Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  It is scarcely possible to conceive, that several treatises on grammar, the art of reasoning, thinking, and writing, which are contained in M. Condillac’s course of study, were designed by him for elementary books, for the instruction of a child from seven to ten years old. It appears the more surprising that the abbé should have so far mistaken the capacity of childhood, because, in his judicious preface, he seems fully sensible of the danger of premature cultivation, and of the absurdity of substituting a knowledge of words for a knowledge of things. As M. Condillac’s is a work of high reputation, we may be allowed to make a few remarks on its practical utility, and this may, perhaps, afford us an opportunity of explaining our ideas upon the use of metaphysical, poetical, and critical works, in early education. We do not mean any invidious criticism upon Condillac, but in “Practical Education” we wish to take our examples and illustrations from real life. The abbé’s course of study, for a boy of seven years old, begins with metaphysics. In his preface he asserts, that the arts of speaking, reasoning, and writing, differ from one another only in degrees of accuracy, and in the more or less perfect connection of ideas. He observes, that attention to the manner in which we acquire, and in which we arrange our knowledge, is necessary equally to those who would learn, and to those who would teach, with success. These remarks are just; but does not he draw an erroneous conclusion from his own principles, when he infers, that the first lessons which we should teach a child, ought to be metaphysical? He has given us an abstract of those which he calls preliminary lessons, on the operations of the soul, on attention, judgment, imagination, &c. — he adds, that he thought it useless to give to the public the conversations and explanations which he had with his pupil on these subjects. Both parents and children must regret the suppression of these explanatory notes; as the lessons appear at present, no child of seven years old can understand, and few preceptors can or will make them what they ought to be. In the first lesson on the different species of ideas, the abbé says,

  “The idea, for instance, which I have of Peter, is singular, or individual; and as the idea of man is general relatively to the ideas of a nobleman and a citizen, it is particular as it relates to the idea of animal.”

  “Relatively to the ideas of a nobleman and a citizen.” What a long explanation upon these words there must have been between the abbé and the prince! The whole view of society must have been opened at once, or the prince must have swallowed prejudices and metaphysics together. To make these things familiar to a child, Condillac says, that we must bring a few or many examples; but where shall we find examples? Where shall we find proper words to express to a child ideas of political relations mingled with metaphysical subtleties?

  Through this whole chapter, on particular and general ideas, the abbé is secretly intent upon a dispute began or revived in the thirteenth century, and not yet finished, between the Nominalists and the Realists; but a child knows nothing of this.

  In the article “On the Power of Thinking,” an article which he acknowledges to be a little difficult, he observes, that the great point is to make the child comprehend what is meant by attention; “for as soon as he understands that, all the rest,” he assures us, “will be easy.” Is it then of less consequence, that the child should learn the habit of attention, than that he should learn the meaning of the word? Granting, however, that the definition of this word is of consequence, that definition should be made proportionably clear. The tutor, at least, must understand it, before he can hope to explain it to his pupil. Here it is:

  “* * * when amongst many sensations which you experience at the same time, the direction of the organs makes you take notice of one, so that you do not observe the others any longer, this sensation becomes what we call attention.”

  This is not accurate; it is not clear whether the direction of the organs be the cause, or the effect, of attention; or whether it be only a concomitant of the sensation. Attention, we know, can be exercised upon abstract ideas; for this objection M. Condillac has afterwards a provisional clause, but the original definition remains defective, because the direction of the organs is not, though it be stated as such, essential: besides, we are told only, that the sensation described becomes (devient) what we call attention. What attention actually is, we are still left to discover. The matter is made yet more difficult; for when we are just fixed in the belief, that attention depends “upon our remarking one sensation, and not remarking others which we may have at the same time,” we are in the next chapter given to understand, that “in comparison we may have a double attention, or two attentions, which are only two sensations, which make themselves be taken notice of equally, and consequently comparison consists only of sensations.”

  The doctrine of simultaneous ideas here glides in, and we concede unawares all that is necessary to the abbé’s favourite system, “that sensation becomes successively attention, memory, comparison, judgment, and reflection; and that the art of reasoning is reducible to a series of identic propositions.” Without, at present, attempting to examine this system, we may observe, that in education it is more necessary to preserve the mind from prejudice, than to prepare it for the adoption of any system. Those who have attended to metaphysical proceedings, know, that if a few apparently trifling concessions be made in the beginning of the business, a man of ingenuity may force us, in the end, to acknowledge whatever he pleases. It is impossible that a child can foresee these consequences, nor is it probable that he should have paid such accurate attention to the operations of his own mind, as to be able to detect the fallacy, or to feel the truth, of his tutor’s assertions. A metaphysical catechism may readily be taught to children; they may learn to answer almost as readily as Trenck answered in his sleep to the guards who regularly called to him every night at midnight. Children may answer expertly to the questions, “What is attention? What is memory? What is imagination? What is the difference between wit and judgment? How many sorts of ideas have you, and which are they?” But when they are perfect in their responses to all these questions, how much are they advanced in real knowledge?

