Comenius' School of Infancy/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
EXTENT OF HOME TRAINING.
1. As little plants after they have grown up from their seed are transplanted into orchards, in order to their more growth and to their bearing fruit, so it is expedient that children, cherished in the maternal bosom, having now acquired strength of mind and body, should be delivered to the care of teachers, so that they may grow up more successfully. Young trees when transplanted always grow tall, and garden fruit has always a richer flavor than forest fruit. But when and how is this to be done? I do not advise that children should be removed from the mother and delivered to teachers before their sixth year, for the following reasons:[1]—
2. First, the infantile age requires more watchfulness and care than a teacher, having a number of children under him, is able to afford; it is therefore better that children should continue under the direction of the mother.[2]
3. Then it is safer that the brain be rightly consolidated before it begin to sustain labors; in an infant the whole cranium is scarcely closed, and the brain is not consolidated before the fifth or sixth year. It is sufficient, therefore, for this age to comprehend spontaneously, imperceptibly, in play, so much as is convenient in the domestic circle.
4. Besides, no benefit could arise from a different course. The shoot which is taken to be planted out while too tender, grows feebly and slowly, whereas the firmer one grows strongly and quickly. The young horse prematurely put to the carriage becomes weakened; but give him full time to grow, and he will draw the more strongly, and more than repay you for the delay.
5. In truth, it is no great delay to wait until the end of the sixth year or the beginning of the seventh, provided always that care be taken, as has been advised, that there be no failure at home during those first years of their age. If it happen that a child completes at home,[3] according to the manner prescribed, its elementary instruction in piety, good morals, reverence, obedience, and due respect to superiors; in wisdom, in promptness of action, and distinct pronunciation of words; it will by no means be too late to enter upon scholastic instruction at the termination of the sixth year.[4]
6. On the other hand, I am unwilling to advise that children should be kept at home beyond the sixth year, because within that time, whatever ought to be learned at home, according to the manner shown, may be easily completed. And unless a child after this be at once delivered over for higher instruction, it will invariably become accustomed to unprofitable idleness, and again become like a “wild ass’s colt.” Nay, it is to be feared that from this imprudent idleness some vice may attach to the child, which afterwards, as a noxious weed, can only with difficulty be rooted out. The best way is to continue without intermission what has once been begun.
7. This advice, however, is not to be so literally understood, as if, without due consideration of circumstances, no transfer ought to be made at the expiration of the six years. The proposed termination may either be made or anticipated by a half or even a whole year, according to the child’s capacity and progress. Some trees bear fruit in spring, some in summer, some in autumn. Early flowers, however, fade the soonest, while late ones acquire greater strength and durability; in like manner, early fruit is useful for the day, but will not keep, whereas late fruit may be kept all the year.
8. In some children the natural capacities would fly before the sixth, the fifth, or even the fourth year; yet it will be beneficial rather to restrain than permit this,[5] and very much worse to stimulate it. By acting otherwise, the parents who, on rare occasions, have a Doctor of Philosophy before the time, will often have a Bachelor of Arts, and oftener a Fool. The vine, at first luxuriating too much and sending forth clusters thickly, will, no doubt, grow to a great height, but its root will be deprived of vigor, and nothing will be durable. On the contrary, there are also slower natural capacities with which it may scarcely be possible to begin anything useful in the seventh or eighth year. Consequently, the counsel here given must be understood as applying to children of ordinary abilities, whose number is always the greater. In case any one has a child of superior or inferior talents, such would do well to consult with the teachers or inspectors of the school.
9. The signs by which the child’s ability to attend the public schools may be discovered, are the following: 1. If the child has really acquired what it behooved it to learn in the maternal school. 2. If there be discovered in the child attention and appreciation of questions, with some power of judgment. 3. If a child display some desire for further instruction.
- ↑ Professor Rein of Jena observes: ‘‘In the education of the home there is a concentration of all the educative activities within the limits of a single circle of life. This circle is the result of a natural union based upon a common parentage.”
- ↑ “The mother,” says Pestalozzi, “is qualified by the Creator Himself to become the principal agent in the development of the child. God has given to the child all the faculties of our nature; but the grand point remains undecided—how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated?” Again: “Maternal love is the first agent in education.”
- ↑ Jean Paul Richter shares this responsibility with the father. He says: “Only by the union of manly energy and decision with womanly gentleness does the child rest and sail at the conflux of two streams. The sun raises the tide, and so does the moon; but he raises it only one foot, she three, and both united four. The husband only marks full stops in the child’s life; the wife, commas and semicolons.”
- ↑ Harriet Martineau, in her Household Education (Philadelphia, 1849), agrees with Comenius in deferring the time of sending a child to formal schools until the sixth or seventh year. She says: “School is no place of education for any children whatever till their minds are well put in action. This is the work which has to be done at home, and which may be done in all homes where the mother is a sensible woman. This done, a school is a resource of inestimable advantage for cultivating the intellect and aiding in the acquisition of knowledge; but it is of little or no use without preparation at home.”
- ↑ Rousseau carried this restraint to an insane extent. He said: “The first education should be purely negative. It consists by no means in teaching virtue or truth, but in securing the heart from vice and the intellect from error. If you would do nothing, and let nothing be done, if you would bring up your pupil healthy and strong to the age of twelve, without his being able to tell his right hand from his left, from your very first lessons the eyes of his understanding would open to reason.” Again; “Look on all delays as so many advantages: it is a great gain to advance toward the goal without loss. Let childhood ripen in childhood.”