title: A lecture on the infant school system of education, and the extent to which it may be advantageously applied to all primary schools.
text: '•w- .0*- ^^*^^^\v^ 0" .•j;5^5^«fc*. ^ A^ ♦•: ^..^^ JP-J'a ,♦ no^^'% "'^l^*' 4.^'^^''^o. •^'^K*' «o'' "% '^y^.' ^^' 'o*^^ **^\ V ^^ '^.<.^ : V -.*''% LECTURE ON THE INFANT SCHOOL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION, AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH IT MAY BE ADVANTAGEOUSLY APPLIED. PRIMARY SCHOOLS. DELIVERED IN THE REPRESENTATIVES' HALL, BOSTON, AUGUST 21, 1830, BEFORE THE CONVENTION WHICH FORBJED THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION. BY WILLIAM RUSSELL. BOSTON; MILLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE AND WILKINS. 1830. V DISTRICT OF MASSACHUt . W ri: , Be it remembered, That on the th 1830, in the fiftyfifth year of the Indepent America, Hilliard, Gray, Little and Wilkii posited in this Office the Title of a Book, as Proprietors in the words following, to wu ' The Introductory Discourse and Lectures, delivered the Convention of Teachers and other Friends of Edu to form the American Institute of Instruction, August, under the Direction of the Board of Censors.' In Conformity to the Act of the Congress of the Uni ' An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of i the times therein mentioned : ' and also to an Act en' plenientary to an Act, entitled, au Act for tlxeenrjiurr by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books to pnetors of such copies during the times therein ment' the benefits tliereof to the arts of designing, engrav torical and other prints.' JOHN W. DAVIS, Clerk of the Disti ;ii--l. 1 By TrtJ-iiarar LECTURE. .'Si-.'i K INFANT SCHOOL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION, AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH IT MAY BE ADVANTAGEOUSLY APPLIED . PRIMARY SCHOOLS, The establishment of schools adapted to the coiuhiiou and capacities of iiifaiicy, is aa iaipoitaut event, whether regarded as the connneiiceuient of a new era in the exertions of plii- lanthrophy and charity, or the source of extensive improve- ment in elementary education. These schools are the held of a most interesting experiment in morals. Tlie question is here to be answered, whether much of human evil may be avoided or averted, rather than remedied; whether, in the treatment of the mind, as w^ell as of the body, a preventive may be sub- stituted fur a curative regimen. The momentous results con- nected with this new order of things, are developing in grad u- al but sure and encouraging succession. The physical frame of man is beginning to receive a portion of that care which is due to it, as a production of creative wisdom ; the human heart begins to be regarded as the native soil of virtue, ^vhich early culture is to keep free from encroaching weeds; and the intel- lect begins to be treated as a self-impelling power, which edu- cation is to aid, rather than to check.^ 1 A4 4 MR Russell's lecture. The general effect of methods founded on such views of ed- ucation can, as yet, be imagined only. But even the slight progress already made, affords a wide scope to just expecuition. The rational education of infancy seems destined to eflect vast, though silent and unostentatious, clianges on the condi- tion of man. His physical strength and activity, his intellec- tual and moral tendencies, may, by this means, be brought under the influence of such modes and habits of action as shall renovate his whole character; substituting intelligent, sponta- neous, and habitual virtue, with its attendant happiness, for the struggle of self-conquest, or the pain of conscious failure, — the two extremes between which the human heart has hitherto vibrated, under the influence of arbitrary education. No doubt, at least, remains, that the most successful as well as the most natural method of removing many of the evils of social life, is, to impart active habits, and an elevated character, to the minds of the poor, and to do this effectually and exten- sively, by means of imiversal early education. As httle doubt seems to remain, tlmt the modes of elementa- ry instruction, prevailing previous? to the introduction of infant schools, were, in general, defective and inadequate ; that, under their influence, the health of the body, and the natural action of the mind, were neglected ; the affections left uncultivated oi ill-regulated ; the intellect forced into arbitrary channels, and accustomed to mechanical influences and morbid habits. It is unnecessary to enter at present into a particular state ment of the conunon defects of elementary education, previous to the introduction of the methods adopted in infant schools They may be briefly sunnned up in the great neglect of phys ical acconnnodation, of comfort, and of health ; in the smal s\y.e, defective ventilation, inconvenient arrangement, am gloomy aspect of most school-rooms ; their uncomfortabJ seats ; the long continued and painful sedentary attitude of th little pupils ; the entire absence of appropriate visible object addressed to the active feelings and restless imagination ■ childhood ; the want of cheering and invigorating