Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  We do not think that persons who are much used to children, will quarrel with us for what we have said of early prodigies of wit. People, who merely talk to children for the amusement of the moment, may admire their “lively nonsense,” and will probably think the simplicity of mind that we prefer, is downright stupidity. The habit of reasoning is seldom learned by children who are much taken notice of for their sprightly repartees; but we have observed that children, after they have learned to reason, as they grow up and become acquainted with the manners and customs of the world, are by no means deficient in talents for conversation, and in that species of wit which depends upon the perception of analogy between ideas, rather than a play upon words. At all events, we would rather that our pupils should be without the brilliancy of wit, than the solid and essential power of judgment.

  To cultivate the judgment of children, we must begin by teaching them accurately to examine and compare such external objects as are immediately obvious to their senses; when they begin to argue, we must be careful to make them explain their terms and abide by them. In books and conversation, they must avoid all bad reasoning, nor should they ever be encouraged in the quibbling habit of arguing for victory.

  Prudence we consider as compounded of judgment and resolution. When we teach children to reflect upon and compare their own feelings, when we frequently give them their choice in things that are interesting to them, we educate them to be prudent. We cannot teach this virtue until children have had some experience; as far as their experience goes, their prudence may be exercised. Those who reflect upon their own feelings, and find out exactly what it is that makes them happy, are taught wisdom by a very few distinct lessons. Even fools, it is said, grow wise by experience, but it is not until they grow old under her rigid discipline.

  Economy is usually understood to mean prudence in the management of money; we have used this word in a more enlarged sense. Children, we have observed, may be economic of any thing that is trusted to their charge; until they have some use for money, they need not be troubled or tempted with it: if all the necessaries and conveniences of life are provided for them, they must spend whatever is given to them as pocket money, in superfluities. This habituates them early to extravagance. We do not apprehend that young people should be entrusted with money, till they have been some time used to manage the money business of others. They may be taught to keep the accounts of a family, from which they will learn the price and value of different commodities. All this, our readers will perceive, is nothing more than the application of the different reasoning powers to different objects.

  We have thus slightly given a summary of the chapters in the preceding work, to recall the whole in a connected view to the mind; a few simple principles run through the different parts; all the purposes of practical education tend to one distinct object; to render our pupils good and wise, that they may enjoy the greatest possible share of happiness at present and in future.

  Parental care and anxiety, the hours devoted to the instruction of a family, will not be thrown away; if parents have the patience to wait for their reward, that reward will far surpass their most sanguine expectations: they will find in their children agreeable companions, sincere and affectionate friends. Whether they live in retirement, or in the busy world, they will feel their interest in life increase, their pleasures multiplied by sympathy with their beloved pupils; they will have a happy home. How much is comprised in that single expression! The gratitude of their pupils will continually recall to their minds the delightful reflection, that the felicity of their whole family is their work; that the virtues and talents of their children are the necessary consequences of good education.

  “Turn from the glittering bribe your scornful eye, Nor sell for gold what gold can never buy.” Johnson’s London.

  Emilius.

  “Another spring, another race supplies.” Pope’s Homer.

  NOTES, CONTAINING CONVERSATIONS AND ANECDOTES OF CHILDREN.

  Several years ago a mother, who had a large family to educate, and who had turned her attention with much solicitude to the subject of education, resolved to write notes from day to day of all the trifling things which mark the progress of the mind in childhood. She was of opinion, that the art of education should be considered as an experimental science, and that many authors of great abilities had mistaken their road by following theory instead of practice. The title of “Practical Education” was chosen by this lady, and prefixed to a little book for children, which she began, but did not live to finish. The few notes which remain of her writing, are preserved, not merely out of respect to her memory, but because it is thought that they may be useful. Her plan of keeping a register of the remarks of children, has at intervals been pursued in her family; a number of these anecdotes have been interspersed in this work; a few, which did not seem immediately to suit the didactic nature of any of our chapters, remain, and with much hesitation and diffidence are offered to the public. We have selected such anecdotes as may in some measure illustrate the principles that we have endeavoured to establish; and we hope, that from these trifling, but genuine conversations of children and parents, the reader will distinctly perceive the difference, between practical and theoretic education. As some further apology for offering them to the public, we recur to a passage in Dr. Reid’s Essays, which encourages an attempt to study minutely the minds of children.

  “If we could obtain a distinct and full history of all that hath passed in the mind of a child from the beginning of life and sensation till it grows up to the use of reason, how its infant faculties began to work, and how they brought forth and ripened all the various notions, opinions, and sentiments, which we find in ourselves when we come to be capable of reflection, this would be a treasure of natural history which would probably give more light into the human faculties, than all the systems of philosophers about them, from the beginning of the world.”

