Page:The education of the farmer.djvu/19

 form habits of diligence and perseverance by requiring little tasks in household matters, undertaken as they will be at first as a pleasure, to be punctually and regularly performed. It is needless to observe that this requires patience, good-temper, and some self-denial in the mother, for it is far less troublesome to do anything oneself than to get it done by a child, with the prospect of having it all to do over again. It is a wise maxim, "Remember that children have to be told the same thing over and over again; they must be reminded every day, and all day, and that cheerfully." Self-reliance is another habit to be acquired in very early years. I have heard it quoted as the saying of one of the best and most disinterested educators in England, "that the secret of education consists in putting children into a difficulty and leaving them to find their own way out of it."

Practical habits in the business of life depend, in a great measure, on a certain quickness of perception and fertility of resource. It is therefore of great importance to call out the inventive powers and to encourage the activity given by nature to the young. In children there is a strong temptation to dreaming, or what is called wool-gathering, and dawdling. In this point of view games are invaluable. By games I mean real play, not lessons in disguise, which children are sure to find out. Play is a provision of nature and involves freedom as well as activity. Only let play be play; either play of the mind, that is activity in guessing, finding out, and contriving; or play of the body, in the active exercise of the limbs; and the more fun the better. Nor are the little imitative amusements of children to be despised, for the play of the imagination calls out the inventive and active powers in happy combination.

The bane of childhood is to pamper the appetite for bodily indulgence or any kind of pleasure. It is a profound principle of an ancient moral writer that pleasure, which is given to man as the natural result of healthy action, should not be its motive. When pleasure is allowed to take the place of duty, or to be followed in excess, it always disappoints, and produces a morbid craving for excitement, which destroys all power of enjoyment.

As to actual teaching, for the reason given above, little need be said. But I earnestly commend to mothers in the middle classes two little books written by my more than respected tutor,