exercis< INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 5 a mechanical rouline of application, producing lillle efl'ect but on the memory, and leavijig the understanding and the imag- ination nearly inactive ; lessons presented, in general, in the form of compulsory tasks ; modes of discipline retrospective rather than anticipative, repulsive, therefore, and arbitrary, not founded on reason and affection, and inlluencing the imagina- tion only through the medium of fear or restraint ; no social intercourse between the pupils permitted ; and consequently the natural opportunities for influencing feeling and character precluded. A well-regulated infant school furnishes a happy contrast to these defects : it exhibits a spacious, aiiy, cheerful, and comfort- able apartment, prepared expressly for every good influence on the infant being ; a frequent change of attitude and of employ- ment ; the presence of pictures and other objects calculated to inspire the mind with activity and dehght, or to ditluse tran- quillity and tenderness of feeling ; mental employments inter- spersed with appropriate juvenile exercise, or judicious intervals of entire rest ; lessons adapted to the capacities and desires of in- fancy ; mental exertion rendered agreeable and voluntary ; dis- cipline consisting chiefly of rational and affectionate measures addressed to sympathy and moral feeling, and, as far as prac- ticable, to reason, and turning upon the incidents arising from the pupils' intercourse with each other. Such are the promi- nent features of the system adopted in infant schools, and which, as might reasonably have been anticipated, at a time of unusual thought and inquiry on the subject of education, have commended themselves to the minds of all who have had opportunity to observe them, — which have already, to some extent, been introduced in primary and other elementary schools, and which have become a subject of peculiar interest to all who arc, in any way, concerned in early education. Before attempting to speak more particularly of the extent to which these improvements in instruction may be introduced in primary schools in this country, it will be necessaiy to advert b MR RUSSELL S LECTURE. to the circumstances in which the infant schools originated, and under which they still exist, in England. There, they were introduced as a charity, designed for the benefit of the poor. Kxpcrience soon suggested, in some instances, tlie advantage of allowing them, in part, at least, to depend on a slight con- tribution from the parents of the children who are taught in them. But they continue, in general, like some of those es- tablished in cities in this count ly, to present themselves as in- stitutions of benevolence, patronized by the bounty of the rich- er classes of society, rather than supported by tlie voluntary exertions of the poor themselves, or by the choice of parents in better circumstances, who prefer them to other schools, or to the common course of domestic education. Another circumstance deserving consideration towards a proper estimation of infant schools, and the methods of in- struction adopted in them, is the fact, that these schools were originally established for the benefit of a class of society among whom the advantages of any form of education had scarcely been felt, — for parents whose circumstances were, in general, such, that they felt it necessary to have their children put, as early as possible, into the way of earning something towards the support of their families. People in such a condition naturally regard even the slightest accjuisition in education, as a new and unexpected benefit, and are not generally solici- tous about the attainments made by their children at an ele- mentary school, as introductory to education at schools of a hieher order. But even in those cases in which infant schools are expressly intended as a prej)aratory step to the national schools of England, (corresponding in sonae respects to the pri- mary and common schools of New England,) tiie initiation required at the infant schools is limited by the narrowness of education at these higher schools themselves ; in few or none of which the branches of instruclion, or the extent to which they are carried, are ecjual to those of the New England com- mon schools, when conducted by a teacher of enterprise and intelligence. INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 7 The attempt, theiefoiej to transfer the infant school system as it is called, to the fust stages of instruction in this country, would seein to require a consideration of the difference of the state of education here, and in England. The children of every parent in New England, may, by the auspicious arrangement of the system of public schools, receive the benefit of instruc- tion, as soon as they are old enough to walk to the school- house. What is here needed, then, in the way of improve- ment, is not the introduction of a new system, but the better adaptation of that which already exists, to the education of the youngest classes of scholars. All the advantages of the meth- ods of instruction in infant schools, would be attained by adopt- ing the spirit of these