Letters to Mothers/Letter XV
LETTER XV.
READING AND THINKING.
THIS is emphatically the age of book-making, and miscellaneous reading. Profound thought is becoming somewhat obsolete. The rapidity with which space is traversed, and wealth accumulated, the many exciting objects which arrest attention in our new, and wide country, indispose the mind to the old habits of patient investigation, and solitary study.
Would it not be better for most of us, if we read less? The periodical publications of the day, act as a stimulant to the mental appetite, provoking it beyond its capacity of digestion. "Nothing, says Dugald Stewart, has such a tendency to weaken, not only the powers of invention, but the intellectual powers in general, as extensive reading, without reflection. Mere reading books, oppresses, enfeebles, and is with many, a substitute for thinking."
That we read too much, and reflect too little, will scarcely be doubted. The flood of desultory nature, sweeps on like a deluge, and the mind, the bird of Noah, spreads a weary wing over the shoreless ocean, yet finds no resting-place The disposition to seek out the "chief seats at synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts," which flourishes under our free government, leads some to become authors, and teachers, who have need to learn.
It would be well if more attention were bestowed by parents, on the character of books which are put into the hands of children. Even the style of execution, the character of the type, paper and embellishments, are important; for the taste is earlier formed, than we are apt to imagine. As the education of the eye, is among the first efforts of instruction, it is a pity to vitiate it by evil models. A fair book, is a beautiful object to a child, and will be more careful served, and generally more attentively perused than if its exterior were repulsive.
Parents should always inform themselves, what books their children are reading. They should, if possible, first peruse them, and see whether they are calculated to impart wholesome nutriment, or stupefying anodyne, or deadly aconite. We cannot take it for granted, that because they have a book in their hand, their souls are safe. I was acquainted with a father and mother, who carefully perused every book which was to be entrusted to their children, and marked with the scrupulousness of refined and religious taste, such parts as they considered either injurious, or inapposite; and so perfect were the habits of obedience which they had enforced, that the penciled passages were left unread.
The ambition to have children read at a very early age, seems ill-placed. Apart from any ill effect of infantine application upon health, is not the attainment, rather the sound of words, than the reception of ideas?
"My daughter could read as well at three years old, as she does now," says some fond mother, trespassing a little upon that province of boasting, from which the "very chiefest of the apostles" has excluded us. Had the child been gifted with the wisdom of the stripling David, it would have objected to be thus girded with the heavy armour of a veteran. What can be the motive for thrusting weapons into a hand, which is too weak to wield them? What is the use of repeating words, which the understanding cannot comprehend? Is it even safe, to force an immature intellect into unnatural prominence?
I once admired precocity, and viewed it as the breath of Deity, quickening to ripe and rare excellence. But I have since learned to fear it. Minds, which in childhood, distanced their contemporaries, so often cease to advance in the same ratio, become restive, inert, or apparently deteriorated, that I cannot, but regard with more true satisfaction, a fabric, built lip slowly and solidly.
"I left my boy at his books," says the parent, with a self-complacent smile. Now, though it is far better to read, than to do mischief, we cannot always be certain, that reading is a defence from every danger. A boy if idle, may choose a book as a refuge from incumbent industry; or if ill-disposed, may select an improper one; or if thoughtless, may read the best volume, without remembrance, or improvement. So, though a taste for reading, is an indication of mental health, and a claim on gratitude, yet let no mother feel perfectly at ease about her children simply because they read; unless she knows the character of the books that engage their attention, and what use is made of the knowledge they impart.
"I shall never feel satisfied, says another parent, till my son acquires a love of reading." Study the impulse of his mind. Perhaps, his tools are his books. The Roman might have been accounted idle, while he traversed the shore, to collect the wave-worn fragments of the broken ship of Carthage. Yet thence arose the navy of Rome. Noah, might have been accounted visionary, while he built the ark, amid "the contradiction of sinners," but under the impulse of heaven. We know that Newton was misunderstood, while he pondered the frail orb of the soap bubble; and Fulton ridiculed while he propelled that first adventurous vessel, whose countless offspring were soon to mock the winds, and tread the waves with their feet of fire.
