THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION. CHAP. I. A QUESTION frequently asked is “When should education commence ?" and to this it may be replied, it can scarcely commence too early. A child of a few months old, recognizes its mother, and those about it, and shrinks from strangers: before it can speak itself, it can understand speech and looks: angry words terrify it; if it is smiled upon, it smiles again; it learns that some things it may touch, and some things it must avoid touching as dangerous to it; before it can utter words it can utter sounds distinctly expressive of different emotions, anger, pleasure, pain, and many others: its first efforts to walk, are made with caution and timidity, notwithstanding all the encouragement and incitements of its nurse, it is conscious of its own weakness, and the risks which it incurs; it clings to its nurse, and if she places it at a distance, totters towards her to grasp her supporting hand: they who compare the mind of a child to a sheet of blank paper, to be written on at pleasure, have surely never observed even infants: some have been born ideots, and have continued so through life; but the moment that an infant can distinguish, both by sight and sound, those around it from strangers, that moment the blank begins to be filled up, for then the rational faculties may be said to commence, and then, even then, education may and should commence likewise. Who then is sufficient for the work of education, and who will watch the dawn of intellect, and its almost imperceptible progress in the infant mind? A mother loves her infant, because this love is perhaps the most powerful feeling which nature implants in the breast: it is an object of love to its father, for it is helpless, and he is its natural protector: the sight of it awakens all the parent in his bosom: it is loved by surrounding friends, for who that has a heart can help loving a little infant? Yet few, if any of these, observe the first rays of intellect, and education scarcely ever begins till some passions and feelings have not only developed themselves, but actually taken deep root. An ancient philosopher said that the most important science 'was to unlearn evil: obstinacy, impatience, passion, need too often to be unlearned before a child can speak; and when it acquires the use of language, this will be perceived more evidently. |