methods, in primary education. Ev- ery village school in New England, may, during the summer, if not the winter months, become an infant school, as far as such a change is desirable. That the result, in this case, would be highly advantageous, is a point which needs no proof to those who have ever visited an iofant school, and observed the intelligence, the cheerful- ness, and the infantine innocence and goodness which they cherish, even when taught in a very imperfect and mechan- ical way. The extent to which the infant school system may be apphed to all primary schools, should be measured, not by the extent to which its routine may be borrowed or copied. The mechanism of the infant school system is, indeed, excellent in many respects. Its whole aspect is happy and inspLing, and favors the expansion of the intellect and the heart, while it promotes a healthful vigor of body. But a literal copy of its minutest details, is neither practicable nor expedient. It is of the utmost consequence, in this case, to look beyond the exter- nal routine to the internal principle. If we secure the latter, we shall not lose the benefit of the former, although we may- modify it by new circumstances. Excellent as is the spirit which pervades the general system of the infant schools, there 8 MR Russell's lecture. are some points in which their details of instruction admit of much imjjrovenicntj — some in which they are radically defective, or, at all events, unsuitable for the purposes of early education in New England, and, perhaps, in other parts of this country. The objectionable points now alluded to, are chictiy com- jnehended in the injurious habit of learning by rote. This defect in the prevaihng modes of in.struction at infant schools, pervades most of the lessons, from the sublime topics of re- ligion, or the sciences of geometry and astronomy, to the tables of arithmetic. Proof of this point may be found in the unin- teUigible matters of religious tiicory, and the obvious peculiari- ties of faith, which form a large portion of the catechetical in- struction of infant schools, — in the fact that the lessons in geom- etry and astronomy are but a course of recitations in nomencla- ture, aided by ocular or tangible illustrations, while the tables in arithmetic are made a mere mechanical succession of sounds, dependent on an arbitrary effort of memory. By such meth- ods of instruction children may be made to appear intelligent in subjects naturally far beyond their grasp ; but the result is mere outward show. The intellect is still dormant ; it must be waked, if at all, by very different expedients. liCaving these points, which concern the understanding and the heart, we shall find, if we proceed to the departments of imagination and taste, a want, not only of felicity, but of truth and correctness, in the expedients adopted for the cultivation of this part of the intellectual constitution. Poetry, music, and pictures, might exert a fine influence on the unfolding mind of infancy, were they appropriately employed. But used as, in general, they now are, their effect is rather to degrade and peryert. than to elevate the associations of the infant mind. The hymns prescribed as infant school exercises, are, with a few exceptions, a succession of verses which possess none of the attributes of {)oetry, and often fall into absolute doggerel. It is exceedingly diflicult, no doubt, to find good poetry for children and infancy ; hut this is no reason for using that which is bad ; — better that imagination should remain uncultivated, than become degraded or perverted. INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. V The music at infant schools is seldom what it should be, — perfectly simple and perfectly correct. The ear of in- fancy should be attuned to the purest and best forms of mu- sic, or should be left uninfluenced. The high polish of con- summate skill in this branch of art, is not necessary, it is true, in leading the voices of infants. But an early fault of taste and habit, caught from bad example, is a misfortune for life ; since it entails corruption on all the mental associations con- nected with music* Of the drawings or engravings in common use at infant schools it is impossible to speak with truth, unless in terms of strong reprehension. The subjects are very often badly chosen, presenting to the eye of infancy the exhibition, some- times, of the most degrading and horrid crimes, instead of such objects as should shed a serene and happy influence on the heart. Pictures deUneating scenes in which infants cannot naturally take any interest, or which they cannot compre- hend, are also in very common use. But an objection more gen- eral exists in the gross inaccuracy of the forms, and the inappro- priate colors, in most pictures prepared for children. Here is an injury not barely to taste, but actually to the power of perception, — to truth and accuracy in the habits of the mind. Much improvement, it is true, has taken place, within a few years, in this branch of art. But children's picture books still abound in the most striking errors of delineation, and tend gen- erally to hold back or mislead the mental powers, rather than to incite or assist them. The distinguishing points of excellence in the infant school system, are found in the general plan of education on which * Specimens of what music adapted to children should be, were given by a class of children, during the lecture of Mr Woodbridge. No person who had the happiness of hearing those simple and touching strains, can doubt in regard to the great influence of music on the juvenile mind, and the possibility of its being early and scientifically taught, or forbear to wish that such exercises may be speedily and extensively introduced in all schools for young children. 