 Chapter 16 of the Home Education Series, Volume 2, Parents and Children. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Abby Jay. The Home Education Series, Volume 2, Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason. Chapter 16. Discipline. A serious study for parents. Discipline is not punishment. What part does discipline play in your system of education? We should hail the query as manifesting a cheering degree of interest if we were not quite sure that our interlocutor uses discipline as a effuism for punishment. That conviction puts one's mind into the attitude of protest. In the first place, we have no system of education. We hold that great things such as nature, life, education, are cabined, cribbed, confined, in proportion as they are systematized. We have a method of education, it is true, but method is no more than a way to an end and is free, yielding, adaptive as nature herself. Method has a few comprehensive laws according to which details shape themselves, as one naturally shapes one's behavior to the acknowledged law that fire burns. System, on the contrary, has an infinity of rules and instructions as to what you are to do and how you are to do it. Method in education follows nature humbly, stands aside and gives her fair play. A method is not a system. System leads nature, assists, supplements, rushes in to undertake those very tasks for which nature has made her own since the world was. Does nature endow every young thing, child or kitten, with the wonderful capacity for inventive play? Nay, but, says system, I can help here. System will invent games for the child and help his plays and make more use of this power of his than unaided nature knows how. So Dame System teaches the child to play and he enjoys it, but alas there is no play in him, no initiative, when he is left to himself and so on, all along the lines. System is fussy and zealous and produces enormous results in the teacher. A wise passiveness. Method pursues a wise passiveness. You watch the teacher and are hardly aware that he is doing anything. The children take the initiative, but somehow the result here is in these and not in the teacher. They develop, become daily more and more of persons with the reason firm, the temperate will, endurance, foresight, strength and skill. Such as these are the golden fruits which ripen under the eyes of the parent who is wise to discriminate between the role of nature and that of the educator who follows sympathetically and dutifully the lead of the great mother. Oh, then you have no discipline. I thought not. I dare say it would answer very well to leave children to themselves and make them happy. Children are always good when they are happy, are they not? Not so fast, dear reader. He who would follow a great leader must needs endeavour himself. Un hast, un ras. And the divine lead, which we call nature, is infinitely blessed in the following. But the way is steep to tread and hard to find, and this uphill work is by no means to be confounded with leisurely strolling in ways of our own devising. The parent who would educate his children in any large sense of the word must lay himself out for high thinking and lowly living, the highest thinking indeed possible to the human mind and the simplest directest living. This thought of discipline, for example, is one of the large comprehensive ideas which must inform and direct the life, rather than be gathered up into a rule easy to remember and easy to apply now and then. If Tommy is naughty, whip him and send him to bed, is a ready reckoner kind of a rule, handy to have about one, and is the sort of thing which many people mean by discipline. Now, we would not say that punishment is never to be used, very much otherwise. Neither would we say that physics is never to be taken. But punishment, like physics, is a casualty only of occasional occurrence at the worst, and punishment and physics alike are reduced to a minimum in proportion as we secure healthy conditions of body and mind. We are not anxious to lay down cannons for punishment. Mr. Herbert Spencer has not perhaps said the last word, but he has given us a quite convenient rule to go on with. Punishment by Consequences A child should be punished by the natural consequences of his offense. To carry this suggestion out, apieu de la lettre would often enough mean lasting, even fatal injury to the child, bodily and mental. You cannot let the indolent child be punished by ignorance, or the willful and adventurous child break a limb, but so far as punishments have been allowed to become necessary, the nature of the offense gives one a clue to a suitable punishment. The child who does not eat his porridge goes without his plum. This is, anyway, a punishment in kind, perhaps the nearest approach to natural consequences, which it is advisable to try. Children rather enjoy punishments. But parents should face the fact that children rather enjoy punishments. In these they find the opportunities so frequent in books, so rare in real life, for showing a fine pluck. The child who is in punishment is very commonly enjoying himself immensely, because he is respecting himself intensely, heroism in bearing penalties. There is a bit of heroism in the bearing of a penalty which is very apt to do away with any sense of contrition for the offense. And the plucky little fellow who takes his punishment with an air is by no means a bad and hardened young offender, but is an economist of opportunities, making the best of what comes to hand for his own real education. His mother's distress, his father's disapproval, these are quite different matters and carry no compensating sense of hardyhood. Reflections like these lead one to spare the rod, not at all out of oversensibility to the child's physical suffering, for we must have him endure hardness if we mean to make a man of him, but purely because it is not easy to find a punishment that does not defeat its own ends, wrongdoing followed by its own penalties. The light-smart slap with which the mother visits the little child when he is naughty is often both effective and educative. It changes the current of baby's thoughts and he no longer wishes to pull his sister's hair, but should not the slap be a last resort when no other way is left of changing his thoughts. With the older child, a theory of punishment rests less upon the necessity to change the culprit's thoughts than upon the hope of forming a new association of ideas, that is, of certain pains and penalties inevitably attached to certain forms of wrongdoing. This, we know too well, is a teaching of life and is not to be overlooked in education. The experience of each of us goes to prove that every breach of law, in thought or deed, is attended by its own penalties, immediate or remote, and the child who is not brought up to know that due follows deed in course is sent out to his first campaign, undrilled and trained, a raw recruit. Our contention is twofold. A, that the need for punishment is mostly preventable, and B, that the fear of punishment is hardly ever so strong a motive as the delight of the particular wrongdoing in view. Punishment is not reformative. If punishment were necessarily reformative and able to cure us of all those sins we have a mind to, why the world would be a very good world, for no manner of sin escapes its present punishment. The fact is, not that punishment is unnecessary for that it is useless, but that it is inadequate and barely touches our aim, which is not visitation for the offense, but the correction of that fault of character of which the offense is the outcome. Jemmy tells lies and we punish him, and by so doing we mark our sense of the offense. But probably no punishment could be invented drastic enough to cure Jemmy of telling lies in the future, and this is the thing to be aimed at. No, we must look deeper. We must find out what weak place in character, what false habit of thinking leads Jemmy to tell lies, and we must deal with this false habit in the only possible way, by forming the contrary habit of true thinking, which will make Jemmy grow up a true man. I think I have never told a lie since, said a lady, describing the single conversation in which her father cured her, when she was a child, of lying by setting up an altogether new train of thought. Good habits the best schoolmasters. Not mere spurts of occasional punishment, but the incessant watchfulness and endeavor which go to the forming and preserving of the habits of the good life, is what we mean by discipline. And from this point of view, never were there such disciplinarians as the parents who labor on the lines we would indicate. Every habit of courtesy, consideration, order, neatness, punctuality, truthfulness, thoughtfulness, is itself a schoolmaster, and orders life with the most unfailing diligence. A habit is so easily formed, so strong to compel. There are few parents who would not labor diligently if for every month's labor they were able to endow one of their children with a large sum of money. But in a month, a parent may begin to form a habit in his child of such value that money is a bagatelle by comparison. We have often urged that the great discovery which modern science has brought to the aid of the educator is that every habit of the life sets up, as it were, a material record in the brain tissues. We all know that we think as we are used to think, and act as we are used to act. Ever since man began to notice the ways of his own mind, this law of habit has been matter of common knowledge, and has been more or less acted upon by parents and other trainers of children. The well brought up child has always been a child carefully trained in good habits. But it is only within our own day that it has been possible to lay down definite laws for the formation of habits. Until now, the mother who wished to train her children in such and such a good habit has found herself hindered by a certain sense of casualty. Always telling. I am sure I am always telling her to keep her drawers neat, or to hold up her head and speak nicely, or to be quick and careful about an errand, says the poor mother with tears in her eyes. And indeed this of always telling him or her is a weary process for the mother, dull because hopeless. She goes on telling to deliver her own soul, for she has long since ceased to expect any result. And we know how dreary is work without hope. But perhaps even his mother does not know how unutterably dreary is this always telling which produces nothing to the child. At first he is fretful and impatient under the patter of idle words. Then he puts up with the inevitable and comes at last hardly to be aware that the thing is being said. As for any impression on his character, any habit really formed, all this labour is without result. The child does the thing when he cannot help it, and evades as often as he can. And the