Edgeworth Maria
Practical Education, Volume II
Children may be led to acquire a taste for chemistry by slight hints in conversation.
(July 22d, 1794.) Father. "S – , can you tell me what is meant by a body's falling?"
S — (seven years old.) "A body's falling, means a body's dying, I believe."
Father. "By body, I don't mean a person, but any thing. What is meant by any thing's falling?"
S – . "Coming down from a high place."
Father. "What do you mean by a high place?"
S – . "A place higher than places usually are; higher than the ground."
Father. "What do you mean by the ground?"
S – . "The earth."
Father. "What shape do you think the earth is?"
S – . "Round."
Father. "Why do you think it is round?"
S – . "Because I have heard a great many people say so."
Father. "The shadow. – It is so difficult to explain to you, my dear, why we think that the earth is round, that I will not attempt it yet."
It is better, as we have often observed, to avoid all imperfect explanations, which give children confused ideas.
(August 18th, 1794.) Master – came to see us, and taught S – to fish for minnows. It was explained to S – , that fishing with worms for baits, tortures the worms. No other argument was used, no sentimental exclamations made upon the occasion; and S – fished no more, nor did he ever mention the subject again.
Children sometimes appear cruel, when in fact they do not know that they give pain to animals.
(July 27th, 1794.) S – saw a beautiful rainbow, and he said, "I wish I could walk over that fine arch."
This is one of the pleasures of Ariel, and of the Sylphs in the Rape of the Lock. S – was not praised for a poetic wish, lest he should have learnt affectation.
(September 3d, 1794.) Mr. – attempted to explain to B – , H – , S – , and C – , the nature of insurance, and the day afterwards he asked them to explain it to him. They none of them understood it, except B – , who could not, however, explain it, though she did understand it. The terms were all new to them, and they had no ships to insure.
(September 19th.) At dinner to-day, S – (seven years old) said to his sister C – , "What is the name of that man that my father was talking to, that sounded like Idem, Isdal, or Izard, I believe." "Izard!" said somebody at table, "that name sounds like Lizard; yes, there is a family of the Lizards in the Guardian."
S – . "A real family?"
Mr. – . "No, my dear: a name given to supposed characters."
M – . "Wasn't it one of the young Lizards who would prove to his mother, when she had just scalded her fingers with boiling water out of the tea-kittle, that there's no more heat in fire that heats you, than pain in the stick that beats you!"
Mr. – . "Yes; I think that character has done harm; it has thrown a ridicule upon metaphysical disquisitions."
Mrs. – . "Are not those lines about the pain in the stick in the 'Letter116 to my Sisters at Crux Easton,' in Dodsley's poems?"
Mr. – . "Yes; but they come originally from Hudibras, you know."
In slight conversations, such as these, which are not contrived for the purpose, the curiosity of children is awakened to literature; they see the use which people make of what they read, and they learn to talk freely about what they meet with in books. What a variety of thoughts came in a few instants from S – 's question about Idem!
(November 8th, 1795.) Mr. – read the first chapter of Hugh Trevor to us; which contains the history of a passionate farmer, who was in a rage with a goose because it would not eat some oats which he offered it. He tore off the wings of the animal, and twisted off its neck; he bit off the ear of a pig, because it squealed when he was ringing it; he ran at his apprentice Hugh Trevor with a pitch-fork, because he suspected that he had drank some milk; the pitch-fork stuck in a door. Hugh Trevor then told the passionate farmer, that the dog Jowler had drank the milk, but that he would not tell this before, because he knew his master would have hanged the dog.
S — admired Hugh Trevor for this extremely.
The farmer in his lucid intervals is extremely penitent, but his fit of rage seizes him again one morning when he sees some milk boiling over. He flies at Hugh Trevor, and stabs him with a clasp knife, with which he had been cutting bread and cheese; the knife is stopped by half a crown which Hugh Trevor had sewed in his waistcoat; this half crown he had found on the highway a few days before.
It was doubted by Miss M. S – , whether this last was a proper circumstance to be told to children, because it might lead them to be dishonest.
The evening after Mr. – had read the story, he asked S – to repeat it to him. S – remembered it, and told it distinctly till he came to the half crown; at this circumstance he hesitated. He said he did not know how Hugh Trevor "came to keep it," though he had found it. He wondered that Hugh Trevor did not ask about it.
