Practical Education, Volume II

It often happens, that those who feel pleasure and pain most strongly, are likewise most disposed to form strong associations of ideas.79 Children of this character are never stupid, but often prejudiced and passionate: they can readily assign a reason for their preference or aversion; they recollect distinctly the original sensations of pleasure or pain, on which their associations depend; they do not, like Mr. Transfer in Zelucco, like or dislike persons and things, because they have been used to them, but because they have received some injury or benefit from them. Such children are apt to make great mistakes in reasoning, from their registering of coincidences hastily; they do not wait to repeat their experiments, but if they have in one instance observed two things to happen at the same time, they expect that they will always recur together. If one event precedes or follows another accidentally, they believe it to be the cause or effect of its concomitant, and this belief is not to be shaken in their minds by ridicule or argument. They are, consequently, inclined both to superstition and enthusiasm, according as their hopes and fears predominate. They are likewise subject to absurd antipathies – antipathies which verge towards insanity.

Dr. Darwin relates a strong instance of antipathy in a child from association. The child, on tasting the gristle of sturgeon, asked what gristle was? and was answered, that gristle was like the division of a man's nose. The child, disgusted at this idea, for twenty years afterwards could never be persuaded to taste sturgeon.80

Zimmermann assures us, that he was an eye-witness of a singular antipathy, which we may be permitted to describe in his own words:

"Happening to be in company with some English gentlemen, all of them men of distinction, the conversation fell upon antipathies. Many of the company denied their reality, and considered them as idle stories, but I assured them that they were truly a disease. Mr. William Matthews, son to the governor of Barbadoes, was of my opinion, because he himself had an antipathy to spiders. The rest of the company laughed at him. I undertook to prove to them that this antipathy was really an impression on his soul, resulting from the determination of a mechanical effect. (We do not pretend to know what Dr. Zimmermann means by this.) Lord John Murray undertook to shape some black wax into the appearance of a spider, with a view to observe whether the antipathy would take place at the simple figure of the insect. He then withdrew for a moment, and came in again with the wax in his hand, which he kept shut. Mr. Matthews, who in other respects was a very amiable and moderate man, immediately conceiving that his friend really had a spider in his hand, clapped his hand to his sword with extreme fury, and running back towards the partition, cried out most horribly. All the muscles of his face were swelled, his eyes were rolling in their sockets, and his body was immoveable. We were all exceedingly alarmed, and immediately ran to his assistance, took his sword from him, and assured him that what he conceived to be a spider, was nothing more than a bit of wax, which he might see upon the table.

"He remained some time in this spasmodic state; but at length he began to recover, and to deplore the horrible passion from which he still suffered. His pulse was very strong and quick, and his whole body was covered with a cold perspiration. After taking an anodyne draft, he resumed his usual tranquillity.

"We are not to wonder at this antipathy," continues Zimmermann; "the spiders at Barbadoes are very large, and of an hideous figure. Mr. Matthews was born there, and his antipathy was therefore to be accounted for. Some of the company undertook to make a little waxen spider in his presence. He saw this done with great tranquillity, but he could not be persuaded to touch it, though he was by no means a timorous man in other respects. Nor would he follow my advice to endeavour to conquer this antipathy by first drawing parts of spiders of different sorts, and after a time whole spiders, till at length he might be able to look at portions of real spiders, and thus gradually accustom himself to whole ones, at first dead, and then living ones."81

Dr. Zimmermann's method of cure, appears rather more ingenious, than his way of accounting for the disease. Are all the natives of Barbadoes subject to convulsions at the sight of the large spiders in that island? or why does Mr. William Matthews' having been born there account so satisfactorily for his antipathy?

The cure of these unreasonable fears of harmless animals, like all other antipathies, would, perhaps, be easily effected, if it were judiciously attempted early in life. The epithets which we use in speaking of animals, and our expressions of countenance, have great influence on the minds of children. If we, as Dr. Darwin advises, call the spider the ingenious spider, and the frog the harmless frog, and if we look at them with complacency, instead of aversion, children, from sympathy, will imitate our manner, and from curiosity will attend to the animals, to discover whether the commendatory epithets we bestow upon them, are just.

It is comparatively of little consequence to conquer antipathies which have trifling objects. An individual can go through life very well without eating sturgeon, or touching spiders; but when we consider the influence of the same disposition to associate false ideas too strongly in more important instances, we shall perceive the necessity of correcting it by education.

