Comenius' School of Infancy/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
ACTIVITY AND EXPRESSION.
1. Boys ever delight in being occupied in something, for their youthful blood does not allow them to be at rest.[1] Now as this is very useful, it ought not to be restrained, but provision made that they may always have something to do. Let them be like ants, continually occupied in doing something, carrying, drawing, construetion, and transposing, provided always that whatever they do be done prudently. They ought to be assisted, by showing them the forms of all things, even of playthings; for they cannot yet be occupied in real works, and we should play with them. We read that Themistocles, supreme ruler of the Athenians, was once seen riding with his son on a long reed as a horse, by a young unmarried citizen; and observing that he wondered how so great a man could act so childishly, he begged of him not to relate the incident to any one until he himself had a son,—thus indicating that when he became a father, he would be better able to understand the affection of parents for their children, and that he would cease to be surprised at the conduct which now seemed to him childish.[2]
2. Inasmuch as children try to imitate what they see others do,[3] they should be permitted to have all things, excepting such as might cause injury to themselves, such as knives, hatchets, and glass. When this is not convenient, in place of real instruments they should have toys procured for their use; namely, iron knives, wooden swords, plows, little carriages, sledges, mills, buildings, ete. With these they may amuse themselves, thus exercising their bodies to health, their minds to vigor, and their bodily members to agility. They are delighted to construct little houses, and to erect walls of clay, chips, wood, or stone, thus displaying an architectural genius. In a word, whatever children delight to play with, provided that it be not hurtful, they ought rather to be gratified than restrained from it; for inactivity is more injurious to both mind and body than anything in which they can be occupied.
3. Now advancing according to their years, in the first year they will have sufficient mechanical knowledge for children, if they learn why they open their mouths for food, hold up their heads, take anything in their hands, sit, stand, etc.; all these things will depend rather on nature than nurture.
4. In the second and third years their mechanical knowledge may be extended; for now they begin to learn what it is to run, to jump, to agitate themselves in various ways, to play, to kindle and extinguish, to pour out water, to carry things from place to place, to put down, to lift up, to lay prostrate, to cause to stand, to turn, to roll together, to unroll, to bend, to make straight, to break, to split, etc.; all these things onght to be allowed, nay, when opportunity serves, they ought to be shown them.
5. The fourth, fifth, and sixth years will and ought to be full of labors and architectural efforts; for too much sitting still or slowly walking about on the part of a child is not a good sign; to be always running or doing something is a sure sign of a sound body and vigorous intellect; therefore, whatever attracts their attention, that ought not to be denied, but rather be given them; that which is done should be properly done, and with a view to future usefulness.
6. Children in this maternal school ought also, in their fourth and fifth year, to be exercised in drawing and writing,[4] according as their inclination may be noticed or excited, supplying them with chalk (poorer persons may use a piece of charcoal), with which they may at their will make dots, lines, hooks, or round O’s, of which the method may be easily shown, either as an exercise or amusement. In this way they will accustom the hand to the use of the chalk, and to form letters, and they will understand what a dot is, and what a little line, which will afterwards greatly abridge the labors of the teacher.
7. In this stage dialectics (reasoning), beyond the natural, or such as is obtained in practice, cannot be introduced;[5] but in whatever manner those persons conduct themselves, who associate with children, whether rationally or irrationally, such will the children be.
8. The elements of arithmetic can scarcely be propounded to children in the third year; but soon they can count up to five or ten, or at least pronounce the numbers correctly; they may not at first understand what those numbers really are, but they will of themselves observe the use to which this enumeration is applied. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth years it will be sufficient if they count up to twenty in succession, and be able clearly to distinguish that seven is more than five, and fifteen more than thirteen; what is an even and what an odd number, which they may easily learn from the play which we call odds and evens. To proceed farther than this in arithmetic would be unprofitable, nay, hurtful; for nothing is so difficult to fix in our minds as numbers.[6]
9. About the second year the principles of geometry[7] may be perceived, when we say of anything it is large or small; they will afterwards know easily what is short or long, wide or narrow. In the fourth year they may learn the different forms; for example, what is a circle, what are lines, what a square. At length they may learn the names of the common measures, such as a finger’s breadth, a span, a foot, a pint, a quart, a gallon. Whatever comes spontaneously to their own knowledge, they themselves should be shown how to measure, to weigh, thus comparing the one with another standard of measurement.