Mr. — explained to him, that when a person finds any thing upon the highway, he should put it in the hand of the public crier, who should cry it. Mr. – was not quite certain whether the property found on the high road, after it has been cried and no owner appears, belongs to the king, or to the person who finds it. Blackstone's Commentaries were consulted; the passage concerning Treasuretrove was read to S – ; it is written in such distinct language, that he understood it completely.
Young people may acquire much knowledge by consulting books, at the moment that any interest is excited by conversation upon particular subjects.
Explanations about the law were detailed to S – , because he was intended for a lawyer. In conversation we may direct the attention of children to what are to be their professional studies, and we may associate entertainment and pleasure with the idea of their future profession.
The story of the passionate farmer in Hugh Trevor was thought to be a good lesson for children of vivacious tempers, as it shows to what crimes excess of passion may transport. This man appears an object of compassion; all the children felt a mixture of pity and abhorrence when they heard the history of his disease.
(November 23d, 1795.) This morning at breakfast Miss – observed, that the inside of the cream cover, which was made of black Wedgwood's ware, looked brown and speckled, as if the glazing had been worn away; she asked whether this was caused by the cream. One of the company immediately exclaimed, "Oh! I've heard that Wedgwood's ware won't hold oil." Mr. – observed, that it would be best to try the experiment, instead of resting content with this hearsay evidence; he asked H – and S – what would be the best method of trying the experiment exactly.
S — proposed to pour oil into a vessel of Wedgwood's ware, and to measure the depth of the oil when first put in; to leave the oil in the vessel for some time, and then to measure again the depth of the oil.
H — said, "I would weigh the Wedgwood's ware vessel; then pour oil into it, and weigh it (them) again; then I would leave the oil in the vessel for some time, and afterwards I would pour out the oil, and would weigh the vessel to see if it had gained any weight; and then weigh the oil to find out whether it had lost any weight since it was put into the vessel." H – 's scheme was approved.
A black Wedgwood's ware salt-cellar was weighed in accurate scales; it weighed 1196 grains; 110 grains of oil were poured into it; total weight of the salt-cellar and oil, 1306 grs. Six months afterwards, the salt-cellar was produced to the children, who were astonished to see that the oil had disappeared. The lady, who had first asserted that Wedgwood's ware would not hold oil, was inclined to believe that the oil had oozed through the pores of the salt-cellar; but the little spectators thought it was more probable that the oil might have been accidentally spilled; the salt-cellar weighed as before 1196 grains.
The experiment was repeated, and this time it was resolved to lock up the salt-cellar, that it might not again be thrown down.
(April 14th, 1796.) Into the same salt-cellar 100 grains weight of oil was poured (total weight 1296 grains.) The salt-cellar was put on a saucer, and covered with a glass tumbler. (June 3d, 1796.) Mr. – weighed the salt-cellar, and found that with the oil it weighed precisely the same as before, 1296 grains; without the oil, 1196 grains, its original weight: therefore it was clear that the Wedgwood's ware had neither imbibed the oil, nor let it pass through its pores.
This little experiment has not been thus minutely told for philosophers, but for children; however trivial the subject, it is useful to teach children early to try experiments. Even the weighing and calculating in this experiment, amused them, and gave some ideas of the exactness necessary to prove any fact.
(Dec. 1st, 1795.) S — (8 years old) in reading Gay's fable of "the painter who pleased every body and nobody," was delighted to hear that the painter put his pallet upon his thumb, because S — had seen a little pallet of his sister A – 's, which she used to put on her thumb. S — had been much amused by this, and he was very fond of this sister, who had been absent for some time. Association makes slight circumstances agreeable to children; if we do not know these associations, we are surprised at their expressions of delight. It is useful to trace them. (Vide Chap. on Imagination.)
S — seemed puzzled when he read that the painter "dipped his pencil, talked of Greece." "Why did he talk of Greece?" said S — with a look of astonishment. Upon inquiry, it was found that S — mistook the word Greece for Grease!
It was explained to him, that Grecian statues and Grecian figures are generally thought to be particularly graceful and well executed; that, therefore, painters attend to them.
(Dec. 1st, 1795.) After dinner to-day, S — was looking at a little black toothpick-case of his father's; his father asked him if he knew what it was made of.
