Juliet signal. [volume] (Juliet [i.e. Joliet], Ill.) 1844-1???, 1861-09-24
The Education Of the Heart,

We commend the su5joined iudicious
remarks from the London Quarterly Re-
view TO the discriminating attention and
regard as we'll of parents as teachers -
They contain an important principle in
reference to the education Of the Young,
and one which cannot be too carefully heed
cd.
1t is the vice Of the age to substitute
learning for wisdom-to educate the head
aud to forget that there is q more impor-
taot education necessary for the heart
The reason is cultivated at an age when
nature does not furnish the elements nee
essary TO successful cultivation of il; and
the child is solicited to reflection when he
IS only capable of sensation and emotion.
In infancy the attention and the memory
are only excited strongly By things which
impress the senses and move the heart,
and father will instiil moro solid and
available instructions in an hour spent In
the helds. were wisdom and goodness are
exemplifed, seen and felt, than in q month
spent 10 study, where they are expouDded
10 stereotype aphorisms.
No physician doubts that precocious
children, in fifty cases for one, are much
worse for the discipline they have under
gone. The mind seems to have been
trained, and the foundations for INSANITY
are laid. When the studies for mature
years are stuffed into the child's head,
people do not reflect on tie anatomical fact
that the brain of an infant is not the brain
Of man, that the one is confirmed and
can bear exertiou-the other is growing
and requires repose; that to force the at
tention to abstract fasts-to load the men,
DRY with chronological and historical and
scientific dstails-in short, to expect q
chiid's brain to bear with impunity the
exertion Of Q mans. is just as rational as it
would be to hazard the same sort of OK
pertinent on its muscle.
The first eight or ten years of life should
be devoted to the education of the heart
to the formation of principles rather than
20 the requirement oe what is usually
termed knowledge. Nature herself points
out such course; for the emotions are
then the liveliess. and most easily mould
ed, being as yet unalloyed by passion. 1t
is from this source that the mass of men
are hereafter to draw their sum of happi>
ness or misery the actions of the immense
majority are, under all circumstances, de
termined much more by feeling than by
reflection; in truth, life presents an in.
finity Of occasion where it 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, therefor, the utmost
attention not to interrupt them BY improp-
er or over excitement. Just that degree of
exercise should be given to the brain at
this period by oral instruction, exemplified
by objects which strike the senses.
It 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 indespensi-
Bile, and wherever either of these are with
held, the consequences will be certain to
extend themselves over the future life.-
The seeds Of protracted and hopeless suf-
ferings have 10 innumerable instances been
sown into the constitution of the child sim
ply through ignorance of this great fund
amental physical law and the time has
come when the united voices of those limo.
cent victims, should ascend, trumpet
tongued." to the ears of every teacher in
the land, "Give US free air and wholesome
exercises: leave to develop our expanding
energies in accordance with the laws OF
our being, and full scope for the elastic
and bounding impulses of our young
hlnnd -