CHAPTER VII EARLIEST EDUCATION OF THE CHILD School of infancy - Circumstances under which written View of childhood - Conception of infant education. Physical training-Care of the body-The child's natural nurse-Foods Sleep-Play and exercise. Mental training-Studies which furnish the materials of thought, and studies which furnish the symbols of thought - Nature study-Geography - History Household economy - Stories and fables - Principle of activity – Drawing — Arithmetic — Geometry Music - Language Poetry. Moral and religious training-Examples - Instruction -Discipline-Some virtues to be taught -Character of formal religious instruction. The School of Infancy - PLATO, Quintilian, Plutarch, and other writers on education have discussed the earliest training of the child, but none of these early writers have comprehended the significance of infancy with any such pedagogic insight as Comenius; and his School of infancy has taken a permanent place among the classics which deal with the period of childhood. It was written during the years 1628 to 1630, when he was in charge of the Moravian school at Lissa. A German edition (it was originally written in the Sclavic tongue) appeared at Lissa in 1633, a second edition at Leipzig in 1634, and a third German edition at Nuremberg in 1636. Subsequently Polish, Bohemian, and Latin translations appeared; and Joseph Müller, a most painstaking Comenius bibliographer, mentions an English translation in 1641. I have found no other reference to an English translation so early. As already noted, however, Comenius was well and favorably known to Milton, Hartlib, and others high in educational authority in England; and the fact that most of his other writings were translated there gives credence to Mr. Müller's statement. In the year 1858, Mr. Daniel Benham2 published in London an English translation, to which he prefixed a well-written account of the life of Comenius. But his translation was soon out of print; and this excellent treatise in consequence remained inaccessible to English readers until the appearance of my own translation. (Boston, 1896. Republished in London, 1897.) The School of infancy was written as a guide for mothers during the first six years of the child's life, and was dedicated to "pious Christian parents, guardians, teachers, and all upon whom the charge of children is incumbent." Since the education of the child must begin at its birth, mothers must assume the teacher's rôle; and the mothers of the seventeenth century, according to Comenius, were altogether unfitted because of lack of training to undertake this high and holy mission. Accordingly, the School of infancy outlines definite instructions for mothers. Comenius was too deeply grounded in the religious 1 Zur Bückerkunde des Comenius. Monatshefte der ComeniusGesellschaft. 1892. Vol. I., pp. 19-53. 2 School of infancy: an essay on the education of youth during the first six years, by John Amos Comenius. To which is prefixed a sketch of the life of the author. London, 1858. pp. 168 +75. dogmas of his day to abandon altogether the doctrine of original sin, then so generally held; but he maintained that suitable early training would overcome most of the original perversity in the human heart. No one, he urges, should be a mother or a teacher who does not hold unbounded faith in the possibilities of childhood. The child is not to be regarded with reference to its youthful disabilities, but rather with a view to the purposes of the Divine mind, as Fröbel would say, regard the child as a pledge of the presence, goodness, and love of God. What higher tribute to childhood than this: "The mother that has under her care the training of a little child possesses a garden in which celestial plantlets are sown, watered, bloom, and flourish. How inexpressibly blessed is a mother in such a paradise!" With Quintilian he asks: "Has a son been born to you? From the first, conceive only the highest hopes for him." The purpose in the education of the child is threefold: (1) faith and piety, (2) uprightness in respect to morals, and (3) knowledge of languages and arts; and this order must not be inverted. Parents, therefore, do not fully perform their duty when they merely teach their offspring to eat, drink, walk, and talk. These things are merely subservient to the body, which is not the man, but his tabernacle only; the rational soul dwells within, and rightly claims greater care than its outward tenement. In the education of the child, care especially for the soul, which is the highest part of its nature; and next, attend to the body, that it may be made a fit and worthy habitation for the soul. Aim to train the child to a clear and true knowledge of God and all his wonderful works, and a knowledge of himself, so that he may wisely and prudently regulate his actions. It must be borne in mind, however, that to properly train children requires clear insight and assiduous labor. It is to be regretted that so many parents are too incompetent to instruct their children and that others, by reason of the performance of family and social duties, are unable to discharge this high and holy mission. All such, of course, must hand their children over to some one else to instruct. But they should intrust their little ones to the care and training of such instructors only who will make the act of learning pleasing and agreeable-a mere amusement and mental delight. Schools should be retreats of ease, places of literary amusement, and not houses of torture. A musician does not dash his instrument against the wall, or give it blows and cuffs because he cannot draw music from it, but continues to apply his skill until he is able to extract a melody. So by your skill you should bring the mind of the young child into harmony with his studies. The first step in the education of the child is the most important. Every one knows that whatever form the branches of an old tree may have, that they must necessarily have been so formed from the first growth. The animal born blind, lame, defective, or deformed remains so. The training of the child's body, mind, and soul should, therefore, be a matter of earnest thought from the very first. While it is possible for God to completely transform an inveterately bad man, yet, in the regular course of nature, it scarcely ever happens otherwise than that as a being is formed during the early stages of development, so it matures, and so it remains. Whatever seed is sown in youth, such fruit is reaped in old age. Nor is it wise to delay such training until the child is old enough to be instructed in a school, since tendencies are acquired which are difficult to overcome. It is impossible to make a tree straight that has grown crooked, or to produce an orchard from a forest everywhere surrounded with briers and thorns. This makes it necessary for parents to know something about the management of children, that they may be able to lay the foundations upon which the teachers are to build when the child enters school at the age of six years. Great care must be exercised with reference to the methods adopted with children so young. The instruction need not be apportioned to the same degree that it is apportioned in schools, since at this early age all children are not endowed with equal ability, some beginning to speak in the first year, some in the second, and some not until the third year. Physical Training The first care of the mother must be for the health of her child, since bodily vigor so largely conditions normal mental development. "A certain author," says Comenius, "advises that parents ought to pray for a sound mind in a sound body,' but they ought to labor as well as pray." Since the early care of the child devolves largely on the mother, Comenius counsels women with reference to the hygiene of childhood. Prenatal conditions are no less important than post I |