10 MR RUSSELL'a LECTURE. it is based, rather than its execution in detail : they consist, chiefly, in the blending of physical and moral culture with the exercise of intellect, and the embodying of all in simple and attractive forms, addressed to the imagina. on. The infant school system is, in these respects, an immense improvement in modes of education, which every friend to the best interests of man must wish to see transferred to all elementary schools. To appreciate rightly the improvement effected by the intro- duction of this system, we must contrast its operations with those of the common modes of elementary instruction. Look- ing into an infant school, we observe the children employed in healthful and pleasant recreation, or enjoying a temporary repose ; listening to a story inculcating the virtues of childhood ; admiring a picture, or joining in a song ; yielding a cheerful obedience to affectionate management ; asking the artless ques- tions which are prompted by the natural curiosity of infancy, or listening, with deep interest and attention, to their instruc- ter's answers. Let us turn to inspect, for a moment, a primary school, taught in the common way, — and we see usually a number of little sufferers, confined to one uncomfortable posture, for hours in succession ; enduring an irksome restraint, as the condition of an escape from penalties ; conning mechanically a memory lesson which they do not understand, or reciting it as mechan- ically ; controlled in every look and action by the aspect of authority ; — the whole nature of the httle beings put under a discipline of repression and restraint. To supersede this repulsive system by the other, would cer- tainly be a most desirable step in the progress of human im- provement. This result, however, is not to be attained by merely exchanging one routine for another, but by entering into the spirit of rational, affectionate, and congenial methods of early culture. To secure the benefits of the improved system, teachers and others who can exert an influence on primary education, INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 11 should not look merely to a change of books or the introduc- tion of apparatus, but to a general reformation of methods of education. Attention should, in the first place, be given to the influence of healUi, activity^ and happiness, on the devel- opement of the infant powers. The situation^ the size, and the arrangement of the school-house, should be the first objects on w hich to commence improvement. These should be divested of every hinderance to health, and, by every possible means, rendered conducive to happiness. The school-room, without and within, should favor cheerfulness and freedom, and be propitious to intellec- tual association. Teachers cannot perhaps succeed in changing the situation of school-houses, so as to have them placed in spots, adapted, by retirement, shade or shelter, to a good influence, moral and intellectual, as well as physical. But they might sometimes succeed in obtaining, for the use of their little charge, permis- sion to cultivate an adjoining piece of ground, as a happy opportunity for inculcating a practical lesson on the fruits of industry, and of leading the young mind to watch the growth and trace the forms of plants, or to observe the frame and habits of insects. Imagination and taste might here be brought under the best of influences. But circumstances may render it impossible to attain the aid of such advantages in education. The teacher should therefore devote an assiduous attention to the internal ar- rangement of the school-room ; the adaptation of its furniture to convenience and comfort ; the decoration of the walls with objects calculated to exert a useful and happy influence on the mind, — especially, in the proper season, with shrubs and flowers, and other productions of nature, which necessarily excel pic- tures, and aU forms of imitation, as the original does the copy. Pictures, however, if well executed and well chosen, are among the best means of awakening and interesting the mind of infancy ; and a few books of engravings, prepared for the use of infant and primary schools, with or even without, the 12 MR Russell's lecture. addition of appropriate letterpress, would be a very interesting and useful source of thought and conversation between teach- ers and children. A book of this description may be made by every teacher for his own use, by procuring a number of good cuts or drawings, and forming them into a volume, by insert- ing them between the leaves of a blank book of