe, — or that they have done away with corporal 
 punishments. But it is not to the severity of them 
 that I object — nor would I venture to assert in an 
 unqualified manner that corporal punishments are 
 inadmissible under any circumstances in education. 
 But I do object to their application — I do object to 
 the principle thnt the children are punished when the uiaMer 
 or the sydem is to blame. 
 
 As long as this shall continue, — as long as teachers 
 will not take the trouble or will not be found qualified 
 to inspire their pupils with a living interest in their 
 studies — they must not complain of the want of atten- 
 tion nor even of the aversion to instruction which 
 some of them may manifest. Could we witness the 
 indescribable tedium which must oppress the juvenile 
 mind while the weary hours are slowly passing away, 
 one by one, in an occupation which they can neither 
 relish nor understand its use ; could we remember the 
 same scenes which our own childhood has undergone, 
 
154 Letters oi^ Early Education, XXX 
 
 we should then no longer be surprised at the remiss- 
 ness of the school-boy, " creeping, like snail, unwill- 
 ingly to school ". 
 
 In saying this I do not mean to make myself the 
 advocate of idleness or of those irregularities which 
 will now and then be met with even in the best con- 
 ducted schools. But I would suggest that the best 
 means to prevent them from becoming general is to 
 adopt a better mode of instruction, by which the chil- 
 dren are less left to themselves, less thrown upon the 
 unwelcome employment of passive listening, less 
 harshly treated for little and excusable failings, — but 
 more roused by questions, animated by illustrations, 
 interested and won by kindness. 
 
 There is a most remarkable reciprocal action between 
 the interest which the teacher takes and that which he 
 communicates to his pupils. If he is not with his 
 whole mind present at the subject; if he does not care 
 whether it is understood or not, whether his manner 
 is liked or not, he will never fail of alienating the 
 affections of his pupils, and of rendering them indiffer- 
 ent to what he says. But real interest taken in the 
 task of instruction — kind words, and kinder feelings — 
 the very expression of the features, and the glance of 
 the eye, — are never lost upon children. 
 
LETTER XXXI 
 
 April 17, 1819, 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 Yon are aware of the nature of those exercises which 
 were adopted at my suggestion as calculated to employ 
 the mind usefully and to prepare it for further pur- 
 suits by eliciting thought and forming the intellect. 
 
 I would call them preparatory exercises in more than 
 one respect. They embrace the elements of number, 
 form, and language; and whatever ideas we may have 
 to acquire in the course of our life, they are all intro- 
 duced through the medium of one of these three 
 departments. 
 
 The relations and proportions of number and form 
 constitute the natural measure of all those impressions 
 which the mind receives without. They are the meas- 
 ures of and comprehend the qualities of the material 
 world, form being the measure of space, and number 
 the measure of time. Two or more objects distin- 
 guished from each other as existing separately in space, 
 pre-suppose an idea of their forms, or in other words, 
 of the exact space which they occupy; distinguished 
 
 (155) 
 
156 Letters oin" Early Education^, XXXI 
 
 from each other as existing at different times, they 
 come under the denomination of number. 
 
 The reason why I would so early call tlie attention 
 of children to the elements of number and form is, 
 besides their general usefulness, that they admit of a 
 most perspicuous treatment — a treatment of course far 
 different from that in which they are but too often 
 involved, and rendered utterly unpalatable to those 
 who are by no means deficient in abilities. 
 
 The elements of number, or preparatory exercises 
 of Calculation, should always be taught by submitting 
 to the eye of the child certain objects representing the 
 units. A child can conceive the idea of two balls, 
 two roses, two books; but it cannot conceive the idea 
 of " Two " in the abstract. How would you make 
 the child understand that two and two make four, 
 unless you show it to him first in reality ? To begin by 
 abstract notions is absurd and detrimental, instead of 
 being educative. The result is at best that the child 
 can do the thing by rote without understanding it ; a 
 fact which does not reflect on the child but on the 
 teacher, who knows not a higher character of instruc- 
 tion than mere mechanical training. 
 
 If the elements are thus clearly and intelligibly 
 taught, it will always be easy to go on to more difficult 
 parts, remembering always that the whole should be 
 done by questions. As soon as you have given to the 
 
Objects ix Arithmetic 157 
 
 child II knowledge of the names by which the numbers 
 are distinguished, you may appeal to it to answer any 
 question of simple addition or subtraction or multipli- 
 cation or division, performing the operation in reality 
 by means of a certain number of objects, balls for 
 , instance, wdiich will serve in the place of units. 
 
 It has been objected that children who had been 
 used to a constant and palpable exemplification of the 
 units by which they w^ere enabled to execute the solu- 
 tion of arithmetical questions, would never be able 
 afterwards to follow the problems of calculation in the 
 abstract, their balls or other representatives being 
 taken from them. 
 
 Now experience has shown that those very children 
 who had acquired the first elements in the palpable and 
 familiar method described had two great advantages 
 over others. First, they were perfectly aware not only 
 of what they were doing but also of the reason why. 
 They were acquainted with the principle on which the 
 solution depended ; they were not merely following a 
 formula by rote; the state of the question changed 
 they were not puzzled, as those are who see only as far 
 as their mechanical rule goes and not farther. This, 
 while it produced confidence and a feeling of safety, 
 gave them also much delight — a difficulty overcome 
 with a consciousness of a felicitous eifort always 
 prompts to the undertaking of a new one. 
 