  Allegory has mixed with metaphysics almost as much as with poetry; personifications of memory and imagination are familiar to us; to each have been addressed odes and sonnets, so that we almost believe in their individual existence, or at least we are become jealous of the separate attributes of these ideal beings. This metaphysical mythology may be ingenious and elegant, but it is better adapted to the pleasures of poetry than to the purposes of reasoning. Those who have been accustomed to respect and believe in it, will find it difficult soberly to examine any argument upon abstract subjects; their favourite prejudices will retard them when they attempt to advance in the art of reasoning. All accurate metaphysical reasoners have perceived, and deplored, the difficulties which the prepossessions of education have thrown in their way; and they have been obliged to waste their time and powers in fruitless attempts to vanquish these in their own minds, or in those of their readers. Can we wish in education to perpetuate similar errors, and to transmit to another generation the same artificial imbecility? Or can we avoid these evils, if with our present habits of thinking and speaking, we attempt to teach metaphysics to children of seven years old?

  A well educated, intelligent young man, accustomed to accurate reasoning, yet brought up without any metaphysical prejudices, would be a treasure to a metaphysician to cross examine: he would be eager to hear the unprejudiced youth’s evidence, as the monarch, who had ordered a child to be shut up, without hearing one word of any human language, from infancy to manhood, was impatient to hear what would be the first word that he uttered. But though we wish extremely well to the experiments of metaphysicians, we are more intent upon the advantage which our unprejudiced pupils would themselves derive from their judicious education: probably they would, coming fresh to the subject, make some discoveries in the science of metaphysics: they would have no paces to show; perhaps they might advance a step or two on this difficult ground.

&nb
sp; When we object to the early initiation of novices into metaphysical mysteries, we only recommend it to preceptors not to teach; let pupils learn whatever they please, or whatever they can, without reading any metaphysical books, and without hearing any opinions, or learning any definitions by rote; children may reflect upon their own feelings, and they should be encouraged to make accurate observations upon their own minds. Sensible children will soon, for instance, observe the effect of habit, which enables them to repeat actions with ease and facility, which they have frequently performed. The association of ideas, as it assists them to remember particular things, will soon be noticed, though not, perhaps, in scientific words. The use of the association of pain or pleasure, in the form of what we call reward and punishment, may probably be early perceived. Children will be delighted with these discoveries if they are suffered to make them, and they will apply this knowledge in their own education. Trifling daily events will recall their observations, and experience will confirm, or correct, their juvenile theories. But if metaphysical books, or dogmas, are forced upon children in the form of lessons, they will, as such, be learned by rote, and forgotten.

  To prevent parents from expecting as much as the abbé Condillac does from the comprehension of pupils of six or seven years old upon abstract subjects, and to enable preceptors to form some idea of the perfect simplicity in which children, unprejudiced upon metaphysical questions, would express themselves, we give the following little dialogues, word for word, as they passed:

  1780. Father. Where do you think?

  A —— . (Six and a half years old.) In my mouth.

  Ho —— . (Five years and a half old.) In my stomach.

  Father. Where do you feel that you are glad, or sorry?

  A —— . In my stomach.

  Ho —— . In my eyes.

  Father. What are your senses for?

  Ho —— . To know things.

  Without any previous conversation, Ho —— (five years and a half old) said to her mother, “I think you will be glad my right foot is sore, because you told me I did not lean enough upon my left foot.” This child seemed, on many occasions, to have formed an accurate idea of the use of punishment, considering it always as pain given to cure us of some fault, or to prevent us from suffering more pain in future.

  April, 1792. H —— , a boy nine years and three quarters old, as he was hammering at a work-bench, paused for a short time, and then said to his sister, who was in the room with him, “Sister, I observe that when I don’t look at my right hand when I hammer, and only think where it ought to hit, I can hammer much better than when I look at it. I don’t know what the reason of that is; unless it is because I think in my head.”

  M —— . I am not sure, but I believe that we do think in our heads.

  H —— . Then, perhaps, my head is divided into two parts, and that one thinks for one arm, and one for the other; so that when I want to strike with my right arm, I think where I want to hit the wood, and then, without looking at it, I can move my arm in the right direction; as when my father is going to write, he sometimes sketches it.

  M —— . What do you mean, my dear, by sketching it?

  H —— . Why, when he moves his hand (flourishes) without touching the paper with the pen. And at first, when I want to do any thing, I cannot move my hand as I mean; but after being used to it, then I can do much better. I don’t know why.

  After going on hammering for some time, he stopped again, and said, “There’s another thing I wanted to tell you. Sometimes I think to myself, that it is right to think of things that are sensible, and then when I want to set about thinking of things that are sensible, I cannot; I can only think of that over and over again.”

  M —— . You can only think of what?

  H —— . Of those words. They seem to be said to me over and over again, till I’m quite tired, “That it is right to think of things that have some sense.”

