Rutland herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1823-1847, 1840-04-07
Ddrtetp.
THE INFANT KNOWLEDGE SYSTEM.
BY A MAN BORN OUT OF SEASON.

ooh the sunny, sunny hours Of childhood,
How soon--how soon they pass away"
Very, There icaS a time when we had
children. The time is past, or fast passing
The boys are premature mockeries of men
The girls, something between doll and
stunted woman. The schoolmaster is abroad,
also the schoolms,ress, besides tutors and
governesses.
Shortly after the children are weaned, they
commence educating them. While the brain
is yet in soft, pulpy state they load il with
heavy facts and hard names, toits serious det-
riment during the remainder of its mundane
existence. The ancient Grecian commenced
with carrying calf upon his back a few hours
every day, so that when the calf gradually
grew into a bullock, he carried the bullock
with as much ease as he had done the calf
This is now the education principle. They
lay few leaves of Cyclopndia or Encyclo-
pada on child's tender brain, and keep adj
ding thereunto day by day, expecting that
when he is a man, he will carry the thirty vol
umes with perfect ease, without considering
that in the attempt they may crush all sap
and freshness out of that brain, rendering it as
flat as pancake, and dry as the remainder
OF biscuit
Now is this wholesome--is il natural Is
it fairs it humane, that child should be
the use of the globes before he has learnt to
play at marbles Or is it to be expected that
this early forcing and hotbed system can pro-
duce as healthy plants as ifthey had been al
lowed to grow in the free air and open sun
shine Oh in place of sending child to
school three or four years, let him enjoy three
or four years more of healthy ignorance.
Curb not its young freedom abrdgc not lis
first holidays cage not the pretty bird too soon.
Change not the free air of heaven for the
pent up atmosphere OF the seminary : the gen
tie murmur of the winds for the dull hum of
the prison-housc. We were children ourselves
once Let us have a fellow feeling for the
Young rogues Let kind dame Nature nurse
them few years longer. There will be few
er rickety limbs and rickeity niellects.
And does a child learn nothing because it
has not its primmer in lis hand. Certainly it
does Every hour of its little life it is learn
ing; It cannot help it. The flower that blows
the sprnging grass, the wi,hered leaf, the run
ming water, the birds that hop across lis path
and the thousand sights of the fields and wood,
or even the squares or suburbs of a city, cause
il To think and to question. The wind as II
blows, the falling rain, the fleecy snow, the
sharp frost making firm the unstable water, the
thunder peal, the sun that shines by day, and
the moon that steals into the dark sky by night,
all and each arouse its intaniile wonder and
young curiosity. Let it then have few years
of pleasant natural education before It com
mences its painful artificial one. Let IT, as
St. Paul says, when il is child, 'thlnk as
| child, and act as child and in due and
proper season, no doubt Of it, it will 'put away
childish things"
| 1t makes one sad to see fine little fellow
sent to study Euclid at the age he should be
reading Robinson Crusoe and equally does a
man good to sSe such a one enjoying his young
existence in an appropriate manner. Few
there are who cannot enter into the feeling so
/ finely given in the very beautiful lines Of an
American poet, commencing
"There's something in a noble boy,
A brave, free-hearted, careless one,
With his uncheckod un6idden joy,
His DIRE I'd Of books and love of fun,
/ And in his clear aud ready smile,
Unshaded by thought of guile,
And unrepressod by sadness
Which brings me 10 my childhood back,
ASH trod It's very track,
And felt its very gladness,"
Then let the children have their play out
| Netr York Mirror.