Locke tells us of a young man, who, having been accustomed to see an old trunk in the room with him when he learned to dance, associated his dancing exertions so strongly with the sight of this trunk, that he could not succeed by any voluntary efforts in its absence. We have, in our remarks upon attention,82 pointed out the great inconveniences to which those are exposed who acquire associated habits of intellectual exertion; who cannot speak, or write, or think, without certain habitual aids to their memory or imagination. We must further observe, that incessant vigilance is necessary in the moral education of children disposed to form strong associations; they are liable to sudden and absurd dislikes or predilections, with respect to persons, as well as things; they are subject to caprice in their affections and temper, and liable to a variety of mental infirmities, which, in different degrees, we call passion or madness. Locke tells us, that he knew a man who, after having been restored to health by a painful operation, had so strongly associated the idea and figure of the operator with the agony he had endured, that though he acknowledged the obligation, and felt gratitude towards this friend who had saved him, he never afterwards could bear to see his benefactor. There are some people who associate so readily and incorrigibly the idea of any pain or insult they have received from another, with his person and character, that they can never afterwards forget or forgive. They are hence disposed to all the intemperance of hatred and revenge; to the chronic malice of a Jago, or the acute pangs of an Achilles. Homer, in his speech of Achilles to Agamemnon's mediating ambassadors, has drawn a strong and natural picture of the progress of anger. It is worth studying as a lesson in metaphysics. Whenever association suggests to the mind of Achilles the injury he has received, he loses his reason, and the orator works himself up from argument to declamation, and from declamation to desperate resolution, through a close linked connection of ideas and sensations.

The insanities of ambition, avarice, and vanity, originate in early mistaken associations. A feather, or a crown, or an alderman's chain, or a cardinal's hat, or a purse of yellow counters, are unluckily associated in the minds of some men with the idea of happiness, and, without staying to deliberate, these unfortunate persons hunt through life the phantasms of a disordered imagination. Whilst we pity, we are amused by the blindness and blunders of those whose mistakes can affect no one's felicity but their own; but any delusions which prompt their victims to actions inimical to their fellow-creatures, are the objects not unusually of pity, but of indignation, of private aversion and public punishment. We smile at the avaricious insanity of the miser, who dresses himself in the cast-off Wig of a beggar, and pulls a crushed pancake from his pocket for his own and for his friend's dinner.83 We smile at the insane vanity of the pauper, who dressed himself in a many-coloured paper star, assumed the title of Duke of Baubleshire, and as such required homage from every passenger.84 But are we inclined to smile at the outrageous vanity of the man who styled himself the son of Jupiter, and who murdered his best friend for refusing him divine honours? Are we disposed to pity the slave-merchant, who, urged by the maniacal desire for gold, hears unmoved the groans of his fellow-creatures, the execrations of mankind, and that "small still voice," which haunts those who are stained with blood.

The moral insanities which strike us with horror, compassion, or ridicule, however they may differ in their effects, have frequently one common origin; an early false association of ideas. Persons who mistake in measuring their own feelings, or who neglect to compare their ideas, and to balance contending wishes, scarcely merit the name of rational creatures. The man, who does not deliberate, is lost.

We have endeavoured, though well aware of the difficulty of the subject, to point out some of the precautions that should be used in governing the imagination of young people of different dispositions. We should add, that in all cases the pupils attention to his own mind will be of more consequence, than the utmost vigilance of the most able preceptor; the sooner he is made acquainted with his own character, and the sooner he can be excited to govern himself by reason, or to attempt the cure of his own defects, the better.

There is one habit of the imagination, to which we have not yet adverted, the habit of reverie. In reverie we are so intent upon a particular train of ideas, that we are unconscious of all external objects, and we exert but little voluntary power. It is true that some persons in castle-building both reason and invent, and therefore must exert some degree of volition; even in the wildest reverie, there may be traced some species of consistency, some connection amongst the ideas; but this is simply the result of the association of ideas. Inventive castle-builders are rather nearer the state of insanity than of reverie; they reason well upon false principles; their airy fabrics are often both in good taste and in good proportion; nothing is wanting to them but a foundation. On the contrary, nothing can be more silly than the reveries of silly people; they are not only defective in consistency, but they want all the unities; they are not extravagant, but they are stupid; they consist usually of a listless reiteration of uninteresting ideas; the whole pleasure enjoyed by those addicted to them consists in the facility of repetition.

It is a mistaken notion, that only people of ardent imaginations are disposed to reverie; the most indolent and stupid persons waste their existence in this indulgence; they do not act always in consequence of their dreams, therefore we do not detect their folly. Young people of active minds, when they have not sufficient occupation, necessarily indulge in reverie; and, by degrees, this wild exercise of their invention and imagination becomes so delightful to them, that they prefer it to all sober employments.