  The childish expressions in these remarks have not been altered, because we wished to show exactly how children at this age express their thoughts. If M. Condillac had been used to converse with children, he surely would not have expected, that any boy of seven years old could have understood his definition of attention, and his metaphysical preliminary lessons.

  After these preliminary lessons, we have a sketch of the prince of Parma’s subsequent studies. M. Condillac says, that his royal highness (being not yet eight years old) was now “perfectly well acquainted with the system of intellectual operations. He comprehended already the production of his ideas; he saw the origin and the progress of the habits which he had contracted, and he perceived how he could substitute just ideas for the false ones which had been given to him, and good habits instead of the bad habits which he had been suffered to acquire. He had become so quickly familiar with all these things, that he retraced their connection without effort, quite playfully.”

  This prince must have been a prodigy! After having made him reflect upon his own infancy, the abbé judged that the infancy of the world would appear to his pupil “the most curious subject, and the most easy to study.” The analogy between these two infancies seems to exist chiefly in words; it is not easy to gratify a child’s curiosity concerning the infancy of the world. Extracts from L’Origine des Loix, by M. Goguet, with explanatory notes, were put into the prince’s hands, to inform him of what happened in the commencement of society. These were his evening studies. In the mornings he read the French poets, Boileau, Moliere, Corneille, and Racine. Racine, as we are particularly informed, was, in the space of one year, read over a dozen times. Wretched prince! Unfortunate Racine! The abbé acknowledges, that at first these authors were not understood with the same ease as the preliminary lessons had been: every word stopped the prince, and it seemed as if every line were written in an unknown language. This is not surprising, for how is it possible that a boy of seven or eight years old, who could know nothing of life and manners, could taste the wit and humour of Moliere; and, incapable as he must have been of sympathy with the violent passions of tragic heroes and heroines, how could he admire the lofty dramas of Racine? We are willing to suppose, that the young prince of Parma was quick, and well informed for his age; but to judge of what is practicable, we must produce examples from common life, instead of prodigies.

  S —— , a boy of nine years old, of whose abilities the reader will be able to form some judgment from anecdotes in the following pages, whose understanding was not wholy uncultivated, when he was between nine and ten years old, expressed a wish to read some of Shakespeare’s plays. King John was given to him. After the book had been before him for one winter’s evening, he returned it to his father, declaring that he did not understand one word of the play; he could not make out what the people were about, and he did not wish to read any more of it. His brother H —— , at twelve years old, had made an equally ineffectual attempt to read Shakespeare; he was also equally decided and honest in expressing his dislike to it; he was much surprised at seeing his sister B —— , who was a year or two older than himself, reading Shakespeare with great avidity, and he frequently asked what it was in that book that could entertain her. Two years afterwards, when H —— was between fourteen and fifteen, he made another trial, and he found that he understood the language of Shakespeare without any difficulty. He read all the historical plays with the greatest eagerness, and particularly seized the character of Falstaff. He gave a humorous description of the figure and dress which he supposed Sir John should have, of his manner of sitting, speaking, and walking. Probably, if H —— had been pressed to read Shakespeare at the time when he did not understand it, he might never have read these plays with real pleasure during his whole life. Two years increase prodigiously the vocabulary and the ideas of young people, and preceptors should consider, that what we call literary taste, cannot be formed without a variety of knowledge. The productions of our ablest writers cannot please, until we are familiarized to the ideas which they contain, or to which they allude. />
  Poetry is usually supposed to be well suited to the taste and capacity of children. In the infancy of taste and of eloquence, rhetorical language is constantly admired; the bold expression of strong feeling, and the simple description of the beauties of nature, are found to interest both cultivated and uncultivated minds. To understand descriptive poetry, no previous knowledge is required, beyond what common observation and sympathy supply; the analogies and transitions of thought, are slight and obvious; no labour of attention is demanded, no active effort of the mind is requisite to follow them. The pleasures of simple sensation are, by descriptive poetry, recalled to the imagination, and we live over again our past lives without increasing, and without desiring to increase, our stock of knowledge. If these observations be just, there must appear many reasons, why even that species of poetry which they can understand, should not be the early study of children; from time to time it may be an agreeable amusement, but it should not become a part of their daily occupations. We do not want to retrace perpetually in their memories a few musical words, or a few simple sensations; our object is to enlarge the sphere of our pupil’s capacity, to strengthen the habits of attention, and to exercise all the powers of the mind. The inventive and the reasoning faculties must be injured by the repetition of vague expressions, and of exaggerated description, with which most poetry abounds. Childhood is the season for observation, and those who observe accurately, will afterwards be able to describe accurately: but those, who merely read descriptions, can present us with nothing but the pictures of pictures. We have reason to believe, that children, who have not been accustomed to read a vast deal of poetry, are not, for that reason, less likely to excel in poetic language. The reader will judge from the following explanations of Gray’s Hymn to Adversity, that the boy to whom they were addressed, was not much accustomed to read even the most popular English poetry; yet this is the same child, who a few months afterwards, wrote the translation from Ovid, of the Cave of Sleep, and who gave the extempore description of a summer’s evening in tolerably good language.