The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1874-07-02
The Beginning of Education.

The child is no sooner born than Its
education may be said to begin. The first
gasp of air the infant makes and the pres
sure it feels at its mothers breast are les
sons learned With each progressive step
in the relationship of the child with persons
and things external to its nurse, its food,
the light and various other beings and OBJ
jects which may surround it, it is acquir-
ing the elements which form the basis of
all education.
The earliest years of childhood are most
proftably spent in the development of those
observing faculties which the young exer-
else with instructive readiness. Easily
however, and spontaneously as the power
of observation of the child seems to act. it
must not be presumed that all guidance,
on the part of the parent, nurse or who
ever may have charge OF it is supcreroga-
tory. Children may be aided, from the
very earliest age, with great advantage
even in learning those objective lessons
which most of them are so forward in ac-
quiring.
Those who have the constant care of the
infant, or even they who may be only
brought into casual relation with it, can
seldom resist the invitation the little
creature, by its many endearing ways, gives
to notice. 1t thus, without any systematic
effort, or even with good deal of apparent
negligence, viii secure for itself at times
the means it requires for the proper de-
velopment of its observing powers. The
playful sympathy of the vivaeious nurse
with her smiling charge will prompt the
trolling of nursey ditty, some lively ac-
ton or other, or the presentation ola bright
object. The child may thus learn its most
essential lessons from teachers supremely
ignorant of the useful instruction they give,
or even of the fact that they are instruc-
tors
There are some, however, who are in
capable, from pcrversity of disposition or
want of natural animation, of responding
even to the invitation to mirth of an in
fants smile. Such should never be al
lowed, if possible, to have charge of the
Young. A cheerful disposition should be
regarded as one Of the most essential re
ouisitions of good nurse. Mothers should
moreover especially cultivate lively man
ner with their children. All the surround
ings, if possible, of the child should be
animating, and objects noticeable from
brightness of color and distinctness of figure
ought to be placed within reach of his
daily vision Somberness of dress of the
child and those who have constant charge
of it should be avoided. Among formal
observers Of ceremony it is not uncommon
to make even the nurse, in case there
should be mourning in the family, drape
herself in the habiliments of woe in which
she can hardly have part. The baby even
is sometimes made an involuntary mourner
of death before it has begun to rejoice in
life. The sudden apparition of itself and
nurse in the deepest black, as if they had
been both dipped in an ocean of ink, can
not but have withering effect upon an
infant with its tace beginning to bloom
with the first miles of sjoyous existence.
Systematic intellectual education of the
child should be deferred until it has reached
the age Of six or seven years. Previous to
that period it may be allowed to pick up
like Moses in the Vicar of Wakefield,
miscellaneous education at home Dur
ing the years of infancy, of course, there
viii be no attempt to do more than arouse
and engage the observing powers by those
means which naturally suggest themselves
To a sympathetic mother and lively, good
natured attendant l. should be remem-
bered that no well-constituted baby can
easily dispense with constant and animated
companionship. Movement is the first es-
sential Of It's early development, and it should
never be allowed, except in sleep, to re-
main torpid. Its limbs, its every feature,
and its whole body, in fact, which are so
ready to respond in lively sympathy with
the least stir Of life, ought never to want
the provocatives to action they demand
Those skillful teachers, the Germans, do
not admit any pupil into their most ele-
mentary school before the age Of six years
This is as early period as most children
can be subjected to the discipline of sys-
tematic study Intellectual pursuits even
then cannot be persistently followed unless
combined with careful training of the
physical powers. Exclusive culture of the
mind is dangerous at all ages, but more
especially during the earliest.
While the bodily vigor is carefully pro-
NOTED by abundance of good food, playful
excrise and cheerfulness of spirits, there is
very little risk of the young being intellec-
tually overworked. Most, if not all, of
those children who are said to have broken
down under the weight of their studies
have not been injured by too much work
but too little play. IF a proper care should
be taken to sustain a just balance between
the body and mind, both would be found
capable of much greater effort than either
is wont to exhibit, and with the result of
increased robustness.
John Stuart Mill tells us in his auto
biography that he began the study of Greek
at an age earlier than he could remember,
but which his friends assured him was
when he was only three years old. Before
he reached his teens he had travelled over
the vast domains of ancient classical and a
large portion of English literature AL