OUR CHILDREN, AND HOW TO EDUCATE THEM.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 44, 31 October 1891, Page 541

OUR CHILDREN, AND HOW TO EDUCATE THEM.

WHEN EDUCATION SHOULD COMMENCE.

we were to reply with absolute sincerity to the question suggested by the title of this article (says a writer in the Gentlewoman) we should say education should commence immediately after the birth of the child. In fact, were these articles solely intended for nursery use, a whole series could be written on the J, — value of early training. Great lessons can be inculcated from the first sentient moment of childhood. First in order would be the lesson l of Obedience. It is easily taught ** in the tender early months, little is g S' necessary but attention and firmJWy ness on the part of the nurse and mother. Of the value of such training,of the sufl'ering thereby avoided, we need not speak. We are ad-

dressing an intelligent and cultured audience ; it is sufficient with such an audience to state the fact, it is not necessary to exemplify it. But these articles are not intended solely for nursery use. So avoiding for the moment a dissertation upon the moral education of the infant, we will go straight to our goal and explain when it is that intellectual education should commence. A child can be taught its letters as early as three years of age. A child who commences to learn its letters at this early period will probably be three or four years in thoroughly acquiring the art of reading. A child who has literally no technical instruction until it is seven years old can be taught to read fluently in three months. The deduction is obvious. We are speaking, of course, of a fairly intelligent child ; a margin can be allowed each side for the child who is phenomenally brilliant or the child who is phenomenally dull ; it is not possible to be absolutely dogmatic in the matter. Exceptional children, though it may sound paradoxical, are not at all uncommon ; it is for the guidance of those parents whose children are not exceptional that the articles are written. Haying now arrived at the conclusion that nothing is to be gained by beginning to teach a child to read until it is seven years old, it remains to be considered how these early years are to be employed. They are not to be wasted, they' are not to be given up entirely to play, to the unguided instincts of the child ; he or she is not to beallowea to spend those years of dawning intelligence in satisfying themselves as to the stuffing of the doll, the inside of the mechanical toy, or whether the soldiers’ heads will come off. The years are to be used in teaching them a great deal, only excluding from their teaching the irksome and onerous acquirement of mechanical tasks. Neither by Froebel's system nor any other system need arithmetic be taught, nor reading ; the brain is not ready for either the one or the other. It is ready for impressions, it is not ready for work. It is in these early years that it is especially necessary that the companion of the child during a certain portion of the day should be a highly cultured and sympathetic man or woman, deeply imbued with the religion that inculcates love, love of our neighbours and love of Nature. A man or woman, gifted, in a measure, with the genius of poetry, to teach him or her the understanding of Humanity. A man or woman, by reason of that noble gift of sympathy, who is at one with the animal world and the natural world as well as the human world.

Here are the lessons fit for the child of tender years. The lesson of God’s goodness to man, as exemplified in the bursting of the Spring. Let him be taught it, as he sees the brown buds break into leaves, let him learn it from the under world that with intelligent eyes he must see awake around him. He will not grasp the lesson in its wholeness, in its beautiful entirety ; it will be but an impression on his delicate brain, but it will bean impression that is of far more educational value, both moral and intellectual, than if he were taught instead of this understanding of Nature, the form of the ABC. We have seen a child so trained confronted with a child trained on the other system. We have interviewed these children at the age of seven years old, and into the hands of both of them have placed a little poem. The one read it aloud, in the monotonous and singsong voice, comma less and stopless, in which children read ; then with a sigh of satisfaction at having finished his task, not having missed a word, though some of them were hard words, he handed the book back to the examiner.

* Did you like it ?’ he was asked. * What?’ ‘ Did you like it?’ the question was repeated. * Like what ?’ from the child. ‘ The poem you have just read.’ *Oh ! I was not noticing what it was about. It was very difficult. I hate poetry, I hate reading, don’t you ?’ These are facts we are stating. This anecdote is not invented. To the other child the poem in question was then read, or at least the first verse of it was read. We need not quote it all, it is too well known. The verse begins Oh. to be in England When the April’s there! Four or five lines were read to the untaught child. The child who could not have read the poem burst into tears. He could not read it, but he could understand it, the beauty of it moved him, thrilled him, stirred him, and his emotions had no other vent. The anecdote might stop here ; it were almost enough to prove the point that the child who is taught from the world of Nature is better taught than the child who is taught from the world of books. But the sequel is also worthy of being placed on record. The evening of the same day that the trial had been made, the mother of the last-named boy went into his room, as was her habit, to kiss him before going to bed. The boy was awake, lying with eyes wide open looking at the moon that streamed through the casemented window into his bedroom. He was excited and eager. * I have been waiting nwake to see you, mother. I could not sleep, mother. Do promise me something ; do, I can’t go to sleep till you have promised me. Teach me to read. If there are such beautiful things in books why can’t I read them for myself? Do teach me, begin now.’ And in six weeks he could read the poem to himself !

Dominie.