suitable size, — cutting out every other blank leaf, and pasting the picture on the next. This expedient has been found very serviceable for interesting and employing children too young to be able to read. A ])lai/-ffround, enclosed sufficiently for the safety of very young children, and provided to some extent with playthings of such a kind, and of such size and form, as would conduce to healthful exercise, and furnish agreeable and perhaps instruc- tive employment, would be a valuable aid to early education. Health, cheerfulness, and tranquillity, are not merely im- portant things in themselves, as means of immediate happi- ness — they are indispensable in infancy and childhood to the natural moral action of the feelings, and the successful devcl- opement of intellect. Moral energy and self-control may well supersede such aids with the adult. But the dependent condition of infancy cannot dispense with them. They are, in fact, its birthright ; in a natural form of life, it is surrounded with them in abundance ; and, in depriving it of these, we thwart the nature of the infant being more seriously, perhaps, than we should by withholding food and rest, or by perverting the foi nis in which these means of life are administered. It should never be forgotten, that, in the education of infan- cy, and especially as conducted in cities, a great violence is generally done to the constitution and character of man. We take the being who is born to inherit the free air and the spacious earth, with all their wide variety of forms and colors, of motion, change, and life, — a theatre of grandeur, and beau- ty, and delight ; we take this being, and shut him up from the healthful and fragrant atmosphere, and the inspiring light ; we cut off his communication with the varied face of the earth, INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 13 with the great worlds of vegetable and animal life, and all the pure and natural pleasures of his own sensations, with the va- rying but ever happy thoughts to which these give rise ; and we confine him to a small and perhaps disagreeable room, place him on an uncomfortable bench, put a book in his hand, and compel him to look on it, and, as far as we can, chain his mind to its mechanical influence. To the careless eye of him who is content with the present condition and past attainments of man, and whose indolence or timidity of nature would lead him to submit to all the load of imperfection which he has himself inherited, or whose own inactivity of mind leads him to regard with a skeptic eye every attempt to render education the means of a general improve- ment of the intellectual and moral condition of society, — to such a mind the accumulation of evils under which infancy and childhood have been left to labor, may seem a picture of fancy. But to the eye of the mother and the teacher, whose office it is to watch the progress, and observe the impediments of the young mind, these hinderances appear in their true light. It is to these close observers only, that truth, in this form of it, can appear. And the infant school system is based on the ob- servation and experience of mothers and elementary teachers, when it prescribes, for infant education, the use of a large, airy, cheerful room, and enjoins a frequent change of attitude, with occasional alternations of active play and of rest, or even of sleep. The modes of city life leave very little in the power of the teacher, in regard to the happy influence of nature on the young mind. But the obligation of teachers is, in such cir- cumstances, only rendered stronger, to use every exertion which may counteract the evils of confinement and discomfort, and to take all possible measures for cherishing in the mind those propitious states of feeling, which education so limited and embarrassed is apt to repress. A school-room in a city or a large town, may be necessarily excluded from a free access of air and light. The attentive teacher will, on this account, 14 MR Russell's lecture. double liis efibrts to have the internal arrangement and appear- ance of the room made convenient and comfortable ; he will endeavour to have the children seated at as great a distance as possible from each other, and their seats contrived with ex- press regard to free and varied postures of body ; lie will re- serve, if possible, a clear space sufliciently large for simultane- ous exercise in walking, running, and the other forms of mo- tion natural to early chiltlhood, and conducive to mental activ- ity and enjoyment ; he will be strictly watchful of ventilation, both in summer and in m inter, so as to preserve a moderate and healthful atmosplieie, in an apartment in which so large a part of every day is spent by young children ; he will grati- fy and cheer the mind, through the medium of the eye, by agreeable and instructive pictures and other objects, suspended on the walls, since every aid to cheerfulness is a favorable im- pulse to the habits of mind and of body. Primary schools in the country are exempted from the un- favorable inlluences of restricted space and unwholesome at- mosphere. But care should be taken, in such circumstances, to keep pace, in interior