Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  With respect to the sympathy which children feel for each other, it must be carefully managed, or it will counteract, instead of assisting us, in education. It is natural, that those who are placed nearly in the same circumstances, should feel alike, and sympathize with one another; but children feel only for the present; they have few ideas of the future; and consequently all that they can desire, either for themselves, or for their companions, is what will immediately please. Education looks to the future, and frequently we must ensure future advantage, even at the expense of present pain or restraint. The companion and the tutor then, supposing each to be equally good and equally kind, must command, in a very different degree, the sympathy of the child. It may, notwithstanding, be questioned, whether those who are constant companions in their idle hours, when they are very young, are likely to be either as fond of one another when they grow up, or even as happy whilst they are children, as those are who spend less time together. Whenever the humours, interests, and passions of others cross our own, there is an end of sympathy, and this happens almost every hour in the day with children; it is generally supposed, that they learn to live in friendship with each other, and to bear with one another’s little faults habitually; that they even reciprocally cure these faults, and learn, by experience, those principles of honour and justice on which society depends. We may be deceived in this reasoning by a false analogy.

  We call the society of children, society in miniature; the proportions of the miniature are so much altered, that it is by no means an accurate resemblance of that which exists in the civilized world. Amongst children of different ages, strength, and talents, there must always be tyranny, injustice, and that worst species of inequality, which arises from superior force on the one side, and abject timidity on the other. Of this, the spectators of juvenile disputes and quarrels are sometimes sensible, and they hastily interfere and endeavour to part the combatants, by pronouncing certain moral sentences, such as, “Good boys never quarrel; brothers must love and help one another.” But these sentences seldom operate as a charm upon the angry passions; the parties concerned, hearing it asserted that they must love one another, at the very instant when they happen to feel that they cannot, are still further exasperated, and they stand at bay, sullen in hatred, or approach hypocritical in reconciliation. It is more easy to prevent occasions of dispute, than to remedy the bad consequences which petty altercations produce. Young children should be kept asunder at all times, and in all situations, in which it is necessary, or probable, that their appetites and passions should be in direct competition. Two hungry children, with their eager eyes fixed upon one and the same bason of bread and milk, do not sympathize with each other, though they have the same sensations; each perceives, that if the other eats the bread and milk, he cannot eat it. Hunger is more powerful than sympathy; but satisfy the hunger of one of the parties, and immediately he will begin to feel for his companion, and will wish that his hunger should also be satisfied. Even Mr. Barnet, the epicure, who is so well described in Moore’s excellent novel, after he has crammed himself to the throat, asks his wife to “try to eat a bit.” Intelligent preceptors will apply the instance of the bason of bread and milk, in a variety of apparently dissimilar circumstances.

  We may observe, that the more quickly children reason, the sooner they discover how far their interests are any ways incompatible with the interests of their companions. The more readily a boy calculates, the sooner he will perceive, that if he were to share his bason of bread and milk equally with a dozen of his companions, his own portion must be small. The accuracy of his mental division would prevent him from offering to part with that share which, perhaps, a more ignorant accountant would be ready to surrender at once, without being on that account more generous. Children, who are accurate observers of the countenance, and who have a superior degree of penetration, discover very early the symptoms of displeasure, or of affection, in their friends; they also perceive quickly the dangers of rivalship from their companions. If experience convinces them, that they must lose in proportion as their companions gain, either in fame or in favour, they will necessarily dislike them as rivals; their hatred will be as vehement, as their love of praise and affection is ardent. Thus children, who have the most lively sympathy, are, unless they be judiciously educated, the most in danger of feeling early the malevolent passions of jealousy and envy. It is inhuman, and in every point of view unjustifiable in us, to excite these painful feelings in children, as we too often do, by the careless or partial distribution of affection and applause. Exact justice will best prevent jealousy; each individual submits to justice, because each, in turn, feels the benefit of its protection. Some preceptors, with benevolent intentions, labour to preserve a perfect equality amongst their pupils, and, from the fear of exciting envy in those who are inferior, avoid uttering any encomiums upon superior talents and merit. This management seldom succeeds; the truth cannot be concealed; those who feel their own superiority, make painful reflections upon the injustice done to them by the policy of their tutors; those who are sensible of their own inferiority, are not comforted by the courtesy and humiliating forbearance with which they are treated. It is, therefore, best to speak the plain truth; to give to all their due share of affection and applause: at the same time, we should avoid blaming one child at the moment when we praise another: we should never put our pupils in contrast with one another; nor yet should we deceive them as to their respective excellences and defects. Our comparison should rather be made between what the pupil has been, and what he is, than between what he is, and what any body else is not. By this style of praise we may induce children to become emulous of their former selves, instead of being envious of their competitors. Without deceit or affectation, we may also take care to associate general pleasure in a family with particular commendations: thus, if one boy is remarkable for prudence, and another for generosity, we should not praise the generosity of the one at the expense of the prudence of the other, but we should give to each virtue its just measure of applause. If one girl sings, and another draws, remarkably well, we may show that we are pleased with both agreeable accomplishments, without bringing them into comparison. Nor is it necessary that we should be in a desperate hurry to balance the separate degrees of praise which we distribute exactly at the same moment, because if children are sure that the reward of their industry and ingenuity is secured by our justice, they will trust to us, though that reward may be for a few hours delayed. It is only where workmen have no confidence in the integrity or punctuality of their masters, that they are impatient of any accidental delay in the payment of their wages.