  The reader, we hope, will not imagine that we think we can present him with this treasure of natural history; we have only a few scattered notices, as Bacon would call them, to offer; perhaps, even this slight attempt may awaken the attention of persons equal to the undertaking: if able preceptors and parents would pursue a similar plan, we might, in time, hope to obtain a full history of the infant mind.

  It may occur to parents, that writing notes of the remarks of children would lessen their freedom and simplicity in conversation; this would certainly be the case if care were not taken to prevent the pupils from thinking of the note-book. The following notes were never seen by the children who are mentioned in them, and though it was in general known in the family that such notes were taken, the particular remarks that were written down, were never known to the pupils: nor was any curiosity excited upon this subject. The attempt would have been immediately abandoned, if we had perceived that it produced any bad consequences. The simple language of childhood has been preserved without alteration in the following notes; and as we could not devise any better arrangement, we have followed the order of time, and we have constantly inserted the ages of the children, for the satisfaction of preceptors and parents, to whom alone these infantine anecdotes can be interesting: We say nothing farther as to their accuracy; if the reader does not see in the anecdotes themselves internal marks of veracity, all we could say would be of no avail.

  X —— (a girl of five years old) asked why a piece of paper fell quickly to the ground when rumpled up, and why so slowly when opened.

  Y —— (a girl of three years and a half old) seeing her sister taken care of and nursed when she had chilblains, said, that she wished to have chilblains.

  Z —— (a girl between two and three) when her mother was putting on her bonnet, and when she was going out to walk, looked at the cat, and said with a plaintive voice, “Poor pussey! you have no bonnet, Pussey!”

  X —— (5 years old) asked why she was as tall as the trees when she was far from them.

  Z —— (4 years old) went to church, and when she was th
ere said, “Do those men do every thing better than we, because they talk so loud, and I think they read.”

  It was a country church, and people sang; but the child said, “She thought they didn’t sing, but roared, because they were shut up in that place, and didn’t like it.”

  L —— (a boy between 3 and 4 years) was standing before a grate with coals in it, which were not lighted; his mother said to him, “What is the use of coals?”

  L —— . “To put in your grate.”

  Mother. “Why are they put there?”

  L —— . “To make fire.”

  Mother. “How do they make fire?”

  L —— . “Fire is brought to them.”

  Mother. “How is fire brought to them?”

  L —— . “Fire is brought to them upon a candle and put to them.”

  L —— , a little while afterwards, asked leave to light a candle, and when a bit of paper was given to him for that purpose, said, “But, mother, may I take some light out of your fire to put to it?”

  This boy had more exact ideas of property than Prometheus had.

  Z —— , when she was between five and six, said, “Water keeps things alive, and eating keeps alive children.”

  Z —— (same age) meddling with a fly, said, “she did not hurt it.” “Were you ever a fly?” said her mother. “Not that I know of,” answered the child.

  Z — —’s father sent her into a room where there were some knives and forks. “If you meddle with them,” said he, “you may cut yourself.”

  Z —— . “I won’t cut myself.”

  Father. “Can you be sure of that?”

  Z —— . “No, but I can take care.”

  Father. “But if you should cut yourself, would it do you any good?”

  Z —— . “No — Yes.”

  Father. “What good?”

  Z —— . “Not to do so another time.”

  —— (same age.) Z — —’s mother said to her, “Will you give me some of your fat cheeks?”

  Z —— . “No, I cannot, it would hurt me.”

  Mother. “But if it would not hurt you, would you give me some?”

  Z —— . “No, it would make two holes in my cheeks that would be disagreeable.”

  A sentimental mother would, perhaps, have been displeased with the simple answers of this little girl. (Vide Sympathy and Sensibility.)

  The following memorandums of Mrs. H —— E — —’s (dated 1779) have been of great use to us in our chapter upon Toys.

  “The playthings of children should be calculated to fix their attention, that they may not get a habit of doing any thing in a listless manner.

  “There are periods as long as two or three months at a time, in the lives of young children, when their bodies appear remarkably active and vigorous, and their minds dull and inanimate; they are at these times incapable of comprehending any new ideas, and forgetful of those they have already received. When this disposition to exert the bodily faculties, subsides, children show much restlessness and distaste for their usual plays. The intervals between meals, appear long to them; they ask a multitude of questions, and are continually looking forward to some future good; if at this time any mental employment be presented to them, they receive it with the utmost avidity, and pursue it with assiduity; their minds appear to have acquired additional powers from having remained inactive for a considerable time.”

  (January 1781.) Z —— , (7 years old.) “What are bones made of? My father says it has not been found out. If I should find it out, I shall be wiser in that respect than my father.”

  (April 8th.) Z —— . “What becomes of the blood when people die?”

  Father. “It stays in the body.”

  Z —— . “I thought it went out of the body; because you told me, that what we eat was turned into blood, and that blood nourished the body and kept it alive.”