arrangements, with the happy inllu- ences existing without. There is danger of the child feeling that all his pleasures lie out of tlie school-room, and that here alone he is to be confined and restrained, or surrounded by dulness and monotony. Teachers in the country should make liberal use of the advantages which they enjoy, for at- tracting the attention and impressing the imagination of child- hood, by the productions of nature. These only can fully impart that silent instruction, and that innocent delight, which, although they cannot be measured by definite and tangible marks, form the most natural and the most eflectual devel- opement of mind, Avhether we regard its intellectual or its mo- ral habits. Teachers of primary schools ought, in a word, to attend to, and, as far as possible, regulate, everything that may influence early habit ; — remembering that their peculiar duties render thenij next to mothers, responsible for the v/elfare of man ; INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 15 and that if there is any object for which no sacrifice of time and of exertion is too great, it is tlie early direction of the affec- tions, the intellect, and the health of human beings. Teachers who are disposed to take these matters on trust, and quietly to follow in the track of custom, are unfit for the office they have assumed, and would do well to relinquish it, in favor of an employment less responsible in its nature. The school-house or room having received its due share of attention, as a tacit but powerful influence on the mind and corporeal frame of infancy, the next step, in the order of im- portance, is to reform the moral management of the school, — to adopt a preventive, instead of a retrospective care of the mind ; to act upon the individual by means of general sym- pathy ; to break loose from the plan of observing and repress- ing single faults, for the moment, and to adopt a liberal and generous management, which appeals to affection and con- science, identifying itself with imagination and with character ; moulding the disposition by the genial and voluntary influence of individual intellect ; avoiding in every word, and tone, and look, a single expression which may indicate the presupposing of evil intention, in infantine 'faults', as they are called, but, on the contrary, rendering the teacher's measures an appeal to the heart, and a model to the imagination ; and throwing, by every means, a cheerful aspect on whatever comes under the name of duty. In all these respects,the infant school system forms a striking contrast to the literal and mechanical modes of discipline, prevailing in elementary schools taught in the or- dinary way. The great moral defect in primary schools, is, that in thera the management of childhood is regulated by a few arbitrary rules, and a corresponding scheme of various stages of punish- ment. By this narrow method, the child whose constitution inclines him to stillness of body, and negative action of mind is invested with a false merit ; while the active, the buoyant, and the enterprising, carry with them, into the school-room, 2 16 MR RUSSELL'3 lecture. a load of nalivc guilt, which soon brings down upon its pos- sessors the punishment which they are told it deserves. A discipline characterised chielly by a series of restraints, represses the action of the mind, takes away its freedom, and the whole merit and conscious pleasure of voluntary virtue. A discipline consisting principally of inlliclion, presents to the young mind the mean animal motive of present pain, and brings forth all the lower attributes of character, — fear, duplicity, and cunning. The distinguishing excellence of the infant school method, is, that it addresses itself to the heart, and presents to the child the same class of motives that are employed by maternal love: it cheers and leads onward the young mind, presupposing that infant morality will always be correct, if not turned from its natural course. To create a pure and healthful conscience, which may serve as a sure guide and protecting guardian in later years, is one great aim of this happy mode of manage- ment. The teacher, therefore, docs not rest satisfied with prescribing rules and penalties, but endeavours to enter into the inmost feelings of the infant being, and preserve them in their original freshness and force. The common system of general rules and prohibitions, is faulty as a means of early culture ; since it ever must fail of touching the springs of individual character. By its generality alone, not to speak of other defects, it merges the individual in the mass, and takes away much of personal responsibility and individual character, which are the only sure foundation of virtue. Its utmost limit of success is a negative compliance with a principle of convenience ; and its prohibitory character, tending to repress inquiry and activity, renders it, for the most part, utterly ineffectual as a means of improvement to the mind. The method of the infant schools appeals, on the contrary, to thought and feeling in the individual breast ; it implants and cherishes those principles of rational and affectionate obe- dience ; it cultivates