  With the precautions which have been mentioned, we may hope to see children grow up in real friendship together. The whole sum of their pleasure is much increased by mutual sympathy. This happy moral truth, upon which so many of our virtues depend, should be impressed upon the mind; it should be clearly demonstrated to the reason; it should not be repeated as an a priori, sentimental assertion.

  Those who have observed the sudden, violent, and surprising effects of emulation in public schools, will regret the want of this power in the intellectual education of their pupils at home. Even the acquisition of talents and knowledge ought, however, to be but a secondary consideration, subordinate to the general happiness of our pupils. If we could have superior knowledge, upon condition that we should have a malevolent disposition, and an irritable temper, should we, setting every other moral consideration aside, be willing to make the purchase at such a price? Let any person, desirous to see a striking picture of the effects of scholastic competition upon the moral character, look at the life of that wonder of his age, the celebrated Abeillard. As the taste and manners of the present times are so different from those of the age in which he lived, we see, without any species of deception, the real value of the learning in which he excelled, and we can judge both of his acquirements, and of his character, without prejudice. We see him goaded on by rivalship, and literary ambition, to astonishi
ng exertions at one time; at another, torpid in monkish indolence: at one time, we see him intoxicated with adulation; at another, listless, desponding, abject, incapable of maintaining his own self-approbation without the suffrages of those whom he despised. If his biographer does him justice, a more selfish, irritable, contemptible, miserable being, than the learned Abeillard, could scarcely exist.

  A philosopher, who, if we might judge of him by the benignity of his writings, was surely of a most amiable and happy temper, has yet left us a melancholy and discouraging history of the unsociable condition of men of superior knowledge and abilities. He supposes that those who have devoted much time to the cultivation of their understandings, have habitually less sympathy, or less exercise for their sympathy, than those who live less abstracted from the world; that, consequently, “all their social, and all their public affections, lose their natural warmth and vigour,” whilst their selfish passions are cherished and strengthened, being kept in constant play by literary rivalship. It is to be hoped, that there are men of the most extensive learning and genius, now living, who could, from their own experience, assure us that those are obsolete observations, no longer applicable to modern human nature. At all events, we, who refer so much to education, are hopefully of opinion, that education can prevent these evils, in common with almost all the other evils of life. It would be an errour, fatal to all improvement, to believe that the cultivation of the understanding, impedes the exercise of the social affections. Obviously, a man, who secludes himself from the world, and whose whole life is occupied with abstract studies, cannot enjoy any pleasure from his social affections; his admiration of the dead, is so constant, that he has no time to feel any sympathy with the living. An individual, of this ruminating species, is humorously delineated in Mrs. D’Arblay’s Camilla. Men, who are compelled to unrelenting labour, whether by avarice, or by literary ambition, are equally to be pitied. They are not models for imitation; they sacrifice their happiness to some strong passion or interest. Without this ascetic abstinence from the domestic and social pleasures of life, surely persons may cultivate their understandings, and acquire, even by mixing with their fellow-creatures, a variety of useful knowledge.

  An ingenious theory supposes the exercise of any of our faculties, is always attended with pleasure, which lasts as long as that exercise can be continued without fatigue. This pleasure, arising from the due exercise of our mental powers, the author of this theory maintains to be the foundation of our most agreeable sentiments. If there be any truth in these ideas, of how many agreeable sentiments must a man of sense be capable! The pleasures of society must to him increase in an almost incalculable proportion; because, in conversation, his faculties can never want subjects on which they may be amply exercised. The dearth of conversation, which every body may have felt in certain company, is always attended with mournful countenances, and every symptom of ennui. Indeed, without the pleasures of conversation, society is reduced to meetings of people, who assemble to eat and drink, to show their fine clothes, to weary and to hate one another. The sympathy of bon vivants is, it must be acknowleged, very lively and sincere towards each other; but this can last only during the hour of dinner, unless they revive, and prolong, by the powers of imagination, the memory of the feast. Some foreign traveller tells us, that “every year, at Naples, an officer of the police goes through the city, attended by a trumpeter, who proclaims in all the squares and cross-ways, how many thousand oxen, calves, lambs, hogs, &c. the Neapolitans have had the honour of eating in the course of the year.” The people all listen with extreme attention to this proclamation, and are immoderately delighted at the huge amount.