poor disappointed mother says, I am sure I have tried as much as any mother to train my children in good habits, but I have failed. She is not altogether dispirited however, the children have not the habits she wished to train them in, but they grow up warm-hearted, good-natured, bright young people, by no means children to be ashamed of. All the same the mother's sense of failure is a munition to be trusted. Our failures in life are perhaps due for the most part to the defects of our qualities, and therefore, it is not enough to send children into the world with just the inheritance of character they get from their parents. Some practical counsels Let me offer a few definite practical counsels to a parent who wishes to deal seriously with a bad habit. First let us remember that this bad habit has made its record in the brain. Second there is only one way of obliterating such record, the absolute cessation of the habit for a considerable space of time say, some six or eight weeks. Third during this interval new growth, new cell connections are somehow or other taking place, and the physical seat of the evil is undergoing a natural healing. Fourth but the only way to secure this cause is to introduce some new habit as attractive to the child as is the wrong habit you set yourself to cure. Fifth as the bad habit usually arises from the defect of some quality in the child it should not be difficult for the parent who knows his child's character to introduce the contrary good habit. Six Take a moment of happy confidence between parent and child and introduce by tale or example the stimulating idea get the child's will with you. Seventh do not tell him to do the new thing but quietly and cheerfully see that he does it on all possible occasions for weeks if need be all the time stimulating the new idea until it takes great hold of the child's imagination. Eighth watch most carefully against any recurrence of the bad habit. Ninth should the old fault recur do not condone it. Let the punishment, chiefly the sense of your estrangement be acutely felt. Let the child feel the shame not only of having done wrong but of having done wrong when it was perfectly easy to avoid the wrong and do the right. Above all watch unto prayer and teach your child dependence upon divine aid in this warfare of the spirit. But also the absolute necessity for his own efforts. An inquisitive child Susie is an inquisitive little girl. Her mother is surprised and not always delighted to find that the little maid is constantly on voyages of discovery of which the servants speak to each other as plain and poking. Is her mother engaged in talk with the visitor or the nurse? Behold, Susie is at her side, sprung from nobody knows where. Is a confidential letter being read aloud? Susie is within earshot. Does the mother think she has put away a certain book where the children cannot find it? Susie volunteers to produce it. Does she tell her husband that Cook has asked for two days of absence? Up jump Susie with all the ins and outs of the case. I really don't know what to do with the child. It is difficult to put down one's foot and say you ought not to know this or that or the other. Each thing in itself is harmless enough. But it is a little distressing to have a child who is always peering about for gossipy information. Yes, it is tiresome but it is not a case for despair nor for thinking hard things of Susie. Certainly not for accepting the inevitable. The defect of her quality Regarding this tiresome curiosity as the defect of its quality the mother casts about for the quality and behold Susie is reinstated. What ails the child is an inordinate desire for knowledge run to seed and to spend itself on unworthy objects. When the right moment comes introduce Susie to some delightful study of nature for example which will employ all her prime proclivities. Once the new idea has taken possession of the little girl a little talk should follow about the unworthiness of filling one's thoughts with trifling matters so that nothing really interesting can get in. For weeks together see that Susie's mind is too full of large matters to entertain the small ones. And, once the inquisitive habit has been checked, encourage the child's active mind to definite progressive work on things worthwhile. Susie's unworthy curiosity will soon cease to be a trial to her parents. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of the Home Education series, Volume 2 Parents and Children This is LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Abbey J. The Home Education series, Volume 2 Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason Chapter 17 Sensations and Feelings Sensations Educable by Parents Common Sense Children whose parents have little theoretic knowledge of the values of the various foodstuffs are often thoroughly nourished. Their parents rely on what they call common sense. And the result is on the whole better than if scientific consideration were given to the family dietary. But this common sense has usually scientific opinion for its basis though the fact may be forgotten and when scientific opinion has become the groundwork of habit it is of more value and works in a more simple way than while it is still in the stage of experiment. In the same way it is a good thing to have such an acquaintance with the functions of human nature that we act on our knowledge unconsciously and do not even know that we possess it. But if we have no such floating capital of cognizance then we must study the subject even if we have to make experiments. Most people suppose that the sensations, feelings and emotions of a child are matters that take care of themselves. Indeed we are apt to use the three terms indiscriminately without attaching very clear ideas to them. But they cover collectively a very important educational field. And though common sense judgments formed upon inherited knowledge often helps us to act wisely without knowing why we shall probably act more wisely if we act reasonably. Origin of Sensations Let us consider first the subject of sensations. We speak of sensations of cold and sensations of heat and sensations of pain and we are quite right. We also speak of sensations of fear and sensations of pleasure and we are commonly wrong. The sensations have their origin in impressions received by the several organs of sense. Eye, tongue, nostrils, ear and the surface of the external skin and are conveyed by the sensory nerves some to the spinal cord and some to the lower region of the brain. Many sensations we know nothing about when we become aware of our sensations it is because communications are sent by nerve fibers acting as telegraph wires from the sensorium to the thinking brain. And this happens when we give our attention to any one of the multitudinous messages carried by the sensory nerves. The physiology of the senses is too complicated a subject to touch upon here but it is deeply interesting and perhaps no better introduction exists than Professor Clifford's little book, seeing and thinking, McMillan. Now the senses are the five gateways of knowledge to quote the title of a little book which many of us have used in early days and an intelligent person should be aware of and capable of forming judgments upon the sensations he receives. Sensations should be treated as of objective interest. We all recognize that the training of the senses is an important part of education. One caution is necessary. From the very first a child's sensations should be treated as matters of objective and not of subjective interest. Marmalade, for example, is interesting not because it is nice a fact not to be drawn at all but because one can discern in it different flavors and the modifying effect of the oil secreted in the rind of the orange. We shall have occasion to speak more of this subject later but a useful piece of education is this of causing a child's interest to center in the objects which produce his sensations and not in himself as the receiver of those sensations. Object lessons in disfavor. The purpose of so-called object lessons is to assist a child by careful examination of a given object to find out all he can about it through the use of his several senses. General information about the object is thrown in and lodges only because the child's senses have been exercised and his interest aroused. Object lessons are a little in disfavor just now for two reasons. In the first place, miserable fragments are presented to the children which have little of the character of the object in situ and are apt to convey inadequate, if not wrong, ideas. In the next place, object lessons are commonly used as a means to introduce children to hard words such as opaque and translucent which never become part of their living thought until they pick them up for themselves accidentally as they have need of them. But the abuse of this kind of teaching should not cause us to overlook its use. No child can grow up without daily object teaching, whether casual or of set purpose. And the more thorough this is the more intelligent and observant will he become. It is singular how few people are capable of developing an intelligent curiosity about the most attractive objects except as their interest is stimulated from without. A baby's object lesson. The baby is a wonderful teacher in this matter of object lessons. To be sure his single pupil is his own small self but his progress is amazing. At first he does not see any difference between a picture of a cow and the living animal. Big and little and far and near hard and soft, hot and cold are all alike to him. He wishes to hold the moon in his peniphor to sit on the pond to poke his finger into the candle not because he is a foolish little person but because he is profoundly ignorant of the nature of the contents of this unintelligible world. But how he works he bangs his spoon to try if it produces sound to try its flavor. He fumbles it all over and no doubt finds out whether it is hard or soft, hot or cold, rough or smooth. He gazes at it with the long gaze of infancy so that he may learn the look of it. It is an old friend and an object of desire when he sees it again for he has found out that there is much joy in a spoon. This goes on with great diligence for a couple of years. At the end of which time baby has acquired enough knowledge of the world to conduct himself in a very dignified and rational way. Nature's Teaching This is what happens under Nature's Teaching and for the first five or six years of his life everything especially everything in action is an object of intelligent curiosity to the child. The street or the field is a panorama of delight. The shepherd's dog the baker's cart the man with the barrow are full of vivid interest. He has a thousand questions to ask. He wants to know about everything. He has in fact an inordinate appetite for knowledge. We