Practical Education, Volume I. Edgeworth Maria
moment no toy, which we could invent for them, would give them half so much pleasure as a pencil. If we put a pencil into their hands even before they are able to do any thing with it but make random marks all over a sheet of paper, it will long continue a real amusement and occupation. No matter how rude their first attempts at imitation may be; if the attention of children be occupied, our point is gained. Girls have generally one advantage at this age over boys, in the exclusive possession of the scissors: how many camels, and elephants with amazing trunks, are cut out by the industrious scissors of a busy, and therefore happy little girl, during a winter evening, which passes so heavily, and appears so immeasurably long, to the idle.
Modelling in clay or wax might probably be a useful amusement about this age, if the materials were so prepared, that the children could avoid being every moment troublesome to others whilst they are at work. The making of baskets, and the weaving of sash-line, might perhaps be employment for children; with proper preparations, they might at least be occupied with these things; much, perhaps, might not be produced by their labours, but it is a great deal to give early habits of industry. Let us do what we will, every person who has ever had any experience upon the subject, must know that it is scarcely possible to provide sufficient and suitable occupations for young children: this is one of the first difficulties in education. Those who have never tried the experiment, are astonished to find it such a difficult and laborious business as it really is, to find employments for children from three to six years old. It is perhaps better, that our pupils should be entirely idle, than that they should be half employed. "My dear, have you nothing to do?" should be spoken in sorrow rather than in anger. When they see other people employed and happy, children feel mortified and miserable to have nothing to do. Count Rumford's was an excellent scheme for exciting sympathetic industry amongst the children of the poor at Munich; in the large hall, where the elder children were busy in spinning, there was a range of seats for the younger children, who were not yet permitted to work; these being compelled to sit idle, and to see the busy multitude, grew extremely uneasy in their own situation, and became very anxious to be employed. We need not use any compulsion or any artifice; parents in every family, we suppose, who think of educating their own children, are employed some hours in the day in reading, writing, business, or conversation; during these hours, children will naturally feel the want of occupation, and will, from sympathy, from ambition and from impatience of insupportable ennui, desire with anxious faces, "to have something to do." Instead of loading them with playthings, by way of relieving their misery, we should honestly tell them, if that be the truth, "I am sorry I cannot find any thing for you to do at present. I hope you will soon be able to employ yourself. What a happy thing it will be for you to be able, by and by, to read, and write and draw; then you will never be forced to sit idle."
The pains of idleness stimulate children to industry, if they are from time to time properly contrasted with the pleasures of occupation. We should associate cheerfulness, and praise, and looks of approbation, with industry; and, whenever young people invent employments for themselves, they should be assisted as much as possible, and encouraged. At that age when they are apt to grow tired in half an hour of their playthings, we had better give them playthings only for a very short time, at intervals in the day; and, instead of waiting till they are tired, we should take the things away before they are weary of them. Nor should we discourage the inquisitive genius from examining into the structure of their toys, whatever they may be. The same ingenious and active dispositions, which prompt these inquiries, will secure children from all those numerous temptations to do mischief, to which the idle are exposed. Ingenious children are pleased with contrivances which answer the purposes for which they are intended: and they feel sincere regret whenever these are injured or destroyed: this we mention as a further comfort and security for parents, who, in the company of young mechanics, are apt to tremble for their furniture. Children who observe, and who begin to amuse themselves with thought, are not so actively hostile in their attacks upon inanimate objects. We were once present at the dissection of a wooden cuckoo, which was attended with extreme pleasure by a large family of children; and it was not one of the children who broke the precious toy, but it was the father who took it to pieces. Nor was it the destruction of the plaything which entertained the company, but the sight of the manner in which it was constructed. Many guesses were made by all the spectators about the internal structure of the cuckoo, and the astonishment of the company was universal, when the bellows were cut open, and the simple contrivance was revealed to view; probably, more was learnt from this cuckoo, than was ever learnt from any cuckoo before. So far from being indifferent to the destruction of this plaything, H – the little girl of four years old, to whom it belonged, remembered, several months afterwards, to remind her father of his promise to repair the mischief he had done.
"Several toys, which are made at present, are calculated to give pleasure merely by exciting surprise, and of course give children's minds such a tone, that they are afterwards too fond of similar useless baubles."3 This species of delight is soon over, and is succeeded by a desire to triumph in the ignorance, the credulity, or the cowardice, of their companions. Hence that propensity to play tricks, which is often injudiciously encouraged by the smiles of parents, who are apt to mistake it for a proof of wit and vivacity. They forget, that "gentle dulness ever loved a joke;" and that even wit and vivacity, if they become troublesome and mischievous, will be feared, and shunned. Many juggling tricks and puzzles are highly ingenious; and, as far as they can exercise the invention or the patience of young people, they are useful. Care, however, should be taken, to separate the ideas of deceit and of ingenuity, and to prevent children from glorying in the mere possession of a secret.
Toys which afford trials of dexterity and activity, such as tops, kites, hoops, balls, battledores and shuttlecocks, ninepins, and cup-and-ball, are excellent; and we see that they are consequently great and lasting favourites with children; their senses, their understanding, and their passions, are all agreeably interested and exercised by these amusements. They emulate each other; but, as some will probably excel at one game, and some at another, this emulation will not degenerate into envy. There is more danger that this hateful passion should be created in the minds of young competitors at those games, where it is supposed that some knack or mystery is to be learned before they can be played with success. Whenever children play at such games, we should point out to them how and why it is that they succeed or fail: we may show them, that, in reality, there is no knack or mystery in any thing, but that from certain causes certain effects will follow; that, after trying a number of experiments, the circumstances essential to success may be discovered; and that all the ease and dexterity, which we often attribute to the power of natural genius, is simply the consequence of practice and industry. This sober lesson may be taught to children without putting it into grave words or formal precepts. A gentleman once astonished a family of children by his dexterity in playing at bilboquet: he caught the ball nine or ten times successively with great rapidity upon the spike: this success appeared miraculous; and the father, who observed that it had made a great impression upon the little spectators, took that opportunity to show the use of spinning the ball, to make the hole at the bottom ascend in a proper direction. The nature of centrifugal motion, and its effect, in preserving the parallelism of motion, if we may be allowed the expression, was explained, not at once, but at different intervals, to the young audience. Only as much was explained at a time as the children could understand, without fatiguing their attention, and the abstruse subject was made familiar by the mode of illustration that was adopted.
It is surprising how much children may learn from their playthings, when they are judiciously chosen, and when the habit of reflection and observation is associated with the ideas of amusement and happiness. A little boy of nine years old, who had had a hoop to play with, asked "why a hoop, or a plate, if rolled upon its edge, keeps up as long as it rolls, but falls as soon as it stops, and will not stand if you try to make it stand still upon its edge?" Was not the boy's understanding as well employed whilst he was thinking of this phenomenon, which he observed whilst he was beating his hoop, as it could possibly have been by the most learned preceptor?
When a pedantic schoolmaster sees a boy eagerly watching a paper kite, he observes, "What a pity it is that children cannot be made to mind their grammar as well as their kites!" And he adds, perhaps, some peevish ejaculation on the natural idleness of boys, and that pernicious love of play against which he is doomed to wage perpetual
Dr. Beddoes.