  A degree, and scarcely one degree, above the brute sympathy of good eaters, is that gregarious propensity which is sometimes honoured with the name of sociability. The current sympathy, or appearance of sympathy, which is to be found amongst the idle and frivolous in fashionable life, is wholly unconnected with even the idea of esteem. It is therefore pernicious to all who partake of it; it excites to no great exertions; it rewards neither useful nor amiable qualities: on the contrary, it is to be obtained by vice, rather than by virtue; by folly much more readily than by wisdom. It is the mere follower of fashion, and of dissipation, and it keeps those in humour and countenance, who ought to hear the voice of public reproach, and who might be roused by the fear of disgrace, or the feelings of shame, to exertions which should justly entitle them to the approbation and affection of honourable friends.

  Young people, who are early in life content with this convivial sympathy, may, in the common phrase, become very good, pleasant companions; but there is little chance that they should ever become any thing more, and there is great danger that they may be led into any degree of folly, extravagance, or vice, to which fashion and the voice of numbers invite. It sometimes happens, that men of superior abilities, have such an indiscriminate love of applause and sympathy, that they reduce themselves to the standard of all their casual companions, and vary their objects of ambition with the opinion of the silly people with whom they chance to associate. In public life, party spirit becomes the ruling principle of men of this character; in private life, they are addicted to clubs, and associations of all sorts, in which the contagion of sympathy has a power which the sober influence of reason seldom ventures to correct. The waste of talents, and the total loss of principle, to which this indiscriminate love of sympathy leads, should warn us to guard against its influence by early education. The gregarious propensity in childhood, should not be indulged without precautions: unless their companions are well educated, we can never be reasonably secure of the conduct or happiness of our pupils: from sympathy, they catch all the wishes, tastes, and ideas of those with whom they associate; and what is still worse, they acquire the dangerous habits of resting upon the support, and of wanting the stimulus of numbers. It is, surely, far more prudent to let children feel a little ennui, from the want of occupation and of company, than to purchase for them the juvenile pleasures of society at the expense of their future happiness. Childhood, as a part of our existence, ought to have as great a share of happiness as it can enjoy compatibly with the advantage of the other seasons of life. By this principle, we should be guided in all which we allow, and in all which we refuse, to children; by this rule, we may avoid unnecessary severity, and pernicious indulgence.

  As young people gradually acquire knowledge, they will learn to converse, and when they have the habits of conversing rationally, they will not desire companions who can only chatter. They will prefer the company of friends, who can sympathize in their occupations, to the presence of ignorant idlers, who can fill up the void of ideas with nonsense and noise. Some people have a notion that the understanding and the heart are not to be educated at the same time; but the very reverse of this is, perhaps, true; neither can be brought to any perfection, unless both are cultivated together.

  We should not, therefore, expect premature virtues. During childhood, there occur but few opportunities of exerting the virtues which are recommended in books, such as humanity and generosity.

  The humanity of children cannot, perhaps, properly be said to be exercised upon animals; they are frequently extremely fond of animals, but they are not always equable in their fondness; they sometimes treat their favourites with that caprice which favourites are doomed to experience; this caprice degenerates into cruelty, if it is resented by the sufferer. We must not depend merely upon the natural feelings of compassion, as preservatives against cruelty; the instinctive feelings of compassion, are strong amongst uneducated people; yet these do not restrain them from acts of cruelty. They take delight, it has been often observed, in all tragical, sanguinary spectacles, because these excite emotion, and relieve them from the listless state in which their days usually pass. It is the same with all persons, in all ranks of life, whose minds are uncultivated. Until young people have fixed habits of benevolence, and a taste for occupation, perhaps it is not prudent to trust them with the care or protection of
animals. Even when they are enthusiastically fond of them, they cannot, by their utmost ingenuity, make the animal so happy in a state of captivity, as they would be in a state of liberty. They are apt to insist upon doing animals good against their will, and they are often unjust in the defence of their favourites. A boy of seven years old, once knocked down his sister, to prevent her crushing his caterpillar.

  Children should not be taught to confine their benevolence to those animals which are thought beautiful; the fear and disgust which we express at the sight of certain unfortunate animals, whom we are pleased to call ugly and shocking, are observed by children, and these associations lead to cruelty. If we do not prejudice our pupils by foolish exclamations; if they do not, from sympathy, catch our absurd antipathies, their benevolence towards the animal world, will not be illiberally confined to favourite lap-dogs and singing-birds. From association, most people think that frogs are ugly animals. L —— , a boy between five and six years old, once begged his mother to come out to look at a beautiful animal which he had just found; she was rather surprised to find that this beautiful creature was a frog.

  If children never see others torment animals, they will not think that cruelty can be an amusement; but they may be provoked to revenge the pain which is inflicted upon them; and therefore we should take care not to put children in situations where they are liable to be hurt or terrified by animals. Could we possibly expect, that Gulliver should love the Brobdignagian wasp that buzzed round his cake, and prevented him from eating his breakfast? Could we expect that Gulliver should be ever reconciled to the rat against whom he was obliged to draw his sword? Many animals are, to children, what the wasp and the rat were to Gulliver. Put bodily fear out of the case, it required all uncle Toby’s benevolence to bear the buzzing of a gnat while he was eating his dinner. Children, even when they have no cause to be afraid of animals, are sometimes in situations to be provoked by them; and the nice casuist will find it difficult to do strict justice upon the offended and the offenders.