soon cure all that. We occupy him with books instead of things. We evoke other desires in place of the desire to know and we succeed in bringing up and more an observant woman who discerns no difference between an elm, a poplar and a lime tree and misses very much of the joy of living. By the way, why is it that the baby does not exercise with purpose his organ of smell? He screws up a funny little nose when he is taught to sniff at a flower, but this is a mere trick. He does not naturally make experiments as to whether things are odorous while each of his other senses affords him keen joy. No doubt the little nose is involuntarily very active, but can his inertness in this matter be a hereditary failing? It may be that we all allow ourselves to go about with obtuse nostrils. If so, this is a matter for the attention of mothers who should bring up their children not only to receive, not voluntary and vague, but to perceive odors from the first. Education of the senses. Two points call for our attention in the education of the senses. We must assist the child to educate himself on nature's lines, and we must take care not to supplant and crowd out nature and her methods with that which we call education. Object lessons should be incidental, and this is where the family enjoys so great an advantage over the school. It is almost impossible that the school should give any but set lessons, but this sort of teaching in the family falls in with the occurrence of the object. The child who finds that wonderful and beautiful object, a paper wasp's nest attached to a large twig has his object lesson on the spot from father or mother. The gray color, the round symmetrical shape, the sort of cup and ball arrangement, the papery texture, the comparative size, the comparative smoothness, the odor, or lack of odor, the extreme lightness, the fact that it is not cold to the touch, these and fifty other particulars the child finds out unaided, or with no more than a word, here and there to direct his observation. One does not find a wasp's nest every day, but much can be got out of every common object. And the commoner the better, which falls naturally under the child's observation. A piece of bread, a lump of coal, a sponge, advantages of home teaching. In the first place it is unnecessary in the family to give an exhaustive examination to every object. One quality might be discussed in this another quality in that we eat our bread and milk and notice that bread is absorbent and we overhaul our experience to discover other things which we know to be absorbent also and we do what we can to compare these things as to whether they are less absorbent or more absorbent than bread. This is exceedingly important. The unobservant person states that an object is light and considers that he has stated an ultimate fact. The observant person makes the same statement, but has in his mind a relative scale and his judgment is of the more value because he compares silently with a series of substances to which this is relatively light. Positive and comparative terms. It is important that children should learn to recognize that high, low, sweet, bitter, long, short, agreeable, et cetera, et cetera are comparative terms while square, round, black, white are positive terms, the application of which is not affected by comparison with other objects. Indiscriminate use of epithets. Care in this matter makes for higher moral as well as intellectual development. Half the dissensions in the world arise from an indiscriminate use of epithets. Would you say your bread at dinner was light or heavy? The child would probably answer rather light. Yes, we can only say that a thing is light by comparing it with others. What is bread light compared with? A stone, a piece of coal, of cheese, of butter of the same size. But it is heavy compared with a piece of sponge cake or piece of sponge, of cork, of pumice, and so on. What do you think it weighs? An ounce? An ounce and a half? We'll try after dinner. You had better have another piece and save it. And the weighing after dinner is a delightful operation. The power of judging of weight is worth cultivating. We heard the other day of a gentleman who was required at a bazaar to guess the weight of a monster cake. He poised it and said it weighed 18 pounds, 14 ounces. And it did exactly. Keteris parebus One has a greater respect for the man who made this accurate judgment than for the vague person who suggested that the cake might weigh 10 pounds. Judgment as to weight. Letters, book parcels, an apple, an orange, an apple marrow. Fifty things in the course of the day give opportunities for this kind of object teaching. i.e. the practice of forming judgments as to the relative and absolute weight of objects by the irresistence, that is, their opposition to our muscular force, perceived by our sense of touch. By degrees the children are trained to observe that the relative weights of objects depend on their relative density and are introduced to the fact that we have a standard of weight. Judgment as to size. In the same way children should be taught to measure objects by the eye. How high is that candlestick? How long and broad that picture frame? And so on verifying their statements. What is the circumference of that bowl, of the clock face, of that flower bed? How tall is so-and-so and so-and-so? How many hands high are the horses of their acquaintance? Divide a slip of wood, a sheet of paper into halves, thirds, quarters by the eye. Lay a walking stick at right angles with another. Detect when a picture, curtain, etc., hangs out of the perpendicular. This sort of practice will secure for children what is called a correct or true eye. Discrimination of sounds. A quick and true ear is another possession that does not come by nature. Or anyway if it does it is too often lost. How many sounds can you distinguish in a sudden silence out of doors? Let these be named in order from the less to the more acute. Let the notes of the birds be distinguished both call notes and song notes the four or five distinct sounds to be heard in the flow of a brook. Cultivate accuracy in distinguishing footfalls and voices, in discerning with their eyes shut the direction from which a sound proceeds in which footsteps are moving. Distinguish passing vehicles by their sounds as lorry, broom, dog cart. Music is no doubt the means par excellence for this kind of ear culture. Mrs. Curwin's child pianist has graduated work of this kind into the hands of parents and if a child never become a performer to have acquired a cultivated and correct ear is no small part of a musical education. Discrimination of odors. We do not attach enough importance to the discrimination of odors whether as a safeguard to health or as a source of pleasure. Half the people one knows have nostrils which register no difference between the atmosphere of a large and so-called airy room whose windows are never opened and that of a room in which a through current of air is arranged for at frequent intervals. And yet health depends largely on delicate perception as regards the purity of the atmosphere. The odors which result in diphtheria or typhoid are perceptible however slight and a nose trained to detect the faintest small odorous particles in food, clothing or dwelling is to the possessor a safeguard from disease. Then odors enter more readily than other sense perceptions into those sensation sweet felt in the blood and felt along the heart which adds so much to the sum of our happiness because they unite themselves readily with our purely incorporeal joys by links of association. I never smell woodruff without being reminded is the sort of thing we hear and say continually but we do not trouble ourselves to realize that we owe a double joy to the odor of the woodruff or it may be alas a reflected sorrow. The joy of the pleasant influences about us when we pluck the flower and the possibly more personal joy of that other time with which we associate it. Every new odor perceived is a source if not of warning of recurrent satisfaction or interest. We are acquainted with too few of the odors which the springtime offers. Only this spring the present writer learned to peculiarly delightful odors quite new to her that of young large twigs which have much the kind and degree of fragrance as the flower of the syringa and the pleasant musky aroma of a box hedge. Children should be trained to shut their eyes for example when they come into the drawing room and discover by their nostrils what odorous flowers are present should discriminate the garden odors let loose by a shower of rain. Houses and rooms are full of perfumes the shelves are crowded with perfumes and breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it. The atmosphere is not a perfume that has no taste of the distillation it is odorless it is for my mouth forever I am in love with it. The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves and of the shore and dark colored sea rocks and of hay in the barn. The American poet has perhaps done more than any other to express the pleasure to be found in odors this is one direction in which much remains to be done we have not yet arrived even at a scale of odors as of sound and of color discrimination of flavor Flavor again offers a wide range for delicate discrimination at first sight it would appear difficult to cultivate the sense of flavor without making a child more or less of a gourmand but the fact is that the strong flavors which titillate the palate destroyed the power of perception the young child who lives upon milk foods has probably more pleasure in flavor than the diner out who is familiar with the confections of a cordon blue at the same time one would prefer to make flavor a source of interest than a sensuous pleasure to children it is better that they should try to discern a flavor with their eyes shut than that they should be allowed to think or say that things are nice or nasty this sort of fastidiousness should be cried down it is not well to make a child eat what he does not like as that would only make him dislike that particular dish always but to let him feel that he shows a want of self control and manliness when he expresses distaste for wholesome food is likely to have a lasting effect sensory gymnastics we have barely touched on the sorts of object lessons appealing now to one sense and now to another which should come incidentally every day in the family we are apt to regard an American Indian as a quite uneducated person he is on the contrary highly educated in so far as that he is able to discriminate sensory impressions and to take action upon these in a way which is bewildering to the book-learned European it would be well for parents to educate a child for the first half dozen years of his life at any rate on red Indian lines besides the few points we have mentioned