The children guessed different things; wood, horn, bone, paper, pasteboard, glue.
Mr. – . "Instead of examining the toothpick-case, S —, you hold it in your hand, and turn your eyes away from it, that you may think the better. Now, when I want to find out any thing about a particular object, I keep my eye fixed upon it. Observe the texture of that toothpick-case, if you want to know the materials of which it is made; look at the edges, feel it."
S – . "May I smell it?"
Mr. – . "Oh yes. You may use all your senses."
S — (feeling the toothpick-case, smelling it, and looking closely at it.) "It is black, and smooth, and strong and light. What is, let me see, both strong and light, and it will bend – parchment."
Mr. – . "That is a good guess; but you are not quite right yet. What is parchment? I think by your look that you don't know."
S – . "Is it not paper pasted together?"
Mr. – . "No; I thought you mistook pasteboard for parchment."
S – . "Is parchment skin?"
Mr. – . "Of what?"
S – . "Animals."
Mr. – . "What animal?"
S – . "I don't know."
Mr. – . "Parchment is the skin of sheep."
"But S —, don't keep the toothpick-case in your hand, push it round the table to your neighbours, that every body may look again before they guess. I think, for certain reasons of my own, that H — will guess right."
H – . "Oh I know what it is now!"
H — had lately made a pump, the piston of which was made of leather; the leather had been wetted, and then forced through a mould of the proper size. H — recollected this, as Mr. — thought he would, and guessed that the case might have been made of leather, and by a similar process.
S – . "Is it made of the skin of some animal?"
Mr. – . "Yes; but what do you mean by the skin of some animal? What do you call it?"
S — (laughing.) "Oh, leather! leather!"
H – . "Yes, it's made the same way that the piston of my pump is made, I suppose."
M – . "Could not shoes be made in the same manner in a mould?"
Mr. – . "Yes; but there would be one disadvantage; the shoes would lose their shape as soon as they were wet; and the sole and upper leather must be nearly of the same thickness."
S – . "Is the tookpick-case made out of any particular kind of leather? I wish I could make one!"
M – . "You have a bit of green leather, will you give it to me? I'll punch it out like H's piston; but I don't exactly know how the toothpick-case was made into the right shape."
Mr. – . "It was made in the same manner in which silver pencil-cases and thimbles are made. If you take a thin piece of silver, or of any ductile material, and lay it over a concave mould, you can readily imagine that you can make the thin, ductile material take the shape of any mould into which you put it; and you may go on forcing it into moulds of different depths, till at last the plate of silver will have been shaped into a cylindrical form; a thimble, a pencil-case, a toothpick-case, or any similar figure."
We have observed (V. Mechanics) that children should have some general idea of mechanics before they go into the large manufactories; this can be given to them from time to time in conversation, when little circumstances occur, which naturally lead to the subject.
(November 30th, 1795.) S — said he liked the beginning of Gay's fable of "The man and the flea," very much, but he could not tell what was meant by the crab's crawling beside the coral grove, and hearing the ocean roll above. "The ocean cannot roll above, can it mother?"
Mother. "Yes, when the animal is crawling below he hears the water rolling above him."
M – . "Coral groves mean the branches of coral which look like trees; you saw some at Bristol in Mr. B – 's collection."
The difficulty S — found in understanding "coral groves," confirms what has been observed, that children should never read poetry without its being thoroughly explained to them. (Vide Chapter on Books.)
(January 10th, 1795.) S — (8 years old) said that he had been thinking about the wind; and he believed that it was the earth's turning round that made the wind.
M – . "Then how comes it that the wind does not blow always the same way?"
S – . "Aye, that's the thing I can't make out; besides, perhaps the air would stick to the earth as it turns round, as threads stick to my spinning top, and go round with it."
(January 4th, 1795.) As we were talking of the king of Poland's little dwarf, S – recollected by contrast the Irish giant whom he had seen at Bristol. "I liked the Irish giant very much, because," said S – , "though he was so large, he was not surly; and when my father asked him to take out his shoe-buckle to try whether it would cover my foot, he did not seem in a hurry to do it. I suppose he did not wish to show how little I was."
