Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/90

 and assuredly nothing but what is agreeable should at all be presented to the infant mind:this rule excludes not merely objects or ideas positively unpleasing, but all such as are dry, and devoid of attractions.

In the flower-garden, and among the gay, winged, hum-ming tribes that frequent it, Nature opens her school;we have but to lead our infant charge thither, and simply to act as her interpreters; and when this pictured alphabet has been learned, it will be easy to go afield, and thence to mount higher and higher, until we tread the skies, and make some acquaintance with distant worlds. None but the most dronish teachers can need to be told that the ex-acting of volumes of lessons may entirely fail of quicken-ing the mind. There may, however, be many who, from the conscious or supposed want in themselves of various information, and of the requisite fertility of thought, adhere to the stultifying practice of lesson-giving, although they perceive its inutility, and would gladly, if not at too great a cost of mind, adopt a different method.

Hints, intended to facilitate such a better purpose, will hereafter be suggested; at present I would offer some considerations which may serve to confirm the minds of parents in the resolution not to allow more than a very little book-learning to be attempted during the first period of education.

It is not so much the actual process of learning to read, as the consequences of being able to read, during early years, which are to be guarded against; and this period, be it remembered, extends to the time when the organization of the brain is complete, and when its ultimate dimensions are nearly attained. In learning to read, if the process be conducted with a fair degree of discretion, the mind is not taxed by the demand of continuous attention; on the con-trary, its frequent stops and trips, and the consequent inter-position of the teacher, break up the exercise into morsels,