158 Letters on Early Education, XXXI 
 
 The second advantage was that children well versed 
 in those illustrative elementary exercises afterwards 
 displayed great skill in mental arithmetic. AVithout 
 repairing to their slate or paper, without making any 
 memorandum of figures, they not only performed oper- 
 ations with large numbers, but they arranged and 
 solved questions which at first might have appeared 
 involved, even had the assistance of memoranda or 
 working out on paper been allowed. 
 
 Of the numerous travellers of your nation who did 
 me the honor to visit my establishment, there was 
 none, however little he might be disposed or qualified 
 to enter into a consideration of the whole of my plan, 
 who did not express his astonishment at the perfect 
 ease and the quickness with which arithmetical prob- 
 lems, such as the visitors used to propose, were solved. 
 I do not mention this and I did not feel then any pecul- 
 iar satisfaction on account of the display with which it 
 was connected, through the acknowledgment of 
 strangers can by no means be indifferent to one who 
 wishes to see his plan judged of by its results. But 
 the reason why I felt much interested and gratified by 
 the impression which that department of the school 
 invariably produced was that it singularly confirmed 
 the fitness and utility of our elementary course. It 
 went a great way at least with me to make me hold fast 
 the principle that the infant mind should be acted 
 
The Aj^alytical Method 159 
 
 upon by illustrations taken from reality, not by rules 
 taken from abstraction; that we ought to teach by 
 things more than by ivords. 
 
 In the exercises concerning the elements of form my 
 friends have most successfuly revived and extended 
 what the ancients called the analytical method — the 
 mode of eliciting facts by problems, instead of stating 
 them in theories; of elucidating the origin of them, 
 instead of merely commenting on their existence ; of 
 leading the mind to invent, instead of resting satisfied 
 ivith the inventions of others. So truly beneficial, so 
 istimulating is that employment to the mind, that we 
 have learned fully to appreciate the principle of Plato 
 that whoever wished to apply with success to meta- 
 physics ought to prepare himself by the study of geo- 
 metry. It is not the acquaintance with certain qual- 
 ities or proportions, of certain forms and figures 
 (though, for many purposes, this is applicable in prac- 
 tical life, and conducive to the advancement of science), 
 but it is the precision of reasoning, and the ingenuity 
 of invention, which, springing as it does from a familiar- 
 ity with those exercises, qualifies the intellect for exer- 
 tion of every kind. 
 
 In exercises of number and form less abstraction is 
 at first required than in similar ones in language. 
 But I would insist on the necessity of a careful instruc- 
 iion in the maternal language. Of foreign tongues or 
 
160 Letters on Early EDUcATioiir, XXXI 
 
 of the dead languages I think that they ought to l)o 
 studied by all means by those to whom a knowledge of 
 them may become useful, or who are so circumstanced 
 that they may indulge a predilection for them if their 
 taste or habits lead that way. But I know not of one 
 single exception that I would make of the principle 
 that as early as possible a child should be led to con- 
 tract an intimate acquaintance with and make himself 
 perfectly master of his native tongue. 
 
 Charles the Fifth used to say that as many languages 
 as a man possessed, so often was he man. How far this 
 may be true I will not inquire : but thus much I know 
 to be a fact, that the mind is deprived of its first 
 instrument or organ, as it were ; that its functions are 
 interrupted and its ideas confused, when there is a 
 want of perfect acquaintance and mastery of at least 
 one lam/uaf/e. The friends of oppression, of darkness, 
 of prejudice, cannot do better, nor have they at any 
 time neglected the point, than to stifle the power and 
 facility of free, manly, and well-practised speaking; 
 nor can the friends of light and liberty do better, and 
 it were desirable that they were more assiduous in the 
 cause, than to procure to every one, to the poorest as 
 well as to the richest, a facility if not of elegance at 
 least of frankness and energy of speech — a facility 
 which would enable them to collect and clear up their 
 
InSTRUCTIOX IX THE VERNACULAR 161 
 
 vague ideas, to embody those which are distinct, and 
 which wonld awaken a thousand new ones.* 
 
 '^^ It had been the intention of the editor to subjoin 
 a concise account of those exercises which Pestalozzi 
 has but alluded to in the last Letters. He is aware 
 that the statements made in them will not in any way 
 be sufficient for readers wholly unacquainted with the 
 subject, to form an adequate idea of what constitutes 
 a very prominent feature in the Pestalozzian system. 
 The editor, however, finding that in order to do justice 
 to the subject he would be obliged to enter into a 
 greater number of details than the plan and size of the 
 present publication would conveniently admit, begs to 
 refer once more to a little work which he has frequently 
 alluded to as by far the most useful and distinguished 
 performance, in English, connected with Pestalozzi's 
 views. The " Hints to Parents " contain the most 
 excellent manual of exercises on number, form, and 
 language, drawn up, as they profess to be, " in Pesta- 
 lozzi's spirit ". The merit of that little work and the 
 practical applicability of the plan which it details have 
 met with so general acknowledgment on the part of 
 those who have followed that plan in the education of 
 their own children that the editor is confident that all 
 those who feel disposed to give their attention to the 
 subject will find the greatest satisfaction in perusing 
 and in availing themselves of the " Hints to Parents ". 
 
LETTER XXXII 
 
 Apkil 25, 1819. 
 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 Xeed I point out to you the motive from which I 
 have said thus much on the early attention to be paid 
 to physical and intellectual education ? Need I remind 
 you, that I consider these branches merely as leading 
 to a liigher aim, — to qualify the human being for the 
 free and full use of all the faculties implanted by the 
 Creator, — and to direct all these faculties towards the 
 perfection of the whole being of man, that he may be 
 enabled to act in his peculiar station as an instrument 
 of that all-Avise and almighty Power that has called 
 him into life ? This is the view which Education should 
 lead an individual to take of his relation to his Maker, 
 — a view which will at once give him humility to 
 acknowledge the imperfection of his attempts and the 
 weakness of his power — and inspire him with the 
 courage of an unshaken confidence in the source of all 
 that is good and true. 
 