  Father. “Yes, my dear; but blood must be in motion to keep the body alive; the heart moves the blood through the arteries and veins, and the blood comes back again to the heart. We don’t know how this motion is performed. What we eat, is not turned at once into blood; it is dissolved by something in the stomach, and is turned into something white like milk, which is called chyle; the chyle passes through little pipes in the body, called lacteals, and into the veins and arteries, and becomes blood. But I don’t know how. I will show you the inside of the body of a dead pig: a pig’s inside is something like that of a man.”

  Z —— (same age) when her father had given her an account of a large stone that was thrown to a considerable distance from Mount Vesuvius at the time of an eruption, she asked, how the air could keep a large stone from falling, when it would not support her weight.

  Z —— , (same age) when she was reading the Roman history, was asked, what she thought of the conduct of the wife of Asdrubal. Z —— said she did not like her. She was asked why. The first reason Z —— gave for not liking the lady, was, “that she spoke loud;” the next, “that she was unkind to her husband, and killed her children.”

  We regret (though perhaps our readers may rejoice) that several years elapsed in which these little notes of the remarks of children were discontinued. In 1792 the following notes were begun by one of the same family.

  (March, ‘92.) Mr. —— saw an Irish giant at Bristol, and when he came home, Mr. —— gave his children a description of the giant. His height, he said, was about eight feet. S —— (a boy of five years old) asked whether this giant had lived much longer than other men.

  Father. “No; why did you think he had lived longer than other men?”

  S —— . “Because he was so much taller.”

  Father. “Well.”

  S —— . “And he had so much more time to grow.”

  Father. “People, after a certain age, do not grow any more. Your sister M —— , and I, and your mother, have not grown any taller since you can remember, have we?”

  S —— . “No; but I have, and B —— , and C —— .”

  Father. “Yes; you are children. Whilst people are growing, they are children; after they have done growing they are called men and women.”

  (April, ‘92.) At tea-time, to-day, somebody said that hot chocolate scalds worse than hot tea or hot water. Mr. —— asked his children if they could give any reason for this. They were silent.

  Mr. —— . “If water be made as hot as it can be made, and if chocolate be made as hot as it can be made, the chocolate will scald you the most. Can you tell me why!”

  C —— (a girl between eight and nine years old.) “Because there is oil, I believe, in the chocolate; and because it is thicker, and the parts closer together, than in tea or water.”

  Father. “What you say is true; but you have not explained the reason yet. Well, H —— .”

  H —— (a boy between nine and ten.) “Because there is water in the bubbles.”

  Father. “Water in the bubbles? I don’t understand. Water in what bubbles?”

  H —— . “I thought I had always seen, when water boils, that there are a great many little bubbles upon the top.”

  Father. “Well; but what has that to do with the question I asked you?”

  H —— . “Because the cold air that was in the bubbles, would cool the water next them, and then” — (he was quite confused, and stopped.)

  B —— (a girl of ten or eleven years old) spoke next. “I thought that chocolate was much thicker than water, and there were more parts, and those parts were closer together, and each could hold but a certain quantity of heat; and therefore chocolate could be made hotter than water.”

  Father. “That is a good chemical idea. You suppose that the chocolate and tea can be saturated with heat. But you have none of you yet told the reason.”

  The children were all silent.

  Father. “Can water ever be made hotter than boiling hot?”

  B —— . “No.”

  Father. “Why?”

  B —— . “I don’t know.” />
  Father. “What happens to water when it does what we call boil?”

  H —— . “It bubbles, and makes a sort of noise.”

  B —— . “It turns into steam or vapour, I believe.”

  Father. “All at once?”

  B —— . “No: but what is at the top, first.”

  Father. “Now you see the reason why water can’t be made hotter than boiling hot: for if a certain degree of heat be applied to it, it changes into the form of vapour, and flies off. When I was a little boy, I was once near having a dreadful accident. I had not been taught the nature of water, and steam, and heat, and evaporation; and I wanted to fill a wet hollow stick with melted lead. The moment I poured the lead into the stick, the water in the wood turned into vapour suddenly, and the lead was thrown up with great violence to the ceiling: my face narrowly escaped. So you see people should know what they are about before they meddle with things. — But now as to the chocolate.”

  No one seemed to have any thing to say about the chocolate.

  Father. “Water, you know, boils with a certain degree of heat. Will oil, do you think, boil with the same heat?”

  C —— . “I don’t understand.”

  Father. “In the same degree of heat (you must learn to accustom yourself to those words, though they seem difficult to you) — In the same heat, do you think water or oil would boil the soonest?”

  None of the children knew.

  Father. “Water would boil the soonest. More heat is necessary to make oil boil, or turn into vapour, than to make water evaporate. Do you know of any thing which is used to determine, to show, and mark, to us the different degrees of heat?”