10. Music is especially natural to us; for as soon as we see the light we immediately sing the song of paradise, thus recalling to our memory our fall, A, a! E, e! I maintain that complaint and wailing are our first music,[8] from which it is impossible to restrain infants; and if it were possible, it would be inexpedient, since it contributes to their health; for as long as other exercises and amusements are wanting, by this very means their chests and other internal parts relieve themselves of their superfluities. External music begins to delight children at two years of age; such as singing, rattling, and striking of musical instruments. They should therefore be indulged in this, so that their ears and minds may be soothed by concord and harmony.[9]
11. In the third year the sacred music of daily use may be introduced; namely, that received as a custom to sing before and after dinner, and when prayers are begun or ended. On such occasions they ought to be present, and to be accustomed to attend and conduet themselves composedly. It will also be expedient to take them to public worship, where the whole assembly unites in singing the praises of God. In the fourth year it is possible for some children to sing of themselves; the slower ones, however, ought not to be forced, but permitted to have a whistle, a drum, or pipes, so that by whistling, drumming, and piping they may accustom their ears to the perceptions of various sounds, or even to imitate them. In the fifth year it will be time to open their mouths in hymns and praises to God, and to use their voices for the glory of their Creator.
12. These things parents, in singing or playing with children, may easily instil into-their minds; the memory is now more enlarged and apt than previously, and will, with greater ease and pleasure, imbibe a larger number of things in consequence of the rhythm and melody. The more verses they commit to memory, the better will they be pleased with themselves, and the glory of God be largely promoted. Blessed is the home where voices resound with music.[10]
COLLATERAL READING.
Blow’s Symbolic Education, Chap. V.; Edgeworth’s Practical Education, Chaps. XV., XVI., XVII., and XVIII.; Laurie’s Primary Instruction in Relation to Education, Chap. III.; Malleson’s Early Training of Children, Chap. IV.; Necker de Saussure’s Progressive Education, Book III., Chap. III.; Richter’s Levana, Third Fragment, Chaps. III., IV.,.and V.; Rousseau’s Émile, Book II.
- ↑ The regulation of the spontaneous activity of children, a cardinal principle in the Kindergarten, is here suggested. Its founder wrote: “Be this especially noted with reference to unfolding and improving natural activity in the production of outward results; that is, to foster industry—love of bodily work.”
- ↑ Emerson observes: “Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus.”
- ↑ Rousseau says: “Children who are great imitators all try to draw. I should wish my child to cultivate this art, not exactly for the art itself but to make the eye correct and the hand supple.”
- ↑ Richard Mulcaster said in his Positions (London, 1887), fifty years before: “As judgment by understanding is a rule to the minde to discerne what is honest, seemly and suitable in matters of the mind, so drawing with penne or pencile is an assured rule for the sense to judge by, of the proportion and seemliness of all aspectable thinges.”
- ↑ In this as in most other matters Comenius opposed the practice of the Jesuits and agreed with Plato “that whenever boys taste dialectic for the first time, they pervert it into an amusement, and always employ it for purposes of contradiction, and imitate in their own persons the artifices of those who study refutation,—delighting, like puppies, in pulling and tearing to pieces with logic any one who comes near them,”
- ↑ La Salle, the founder of the Brethren of the Christian Schools, was of similar mind.
- ↑ Rousseau has advised likewise. In America we are just beginning to realize the possibilities of geometry with young children. On this subject see Speer’s Form Lessons (Englewood, 1888), and Hanus’ Geometry in the Grammar School (Boston, 1893).
- ↑ Richter says in Levana (London, 1886): “In the childhood of nations speaking was singing. Let this be repeated in the childhood of the individual. In singing, harmony and heart coalesce at the same time in one breast. . . . With what arms can a parent more closely and more gently draw the little beings toward him, than with his spiritual ones, with the tones of his own heart, with the same voice which always speaks to them, but now transfigured into a musical ascension?” Baroness Marenholtz-Bulow in Child and Child Culture (London, 1879), remarks: “Savages, like children, have the keenest desire for song and dance—i.e. for rhythmic sounds and movements . . . and music is before all other arts the awakening of the heart.”
- ↑ Plato remarks in this connection: “Rhythm and harmony sink most deeply into the recesses of the soul, and take most powerful hold of it, bringing gracefulness in their train, and making man graceful if he be rightly nurtured, but if not, the reverse.”
- ↑ Plato remarks: “The truly musical person will love those who combine most perfectly moral and physical beauty, but will not love any one in whom there is dissonance.”