 In relation to society, man should be qualified by 
 education to be a useful member of it. In order to be 
 
 (162) 
 
Man must be Independent 163 
 
 truly useful, it is necessary that he should be truly 
 independent. Whether that independence may arise 
 from his circumstances, or whether it be acquired by 
 the honorable use of his talents, or whether it be owing 
 to more laborious exertion and frugal habits, it is clear 
 that true independence must rise and fall with the 
 dignity of his moral character, rather than with affluent 
 circumstances or intellectual superiority or indefatiga- 
 ble exertion. A state of bondage or of self-merited 
 poverty is not more degrading than a state of depend- 
 ence on considerations which betray littleness of mind, 
 or want of moral energy or of honorable feeling. x\n 
 individual whose actions bear the stamp of independ- 
 ence of mind cannot but be a useful as well as an 
 esteemed member of society. He fills up a certain 
 place in society, belonging to himself and no other, 
 because he has obtained it by merit and secured it by 
 character. His talents^ his time, his opportunities, 
 and his influence are all given to a certain end. And 
 even in the humbler walks of life, it has always been 
 acknowledged that there were individuals who by the 
 intelligent, the frank, the honorable character of their 
 demeanor, and by the meritorious tendency of their 
 exertions, deserved to be mentioned together with 
 those whose names were illustrated by the halo of 
 noble birth, and by the still brighter glory of genius or 
 merit. That such instances are but exceptions, and 
 
164 Letters ok Early Education, XXXII 
 
 that these exceptions are so few, is owing to the sys- 
 tem of education which generally prevails, and which 
 is little calculated to promote independence of char- 
 acter. 
 
 Considering man as an individual, education should 
 contribute toward giving him hap'piness. The feeling 
 of happiness does not arise from exterior circumstances ; 
 it is a state of the mind, a consciousness of harmony 
 both with the inward and the outward world: it as- 
 signs their due limits to the desires, and it proposes 
 the highest aim to the faculties of man. For happy 
 is he who can bring his desires within the measure of 
 his means, and who can resign every individual and 
 selfish Avish without giving up his content and repose, 
 — whose feeling of general satisfaction is not dependent 
 on individual gratification. And happy again is he 
 who, whenever self is out of the question and the 
 higher perfection of his better nature or the best inter- 
 ests of his race are at stake, — happy is he who then 
 knows of no limits to his efforts, and who can bring 
 them to keep pace with his most sanguine hopes ! The 
 sphere of happiness is unbounded; it is extending as 
 the views are enlarged ; it is elevated as the feelings of 
 the heart are raised; it " grows with their growth, and 
 strengthens with their strength." 
 
 In order to give the character described here to the 
 actions and of the life of an individual, I consider it as 
 
What produces Happiness ^Q5 
 
 necessary that all the faculties implanted in human na- 
 ture should be properly developed. It is not that virtuoi^- 
 ity ought to be attained in any direction, or that a degree 
 of excellence ought to be anxiously aspired to which is 
 the exclusive privilege of pre-eminent talent. But 
 there is a degree of development of all the faculties 
 which is far from the refinement of any ; and of such 
 a course the great advantage will be to prepare the 
 mind for a more especial application to any line of 
 studies congenial to its inclination, or connected with 
 certain pursuits. "^^ 
 
 With regard to the claim which every human being 
 has to a judicious development of his faculties by those 
 to whom the care of his infancy is confided, a claim of 
 which the universality does not seem to be sufficiently 
 acknowledged, — allow me to make use of an illustra- 
 tion which was on one occasion proposed by one of my 
 friends. Whenever we find a human being in a state 
 
 * What Locke has said more generally of education 
 is strictly applicable to a course of exercises such as 
 have been alluded to in the foregoing pages: " The 
 business of education, in respect of knowledge, is not 
 to perfect the learner in all or any one of the sciences ; 
 but to give his mind that disposition, and those habits, 
 that may enable him to attain any part of knowledge 
 he shall stand in need of in the future course of his 
 life." 
 
166 Letters ox Early Education, XXXII 
 
 of suffering, and near to the awful moment which is 
 for ever to close the scene of his pains and his enjoy- 
 ments in this world, we feel ourselves moved by a sym- 
 pathy which reminds us that however low his earthly 
 condition, here too there is one of our race, subject to 
 the same sensations of alternate joy and grief, — born 
 with the same faculties, with the same destination, 
 with the same hopes for a life of immortality. And as 
 we give ourselves up to that idea, we would fain if we 
 could alleviate his sufferings and shed a ray of light on 
 the darkness of his parting moments. This is a feeling 
 which will come home to the heart of every one, — 
 even to the young and the thoughtless, and to those 
 little used to the sight of woe. AVhy then, we would 
 ask, do we look with a careless indifference on those 
 who enter life ? Why do we feel so little interest in the 
 feelings and in the condition of those who enter upon 
 that varied scene, of which, if we would but stop to 
 reflect, we might contribute to enhance the enjoy- 
 ments, and to diminish the sum of suffering, of dis- 
 content and wretchedness ? And that education might 
 do that, is the conviction of all those who are compe- 
 tent to speak from experience. That it ought to do 
 as much is the persuasion, and that it may -^ome time 
 accomplish it is the constant endeavor of all those who 
 are truly interested in the welfare of mankind. 
 