Count not the child an idler, who studies the Book of Nature, or invigorates by active exercise, the wonderful mechanism of the body. Yet I would not speak lightly, of the love of reading. Oh no! This cannot be done, by those who reverence knowledge. I simply assert that Nature exhibits a diversity of operations. The various trades and professions must be filled. If all were sedentary men, who would compel the earth to yield her increase? or preside at the forge of the artificer? or speed the shuttle of the artizan? or spread the sail that bears to remotest regions, subsistence and wealth?
The use and ingenuity of the hands, should be encouraged in children. Neither should their ruling tastes be too much counteracted, in selecting their business for life. The due admixture, and welfare of different trades and professions in the body politic, is like the fine economy of the frame. "So that the eye cannot say to the hand, nor again the hand to the feet, I have no need of you." It is becoming but too common to depress mechanics and agriculturists, the very sinews and life-blood of the land, and to elevate a sort of speculating indolence which in the end, may make the drones disproportionate to the honey in our national hive.
Yet whatever mental tendency our children may reveal, or to whatever employment they are destined, let us teach them the art of thinking. Let us prize the slightest fragment of thought which in broken whispers they submit to our ear. While we require their opinion of the sentiments and language of authors, the traits of character which they perceive around, and the trains thought which they find most salutary or agreeable, let us gently but faithfully regulate, a dazzling imagination, or a defective judgment. It has been said of one of our distinguished divines, that his mind in childhood, received impulse and colouring from a pious mother, who taught him how to think. Though she was early removed, he imbibed from her tuition, that love of letters, that taste for original and independent research which impelled him to conquer all the hardships of restricted circumstances, and obtain the benefits and honours of classic education.
Mothers should never remit their exertions, until by teaching their children to think, they familiarize them with the power and use of their own minds. Especially let them not "despise the day of small things," nor despair, if the effect of their arduous labour, is not immediately, or distinctly visible. A friend of the great Michael Angelo, saw him one day, at work upon a statue. Long afterward, he called, and it was yet unfinished.
"Have you been idle?"
"Ah, no. I have retouched here, and polished there. I have softened this feature, and brought that muscle forth in bolder relief. I have given more expression to the lip, more grace and energy to the form."
"Still these are but trifles."
"It may be so. But recollect that trifles make perfection, though perfection itself is no trifle."
The sculptor upon his dead marble, ought not to surpass in patience, us, who fashion the living image, and whose work is upon the "fleshly tables of the heart." Can we keep too strongly in view, the imperishable nature, the priceless value of those for whom we toil? In every child, there is an endless history. Compare the annals of the most boasted nation, with the story of one unending existence: has not our Saviour already shown the result, in his parallel between the gain of the whole world, and the loss of one soul? Assyria stretched out its colossal limbs, and sank ignobly, like the vaunting champion, on the plains of Elah. Egypt came up proudly, with temple, and labyrinth, and pyramid, but fell down manacled at the feet of the Turk. Greece, so long the light of the world, deserted by poet and philosopher, fled, pale as her own sculpture, from the same brutal foe. Rome, thundered and fell. She struggled indeed, and was centuries in dying. But is she not dead? Can a mummy in the Vatican, from its gilded sarcophagus, be indeed that Rome, before whom the world trembled?
The story of these empires fills many pages. The little child reads them, and is wearied out when their ancient features shall have faded from the map of nations, and the tomes that recorded their triumphs and their fate, blacken in the last flame, where shall be the soul of that little child? Mother? where?
Will it not then, have but just begun its eternal duration? Will not its history, be studied by archangels? Proud Philosophy, perchance viewed it as a noteless thing, an atom. Doth God, the former of the body, the father of the spirit, thus regard it?
Mothers of the four millions of children, who are yet to be educated in this Western World, to whom our country looks, as her defence and glory, Mothers, of four millions of immortal beings have you any time to waste? any right to loiter on your great work?