Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1860-04-10
The Education of the Heart.

We commend the subJoIned JudIcious re-
marks from the London Quarterly ReUirrc to the
discriminating attention and regard as well
of parents as of teachers. They contain an
important principle in reference to the edu-
be too carefully needed:
1t is the vice OF the ageto substitute learn
ing for wisdom-tO educate the head and for
get that there is more important education
necessary for the heart. The reason is cul-
tivated at an age when nature does not fur
nish the elements necessary 10 a successful
cultivation of it and the child is solicited
to reflection when he is only capable of SEN
sation and emotion. In infancy the atten-
ton and the memury are only excited strong
" by things which impress the senses and
move the heart, and father shall instil
more solid and available instruction in an
hour spent in the fields, where wisdom and
goodness are exempli6ed, seen, and felt, than
in month spent in study, where they are
expounded in stereotyped aphorisms.
No physician doubts that piecocious chill
dren, in fifty cases for one, are much worse
for the discipline they have undergone The
mind seems To have been strained, and the
foundations for insanity are laid. When the
studies for maturer years are stuffed into the
child's head, people do not reflect on the
not the brain of man, that the one is con-
frmed and can bear exertion--the other is
growing aud requires repOse that to force
the attention to abstract fncts--to load the
memory with chronological and historical
and scientific details-in short, to expect u
chld's brain TO bear with impunity the exer-
ton of a mans, is just as rational as it would
be to hazard the same sort OF experiment on
its muscles.
hn first 9TH
be devoted to the education of the heart-to
the formation of principles rather than to the
requirement of what is usually termed knowl-
edge. Nature herself points out such a
course; for the emotions lire then the liveli-
est, aud most easily moulded, being as yet
uualloyed by passion. Ii is from this source
that the mass of men are hereafter to draw
their sum of happiness or misery; the actions
of the immense majority are, under all Cir
cumstancrs, determined much mere by feel
ing than by reflection; in truth, life presents
an iniinity of oeca, ions where il is Essential
to happiness that we should feel rightly; very
few where it is at all necessary that we should
think profoundly.
Up to the seventh year OF life, very great
changes are going on in the structure of the
brain, and demand, therefore, the utmost at
tention not TO interrupt them by improper or
over excitement. Just that degree OF exer-
else should be given 10 the brain at this pc
riod as is necessary to its health, and the best
is oral instruction exempliiied by objects
which strike the senses.
IL is perhaps unnecessary TO add that Mt
this period of life. special attention should be
given, both by parents and teachers, TO the
physical development OF the child. Pure ar
aud free exercise are Indispensable, and
wherever either OF these are withheld, the con
sequences will be certain To extend them
selves over the whole future life. The seeds
ofsproiracted and hopeless snfferings have In
innumerable instances been sown into the
constitution Of the child simply through ig-
noranee OF this great fundamental physical
law; aud the time has come when the united
voices Of those innocent victims should as
cend. ''trumpettongued," to the ears OF eve
~ parent and every teacher in the Land,
Give u free air and wholesome exercise
leave to develop our expanding energies IN
accordance with the lava OF our being, aud
full Ncope Tor TIE elastic and bOapdDg ina-
pulses OF our young blood