LETTER XXXIII 
 
 May 1, 1819. 
 My deae GtReaves, 
 
 In my last letter I described the end of eduation to 
 be to render man conscientiously active in the service 
 of his Maker ; to render him useful by rendering him 
 independent with relation to society; and, as an in- 
 dividual, to render him happy within himself. 
 
 To this end I conceive that the formation of the in- 
 tellect, the attainment of useful knowledge, and the 
 development of all the faculties may be made instru- 
 mental. But though they will be found highly service- 
 able as furnishing the means, they will not supply the 
 spring of action. It would be preposterous, no doubt, 
 to provide for the facilities of execution, without ex- 
 citing the motives of a certain plan or line of conduct. 
 
 Of this fault, the process which frequently goes by 
 the name of education and which might more appro- 
 priately be donominated a mechanical training, is often 
 guilty. The common motive by which such a system 
 acts on those whose indolence it has conquered is 
 Fear; the very highest to which it can aspire in those 
 whose sensibility is excited is Ambition. 
 
 (I6r) 
 
168 Letteks on Eaklt Educatton^, XXXIII 
 
 It is obvious that such a system can calculate only 
 on the lower selfishness of man. To that least amiable 
 or estimable part of the human character it is, and al- 
 ways has been, indebted for its best success. Upon 
 the better feelings of man it turns a deaf ear. 
 
 How is it then that motives leading to a course of 
 action which is looked upon as mean and despicable 
 or at best as doubtful, when it occurs in life, are 
 thought honorable in education ? Why should that 
 bias be given to the mind in a school which to gain 
 the respect or the affection of others an individual 
 must first of all strive to unlearn ; a bias to which 
 every candid mind is a stranger ? 
 
 I do not wish to speak harshly of ambition or to re- 
 ject it altogether as a motive. There is, to be sure, a 
 noble ambition — dignified by its object, and distin- 
 guished by a deep and transcendent interest in that 
 object. But if we consider the sort of ambition com- 
 monly proposed to the school-boy — if we analyze " what 
 stuff 't is made of, — whereof it is born," we shall find 
 that it has nothing to do with the interest taken in the 
 object of study ; that such an interest frequently does 
 not exist; and that, owing to its being blended with 
 that vilest and meanest of motives, with feai\ it is by 
 no means raised by the wish to give pleasure to those 
 who propose it ; for a teacher who proceeds on a system 
 in which fear and ambition are the principal agents 
 
Feak and Ambition as Motives 169 
 
 must give u]! his claim to the esteem or tlie affection 
 of his pupils. 
 
 Motives like fear or inordinate ambition may stimu- 
 late to exertion, intellectual or physical, but they can- 
 not warm the heart. There is not in them that life 
 which makes the heart of youth to heave with the 
 delight of knowledge— with the honest consciousness 
 
 of talent — with the honorable wish for distinction 
 
 with the kindly glow of genuine feeling. Such motives, 
 are inadequate in their source and inefficient in their 
 application; for they are nothing to the heart, and 
 " out of the heart are the issues of life." 
 
 On these grounds it is that in moral as well as intel- 
 lectual education I have urged the supreme character 
 of the motive of sympathy as the one that should early 
 and indeed principally be employed in the management 
 of children. On these grounds I have repeatedly urged 
 the propriety of attending to that feeling which I have 
 no hesitation in declaring to be the first feeling of an 
 higher nature that is alive in the child— tlie feeling 
 in the infant of love and confidence in the mother. 
 Upon this feeling I wish to ground the first founda- 
 tion—and on a feeling analogous to it and springing 
 from it I wish to guide the future steps of education. 
 That in the infant that feeling exists there can be 
 no doubt. We have for it the testimonv of those who 
 
170 Letters on Early Education, XXXIII 
 
 are most competent to judge, because best enabled to 
 sympathize with it, — the mothers. 
 
 To the mothers, therefore, I would again and again 
 address the request to let themselves be governed by 
 their maternal feelings, enlightened by thought, in 
 guiding those rising impressons, in developing that 
 tender germ in the infant's heart. They will find that 
 at first it is yet involved in the animal nature of the 
 infant ; that it is an innate feeling, strong, because not 
 yet under the control of reason, and filling the whole 
 mind because not yet opposed by the impulse of con- 
 flicting passions. That feeling, let them believe, has 
 been implanted by the Creator. But together with it 
 there exists in the infant that instinctive impulse of 
 its animal nature which is first made subservient to 
 self-preservation and directed towards the satisfaction 
 of natural and necessary wants ; which is next bent on 
 gratification, and unless it be checked in time, runs 
 out into a thousand imaginary and artificial wants, 
 hurrying us from enjoyment to enjoyment, and ending 
 in consummate selfishness. 
 
 To control and to break this selfish impulse, the 
 best, the only course is for the mother to strengthen 
 daily that better impulse which so soon gives her the I 
 pledge by the first smile on the lips, the first glance of 
 affection in the eye of the infant, that though the 
 powers of the intellect are yet slumbering, she may 
 
Subordi:hatioi^ of Selfish Impulse 171 
 
 soon speak a language intelligible to the heart. She 
 will be enabled by affection and by firmness to bring 
 her child to give up those cravings which render it so 
 unamiable, and to give them up for her, the mother's 
 sake. By what means she can make herself understood 
 — how she can supply the want of words and of pre- 
 cepts — I shall not undertake to answer for her : but let 
 a mother answer whether, conscious as she is of her 
 own love for her child, a love enhanced by reflection, 
 she will not without either words or precepts be able 
 to find the way to the heart and the affection of her 
 infant. 
 