he should be able to discriminate colors and shades of color should learn the use of the thermometer should discriminate objects according to their degrees of hardness should have a cultivated eye and touch for texture should in fact be able to get as much information about an object from a few minutes study as to its form, color, texture size, weight, qualities parts, characteristics as he could learn as he could learn as he could learn as he could learn out of many pages of a printed book we approach the subject by the avenue of the child's senses rather than by that of the objects to be studied because just now we have in view the occasional test exercises the purpose of which is to give thorough culture to the several senses an acquaintance with nature and natural objects is another thing and is to be approached in a slightly different way a boy who is observing a beetle does not consciously apply his several senses to the beetle but lets the beetle take the initiative which the boy reverently follows but the boy who is in the habit of doing sensory daily gymnastics will learn a great deal more about the beetle than he who is not so trained Sensory games Definite object lessons differ from these incidental exercises in that an object is in a manner exhausted by each of the senses in turn and every atom of information it will yield got out of it a good plan is to make this sort of lesson again pass your object round a piece of bread for example and let each child tell some fact that he discovers by touch another round by smell again by taste and again by sight children are most ingenious in this kind of game and it affords opportunities to give them new words as friable elastic when they really ask to be helped to express in a word some discovery they have made children learn in this way to think with exactitude to distinguish between friable and brittle and any common information that is offered to them in the course of these exercises becomes a possession forever a good game in the nature of an object lesson suitable for a birthday party is to have a hundred objects arranged on a table unknown to the children then lead the little party into the room allow them three minutes to walk round the table afterwards when they have left the room let them write or tell in a corner the names of all the objects they recollect children will easily get fifty or sixty no doubt the best and happiest exercise of the senses springs out of a loving familiarity with the world of nature but the source of gymnastics we have indicated render the perceptions more acute and are greatly enjoyed by children that the sensations should not be permitted to minister unduly to the subjective consciousness of the child is the great point to be born in mind end of chapter seventeen chapter eighteen of the home education series volume two parents and children this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Abbey J the home education series volume two parents and children by Charlotte Mason chapter eighteen sensations and feelings feelings educable by parents these beauties forms through a long absence have not been to me as is a landscape to a blind man's eye but oft in lonely rooms and mid the den of towns and cities I have owed to them in hours of weariness sensations sweet felt in the blood and felt along the heart and passing even into my pure mind with tranquil restoration feelings too of unremembered pleasure such perhaps as have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a good man's life his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love W. Wordsworth Tintern Abbey reflected sensations insight the so to speak scientific grip of a great poet is amongst those more things in heaven and earth than our philosophy has dreamed of W. Wordsworth tells us that after the lapse of years those beauties forms of Tintern Abbey gave him sensations now we are apt to think that sensations can only be immediate perceived on the instant that the object is present to the senses but the poet is, as usual absolutely right we may have so to speak reflected sensations as well as those that are immediate because a conscious sensation depends upon the recognition of an impression in the sensory centers and this recognition may be evoked not only by an immediate sensation but by an association which recalls the image once permanently impressed by the original sensation Wordsworth is exquisitely right when he speaks of the repeated enjoyment of sensations sweet in lonely rooms and mid the din of towns cities some sudden touch of the chords of association has brought to him the soothing joy of a picture forms with every grace of symmetry, harmony venerable antiquity in the ever fresh and gracious setting of a beautiful landscape the eye of his mind is infinitely gladdened the ear of his mind no longer conscious of the din of cities struck by the why in its flow and the notes of the birds and the lowing of the cattle and the acuter notes of the insect world again he perceives the odor of the meadow sweet he touches the coolness of the grass and all these are as absolutely sensations as when they were for the first time conveyed to his consciousness by the sensory organs open air memories we have in these few lines a volume of reasons why we should fill for children the storehouse of memory with many open air images capable of giving them reflected sensations of extreme delight our constant care must be to secure that they do look and listen touch and smell and the way to this is by sympathetic action on our part what we look at they will look at the odors we perceive they too will get we heard the other day of a little girl who traveled in Italy with her parents in the days of dignified family traveling carriages the child's parents were conscientious and time was precious not by any means to be wasted on the mere idleness of traveling so the governess and the little girl had the coupé to themselves and in it were packed all the paraphernalia of the schoolroom and the little girl did her sums learned her geography probably the counties of England and all the rest of it with the least possible waste of time in idle curiosity as to what the fair lawns through which she was passing might be like a story like this shows that we are making advances but we are still far from fully recognizing that our part in the education of children should be thoughtfully subordinated to that played by nature herself memories of delight a source of physical well-being and of mental restoration to continue our study of this amazingly accurate as well as exquisitely beautiful psychological record the poet goes on to tell us that these sensations sweet are felt in the blood and felt along the heart a statement curiously true to fact for a pleasurable sensation causes the relaxation of the infinitesimal nerve fibers netted around the capillaries the blood flows freely the heart beats quicker the sense of well-being is increased gaiety, gladness, supervene and the gloom of the dull day and the din of the busy city exist for us no more that is to say memories of delight are as it were an elixir of life capable when they present themselves of restoring us at any moment to a condition of physical well-being but even this is not the whole Wordsworth speaks of these memories as passing into my pure mind with tranquil restoration pure because less corporeal less affected by physical conditions but all the same so intimately related to the physical brain that the condition of the one must rule the other mind and brain perhaps to the physical well-being mind and brain perhaps have been alike fagged by the insistent recurrence of some one line of thought when suddenly there flashes into the pure mind the cognition of images of delight presented in consequence of a touch to some spring of association the current of thought is diverted into new and delightful channels and weariness and brain fag give place to tranquil restoration if mere sensations are capable of doing so much for our happiness our mental refreshment and our physical well-being both at the time of their reception and for an indefinite number of times afterwards it follows that it is no small part of our work as educators to preserve the acuteness of the children's perceptions and to store their memories with images of delight of sensations and feelings distinguished the poet pursues the investigation and makes a point of distinction he not only recovers sensations sweet but feelings too of unremembered pleasure very few persons are capable of discriminating between the sensations and the feelings produced by an image recovered by some train of association Wordsworth psychology is not only delicately nice but very just and the distinction he draws is important to the educator the truth is the feelings are out of fashion at present the man of feeling is a person of no account if he still exists he keeps in the shade being aware through a certain quickness of perception which belongs to him that any little efflorescence proper to his character is reduced to pulp by some wielder of a sledgehammer the man of feeling has himself to thank for this he allowed his feelings to become fantastic his sweet sensibilities ran away with him he meant pathos and talked pathos he became an exaggerated type and in self-preservation society always cuts off the offending limb so the man of feeling is no more the feelings should be objective not subjective nor is this the only charge that the feelings have to sustain so long as the feelings remain objective they are like the bloom to the peach the last perfection of a beautiful character but when they become subjective when every feeling concerns itself with the ego we have as in the case of sensations morbid conditions set up the person begins by being sensitive hysteria supervenes perhaps melancholia an utterly spoiled life george elliot has a fine figure which aptly illustrates the subjective condition of the feelings she tells us that a philosophic friend had pointed out to her that whereas the surface of a mirror or of a steel plate may be covered with minute scratches going in every direction if you hold a lighted candle these random scratches appear to arrange themselves and radiate from the central flame just so with the person whose feelings have been permitted to minister to his egoistic consciousness all things in heaven and earth are felt as they affect his own personality what the feelings are and are not what are the feelings perhaps they are best expressed in colridge's phrase of the vague appetency of the mind and we may do something to clear our thoughts by a negative examination the feelings are not sensations because they have no necessary connection with the senses they are to be distinguished from the two great affections of love and justice because they are not actively exercised upon any objects they