Spirit of the age., 1853-05-18
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Education of the Heart.

1t is the vice of the age to substitute lear
ming for wisdom to educate the head and
forget that there is a more important educa-
ton necessary for the heart. The reason is |
cultivated at an age when nature does not
furnish the elements necessary to success
full cultivation of it, and the child is solici-
ted to reflection when it is only capable Of
sensation and emotion. In infancy the at
tentiOn and the memory are only excited
strongly by the senses, and move the heart
The father may instil more solid and availa-
bic instruction ir an hour spent in the fields,
where vision and goodness arc exem-
plifed, seen and felt, than month spent in
the study, where they are expressed in ste-
rootypcd aphorlsms.
No physician doubts that prccocious chill
dren, fifty cases for one, are much the worse
for the discipline they have undergone. The
mind seems to have been strained, and the
foundation for insanity is laid
When the studies Of mature years are
stuffed iato the head Of the child, people do
not reflect on the anatomical fact, that the
brain of an infant is not the brain of a man /;
!, that the one is confirmed and can bear exer-
tion and the other is growing and requires
repose, that to force the attention to abstract
facts to load the memory with chronologi-
cal and historical or scientific detail in short
to expect a child's brain to bear with impu
nifty the exertions Of a mans, is as irration.
al as it would be to hazard the same sort O
experiments on its muscles.
The first eight O., ten years Of life should
be devoted to the education of the heart
to the formation of principles rather than tt
the requirement of what is usually termed
knowledge. Nature herself points out thi
course, for the emotions are the liveliest ant
most easily moulded, being as yet unalloye,
by passion. 1t is from this source the mas
Of men are hereafter to show their sum c
happiness or misery. The actions of the i'm
mense majority are, under all circumstance.
determined much more by feeling than re
Election in truth, life presents happines
that we should feel rightly; very fewinstar
ces occur where is necessary that we shoul
think profoundly.
Up to the seventh year of life very gre
changes are going on in the structure Of IL
brain, and demand, therefore, the utmo
attention, not to interrupt them by improp
or over excitement. Just that degree
exercise should be given to the brain at I'll
period that is necessary to It's health; al
the best is moral instruction, empliied
the objects which strike the senses.
1g 1t is, perhaps, necessary to ado. that
he this this period of 1ife special attention should
n given, bo.h>by parents and teachers, to t
e. physical development of the child. Pu
he air and exercise are indispensable a
d. wherever they are withheld, the conseque
se- ces will be certain to extend themselves ov
est the whole future life
is The seeds of protracted and hopeless s
Is. fering have, in innumerable instances, be
Is sown in the constitution of the child, simI
m, through ignorance of this great fundamen
ike physical law; and the time has come wi
led the united voices of these innocent victi
nd should ascend, trumpet tongued," to
ave ears of every parent and teacher in the lal
son Give us fresh air and wholesome exerci
the leave our expanding energies to be devel
ith ed in accordance to the laws of our bel
to and full scope for the elastic and bound
CIV impulses of our young blood
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