Children are nice observers of that kind of politeness which arises from good nature; they may hence learn what really pleases in manners, without being taught grimace.
Dwarfs and giants led us to Gulliver's Travels. S – had never read them, but one of the company now gave him some general account of Lilliput and Brobdignag. He thought the account of the little people more entertaining than that of the large ones; the carriage of Gulliver's hat by a team of Lilliputian horses, diverted him; but, when he was told that the queen of Brobdignag's dwarf stuck Gulliver one day at dinner into a marrow bone, S – looked grave, and seemed rather shocked than amused; he said, "It must have almost suffocated poor Gulliver, and must have spoiled his clothes." S – wondered of what cloth they could make him new clothes, because the cloth in Brobdignag must have been too thick, and as thick as a board. He also wished to know what sort of glass was used to glaze the windows in Gulliver's wooden house; "because," said he, "their common glass must have been so thick that it would not have been transparent to Gulliver." He thought that Gulliver must have been extremely afraid of setting his small wooden house on fire.
M – . "Why more afraid than we are? His house was as large for Gulliver as our house is for us."
S – . "Yes, but what makes the fire must have been so much larger! One cinder, one spark of theirs would have filled his little grate. And how did he do to read their books?"
S — was told that Gulliver stood at the topmost line of the page, and ran along as fast as he read, till he got to the bottom of the page. It was suggested, that Gulliver might have used a diminishing glass. S – immediately exclaimed, "How entertaining it must have been to him to look through their telescopes." An instance of invention arising from contrast.
If the conversation had not here been interrupted, S – would probably have invented a greater variety of pleasures and difficulties for Gulliver; his eagerness to read Gulliver's Travels, was increased by this conversation. We should let children exercise their invention upon all subjects, and not tell them the whole of every thing, and all the ingenious parts of a story. Sometimes they invent these, and are then interested to see how the real author has managed them. Thus children's love for literature may be increased, and the activity of their minds may be exercised. "Le secret d'ennuyer," says an author117 who never tires us, "Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire." This may be applied to the art of education. (V. Attention, Memory, and Invention.)
(January 17th, 1796.) S – . "I don't understand about the tides."
H — (13 years old.) "The moon, when it comes near the earth, draws up the sea by the middle; attracts it, and as the middle rises, the water runs down from that again into the channels of rivers."
S – . "But – Hum! – the moon attracts the sea; but why does not the sun attract it by the middle as well as the moon? How can you be sure that it is the moon that does it?"
Mr. – . "We are not sure that the moon is the cause of tides."
We should never force any system upon the belief of children; but wait till they can understand all the arguments on each side of the question.
(January 18th, 1796.) S – (9 years old.) "Father, I have thought of a reason for the wind's blowing.
When there has been a hot sunshiny day, and when the ground has been wet, the sun attracts a great deal of vapour: then that vapour must have room, so it must push away some air to make room for itself; besides, vapour swells with heat, so it must have a great, great deal of room as it grows hotter, and hotter; and the moving the air to make way for it, must make wind."
It is probable, that if children are not early taught by rote words which they cannot understand, they will think for themselves; and, however strange their incipient theories may appear, there is hope for the improvement of children as long as their minds are active.
(February 13th, 1796.) S – . "How do physicians try new medicines? If they are not sure they will succeed, they may be hanged for murder, mayn't they? It is cruel to try them (them meant medicines) on animals; besides, all animals are not the same as men. A pig's inside is the most like that of a man. I remember my father showed us the inside of a pig once."
Some time afterwards, S – inquired what was meant by the circulation of the blood. "How are we sure that it does move? You told me that it doesn't move after we die, then nobody can have seen it really moving in the veins; that beating that I feel in my pulse does not feel like any thing running backwards and forwards; it beats up and down."
The lady to whom S – addressed these questions and observations, unfortunately could not give him any information upon this subject, but she had at least the prudence, or honesty, to tell the boy that "she did not know any thing about the matter."
S – should have been shown the circulation of the blood in fishes: which he might have seen by a microscope.
Children's minds turn to such inquiries; surely, if they are intended for physicians, these are the moments to give them a taste for their future profession, by associating pleasure with instruction, and connecting with the eagerness of curiosity the hope of making discoveries; a hope which all vivacious young people strongly feel.
