The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-02-20
Fireside Education of Children.

It is not we'll to hold children to be
troublesome when they ask questions as
to matters belonging to their educational
course, or the meaning of words which
may have incidental associations there
with, provided they do not come to inter-
rupt conversation in company. This be-
ing understood, it is not at all proper to
refuse reply to questions put by an active
minded child in order to be able to learn
the why's and wherefores of daily life; for
its little earnest queries never should be
allowed to be ublesome-although in
many instances they are powerful to puz
ze the strongest minds-as they embody
what the truest education of a very young
person demands in its progress. There
are some parents who solve these lit
tie mysteries with show of annoy
ance, or at least without proper inter
est, and who fail to see in their eager in
terest of the importunates the value OF
that earnestness which manifests their
desire to penetrate meanings, causes and
effects, whereas it ought to be otherwise.
BY paying heed to the most frivolous
queries with proper interest in their
objects, child may be made to learn
many things which mature mind con-
sders too trihing for its native sugges-
ton or entertainment. There is hunger
ing and thirsting on the part of many
very young people after new things and
ideas, and they will learn from teachers and
from parents matters which will fix them
selves on their minds and which would
seem to them more solid and reliable than
anything they could CLEAN from books.
Besides, there is no subject treated in
the textbooks of our schools which
does not admit of elaborate explanation,
and any suggestion arising in the mind of
child on the basis of such understanding
should be encouraged, as it manifests a
desire to penetrate to the foundations OF
learning. We have numerous and noble
proofs of the efficacy of incidental home
instruction. Thousands of our best and
most prominent men can look back to the
family Preside and to what they were
taught by their fathers wisdom and
interest in answeringstheir inquiries, and
the lessons they learned at their mothers
knees, and trace from them the solid con-
sequences which have made their lives
useful and beautiful and their standing
high in society. They have owed more to
| this domestic tuition-more of what has
been morally and substantially valuable
to them in their after lives from boyhood,
than that they gathered in schools. Many
man has owed his success in life to what
he has listened to, and embalmed, of the
conversation held at his fathers Preside,
the while his parents may have deemed
him not old enough to take any interest
in what interested them, and yet the
young mind was absorbing draughts OF
wisdom which were of incalculable benefit
to him. Besides the duty of patiently
hearing and answering even the most
frivolous appearing questions put by q
child, it is also imperative, as parents and
guardians, to understand and eschew the
risk the young run of learning inquities
of life in listening to the conversation
loosely conducted by their elders. Chill
dren learn to follow in the footsteps
either of the just or the unjust-learn tc
be good or evil just as they are taught
just as example is presented to them il
words or action.-LoweH Times.