"So build we up the being that we are, Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things, "The millstreams that turn the clappers of the world arise in solitary places."-Helps. ) "In the course of a conversation with Madame Campan, Napoleon Buonaparte remarked: The old systems of instruction seem to be worth nothing; what is yet wanting in order that the people should be properly_educated?' 'MOTHERS,' replied Madame Campan. The reply struck the Emperor. Yes!' said he, here is a system of education in one word. Be it your care, then, to train up mothers who shall know how to educate their children." "-Aimé Martin. "Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round! HOME is the first and most important school of character. It is there that every human being receives his best moral training, or his worst; for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure through manhood, and cease only with life. It is a common saying that "Manners make the man ;" and there is a second, that "Mind makes the man;" but truer than either is a third, that "Home makes the man." For the home-training includes not only manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the home that the heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is awakened, and character moulded for good or for evil. From that source, be it pure or impure, issue the principles and maxims that govern society. Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards 32 Home and Civilisation. [CHAP. II. issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries, and they who hold the leading-strings of children may even exercise a greater power than those who wield the reins of government.1 It is in the order of nature that domestic life should be preparatory to social, and that the mind and character should first be formed in the home. There the individuals who afterwards form society are dealt with in detail, and fashioned one by one. From the family they enter life, and advance from boyhood to citizenship. Thus the home may be regarded as the most influential school of civilisation. For, after all, civilisation mainly resolves itself into a question of individual training; and according as the respective members of society are well or ill-trained in youth, so will the community which they constitute be more or less humanised and civilised. The training of any man, even the wisest, cannot fail to be powerfully influenced by the moral surroundings of his early years. He comes into the world helpless, and absolutely dependent upon those about him for nurture and culture. From the very first breath that he draws, his education begins. When a mother once asked a clergyman when she should begin the education of her child, then four years old, he replied: "Madam, if you have not begun already, you have lost those four years. From the first smile that gleams upon an infant's cheek, your opportunity begins.' But even in this case the education had already begun; for the child learns by simple imitation, with 1 Civic virtues, unless they have their origin and consecration in private and domestic virtues, are but the virtues of the theatre. He who has not a loving heart for his child, cannot pretend to have any true love for humanity. – Jules Simon's Le Devoir. CHAP. II.] Domestic Training. 33 out effort, almost through the pores of the skin. figtree looking on a figtree becometh fruitful," says the Arabian proverb. And so it is with children. Their first great instructor is example. However apparently trivial the influences which contribute to form the character of the child, they endure through life. The child's character is the nucleus of the man's; all after-education is but superposition; the form of the crystal remains the same. Thus the saying of the poet holds true in a large degree, "The child is father of the man ;" or, as Milton puts it, "The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the day." Those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are rooted the deepest, always have their origin near our birth. It is then that the germs of virtues or vices, of feelings or sentiments, are first implanted which determine the character for life. The child is, as it were, laid at the gate of a new world, and opens his eyes upon things all of which are full of novelty and wonderment. At first it is enough for him to gaze; but by-and-by he begins to see, to observe, to compare, to learn, to store up impressions and ideas; and under wise guidance the progress which he makes is really wonderful. Lord Brougham has observed that between the ages of eighteen and thirty months, a child learns more of the material world, of his own powers, of the nature of other bodies, and even of bis own mind and other minds, than he acquires during all the rest of his life. The knowledge which a child accumulates, and the ideas generated in his mind, in this period, are so important, that if we could imagine them to be afterwards obliterated, all the learning of a senior wrangler at Cambridge, or a first-classman at Oxford, would be as nothing to it, and would literally not enable its object to prolong his existence for a week. D 34 Home Influences. [CHAP. II. It is in childhood that the mind is most open to impressions, and ready to be kindled by the first spark that falls into it. Ideas are then caught quickly and live lastingly. Thus Scott is said to have received his first bent towards ballad literature from his mother's and grandmother's recitations in his hearing long before he himself had learned to read. Childhood is like a mirror, which reflects in after-life the images first presented to it. The first thing continues for ever with the child. The first joy, the first sorrow, the first success, the first failure, the first achievement, the first misadventure, paint the foreground of his life. All this while, too, the training of the character is in progress of the temper, the will, and the habits—on which so much of the happiness of human beings in after-life depends. Although man is endowed with a certain self-acting, self-helping power of contributing to his own development, independent of surrounding circumstances, and of reacting upon the life around him, the bias given to his moral character in early life is of immense importance. Place even the highest-minded philosopher in the midst of daily discomfort, immorality, and vileness, and he will insensibly gravitate towards brutality. How much more susceptible is the impressionable and helpless child amidst such surroundings! It is not possible to rear a kindly nature, sensitive to evil, pure in mind and heart, amidst coarseness, discomfort, and impurity. Thus homes, which are the nurseries of children who grow up into men and women, will be good or bad according to the power that governs there. Where the spirit of love and duty pervades the home - where head and heart bear rule wisely there-where the daily life is honest and virtuous-where the government is sensible, kind, and loving, then may we expect from CHAP. II.] Surroundings of Children. 35 such a home an issue of healthy, useful, and happy beings, capable, as they gain the requisite strength, of following the footsteps of their parents, of walking uprightly, governing themselves wisely, and contributing to the welfare of those about them. On the other hand, if surrounded by ignorance, coarseness, and selfishness, they will unconsciously assume the same character, and grow up to adult years rude, uncultivated, and all the more dangerous to society if placed amidst the manifold temptations of what is called civilised life. "Give your child to be educated by a slave,” said an ancient Greek, "and instead of one slave, you will then have two." The child cannot help imitating what he sees. Q Everything is to him a model-of manner, of gesture, of speech, of habit, of character. "For the child," says Richter, "the most important era of life is that of childhood, when he begins to colour and mould himself by companionship with others. Every new educator effects less than his predecessor; until at last, if we regard all life as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse."1 Models are therefore of every importance in moulding the nature of the child; and if we would have fine characters, we must neces sarily present before them fine models. Now, the model most constantly before every child's eye is the Mother. One good mother, said George Herbert, is worth a hundred schoolmasters. In the home she is "loadstone to all hearts, and loadstar to all eyes." Imitation of her is constant-imitation, which Bacon likens to "a globe of precepts." But example is far more than precept. ''Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education.' |