 But if the mother has succeeded in this, let her not 
 fancy that she has done every thing. The time will 
 come when the hitherto speechless emotions of the 
 infant will find a language — when his eye will wander 
 from the mother to other individuals within the 
 sphere that surrounds him — and when that sphere 
 itself will be extended. His affections must then 
 no longer rest concentrated in one object, and 
 that object though the dearest and kindest of mortals 
 yet a mortal, and liable to those imperfections which 
 " our flesh is heir to." The affections of the child are 
 claimed -by higher objects, — and indeed by the highest. 
 
 Maternal love is the first agent in education; but 
 maternal love though the purest of human feelings is 
 human ; and salvation is not. of the power of man but 
 
172 Letters on Early Edlx'ATiox, XXXIII 
 
 of the power of God. Let not the mother fancy that 
 she of her own power and with her best intentions can 
 raise the child's heart and mind beyond the sphere of 
 earthly and perishable things. It is not for her to 
 presume that her instructions or her example will ben- 
 efit the child, unless they be calculated to lead the 
 child to that faith and to that love from which alone 
 salvation springs. 
 
 The love and confidence of the infant in the mother 
 is but the adumbration of a purer, — of the purest and 
 highest feeling which can take up its abode in a mortal 
 breast — of a feeling of love and faith, now no more 
 confined to an individual — now no more mixed with 
 *' baser matter ", — but rising superior to all other emo- 
 tions, and rlevatiiu/ man by teaching him humility^ — 
 the feeling of love and faith in his Creator and his 
 Redeemer. 
 
 In this spirit let education be considered in all its 
 stages; let the physical faculties be developed, but 
 without forgetting that they form the lower series of 
 human nature; let the intellect be enlightened, but 
 let it be remembered that the first science which 
 thought and knowledge should teach is modesty and 
 moderation; let the discipline be regulated and the 
 heart be formed, not by coercion but by sympathy, — 
 not by precept but by practice ; and above all let it be 
 prepared for that influence from above which alone 
 can restore the image of God in man. 
 
LETTER XXXIV. 
 
 May 12, 1819. 
 My dear Greaves, 
 
 Before I conclude, I wish to say a few words more— 
 but o]i a subject of the most vital importance. A few 
 words will suffice for those with whom we can sympa- 
 thize, and others have seldom if ever been brought to 
 agree by the most elaborate discussion. 
 
 I wish that no Christian mother may lay down this 
 volume without asking herself seriously: "Is the 
 course and are the measures recommended in these 
 letters in unison with principles truly Christian ? Are 
 they calculated merely to promote intellectual attain- 
 ments or to produce an appearance of self-made and 
 self-styled morality ? or are they such as deserve the 
 names of the first and preparatory steps to Christian 
 Education f' 
 
 Let her answer this qaestion to herself, to the best 
 of her knowledge and her feelings, and upon the result 
 let it depend whether she will adopt them, with such 
 modifications as experience or circumstances will sug- 
 gest, in the education of her children. If her answer 
 
174 Letters on Early Education, XXXIV 
 
 be in the negative ; if her heart should give her warn- 
 ing, and matured reflection confirm it, that these 
 principles are not Chrixlian, then let them be rejected, 
 and be mentioned no more. 
 
 In the meantime allow me to subjoin a few remarks 
 on the leading principles of Christianity, on that dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic which rendered it " unto the 
 Jews a stimbllng block, and unto the Greeks foolishness'' ; 
 but to all those who believe it " a potver qf God unto 
 salvation '\ and which will eventually make it to " cover 
 the earth as the waters cover the deep.'' They are the re- 
 marks of an attentive observer, but of one who would 
 fain let his heart speak when his intellect might fail of 
 guiding him safely or his acquired knowledge of bear- 
 ing him out. I hope that they will satisfy among all 
 denominations of Christians those who hold the Script- 
 ures higher than any human comment; the word of 
 God higher than any human authority; and who would 
 rather have its sjyirit live in the heart and be visibly 
 manifested in all the actions of outward life, than see 
 the letter of any particular tenets maintained with 
 severity and inculcated with violence. 
 
 The highest aim of the nations of the ancient world 
 was national power and greatness; their religions could 
 not give them a higher principle than one of selfish- 
 ness more or less refined. 
 
 There was, however, one exception which formed 
 
The Principles of Christianity 175 
 
 the most striking contrast to it— the Mosaic dispensa- 
 tion. This religion urged strongly the weakness of 
 the creature, and the infinite power of the Almighty; 
 the strictness of the law, and the incapability of man 
 to fulfil it; the trespassing of the guilty, and the sanc- 
 tity of the judge. Though it may appear at first a 
 religion only of the law and of terror and of outward 
 expiations, yet it was a religion also of faith. There 
 were those " qf whom the world was not worthy'' whose 
 eyes were opened; who were inspired by the Spirit that 
 " searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God;'' who 
 saw deeper than " the types and shadows of the cere- 
 monial law ",— whose faith was strong enough to offer 
 up with the patriarch the sum of their earthly hopes 
 to the divine will and to speak with the Psalmist, 
 " Lord, though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee." 
 
 In the Christian dispensation, this principle of faith 
 was preseryed, as " the substance of things hoped for, the 
 evidence of things not seen". But it was intimately 
 united with the active principle of love. 
 