(February 16th.) S – objected to that fable of Phædrus in which it is said, that a boy threw a stone at Æsop, and that Æsop told the boy to throw a stone at another passenger, pointing to a rich man. The boy did as Æsop desired, and the rich man had the boy hanged.
S – said, that he thought that Æsop should have been hanged, because Æsop was the cause of the boy's fault.
How little suited political fables are to children. This fable, which was meant to show, we suppose, that the rich could not, like the poor, be insulted with impunity, was quite unintelligible to a boy (nine years old) of simple understanding.
(July 19th, 1796.) Amongst "Vulgar errours," Sir Thomas Browne might have mentioned the common notion, that if you take a hen and hold her head down to the ground, and draw a circle of chalk round her, she will be enchanted by this magical operation so that she cannot stir. We determined to try the experiment, for which Dr. Johnson would have laughed at us, as he laughed at Browne118 for trying "the hopeless experiment" about the magnetic dials.
A hen's head was held down upon a stone flag, and a chalk line was drawn before her; she did not move. The same hen was put into a circle of chalk that had been previously drawn for her reception; her head was held down according to the letter of the charm, and she did not move; line or circle apparently operated alike. It was suggested (by A – ) that perhaps the hen was frightened by her head's being held down to the ground, and that the chalk line and circle had nothing to do with the business. The hen was carried out of sight of the magic line and circle, her head was held down to the ground as before; and when the person who had held her, gently withdrew his hand, she did not move. She did not for some instants recover from her terror; or, perhaps, the feeling of pressure seemed to her to remain upon her head after the hand was withdrawn.
Children who are accustomed to doubt, and to try experiments, will not be dupes to "Vulgar errours."
(July 20th, 1796.) S – (between 9 and 10) when he heard a lady propose to make use of a small glass tumbler to hold pomatum, made a face expressive of great disgust; he was begged to give a reason for his dislike. S – said it appeared to him dirty and disagreeable to put pomatum into a tumbler out of which we are used to drink wine or water.
We have observed, (V. Chapter on Taste and Imagination) that children may early be led to reflect upon the cause of their tastes.
(July 24th, 1796.) S – observed, that "the lachrymal sack is like Aboulcasem's cup, (in the Persian tales.) It is emptied and fills again of itself; though it is emptied ever so often, it continues full."
The power of reasoning had been more cultivated in S – than the taste for wit or allusion; yet it seems his mind was not defective in that quickness of seizing resemblances which may lead to wit. He was not praised for the lachrymal sack, and Aboulcasem's cup. (V. Chapter on Wit and Judgment.)
(August 3d, 1796.) C – (11 years old) after she had heard a description of a fire engine, said, "I want to read the description of the fire engine over again, for whilst my father was describing one particular part, I recollected something that I had heard before, and that took my attention quite away from what he was saying. Very often when I am listening, something that is said puts me in mind of something, and then I go on thinking of that, and I cannot hear what is said any longer."
Preceptors should listen to the observations that their pupils make upon their minds; this remark of C – suggested to us some ideas that have been detailed in the "Chapter on Attention."
(August 1st, 1796.) S – , who had been translating some of Ovid's Metamorphoses to his father, exclaimed, "I hate those ancient gods and goddesses, they are so wicked! I wish I was Perseus, and had his shield, I would fly up to heaven and turn Jupiter, and Apollo, and Venus into stone; then they would be too heavy to stay in heaven, and they would tumble down to earth; and then they would be stone statues, and we should have much finer statues of Apollo and Venus than any they have now at Rome."
(September 10th, 1796.) S – (within a month of ten years old) read to his sister M – part of Dr. Darwin's chapter upon instinct; that part in which there is an account of young birds who learn to sing from the birds who take care of them, not from their parents. S – immediately recollected a story which he had read last winter in the Annual Register. Extract from Barrington's Remarks upon singing Birds. "There was a silly boy once (you know, sister, boys are silly sometimes) who used to play in a room where his mother had a nightingale in a cage, and the boy took out of the cage the nightingale's eggs, and put in some other bird's eggs (a swallow's, I think) and the nightingale hatched them, and when the swallows grew up they sang like nightingales." When S – had done reading, he looked at the title of the book. He had often heard his father speak of Zoonomia, and he knew that Dr. Darwin was the author of it.