are distinct from the desires because they demand no gratification and they are distinguishable from the intellectual operations which we call thought because while thought proceeds from an idea is active and arrives at a result the feelings arrive from perceptions are passive and not definitely progressive every feeling has its positive and its negative every feeling has its positive and its negative and these in almost infinitely different degrees pleasure, displeasure appreciation, depreciation anticipation for boating admiration, contempt assurance, hesitancy diffidence, complacency and so on through many more delicate nuances of feelings that are nameable and yet more so delicate that language is too rough an instrument for their expression the feelings not moral or immoral it will be observed that all these feelings have certain conditions in common none are distinctly moral or immoral they have not arrived at the stage of definite thought they exist vaguely in what would appear to be a semi-conscious intellectual region why then need we concern ourselves about this little known tract of that terra incognita which we call human nature this why is the question of the prose philosopher our poet sees deeper in one of the most exquisitely discriminating passages in the whole field of poetry he speaks of feelings of unremembered pleasure as having no slight or trivial influence on a good man's life as the sources of little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love connection between unremembered feelings and acts even the feeling of unremembered pleasure for it is possible to have the spring of association touched so lightly that one recovers the feeling of former pleasure without recovering the sensation or the image which produced the sensation but only just the vague feeling of the pleasure as when one hears the word lowangren and does not wait as it were to recover the sensation of musical delight but just catches a waft of the pleasure which the sensation brought the feeling of unremembered pleasure intangible indefinite as it is produces that glow of the heart which warms a good man to acts of kindness and of love as little as nameless and as unremembered as the feelings out of which they spring these trifling acts the best portion of a good man's life nameless as they are the poet does not hesitate to rank these trifling acts as the best portion of a good man's life but it is only out of the good man's heart that these good issues come because as we have said the feelings are not in themselves moral they act upon that which is there and the point brought before us is that the influence of the feelings is at the same time powerful and indirect why should the recollection of tintern abbey cause a good man to do some little kind thing we can only give the ultimate answer that god has made us so that a feeling of even unremembered pleasure prompts the good man to give forth out of the good treasure of his heart in kindness and in love we have but to think of the outcome of feelings at the negative pole to convince us of the nice exactitude of the poet's psychology suppose that we are not exactly displeased but unpleased, dull not quickened by any feeling of pleasure let us ask ourselves if in this condition of our feelings we are prompted to any outpouring of love and kindness upon our neighbors the perception of character one of our finest feelings here is another aspect of the feelings of very great importance to us who have the education of children I do not like you doctor fell the reason why I cannot tell is a feeling we all know well enough and is in fact that intuitive perception of character one of our finest feelings and best guides in life which is too apt to be hammered out of us by the constant effort to beat down the possibilities to the explicit and definite one wonders why people complain of faithless friends untrustworthy servants and disappointed affections if the feelings were retained in truth and simplicity there is little doubt that they would afford for each of us such a touchstone of character in the persons we come in contact with that we should be saved from making exigent demands on the other the order plays upon feelings the order plays by preference upon the gamut of the feelings he throws in arguments by the way brightens his discourse with graphic word picture metaphor simile but for his final effect he relies upon the impression he has been able to make upon the feelings of his audience and the event proves him to be right enthusiasm not only our little nameless acts but the great purposes of our lives arise out of our feelings enthusiasm itself is not thought though it arises when we are stung with the rapture of a sudden thought it is a glowing malleable condition of the forces of our nature during which all things are possible to us and we only wait for a lead enthusiasm in its earliest stage is inconsequent incoherent, devoid of purpose and yet is the state out of which all the great purposes of life shape themselves we feel, we think we say, we do this is the genesis of most of our activities in educating the feelings we modify the character but our feelings as our thoughts depend upon what we are we feel in all things as tis our nature to and the point to be noticed is that our feelings are educable and that in educating the feelings we modify the character a pressing danger of our day is that the delicate task of educating shall be exchanged for the much simpler one of blunting the feelings this is the almost inevitable result of a system where the training is given en masse but not the necessary result because the tone of feeling of a headmaster or mistress is almost with certainty conveyed more or less to a whole school still perhaps the perfect bloom of the feelings can only be preserved under quite judicious individual culture and therefore necessarily devolves upon parents the sixth sense of tact the instrument to be employed in this culture is always the same the blessed sixth sense of tact it is possible to call up the feeling one desires by a look a gesture to dissipate it entirely by the rudeness of a spoken word our silence, our sympathy our perception give place and play to fit feelings and equally to scourge and cause to slink away ashamed the feeling which should not have place beware of words but let us beware of words let us use our eyes and our imagination in dealing with the young let us see with their feeling and help them by the flow of our responsive feeling but words even words of praise and tenderness touch this delicate bloom of nature as with a hot finger and behold it is gone let us consider carefully what feelings we wish to stimulate and what feelings we wish to suppress in our children and then having made up our minds let us say nothing we all know the shrinking as of a sore place with which children receive some well-meant word from a tactless friend a feeling is communicated by sympathy the sense of spiritual touch is our only guide in this region of the feelings but with this alone we may tune the spirits of the children to great issues believing that they are capable of all things great we wish them to revere now reverence is a feeling before it becomes a thought or an act and it is a communicable feeling but communicable like the light of a torch only by contact the sentiment of reverence fills our own souls when we see a bird on its nest an old man at his cottage door a church in which have centered the aspirations of a village for many an age we feel and the children feel our feeling and they feel too a feeling is communicated by sympathy but perhaps in no other way the ignoble habit of depreciation is in the first place a feeling it is quite easy to put the children into that other attitude of feeling called forth by the fitness and goodness of the thing regarded and we all know that it is easy to appreciate or depreciate the same thing these two feelings alone illustrate the importance of the delicate culture we have in view for among the minor notes of character none tend more to differentiate persons than this a dissatisfaction in an object or a person or a perceiving cause of dissatisfaction in the same object or a person persons are differentiated by their powers of appreciation or depreciation an appreciative habit of feeling is a cause of tranquil joy to its possessor and of ease and contentment to the people connected with him a depreciative habit though it affords a little pleasurable excitement because it ministers to the vanity of the ego I dislike this person or this thing therefore I know better or am better than others disturbs tranquility and puts the person out of harmony with himself and with his surroundings no stable joy comes of depreciation but even in dealing with feelings of this class we must remember that tact, sympathy and communicable feeling are our only implements the feelings are not thoughts to be reasoned down they are neither moral nor immoral to challenge our praise or our blame we cannot be too reticent in our dealings with them in children nor too watchfully aware that the least inadvertence may bruise some tender blossom of feeling some danger in perciflage this is the risk which attends the habit perciflage and banter in family talk a little is thoroughly good and wholesome but this kind of play should be used with very great tact especially by the elders children understand each other so well that there is far less risk of hurt feelings from the tormenting schoolboy than from the more considerate elder to deal with the feelings of the young a delicate task there is only one case in which the feelings may not have free play and that is when they reflect the consciousness of the ego what are commonly called sensitive feelings that is susceptibility for oneself and about oneself readiness to perceive neglect or slight condemnation or approbation through belonging to a fine and delicate character are in themselves of less worthy order and require very careful direction less morbid conditions should be set up to ignore wisely is an art and the girl who craves to know what you thought of her when she said this or did the other need not be told brutally that you did not think of her at all it is quite enough for you to perceive that your regard is fixed upon something impersonal both to her and you she takes the hint and looks away from herself and nothing is said to cause her pain it appears to be an immutable law that our feelings as our sensations must find their occupation in things without the moment they are turned in upon themselves harm is done the task of dealing with the susceptibilities of young people is one of the most delicate that falls to us elders whether we be parents or friends undiscriminating sympathy is very perilous and bluntness of perception is very damaging we are between skill and Caribdis and must needs walk