those feelings of cheerfulness or of tranquil- INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 17 lity, from the absence of which rules and penallies become necessary : it is thus enabled to dispense with these formal and mechanical aids, and, rising to a higher class of mental motives, exerts a more propitious influence. It fastens on the individ- ual mind by methods resembling those of judicious maternal management, which are always addressed to tlie aflections or to reason, and operate not as laws but as jirinciples. An infant school, when rightly conducted, is made to resem- ble a family ; the teacher taking, for a time, the place of the parent. In a word, the mind and character of the teacher are brought into direct contact with those of the children ; and the management of the school depends not on a preestablished system of rules or routine of exercises, but on the immediate action of a presiding mind. No dependence is placed on formal- ities of any sort. The teacher endeavours rather to a\'oid these, and trusts to hi^4fiflucRce over xeason and aflection. Instead of repressing the mind by a rule, or restraining it by a penalty, he endeavours to lift it up to intelligent views of or- der and duty, and to inspire it with the conscious pleasure of rectitude and self-control. To this end, he reasons and per- suades ; he appeals to sympathy ; he calls in the aid of imagi- nation. If the quickness of infantile emotion has, for a mo- ment, overthrown reason, he calmly and gently endeavours to raise it again. If waywardness arises, the little olfonder is never made to feel the discipline of systematic resentment : he is directed to a new train of thought, by means of new objects ; he is placed amidst a cheerful group of his associates, and is allowed to take part in their employments ; he is presented with a picture calculated to raise an agreeable or tranquil slate of feeling ; or is told an appropriate and interesting story, which wins him back from his temporary mood of pain, and restores to him that balance of his infant powers, which circumstancea had disturbed. The teacher of an infant school does not come to his em- ployment with an apparatus of regulations, proliibitions, and penalties, contrived beforehand, and happily calculated to ope- 18 MR Russell's lecture. rate as a general prescription and itiXallible remedy for all moral disorders : he comes to watch the infant mind in its action and tendencies, to aid and befriend it ; he 'occasionally ven- tures to guide and direct it, but never thwarts it, and seldom checks it. His methods spring up at the moment ; they arise out of particular occurrences, and vary with every aspect of the mind. He cherishes infantile virtue by giving it free scope and generous encouragement, rather than by soliciting or ex- citing it by any particular expedient : vice he anticipates and prevents, by taking away the occasions of it. * The intellectual instruction attempted in infant schools, is not so successful, perhaps, as the moral management. It is sometimes carried much farther than the infant capacities ad- juitj and so becomes nominal and apparent, in some particulars, more than real or beneficial. 1 allude, here, to the inculca- tion of dogmatic tlieology, to lessons in the nomenclature ox geometry and astronomy, and to the exercise of chanting ta- bles in arithmetic. Much, I admit, is apparently done la this way : the memory is called into use, and the children are made to seem very intelligent. But the memory thus cultiva- ted is verbal merely ; and the knowledge is that of words rath- er than things. This is bui the exploded system of teaching by rote, revived and applied to science, instead of the columns of the spelling-book. There is no intellectual gain in such instruction ; or, rather, there is no instruction given in such cases. Leave the infant being to nature's tuition ; and what a con- trast is exhibited to the common, unmeaning, and mechanical process of elementary education ! As soon as the infant can walk, he manifests that he has learned to discriminate forms and colors, odors and sounds, without teaching. If left to himself, he walks about in the field, picking the most beauti- * The humorous and eccentric moralist, John Newton, has left a great legacy for teachers in that shrewd saying of his, ' Let me first fill the bushel with wheat, and then I defy any man to fill it with phafF.' INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 19 ful and fragrant plants around him. He prefers one shape of a leaf to another : he selects the most brilliant blossoms. He stops to listen to the natural melody of the birds. He watches, with sympathetic delight, the varied form.s, and the free and graceful movements of the diflcrent animals he sees. In all these employments he is undergoing a discipline of attention, judgment, memory, imagination, and feehng, which the super- ficial observer may not trace, but which is not the less real, useful, and practical. Appropriate instruction for infancy would be such as should follow out and regulate these tendencies of nature, — not pre- clude them, by an arbitrary and formal routine, as is common- ly done, in what is