 The Christian doctrine, distant alike from encour- 
 aging the self-sufficiency of the Heathen world and 
 from holding out the terrors of the Mosaic law, taught 
 man to look up to his Maker, not as to his Judge only 
 but also as to his Redeemer. The dreams of supreme 
 power by which one nation courted the absolute sway 
 of the world had vanished away; the monuments of 
 
176 Letteks 0^ Early Education, XXXIV 
 
 their splendor fell into ruins together with the altars 
 of their Gods ; the high purposes, too, for which Provi- 
 dence had singled out from among the rest the hum- 
 bler tribes of one country were accomplished, and Sion 
 was no more the dwelling of the Most High nor the 
 point of union of all the faithful ; and Christianity was 
 hailed by all those whose love was warm, and whose 
 faith was strong enough to trust and to delight in its 
 ultimate destination as the religion of mankind. As 
 such, Christianity has destroyed those barriers by 
 which man had presumed to shut out his brother from 
 the access to truth; it has invited all, the high and 
 the low, to meet on one ground, a ground infinitely 
 above the distinctions of rank or wealth or knowledge ; 
 and their meeting on that ground was not so miich to 
 be considered as a concession on the one side, or as a 
 vindication of right on the other, but rather as the 
 unanimous desire to embrace the free gift of God 
 proffered to all. 
 
 In this spirit, without disturbing their foundations 
 Christianity has raised the character of the social insti- 
 tutions ; has animated individuals to stand forward and 
 with the boldness of truth but with the meekness of 
 love to plead the cause of their brothers; has urged 
 some to bear her light, to unfold her standard in dis- 
 tant regions, and others to proclaim among tliose 
 invested with power her unequivocal claims, and thus 
 
Influence of Christiaxity 177 
 
 to propose that great work in the accomplishment of 
 which subsequent ages may rejoice, and see — 
 
 ■■ At the voice of the Gospel of Peace. 
 The sorrows of Africa cease : 
 And tlie Slave and his Master devoutly unite 
 To walk in her freedom, and dwell in her light.'' 
 
 For the ultimate destination of Christianity, such as 
 it is revealed in the sacred volume and manifested in 
 the page of history, I cannot find a more appropriate 
 expression than to say that its object is to accomplish 
 the education of mankind. Destined to elevate all, it 
 would soothe the sorrows of each ; and however differ- 
 ent the abilities, and the circumstances, all are to par- 
 take of " that one and the self same spirit dividing to every 
 man severally as he ivill. ' ' 
 
 If we look upon Christianity, as we are indeed fully 
 justified in doing, as the scheme adopted by Infinite 
 Wisdom to consummate the great end of the education 
 of mankind, we may from the contemplation of the 
 means employed deduce an unerring standard for all 
 efforts of our own. We may, at the same time, be 
 confirmed in the conviction that Christianity is not a 
 privilege confined to those only who by any peculiar 
 talents or knowledge or exertions might appear better 
 qualified to receive it than others, but that it is a gift 
 freely tendered to all though deserved by none; — 
 adapted not to one condition of life but to the fallen 
 state of human nature — to that struggle of the flesh 
 
178 Lettees on Early Education, XXXIV 
 
 against the spirit — that strange mixture of contradic- 
 tions — of conceited knowledge and of aversion to light 
 — when man presumes in puny strength to work out 
 his own salvation ; when with his eye intent, and his 
 heart entranced by the charm of perishable things, he 
 yet imagines to fathom the depths of truth and to 
 climb the bright summit of happiness, — or when, in 
 more gloomy vision, his affections centred all in self, 
 he is led to proclaim truth a phantom and love an empty 
 sound — when by turns he flies from the turmoil of life 
 to a world of dreams, and from the endless maze of 
 solitary speculation, to the dissipations of life — when 
 " he says, peace — -pear-c — ivhere there is no peace I " 
 
 Among the passages of the sacred volume which 
 throw most light on the state of mind which is best 
 fitted for the reception of Christian truth, I have 
 always considered as one of the most illustrative these 
 words of the Savior — " Whosoever shall not receive the 
 kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter 
 therein. ^^ What can there be in " a little child" de- 
 serving to be compared with a state of readiness for the 
 Christian faith ? It cannot be an effort of morality or 
 an attempt at high perfection ; for the infant is incap- 
 able of any. It cannot be any degree of knowledge or 
 intellectual refinement; for the infant is a stranger to 
 both. What then can it be except that feeling of love 
 and confidence of which the mother is for a time the 
 
"As A LITTLE Child" I79 
 
 first and only object ? That feeling is analogous in its 
 nature and agency to the state of mind described by 
 the name of faith. It does not rest on a conviction of 
 the understanding, but it is more convincing than any 
 syllogism could have been. Xot being founded on it 
 it cannot be injured by reasoning; it has to do with 
 the heart only. It is prior to the development of all 
 other faculties :-if we ask for its origin, we can only 
 say that it is instinctive ;— or if we mean to resolve an 
 unmeaning expression into the truth, it is a gift of Him 
 who has called into life all the hosts of the creation- 
 in whom " ive live and move, and have our being. " 
 
 Analogous to that emotion, like it imparted by the 
 Giver of all that is good, is the state of mind of those 
 who ' ' believe to the saving of the soul. ' ' Though infinitely 
 elevated above it, it yet partakes in like manner of the 
 nature of a feeling as well as a conviction; arising from 
 both, it is invested with that energy which brings forth 
 fruits of love; it proves that true faith is kindred in 
 its nature to active love, and that " he that loveth not, 
 hnoiveth not God ; for God is love. " 
 
 That emotion in the infant mind, that adumbration 
 of faith and of love, can be dearer to none than to a 
 Christian mother. Let her be convinced that there is 
 only one way for her to manifest her maternal affection 
 —and that way is to watch over the gift of God to her 
 child— to be thankful to the Giver, and, hoping that 
 
180 Letters on Early Education, XXXIV 
 
 from Him may come the increase, to do all in her 
 power to unfold the germ ; to be mild and firm and 
 persevering in the task; to look to her own heart for 
 a motive, and to heaven for the blessing. 
 