Mr. Williams, in his Lectures upon Education, gives an account of a boy singularly addicted to reverie. The desire of invisibility had seized his mind, and for several years he had indulged his fancy with imagining all the pleasures that he should command, and all the feats that he could perform, if he were in possession of Gyges's ring. The reader should, however, be informed, that this castle-builder was not a youth of strict veracity; his confession upon this occasion, as upon others, might not have been sincere. We only state the story from Mr. Williams.

To prevent children from acquiring a taste for reverie, let them have various occupations both of mind and body. Let us not direct their imagination to extraordinary future pleasures, but let us suffer them to enjoy the present. Anticipation is a species of reverie; and children, who have promises of future pleasures frequently made to them, live in a continual state of anticipation.

To cure the habit of reverie when it has once been formed, we must take different methods with different tempers. With those who indulge in the stupid reverie, we should employ strong excitations, and present to the senses a rapid succession of objects, which will completely engage without fatiguing them. This mode must not be followed with children of different dispositions, else we should increase, instead of curing, the disease. The most likely method to break this habit in children of great quickness or sensibility, is to set them to some employment which is wholly new to them, and which will consequently exercise and exhaust all their faculties, so that they shall have no life left for castle-building. Monotonous occupations, such as copying, drawing, or writing, playing on the harpsichord, &c. are not, if habit has made them easy to the pupil, fit for our purpose. We may all perceive, that in such occupations, the powers of the mind are left unexercised. We can frequently read aloud with tolerable emphasis for a considerable time together, and at the same time think upon some subject foreign to the book we hold in our hands.

The most difficult exercises of the mind, such as invention, or strict reasoning, are those alone which are sufficient to subjugate and chain down the imagination of some active spirits. To such laborious exercises they should be excited by the encouraging voice of praise and affection. Imaginative children will be more disposed to invent than to reason, but they cannot perfect any invention without reasoning; there will, therefore, be a mixture of what they like and dislike in the exercise of invention, and the habit of reasoning will, perhaps, gradually become agreeable to them, if it be thus dexterously united with the pleasures of the imagination.

So much has already been written by various authors upon the pleasures and the dangers of imagination, that we could scarcely hope to add any thing new to what they have produced: but we have endeavoured to arrange the observations which appeared most applicable to practical education; we have pointed out how the principles of taste may be early taught without injury to the general understanding, and how the imagination should be prepared for the higher pleasures of eloquence and poetry. We have attempted to define the boundaries between the enthusiasm of genius, and its extravagance; and to show some of the precautions which may be used, to prevent the moral defects to which persons of ardent imagination are usually subject. The degree in which the imagination should be cultivated must, we have observed, be determined by the views which parents may have for their children, by their situations in society, and by the professions for which they are destined. Under the government of a sober judgment, the powers of the imagination must be advantageous in every situation; but their value to society, and to the individuals by whom they are possessed, depends ultimately upon the manner in which they are managed. A magician, under the control of a philosopher, would perform not only great, but useful, wonders. The homely proverb, which has been applied to fire, may with equal truth be applied to imagination: "It is a good servant, but a bad master."

CHAPTER XXIII

ON WIT AND JUDGMENT

It has been shown, that the powers of memory, invention and imagination, ought to be rendered subservient to judgment: it has been shown, that reasoning and judgment abridge the labours of memory, and are necessary to regulate the highest flights of imagination. We shall consider the power of reasoning in another point of view, as being essential to our conduct in life. The object of reasoning is to adapt means to an end, to attain the command of effects by the discovery of the causes on which they depend.

Until children have acquired some knowledge of effects, they cannot inquire into causes. Observation must precede reasoning; and as judgment is nothing more than the perception of the result of comparison, we should never urge our pupils to judge, until they have acquired some portion of experience.

To teach children to compare objects exactly, we should place the things to be examined distinctly before them. Every thing that is superfluous, should be taken away, and a sufficient motive should be given to excite the pupil's attention. We need not here repeat the advice that has formerly been given85 respecting the choice of proper motives to excite and fix attention; or the precautions necessary to prevent the pain of fatigue, and of unsuccessful application. If comparison be early rendered a task to children, they will dislike and avoid this exercise of the mind, and they will consequently show an inaptitude to reason: if comparing objects be made interesting and amusing to our pupils, they will soon become expert in discovering resemblances and differences; and thus they will be prepared for reasoning.

Rousseau has judiciously advised, that the senses of children should be cultivated with the utmost care. In proportion to the distinctness of their perceptions, will be the accuracy of their memory, and, probably, also the precision of their judgment. A child, who sees imperfectly, cannot reason justly about the objects of sight, because he has not sufficient data. A child, who does not hear distinctly, cannot judge well of sounds; and, if we could suppose the sense of touch to be twice as accurate in one child as in another, we might conclude, that the judgment of these children must differ in a similar proportion. The defects in organization are not within the power of the preceptor; but we may observe, that inattention, and want of exercise, are frequently the causes of what appear to be natural defects; and, on the contrary, increased attention and cultivation sometimes produce that quickness of eye and ear, and that consequent readiness of judgment, which we are apt to attribute to natural superiority of organization or capacity. Even amongst children, we may early observe a considerable difference between the quickness of their senses and of their reasoning upon subjects where they have had experience, and upon those on which they have not been exercised.