called regular education. The infant school system is not, as yet, what it may be expected to become, after a few years more of experiment and observation shall have shed their light on this new department of instruction. It needs a still greater freedom from the shackles of previous custom. But it is deserving of all praise, in its tendency to af- ford a natural and generous scope to the young mind, — in its compliance with the obvious predilections of juvenile taste, in its liberal supply of those objects on which the affections of infan- cy and childhood naturally fasten, and by means of which they are invigorated and expanded. Pictures, and such playthings as are calculated to have a salutary effect on mind and body, are freely used in the infant schools. But it is much to be de- sired that the branches of knowledge, and the practical exer- cises, which are introduced in these and similar schools, should be such as even the infant mind could appreciate, — thai 7ia- tural hisior]/, in all those branches of it which are accessible to childhood, should be still more extensively introduced, and taught hy means of specimens or jiictures, and other repre- sentations. The capacities and propensities of the infant mind would, in this way, be ef|ually consulted ; and a vast deal of useful mental discipline on tlie forms and colors of objects might thus be imparted. The elements of number and com- bination might be drawn from the same source. Attention 2* 20 MR Russell's lecture. and discrimination would, by such means, be successfully cul- tivated ; memory would be usefully employed ; the affections would be interested and refined ; imagination would be exer- cised ; and the whole mind would receive an intellectual im- pulse, favorable to elevation and purity of character. Instruction in this department of science, however, would need to be divested of system and of nomenclature, and to be modified, in all respects, by the condition of childhood. The teacher's aim should be to elicit thought and reflection, rather than to furnish the appearance of scientific acquirements ; ear- ly cultivation being regarded by him merely as a preparative for intellectual habits, and not requiring, therefore, the terms and the apparatus which belong to later stages in the pursuit of knowledge. The rudiments of several useful accomplishments, may, no doubt, be successfully taught in early childhood. Among these would certainly be reading, writing, and arithmetic ; — but the last two as comparatively unimportant at the early stage of infancy, and the first, rather as a happy means of pro- moting general habits of intelligence and of pure morality, than as a thing urgent or indispensable. A child may be well in- formed, comparatively, may be accustomed to excellent moral habits, may have been, in fact, well taught, without being able, as yet, to write or read or spell ; and the success of a teacher who is'engaged in the instruction of young children, should never be measured by the letter of attainment, even in these practical branches, but by the extent to which he has impart- ed the power of attention, and by his endeavours to create an inquisitive and discriminating turn of mind, or a dehght in mental occupation. The true idea of an infant or elementary school would be most fully realised by ihat of an infant '■ lyceum,' (so to term it,) in which the main object is not to peruse any one volume, or exhaust any one science, but rather to select the instructive and the entertaining from all, to excite a general interest in INFANT SCHOOL EDUCATION. 21 the rudiments of knowledge, and to produce a relish for intel- lectual pursuits. There are but few books which could be mentioned, as suit- ed 10 the wants of the infant mind, or sucoe.isfully adapted to the business of elementary instruction. The current vol- umes of natural history are too extensive in their plan, or are so largely devoted to rare and foreign animals, as to be unsuit- able for very young children. A book of domestic animals, with correct and neat engravings, would be very useful in this department. Worc&ster^s Primer will be found serviceable to children old enough to use it. But a simpler book still would be better. Fowle's ChiWs ArUh7iietic is, on the whole, well adapted to its objects ; so also is Emerson^ s North American Arithmetic. A slate and slate pencil, put into the liands of children who are capable of using them, with permission to draw and print, are an excellent means of employment and of improvement. The ChilcPs Sotig- Book will be found useful in any attempt to teach simple tunes to little children , and a vol- ume of suitable drawings or engravings, selected as already men- tioned, would afford much useful instruction, as well as enter- tainment. Such, however, is the scantiness of supply in all these departments of pubhcation, that no book can be mention- ed with exclusive or unqualified approbation. The teacher must expect to find all such aids in need of modification and improvement. He must look to the minds of his httle charge themselves, to ascertain what he and they need ; and he must, after all, draw largely from his own resources for meth- ods and materials. 