humbly and warily in this delicate work of dealing with the feelings of children and young people our only safeguard is to cherish in ourselves the soft meek tender soul sensitive to the touch of God and able to deal in soft meek tender ways with children beings of fine and delicate mold as they are end of chapter 18 chapter 19 of the home education series volume 2 parents and children this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Abbey J the home education series volume 2 parents and children by Charlotte Mason chapter 19 what is truth moral discrimination required by parents we are as a nation losing and gaining in truthfulness it is said that we English are no longer to be characterized as a truth speaking people this is a distressing charge and yet we cannot put it away from us with a high hand possibly we are in a stage of civilization which does not tend to produce the divine courage of absolute truthfulness he who is without fear is commonly without falsehood and a nation brought up amid the chivalries of war dares to be true but we live in times of peace we are no longer called on to defend the truth of our word by the strength of our hand we speak with very little sense of responsibility because no one calls us to account and so far as we are truth tellers we are so out of pure truth of heart and uprightness of life that is we may be as a nation losing the habit of truth to which the nation's childhood was trained in ways however rough and ready but we are growing up and the truth that is among us is perhaps of a higher quality than the more general truthfulness of earlier days now truth is indeed the white flower of a blameless life as a mere result of a fearless habit the work before us is to bring up our children to this higher manner of truth we no longer treat this or that particular lie or bit of deceit as a local ailment for which we have only to apply the proper lotion or plaster we treat it as symptomatic as denoting a radical defective character which we set ourselves to correct opinion without knowledge says Darwin has no value and to treat the tendency to untruthfulness that children often show one should have a great deal of knowledge of a special kind to treat a child de novo place him under a moral microscope record our observations and formulate opinions based upon that child and as many more as we can get into focus is it may be useful and important public work but it is work for the trained expert rather than for the busy parent or teacher the child a human being perhaps at his best it is not sufficient to bring unaided common sense and good intentions to this most delicate art of child study we cannot afford to discard the wisdom of the past and begin anew with the effort to collect and systematize hoping to accomplish as much in our short span than the centuries have brought us for indeed the child is a human being immature but yet perhaps a human being at his best who amongst us has such gifts of seeing knowing comprehending imagining such capacities for loving giving believing as the little child in the midst we have no higher praise for our wisest and best that they are fresh and keen as little children in their interests and loves in the matter of lying two theories in this matter of lying for example unaided common sense is likely to start on one of these two theses either the child is born true and you must keep him so or the child is born false and you must cure him of it popular opinion leans strongly in these days and as we perceive only that which we believe the tendency is perhaps to take the absolute truthfulness and honor of children a little too much for granted if you would have children true you must of course treat them as if they were true and believe them to be true but all the same wisdom may not play the ostrich in the last generation people accepted their children as born false and what more likely to make them so than this foregone conclusion possibly some falling off in truthfulness in our day is traceable to the dogmatic teaching upon which our forebears were brought up a child is born without virtue or advice the wisdom of the ages i.e. philosophy and the science of the present especially physiology and more particularly in a call psychophysiology show us that both these positions are wrong and that all theories founded upon either position or upon any midway point between the two must needs be wrong too a child is born neither true nor false he is absolutely without either virtue or advice when he comes into the world he has tendencies indeed but these are no more more vicious than is the color of his eyes even the child of a liar is not necessarily born a liar because we are assured acquired tendencies are not transmitted but there is this to be said the child born of a family which has from generation to generation been in a subject position may have less predisposition to truthfulness than the child of a family which has belonged for generations to the ruling class as in the natural world all substances must be reduced to their elements before they can be chemically dealt with so in the moral world if we wish to treat an offense it is best to trace it to that elemental property of human nature of which it is the probable outcome lying is not elemental but secondary and symptomatic now lying even in its worst forms is by no means elemental ambition is elemental avarice, vanity, gratitude, love and hate but lying arises from secondary causes the treatment is all the more difficult it is no longer a case of the child has lied, punish him but where is the weak place in his character or what is the defect in his education which has induced this lying habit if it be a habit how shall we not punish the lie but treat the failing of which it is symptomatic from this point of view let us consider the extremely interesting classification of lies presented to us by an American educationalist Juan pseudophobia treatment Janet thinks she may have glanced at Mary Slate and seen the answer to her sum a comparison of the two Slates shows that she has not done so and that Janet in the effort to save herself from a lie has actually told one this sort of morbid conscientiousness is argous-eyed for other forms of sin I knew a sick girl of 14 who was terribly unhappy because she was not able to kneel up in bed when she said her prayers was this the unpardonable sin she asked in unaffected terror I agree with the writer in question as to the frequent occurrence of this form of distress and also in tracing it not to moral but to physical causes I should say too it is more common in girls than in boys and in the home-taught than in the school-taught child healthy interests out-of-door life in grossing and delightful handiworks general occupation with things rather than with thoughts and avoidance of any word or hint that may lead to self-consciousness or the habit of introspection will probably do much to carry the young sufferer through a difficult stage of life two the lie heroic the lie heroic is par excellence the school boys lie and has its rise not in any love for lying but in a want of moral balance that is to say the boy has been left to form his own code of ethics who spilled the ink little Tom Brown is asked I did he says because Jack Spender the real culprit is his particular hero at the moment faithfulness to a friend is a far higher virtue in Tom's eyes than mere barren truthfulness and how is Tom to know if he has not been taught that it is unlawful to cherish one virtue at the expense of another considering how little clear definite authoritative teaching children receive on ethical questions the wonder is that most persons do elaborate some kind of moral code or code of honor for themselves three truth for friends lies for enemies a lie under this head differs from the lie heroic chiefly in that it need not bring any risk to the speaker this class of lies again points to the moral ignorance which we are slow to recognize in children because we confound innocence with virtue it is quite natural for a child to believe that truth is relative and not absolute and that whether a lie is a lie or not depends on whom you are speaking to the children are in the position of jesting pilot what is truth they unconsciously ask lies inspired by selfishness this is a form of lying for which superficial treatment is quite idle the lie and the vice of which it is the instrument are so allied that those two cannot be put asunder Professor Stanley Hall well points out that school is a fertile field for this kind of lying but it is the selfishness and not the lying that must be dealt with cure the first and the second disappears having no further occasion how? this is a hard question nothing but a strong impulse to the heroism of unselfishness initiated and sustained by the grace of God will deliver boy or girl from the vice of selfishness of which lying is the ready handmade but let us not despair every boy and girl is open to such impulse is capable of heroic effort prayer and patience and watchfulness for opportunities to convey the stimulating idea these will not be in vain every boy and girl is a hero in passe there is no worse infidelity than that which gives up the hope of mending any flaw of character however bad in a young creature all the same happy those parents who have not allowed selfishness and virtue whether in the form of truthfulness or under some other name to come to hand to hand conflict it is easy to give direction to the tendencies of a child it is agonizingly difficult to alter the set of character in a man five deceptions of imagination and play due to an unfed imagination lessons in truth telling I passed little Muriel in the park one day the child was not looking her companion was unknown to me I was engaged with my companion and believed that Muriel had not noticed me the little girl went home and told her mother that I had kissed her and asked her various questions about the family health what could be the child's motive she had none her active imagination rehearsed the little dialogue which most naturally would have taken place and this was so real to her that it obscured the fact the reality the truth to Muriel was what she imagined had taken place she had probably no recollection whatever of the actual facts this sort of failure in verbal truthfulness is excessively common in imaginative children and calls for prompt attention and treatment but not on the lines a hasty and righteous parent might be inclined to adopt here is no call for moral indignation the parents and not the child are in fault the probability is that the child's ravenous imagination is not duly and daily supplied with its proper meat a fairy tale in early days of romance later let us believe of the children that trailing clouds of glory do they come from the place where all things are possible where any delightful thing