The first exercises for the judgment of children should, as Rousseau recommends, relate to visible and tangible substances. Let them compare the size and shape of different objects; let them frequently try what they can lift; what they can reach; at what distance they can see objects; at what distance they can hear sounds: by these exercises they will learn to judge of distances and weight; and they may learn to judge of the solid contents of bodies of different shapes, by comparing the observations of their sense of feeling and of sight. The measure of hollow bodies can be easily taken by pouring liquids into them, and then comparing the quantities of the liquids that fill vessels of different shapes. This is a very simple method of exercising the judgment of children; and, if they are allowed to try these little experiments for themselves, the amusement will fix the facts in their memory, and will associate pleasure with the habits of comparison. Rousseau rewards Emilius with cakes when he judges rightly; success, we think, is a better reward. Rousseau was himself childishly fond of cakes and cream.

The step which immediately follows comparison, is deduction. The cat is larger than the kitten; then a hole through which the cat can go, must be larger than a hole through which the kitten can go. Long before a child can put this reasoning into words, he is capable of forming the conclusion, and we need not be in haste to make him announce it in mode and figure. We may see by the various methods which young children employ to reach what is above them, to drag, to push, to lift different bodies, that they reason; that is to say, that they adapt means to an end, before they can explain their own designs in words. Look at a child building a house of cards; he dexterously balances every card as he floors the edifice; he raises story over story, and shows us that he has some design in view, though he would be utterly incapable of describing his intentions previously in words. We have formerly86 endeavoured to show how the vocabulary of our pupils may be gradually enlarged, exactly in proportion to their real knowledge. A great deal depends upon our attention to this proportion; if children have not a sufficient number of words to make their thoughts intelligible, we cannot assist them to reason by our conversation, we cannot communicate to them the result of our experience; they will have a great deal of useless labour in comparing objects, because they will not be able to understand the evidence of others, as they do not understand their language; and at last, the reasonings which they carry on in their own minds will be confused for want of signs to keep them distinct. On the contrary, if their vocabulary exceed their ideas, if they are taught a variety of words to which they connect no accurate meaning, it is impossible that they should express their thoughts with precision. As this is one of the most common errours in education, we shall dwell upon it more particularly.

We have pointed out the mischief which is done to the understanding of children by the nonsensical conversation of common acquaintance.87 "Should you like to be a king? What are you to be? Are you to be a bishop, or a judge? Had you rather be a general, or an admiral, my little dear?" are some of the questions which every one has probably heard proposed to children of five or six years old. Children who have not learned by rote the expected answers to such interrogatories, stand in amazed silence upon these occasions; or else answer at random, having no possible means of forming any judgment upon such subjects. We have often thought, in listening to the conversations of grown up people with children, that the children reasoned infinitely better than their opponents. People, who are not interested in the education of children, do not care what arguments they use, what absurdities they utter in talking to them; they usually talk to them of things which are totally above their comprehension; and they instil errour and prejudice, without the smallest degree of compunction; indeed, without in the least knowing what they are about. We earnestly repeat our advice to parents, to keep their children as much as possible from such conversation: children will never reason, if they are allowed to hear or to talk nonsense.

When we say, that children should not be suffered to talk nonsense, we should observe, that unless they have been in the habit of hearing foolish conversation, they very seldom talk nonsense. They may express themselves in a manner which we do not understand, or they may make mistakes from not accurately comprehending the words of others; but in these cases, we should not reprove or silence them; we should patiently endeavour to find out their hidden meaning. If we rebuke or ridicule them, we shall intimidate them, and either lessen their confidence in themselves or in us. In the one case, we prevent them from thinking; in the other, we deter them from communicating their thoughts; and thus we preclude ourselves from the possibility of assisting them in reasoning. To show parents the nature of the mistakes which children make from their imperfect knowledge of words, we shall give a few examples from real life.

S – , at five years old, when he heard some one speak of bay horses, said, he supposed that the bay horses must be the best horses. Upon cross-questioning him, it appeared that he was led to this conclusion by the analogy between the sound of the words bay and obey. A few days previous to this, his father had told him that spirited horses were always the most ready to obey.

These erroneous analogies between the sound of words and their sense, frequently mislead children in reasoning; we should, therefore, encourage children to explain themselves fully, that we may rectify their errours.