 Happy the mother who thus leads her children to 
 faith, and from faith to love, and from love to happi- 
 ness. And thrice happy she who has before her eyes 
 in her task the recollection of one who in genuine and 
 unassuming piety watched over the dream of her infant 
 years— an example that, stronger than any precept, 
 strong as the voice of maternal love in her own breast, 
 calls upon her " to remember ;— to resemble;— to per- 
 severe ! " 
 
THE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Joliii Henry Pestalozzi. 
 
 1. Pestalozzi;^ls Aim and Work. By Bahon DEGumPs. Translated by 
 Margaret CuthbertsonCrombie. 12ino, 
 pp. 336. Manilla 50 cts. ; Cloth $1.50. ' 
 Among the best books that could 
 be added to the teacher's library.— 
 The Chautauquan. 
 
 It is sufficient to say that the book 
 affords the fullest material for a knowl- 
 edge of the life of the great education- 
 al veiovxn^v.— Literary World. 
 
 The most satisfactory biography of 
 Pestalozzi accessible to English read- 
 ers.— Wisconsin Journal of Education. 
 2, Hoiv Gertrude Teaches her Chil- 
 , , ^'ren ; an attempt to help mothers to 
 
 teach their own children. By .J. H. Pestalozzi. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 308. $1.50. 
 The greatest of Pestalozzi's educational works is now for the first time 
 published in English translation. 
 
 ^ Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude has appeared in sevaral editions and 
 is considered an essential part of every teacher's library. But there is 'very 
 ittle m It pertaining to teaching. It is mostly a story of German peasant 
 life, interesting because it made Pestalozzi famous. But for some reason 
 the sequel, How Gertrude Teaches her Children, has been ne-lected A 
 translation of some parts of it appeared in Biber's " Life of Pestalozzi "'and 
 some of It appeared in Barnard's American Journal of Education. But a 
 complete translation now appears for the first time, and for the first time 
 makes English readers thoroughly familiar with Pestalozzi's ideas of ele- 
 mentary instruction. The volume contains also " The Method ; a Report bv 
 Pestalozzi to the Society of the Friends of Education, Burgdorf " • and an 
 introduction of 51 pages by Ebenezer Cooke, and abundant notes. ' 
 
 Dr. G. Stanley Hall says : " Modern education almost be<nns with Pes- 
 talozzi's tale, ' How Gertrude Teaches her Children '. It describes the re- 
 generation of a dismal hamlet by a good teacher as the principle by which 
 nations are made great. Fichte lit his torch here and made Germany the 
 strongest state since ancient Eome by becoming the educational state of 
 the world, and France has now imitated her example." 
 
 3. Portrait of Pestalozzi, bust life-size, on paper 22 by 28 inches suit- 
 able for framing. 25 cts. ' 
 
 4. Object Lessons ; or Words and Things. By T. G. Rooper. Leather- 
 ette, 16rao. pp. 56. 50 cts. 
 
 5. The Pestalozzian Series of Arithmetics. Based upon Pestalozzi's 
 method of Teaching Elementary Number. By James H. Hoose. Boards 
 16rao, First Year, Pupils Edition, pp. 156, 35 cts. Teachers Edition pp' 
 21 /. 50 cts. Second Year, PujuVs Edition, bOci^. 
 
 C. W. BARDEEX, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
TEE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 The Pestalozzian Arithmetics. 
 
 1. Teachers'' Manual and First-Year Text-Book of Primary Arithmetic. 
 Based upon Pestalozzi's method of teaching Elementary Number. By 
 James H. Hoose, Ph.D. Boards, pp. 217, 50 cts. 
 
 i. First-Year Text-Book oi Primary Arithmetic. Boards, 16nii), pp. 135. 
 35 cts. 
 
 5. Second-Year Text-Book of Primary Arithmetic. Boards, 16mo, pp. 236, 
 50 cts. 
 
 This is a practical exposition of the Pestalozzian Metlwd, and has met with 
 great success not only in the Cortland Normal School, where it was fii-st 
 developed, but in many other leaduag schools, as in Gloversville, Babylon, 
 etc. It is diametrically opposed to the Grube Method, and good teachers 
 should be familiar with both, that they may choose intelligently between 
 them 
 
 The author states the principles of this system as follows- 
 
 " The Pestalozzian system of Number proceeds on the theory and prac- 
 tice of introducing to the pupil a minimum variety of objects, and of giving to 
 him a maximum amount of practice upon a few forms. The forms are those 
 which constitute mathematics; they are as general as mathematics are gen- 
 eral; learned once, always useful. 
 
 " The system recognizes the difference between processes in arithmetic, 
 and the reasoning required in so-called practical examples. The mastery of 
 a process (addition, multiplication or subtraction) is a language, is an ex- 
 pertness, is a facility in procedure: it is acquire^, by practice, repetition; it 
 is habit, w^hich is power acting in a particular form. Practical examples in- 
 troduce relations which are discovered bj' the logical aptitudes of mind. 
 The child masters easily a form of operation, a process; this mastery gives 
 the pupil ambition; this ambition to test in a greater degree his powers, 
 constitutes his interest in his work; his interest stimulates his courage. The 
 pupil is trained in this manner in his moral character. The very uniformi- 
 ties in the system are sources of strength to the child, the same as the uni- 
 formities of action in learning the keyboard of the piano are elements of 
 mastery in learning to play the instrument." 
 
 U. Lessons in Number, as given in a Pestalozzian School, Cheam, Surrey. 
 The Master's Manual. By C. Reinek. 16mo, pp.224. $1.50. 
 