may happen let us believe that our miserable limitations of time and space and the laws of matter irk them inconceivably imprison the free soul as a wild bird in a cage if we refuse to give the child outlets into the realms of fancy where everything is possible the delicate ariel of his imagination will still work within our narrow limits upon our poor tasks and every bit of our narrow living is played over with a thousand variations apt to be more vivid and interesting than the poor facts and therefore more likely to remain with the child as the facts which he will produce when required to speak the truth what is the cure give the child free entrance into abundant joyous living in the kingdom of make-believe let him people every glen with fairies every island with crusades let him gift every bird and beast with human interests which he will share when the dear fairy godmother arrives with an introduction let us be glad and rejoice that all things are possible to the children recognizing in this condition of theirs the fitness to receive and believe and understand as alas we cannot do the things of the kingdom of god the age of faith is a great sewing time doubtless designed in the divine scheme of things especially that parents may make their children at home in the things of the spirit before contact with the world shall have materialized them at the same time the more imaginative the child the more essential is it that the boundaries of the kingdom of make-believe should be clearly defined an exact truthfulness insisted upon in all that concerns the narrower world where the grown-ups live it is simply a matter of careful education daily lessons in exact statement without any horror or righteous indignation about misstatements but warm loving encouragement to the child who gives a long message quite accurately who tells you just what Miss Brown said and no more just what happened at Harry's party without any garnish every day afford scope for a dozen little lessons at least and gradually the more severe beauty of truth will dawn upon the child whose soul is already possessed by the grace of fiction pseudomania we have little to say on this score except to counsel parents to keep watch at the place of the letting out of waters no doubt the condition is pathological and calls for curative treatment rather than punishment but we believe it is a condition which need never be set up the girl who has been able to win esteem for what she really is and really does is not tempted to pose and the boy who has found full outlet for his energies physical and mental has no part of himself left to spend upon humbugging this is one of the cases which show how important it is for parents to acquaint themselves with that delicate borderland of human nature which touches the material and the spiritual how spiritual thought and material brain interact how brain and nerves are interdependent how fresh air and wholesome food affect the condition of the blood which nourishes the nerves how the nerves again may bear tyrannous sway over all that we include under bodily health these are matters that the parent should know who would avoid the possibility of the degradation described as pseudomania from being set up in any one of his children signs of pseudomania it is as well that those who have to do with young children should be familiar with one or two marked signs of this mentally diseased condition as the furtive glance from under half closed lids shot up to see how you are taking it all the flowing recital accompanied by a slightly absent preoccupied look which denotes that the speaker is in the act of inventing the facts he relates it is not necessary to enlarge upon palliatives, lies of terror or one or two more classes of lies which seem to be a frequent occurrence as lies of display boasting lies of carelessness inaccuracy and worst of all lies of malice false witness children must be trained to truthfulness it is well however to commend the subject to the attention of parents for though one child may have more aptitude than another neither truthfulness nor the multiplication table come by nature the child who appears to be perfectly truthful is so because he has been carefully trained to truthfulness however indirectly and unconsciously it is more important to cultivate the habit of truth than to deal with the accident of lying moral teaching must be as simple direct and definite as the teaching which appeals to the intellect presented with religious sanctions quickened by religious impulses but not limited to the prohibitions of the law nor to the penalties which overtake the transgressor End of Chapter 19 Chapter 20 of the Home Education Series Volume 2 Parents and Children This is a Librebox recording All Librebox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit Librebox.org Recording by Abbie J The Home Education Series Volume 2 Parents and Children by Charlotte Mason Chapter 20 Show Cause Why Parents responsible for competitive examinations We have been asking why We have been asking why like Mr. Ward Fowler's Wagtail for a long time We asked why We asked why about linen under clothing and behold it is discarded We asked why about numberless petticoats and they are going We are asking why about carpets and easy chairs and all manner of luxurious living and probably the year 1910 will see of these things only the survivals It is well we should go about with this practical why rather than with the Wagtail Wagtail manner of problem The latter issues in vain guesses and the pseudo-knowledge which puffs it up But if why leads us to because we should not then let us do the thing we should This manner of why is like a poker to a dying fire Tom goes to school to get a good place in class Why is Tom Jones sent to school? That he may be educated of course, say his parents and Tom is dismissed with the fervent hope that he may take a good place But never a word about the delights of learning or of the glorious worlds of nature and of thought to which his school studies will presumably prove an open sesame Mind you be a good boy and get a good place in your class is Tom's valediction and his little soul quickens with purpose He won't disappoint father He'll be proud of him He'll be the top boy in his class Why, he'll be the top boy in the whole school and get prizes and things and won't that be jolly Tommy says nothing of this but his mother sees it in his eyes and blesses the manly little fellow So Tommy goes to school happy boy freighted with his father's hopes and his mother's blessings Tom passes his exams By and by comes a report by the side of witches that Tommy has gained six places more places are gained prizes, removes, by and by scholarships Before he is twelve Tommy is able to earn the whole of his future schooling by his skill in that industry of the young popularly known as exams Now he aims at larger game exams still but exams big with possibilities exams which will carry him through a big career His success is pretty certain because you get into the trick of exams as of other crafts His parents are congratulated Tom is more or less of a hero in his own eyes and in those of his peers examinations forever hip hip Never was a more facile way for a youth to distinguish himself that is, if his parents have sent him into the world blessed with any inheritance of brains for the boy not so blessed why he may go to the colonies and that will make a man of him so do the girls The girls come in a close second the junior the senior the higher the intermediate mark the epochs in most girls' lives better say you than having no epochs at all unquestionably yes but the fact that a successful examination of one sort or another is the goal towards which most of our young people are laboring with feverish haste and with undue anxiety is one which possibly calls for the scrutiny of the investigating why in the first place people rarely accomplish beyond their own aims their aim is a pass not knowledge they cram to pass and not to know they do pass and they don't know says Mr. Ruskin and most of us who know the candidate will admit that there is some truth in the epigram there are doubtless people who pass and who also know but even so it is open to question whether passing is the most direct simple natural and efficacious way of securing knowledge or whether the persons who pass and know are not those keen and original minds which would get blood out of a stone anyway sap out of sawdust the tendency of grind again except for the fine power of resistance possessed by the human mind which secures that most persons who go through examination grind come out as they went in absolutely unbiased towards any intellectual pursuits whatever except for this the tendency of the grind is to imperil that individuality which is the one incomparably precious birthright of each of us the very fact of a public examination compels that all who go in for it must study on the same lines no choice as to the matter or manner of studies it will be urged that there is no necessary limitation to studies outside the examination syllabus nor any restrictions whatever as to the direction of study even upon the syllabus this is a mistake whatever public examinations a given school takes the whole momentum of pupils and staff urges towards the great issue as to the manner of study this is ruled by the style of questions set in a given subject and dry as dust wins the day because it is easier and fairer to give marks upon definite facts than upon mere ebullitions of fancy or genius so it comes to pass that there is absolutely no choice as to the matter or manner of their studies for most boys and girls who go to school nor for many of those who work at home for so great is the convenience of a set syllabus that parents and teachers are equally glad to avail themselves of it tyranny of competitive examination supported by parents it appears then that the boy is in bondage to the schoolmaster and the schoolmaster to the examiner and the parents do know more than acquiesce would parents be astounded if they found themselves in this matter a little like the man who had talked prose all his life without knowing it the tyranny of the competitive examination is supported for the most part by parents we do not say altogether teachers do their part manfully but in the first place teachers unsupported by parents have no power at all in the matter not a single candidate could they present beyond their own sons and daughters in the next place we do not hesitate to say that the whole system is forced upon teachers though perhaps by no means against their will by certain ugly qualities of human nature as manifested in parents ignorance subtleness vanity avarice do not carry a pleasant sound and if we who believe in parents have the temerity to suggest such shadows to the father basking in the sunshine of his boy's success