The Abbeville banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1847-1869, 1847-09-15
Tic Education Of the Heart.
Darlington.

1t is the vice Ot the age to substitute learn
ing for wlsIoT-:o educate the head, and
forget that there is IL more important educa-
ton necessary for the heart. The reason
is cultivated at an age when nature does
not furnish the elements necessary to sue
ce>slul cultivation of it: and the child is So
licitcd to reflection, when he is only capa-
bic of sensation and emotion In infancy
the attention and the memory are only excl
ted strongly by things which impress the
senses, and move the heart, and the father
can instii more solid and available instruc-
ton in an hour spent in the fields, where
wisdom and goodness are excmplified, seen
and felt, than in Il month spent in the study
where they arc cxpounted IN s,creotyped
aphorisms.
No physician doubts, that precocious
Children in fifty cases for one, are much the
worse lor,he discipline they have undergone.
The mind seems 10 have been strained, and
the foundation for insanity arc laid. When
the studies OF maturcr years are stuffed into
the head ola child, people do not reflect on
the anatomical fact, that tho brain ofun in
tant is not the brain ola man; that the ono
Is and can bear eXcrtlon, the other is grow
ing, and requires rcposc that to force the
attention to abstract facts, 10 load the men,
ory with chronological and historical or
scientific detail in short, to expect childs
brain to bear with impunity the exertions
OF mans, is just Us rational as it would be
to hazard the same sort ofexperiment on its
muscles.
The first eight or ten years of life should
be devoted to the education ofthe heart-to
the formation Of principles, rather than the
requirement Of what is usually termed
knowledge. Nature herself points out
such a course for the emotions are then
the liveliest, and most easily moulded, being
as yet unalIoyed by passion. 1t is from
this source that the mass OF men are here
after to draw their sum of happiness or mis-
cry; the actions of the immense majority
are. under all circumstances, determined
much more by feeling than reflection in
truth, life presents an infinity of occasions
where it IS essential to happiness that we
should feel rightly; very few where it is at
all necessary tha, we should think profound
ly.
Up to the seventh year oflile, very great
changes are going on in the structure of tho
brain, and demand, therefore, the utmost at
tentlon not to interrupt them by improper or
over excitement Just that degree of exer-
clsc should be given to the brain at this pc.
riod, as is necessary to its health and the
best is oral instruction, exemplifcd by OBJ
jccts which strike the senses.
1t is perhaps unnecessary to add that at this
period of life, special attention should be
given, both by parents and teachers, to the
physical Development of the child Pure
air and free exercise are indispensable, and
wherever these are withheld, the consequent
ces will be certain 10 extend themselves
over the whole future life. The seeds of
protracted and hopeless suffering have, in
innumerable instances been sown in the
constitution Of the child simply through ig-
norance of this great fundamental physical
law; and the time has come when the u
nited voices ofthose innocent victims should
ascend, "trumpet-tongued," to the ears of
every parent and teacher in the land, Give
us free air and wholesome exercise leave
to develope our expanding energies in ac-
cordance with the laws Of our being. and
full scope for the elastic and bounding i'm
pulses Of our blood !"
London Quarterly Reviep.
WOMAN AS SHE SHOULD BE.-Give ear
e.