S – . "Oh, ho! Zoonomia! Dr. Darwin wrote it; it is very entertaining: my father told me that when I read Zoonomia, I should know the reason why I stretch myself when I am tired. But, sister, there is one thing I read about the cuckoo that I did not quite understand. May I look at it again?" He read the following passage.
"For a hen teaches this language with ease to the ducklings she has hatched from supposititious eggs, and educates as her own offspring; and the wag-tails or hedge-sparrows learn it from the young cuckoo, their foster nursling, and supply him with food long after he can fly about, whenever they hear his cuckooing, which Linnæus tells us is his call of hunger."
S — asked what Dr. Darwin meant by "learns it."
M – . "Learns a language."
S – . "What does foster nursling mean?"
M – . "It here means a bird that is nursed along with another, but that has not the same parents."
S – . "Then, does it not mean that the sparrows learn from their foster sister, the cuckoo, to say Cuckoo!"
M – . "No; the sparrow don't learn to say cuckoo, but they learn to understand what he means by that cry; that he is hungry."
S – . "Well, but then I think this is a proof against what Dr. Darwin means about instinct."
M – . "Why? How?"
S – . "Because the young cuckoo does say cuckoo! without being taught, it does not learn from the sparrows. How comes it to say cuckoo at all, if it is not by instinct? It does not see its own father and mother."
We give this conversation as a proof that our young pupils were accustomed to think about every thing that they read.
(Nov. 8th, 1796.) The following are the "Curiosities of Literature," which were promised to the reader in the chapter upon Grammar and Classical Literature.
Translation from Ovid. The Cave of Sleep, first edition.
"No watchful cock Aurora's beams invite;
No dog nor goose, the guardians of the night."
Dog and goose were objected to, and the young author changed them into dogs and geese.
"No herds nor flocks, nor human voice is heard;
But nigh the cave a rustling spring appear'd."
When this line was read to S – , he changed the epithet rustling into gliding.
"And with soft murmurs faithless sleep invites,
And there the flying past again delights;
And near the door the noxious poppy grows,
And spreads his sleepy milk at daylight's close."
S – was now requested to translate the beginning of the sentence, and he produced these lines:
"Far from the sun there lies a cave forlorn,
Which Sol's bright beams can't enter eve nor morn."
Can't was objected to. Mr. – asked S – what was the literal English. S – first said not, and then nor; and he corrected his line, and made it
"Which Sol's bright beams nor visit eve nor morn."
Afterwards:
"Far in a vale there lies a cave forlorn,
Which Phœbus never enters eve nor morn."
After an interval of a few days, the lines were all read to the boy, to try whether he could farther correct them; he desired to have the two following lines left out:
"No herds, nor flocks, nor human voice is heard,
But nigh the cave a gliding spring appeared."
And in the place of them he wrote,
"No flocks nor herds disturb the silent plains:
Within the sacred walls mute quiet reigns."
Instead of the two following:
"And with soft murmurs faithless sleep invites,
And there the flying past again delights."
S – desired his secretary to write,
"But murmuring Lethe soothing sleep invites,
In dreams again the flying past delights."
Instead of
"And near the doors the noxious poppy grows,
And spreads his sleepy milk at daylight's close,"
the following lines were written. S – did not say doors, because he thought the cave had no doors; yet his Latin, he said, spoke of squeaking hinges.
"From milky flowers that near the cavern grow,
Night scatters the collected sleep below."
We shall not make any further apology for inserting all these corrections, because we have already sufficiently explained our motives. (V. Chapter on Grammar and Classical Literature.)
(February, 1797.) A little theatre was put up for the children, and they acted "Justice Poz."119 When the scenes were pulled down afterwards, S – was extremely sorry to see the whole theatre vanish; he had succeeded as an actor, and he wished to have another play acted. His father did not wish that he should become ambitious of excelling in this way at ten years old, because it might have turned his attention away from things of more consequence; and, if he had been much applauded for this talent, he would, perhaps, have been over-stimulated. (V. Chapter on Vanity and Ambition.)
The way to turn this boy's mind away from its present pursuit, was to give him another object, not to blame or check him for the natural expression of his wishes. It is difficult to find objects for children who have not cultivated a taste for literature; but infinite variety can be found for those who have acquired this happy taste.