we would add that the rest of us who are not parents are still more to blame that it is terribly hard to run counter to the current of the hour and that harm is wrought in the competition ignorance is excusable but willful ignorance is culpable and the time has come for the thoughtful parent to examine himself and see whether or not it be his duty to make a stand against the competitive examination system observe the evil lies in the competition not in the examination if the old axiom be true that the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by the mind itself it is relatively true that knowledge conveyed from without must needs be tested from without probably work on a given syllabus tested by a final examination is the condition of definite knowledge and steady progress all we contend for is that the examination shall not be competitive examination necessary but should include the whole school it will be urged that it is unfair to rank such public examinations as the university's local which have done infinitely much to raise the standard of middle class education especially amongst girls and upon which neither prize nor place depends as competitive examinations they are rarely competitive it is true in the sense of any extraneous reward to the fortunate candidate but happily we are not so far gone from original righteousness but that distinction is its own reward the pupil is willing to labor and rightly so for the honor of a pass which distinguishes him among the elite of his school the schools themselves compete con peterre to seek with as to which shall send in the greatest number of candidates and come out with the greatest number of honors scholarships and whatnot these distinctions are well advertised and the parent who is on the lookout for a school for his boy is all too ready to send him where the chances of distinction are greatest examinations which include the whole school and where every boy has his place on the list higher or lower or another thing though these also appeal to the emulous principal they do not do so in excess the point to be noted the primary desires but why should so useful and incentive to work as a competitive examination be called in question there are certain facts which may be predicated of every human being who is not as the country folk say wanting everyone wants to get on whatever place we occupy next above it everyone wants to get rich or anyway richer whether the wealth he chooses to acquire be money or autographs everyone wants the society of his fellows if he does not we call him a misanthrope and say to use another popular and telling phrase he's not quite right we all want to excel to do better than the rest whether in a tennis match we all want to know though some of us are content to know our neighbors affairs while others would feign know about the stars in their courses we all from the sergeant in his stripes to the much decorated commanding officer want people to think well of us now the several desires of power of wealth of society of excelling of knowledge of esteem are primary springs of action in every human being touch any one of them in savage or in savant and you cannot fail of a response the Russian Muzhi besieges a passing traveler with questions about the lands he has seen because he wants to know the small boy gambles with his marbles because he wants to get the dairy maid dons a new bow because she wants to be admired in the form of a steam to which she is awake Tom drives when the children play horses because he wants to rule Maude works herself into a fever for her examination because she wants to excel and to pass is the hallmark of excellence that is of those who excel neither virtuous nor vicious now these desires are neither virtuous nor vicious they stimulate us all and necessary to us all and appear to play the same part towards our spiritual being that the appetize due to our material existence that is they stimulate us to the constant effort which is the condition of progress and at the same time the condition of health we know how that soul stagnates which thinks nothing worth an effort they stimulate to effort there is a poor thing who is content to be beaten on all hands we do not quarrel with the principle of emulation any more than we do with that of respiration the one is as natural and as necessary as the other and as little to be brought before our moral tribunal but it is the part of the educator to recognize that a child does not come into the world a harp with one string and that the perpetual play upon this one chord through all the years of adolescence is an evil not because emulation is a vicious principle but because the balance of character is destroyed by the constant stimulation of this one desire at the expense of the rest curiosity as active as emulation equally strong equally natural equally sure of awakening a responsive stir in the young soul it is a divinely implanted principle of curiosity the child wants to know wants to know incessantly desperately asks all manner of questions about everything he comes across plagues his elders and betters and is told not to bother and to be a good boy and not ask questions but this only sometimes for the most part we lay ourselves out to answer Tommy's questions so far as we are able and are sadly ashamed that we are so soon floored by his insatiable curiosity about natural objects and phenomena Tommy has his reward extent for a child's knowledge the most surprising educational feat accomplished amongst us is the amount of knowledge about everything within his range which Tommy has acquired by the end of his sixth year why he knows as much as I do about this and that and the other this is astonish and admiring father take him to the seaside and in a week he will tell you all about trawling and mackerel fishing the ways of the fisher bulk and all that his inquisitive mind can find out unaided he would tell all about sand and shells and tides and waves only poor little boy he must have help towards this matter of knowledge and there is no one to give it to him however he finds out all that he can sees and hears and does amass a surprising amount of exact knowledge about things and their properties why the school boy is no longer curious when Tommy goes to school his parents find themselves relieved of the inconvenience of his incessant why they are probably so well pleased to be let off that it does not occur to ask themselves why Tommy no longer wonders why up to this period nature has been active she has been allowed to stimulate that one of his desires most proper to minister to his mental growth just as if let alone she would give him that hearty appetite which should promote his physical growth she has it all her own way the desire of knowledge is that spring of action most operative in Tommy's childhood but he goes to school knowledge is a pure delight to Tommy that his lessons approach him on the lines of his nature not on the lines proper for certain subjects of instruction and the little boy has no choice he cannot help learning and loving to learn cause tis his nature to this a presenting knowledge to Tommy on the lines of his nature is however a difficult and delicate task not every school master any more than every parent what he wants in this matter of needful knowledge so once upon a time let us suppose there arose a pedagogue to whom was discovered a new and easier way the morning had seen the poor man badly baffled by the queries of boys who wanted to know how was a man who had pretty well done with fresh studies for his own part to keep up with these eager intelligences in a vision of the night it is disclosed to Cognitas that there is another and an easier way the desire of knowledge is not the only desire active in the young bosom every boy wants to excel just as much as he wants to know he wants to excel to do better than the rest every soul of them wants to be first in one way or another first in games if not in class now Cognitas was a philosopher he knew that as a rule but one desire is supreme active at one time in the breast of boy or man kindle their emulation and all must needs do the same thing in the same way to see who can do it best the boys will no longer want to know they will get their due share of learning in regular ways and really get on better than if they were moved by the restless spirit of inquiry eureka a discovery honor and renown for master and boys no need for cane or imposition for emulation is the best of all disciplinarians and steady going quiet work without any of the fatiguing excursions into new fields to which the craving for knowledge leads how pleased the parents will be too says Cognitas for he knows that paternal love now and then looks for a little sustenance from paternal vanity that the child who does well is dear emulation an easier spring to work than curiosity nay who knows but the far-seeing Cognitas beheld as in a vision the scholarships and money awards which should help to fill the pocket of paternus or should anyway lessen the drain there upon here indeed is a better way upon which paternus and Cognitas may well consent to walk together happy, everyone content nobody worried a great deal of learning got in what would you have more just one thing honored Cognitas that keen desire for knowledge that same incessant why with which Tommy went to school and which should have kept him inquisitive about all things good and great and wise throughout the years given to him wherein to lay the groundwork of his character the years of his youth but the boy no longer wants to know we cannot put our finger upon Cognitas and are pretty sure that he arrived by a consensus of opinion and through considerable urgency on the part of parents no one is to blame for a condition of things which is an enormous advance upon much of what went before only knowledge is advancing and it is full time that we reconsider our educational principles and recast our methods we absolutely must get rid of the competitive examination system if we would not be reduced to the appalling mediocrity which we see in China for example to have be fallen an examination ridden empire an examination ridden empire probably the world has never seen a finer body of educationalists than those who at the present moment man our schools both boys and girls but the originality the fine initiative of these most able men and women is practically lost the schools are examination ridden and the heads can strike out no important new lines let us begin our efforts by believing in one another parents and teachers and teachers and parents both parents and teachers have the one desire the advance of the child and the lines of character both grown equally under the limitations of the present system let us have courage and united and concerted action will overthrow this juggernaut that we have made end of chapter 20