The record-union., 1897-02-28

holiSlii VIC ScsICH III Oil ilioS-
tration that portrays too common idea
of the child-mind?
To produce the famous Strasburg
pates de foie gras, luckless geese are
shut up in coopS, so small that the birds
can neither turn, nor flap their wings,
nor even preen the feathers. Several
times day each unhappy goose is
forced full of food by a feeding machine.
The result of this concentration Of effort
upon one organ is very quickly seen.
In two weeks large, sturdy bird is re-
duced to foul and living skeleton, but
the desired effect has been produced
upon the liver which now weighs two
Or three pounds.
Is there not something akin to this in
the methods applied to children by ma
chine-teachers, and tacitly approved of
by Indifferent parents? Without thought
of a child being possessed of any other
organ beside a brain, and any other
function beyond the requirement of
facts, and any other responsibility apart
from earning living, the little creature
is stuffed with inStruction-not educa-
tion in its best sense-until its limbs jerk
| from over-strained nerves. A sure proof
of the actual damage of such training
! both to the child and to the community
! is found in the fact stated by Forbes
! Winslow, the famous authority on the
| brain, that infant prodigies seldom do
we'll in after life, because of override
velopment in one direction and neglect
| of training in another, the result being
I l., i
| tation and often ''go to the bad when
! thrown on their own resources. All
| thinkers most fully acknowledge the
| need of brain-culture as a means of
! broadening the life and enabling the in
| dividual to acquire a consciousness OF
| other things, beyond those that he can
| touch and taste and handle in his own
neighborhood. For instance: Without
! the power to read, our lives are apt to
| remain as narrow as those of savages.
| But it is mere dream to suppose that
! a knowledge of all the rivers of all the
continents, with length, breadth and
| characteristics will deter little pilfering
| fingers from taking another scholars
| lunch. You may drag the child through
miles of arithmetic and over mountains
| of spelling; you may Whirl it through
| the universe till it's knowledge is mar
| VelOus to relate, but all such brain de-
velopment will not save your sweet little
girl from the corruption of the boy with
unrestrained passions. Where rs the up
| lifting power of vulgar fractions or the
heart training in repeating the bounds
of the Mediterranean Sea? Though we
speak with the tongues of savants, and
| tresa ct ha roiCar fro n
gold; though we compass all knowledge
| SO that we can name the stars in their
courses and the strata in their order,
yet without judgment we are nothing.
| And judgment cometh not by knowledge
forced into the brain and appealing only
to memory. Judgment and conscientious
conduct are a part of the heritage Of the
race, inherent and capable of develop
ment in each normal child. They are
strengthened by the playground and
! the home, by the personal influence of
the teacher and the parent; so that any
who think duty to the child completed
| by books alone are cruel to the child and
| traitors to the race. Far be it from me
| to belittle the brain, for by its powers
! the material progress of the world has
| reached its present hight; and far be
| it from anyone else to belittle the heart
| with it's social instincts, and the char
acter with its fateful powers. Mental
giants are capable of being dwarfs, and
| possibly fiends. The very forcing to
which they have been subjected hides,
| hinders, even destroys their better capa-
| bilities of usefulness of brain and honor
of conduct
Be not deceived nature is not mock
ed. The different elements of our be-
| ing-body mind and spirit-have to be
trained up together. Each child has
the tendency within it to slip back to
wild, untrammeled defiance of the
things that are right, unless all sorts
of influences are brought to bear upon
it. With it and with US as with
the universe, there is no such thing
as standing still We are either NOV
ing forward physically, mentally and
morally or we are slipping backward.
So, by neglect of proper means of edu-
cation, and proper interest in your ed
ucators, you are possibly helping to
thrust the child back to the starting
point of your family ages ago. Scian-
lists will tell you there is. always at
dency to Slip back to the savage state.
Your house cat litters in the barn, and
the kittens, unless brought to the house,
will be almost unapproachabla later.
Then their offspring incline to hunting
in the fields and the woods, and so on
back to the wild cat stage Thus also
with the rariah dogs of Constantinople,
with the wild horses of the pampas,
with the wild cattle of the Western
plains. In the same manner but in
more fateful degree. is it with the child
Now, thon, in your mind take n walk
around your town and see if as a mat
ter of fact some, even many, children
are not more neglected than any do
mestic animal you can name. The horse
is broken to the harness and taught to
pull without jerking; without training
nothing is expected of it. The COW is
accustomed to the stall by various lit
tie lures; from the young stock that
have run for months in the pasture.
butting stupidity is looked for and
found. But the child under considera-
ton is driven off to school just as early |
as possible, so as to leave the house |
quiet, left there in school for years TN
der teachers whom parents do not even |
take the trouble to know, crammed by |
some of them with book knowlendee |
as a Strasburg goose is crammed with |
meal tenDt ed to deceDtiOn bV VaripuS |