 This work was prepared in 1835 under the supervision of Dr. C. Mayo in 
 the first English Pestalozzian school, and has particular value as represent- 
 ing directly the educational methods of the great reformer. 
 
 C. W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
THE SCHOOL B ULLETIN P UBLICA TIONS.- 
 
 Friedricli Froebel. 
 
 1. AxitoUograiJhy of Friedricli Froehel. Translated and annotated by 
 Emilie Michaelis and H. Keatley 
 Moore. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 183. $1.50. 
 
 Useful and interesting * * * 
 among the best that could be added to 
 the teacher's library.— T'Ae Chautau- 
 quan. 
 
 There is no better introduction to the 
 Kindergarten.— TFisco/isiM Journal of 
 Education, Sept, 1889. 
 
 2. Froebel's Letters on the Kindergar- 
 ten. Translated from the German edition 
 of 1887 by Emilie Michaelis & H. Keat- 
 ley Moore. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 331. $1..50. 
 It would be an everlasting loss if the 
 treasures which lie in Friedrich Froebel were allowed to perish. He is a 
 jewel, a pearl of price.- ^rfoZ;;/t Biesterweg. 
 
 3. Child and Child-Nature. Contributions to the understanding of 
 Froebel's Educational Theories. By theBaroness Marenholtz von Bue 
 LOW. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 207. $1.50. 
 
 It is a fit companion to the Autobiography and the two are published in 
 the same style— a capital idea— and a royal pair of volumes they make.— 
 Educational Courant. 
 
 Its design is to illustrate the theory and philosophy of Froebel's system. 
 It does this so clearly and pleasingly as to give no excuse for criticism. * * 
 * * The volume is one profitable for every mother, as well as for every 
 teacher of children.— CAicag'O Interocean. 
 
 4. The Neiv Education. By Prof. J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Leatherette, 
 16mo, pp. 47. 50 cts. Contains an account of Froebel's life, work, and 
 principles. 
 
 5. The Kindergarten System. Principles of Froebel's System, and theii 
 bearing on the Education of Women. Also remarks on the higher educa- 
 tion of women. By Emily Shirreff. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 200. $1.00. 
 
 6. Essays on the Kindergarten. Being a selection of Lectures read be- 
 fore the London Froebel Society, Cloth, 12mo, pyx 17,5. $1.00. 
 
 7. Primary Helps. By W. N. Hailmann. A Kindergarten Manual for 
 Public School Teachers. Boards, 8vo, pp. 58, with 15 full page plates. 
 75 cts. 
 
 8. The New Education. Edited by W. N. Hailmann. Vol. VI., the last 
 published. Cloth, 8vo, pp. 146. $2.00. 
 
 9. The First Three Years of Childhood. By B. Perez, with an intro- 
 duction by Prof. Sully. Cloth, 12mo, pp. 294. $1..50. 
 
 C. W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N. Y. 
 
■THE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS.- 
 
 -^ 
 
 suggestive, and practically helpful. 
 
 John j\mos Comenius. 
 
 John Anws Comenius, Bishop of the Moravians, his Life and Educational 
 
 Woi-ks. By S. S. Laurie. Beading 
 
 f^^h^ "\ Circle Edition. Cloth, 16mo, pp. 272. 
 
 , dg^^^^^^ \ TYA's edition differs from those 
 
 ^^^M'^^^W \ hitherto published (1) in being in- 
 
 dexed by head-lines, (2) in the inser- 
 tion of five portraits, and (3) in the 
 addition of a bibliography, with fif- 
 teen photographic reproductions of 
 pages from early editions of his 
 works. The core of the book is the 
 account of The Great Didactic, pages 
 73-153, the best treatise on Method 
 ever published, at once broad, sound. 
 As a contribution both to the history of 
 education and to its theories this book occupies a unique place, and is indis- 
 pensable in even a small library of teachers' books. 
 
 2. The Orbis Pictus of John Amos Comenius. Cloth, 8vo, pp. 232. $3.00. 
 This beautiful volume is a reprint of the English edition of 1727, but with 
 
 reproduction of the 151 copper-2)late illustrations of the original edition of 1658. 
 A copy of the rare original commands a hundred dollars, and this reprint 
 must be considered a most important contribution to pedagogical literature. 
 The Orbis Pictus was not only the first book of object lessons, but the first 
 text-book in general use, and indeed, as the EncT/clopoedia Britannica states, 
 " the first children's picture-book." 
 
 The book is a beautiful piece of work, and in every way superior to 
 most of the fac-similes we have so far been presented with.— iY. Y. World. 
 
 We welcome this resurrection of the 0?Ms Pictus, which has lain too 
 long in suspended animation. The master-piece of Comenius, the prince of 
 European educators of the 17th century, was the greatest boon conferred 
 on the little ones in primary schools.— Nation. 
 
 The old wood illustrations are reproduced with absolute fidelity by a 
 photographic process, and as the text follows closely letter by letter the old 
 text, the book is substantially a copy of the rare original.— Literary World. 
 
 3. The Place of Cotnenius in the History of Education. By Nicholas Mur- 
 ray Butler. Paper, 16mo, pp. 20 . 15 cts. 
 
 k. The Text Books of Comenius. By Wm. H. Maxwell. Paper, 8vo, pp. 
 24. 29 Illustrations. 25 cts. 
 
 Everyone who feels that he cannot afford that beautiful volume, the 
 Orbis Pictus, should invest a quarter in this, and find out what Comenius 
 did. — Educational Courant. 
 
 C. W. BARDEEX, Publisjier, Syracuse, N. Y. 
 


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