with the views of Madame Necker. The following precepts we consider admirable: "A punishment decreed beforehand, and inflicted when the specified fault is committed, places a sort of barrier between the culprit and his offended parent; which opposes any excess of indulgence, and renders violent expressions of anger unnecessary. The father punishes, not as a satisfaction to his own feelings, but that he may be true to his word; which no consideration should ever tempt him to violate.". . . . . . “ But the punishment must never be remitted; this would only tend to make his government appear arbitrary; and, when at last obliged to inflict it, he might be considered capricious or cruel. It is not so much the severity, as the certainty of punishment, which renders it efficacious. If there be the least doubt as to its being executed, children not only willingly encounter the risk, but are even pleasurably excited by the idea of setting it at defiance.-What we ought particularly to guard against with regard to punishments, is, the supposition that, by increasing their severity, we shall obtain what we were unable to accomplish at first. When a child has once submitted to chastisement of any kind, we ought to take it for granted that he is corrected; and laying aside all idea of further threatenings, grant an entire pardon. This observation applies particularly to the case of obstinacy. When a determined resolution is shown not to obey a command, it is more than doubtful whether any good will result from obliging a child to do so. If we have recourse to violence for this purpose, we render him cowardly; fear triumphs over courage, and physical over moral feeling; and thus an agency is destroyed, frequently misapplied, no doubt, but the want of which may sometimes be regretted. This is a case in which punishment, if necessary, is perfectly justifiable; but, having inflicted it, do not afterwards insist on the performance of the point in dispute: do not even allude to it; by making the child submit to your chastisement, you have sufficiently asserted your rights. You have saved your own dignity, without offending his."-Vol. ii. pp. 186, 187, 188. Transl. The young instructor, who must often have occasion to consult experience older and more practised than his own, cannot fail to borrow many valuable reflections from the chapters devoted to "Employment of Time," "Practical Rules for the Cultivation of the Faculties of Attention and Reason," aswell as "for the Cultivation of the Memory;" but no portion of the book will be read with deeper interest, or afford more useful admonition, than the chapters which investigate and explain the peculiar and ever-restless properties of the imagination. The pains employed by Madame Necker, in the two volumes of her work, to show the rise and progress, the capabilities and abuses of this active organ, prove the great importance she attaches to its early cultivation. No one however, capable of reflection, will disallow the truth and soundness of her views. Some of the most pleasurable sensations which we can experience, owe their origin to a lively but well-disciplined imagination. It brightens the path of infancy, giving reality and life to the sports and amusements of the child: as he advances in years it imparts vitality to his most elevated ideas; taste, order, harmony, and beauty, weave their mystic web of pleasing and refined enjoyment beneath its all-pervading and all-inspiring influence; "it spreads its brilliant net-work over the whole face of nature, and finds in every direction meshes to which it can attach itself;" it enlarges the sphere of pure and innocent gratification, and spiritualizes the heart to a full appreciation of that benignity, which, "" Not content With every food of life to nourish man, The "prudent" parent, therefore, who from a false estimation of its utility, or an idle apprehension of its delusiveness, endeavours to arrest the progress and subvert the influence of this animating faculty, not only robs the child of his dearest and most enviable possession-the genuine enthusiasm of a youthful spirit but entails upon him also a weight of misery, as the inevitable result of his withering and injurious system; for although the imagination may be perverted, it can never be destroyed; forbidden to enjoy the rich luxuriance of its own nature, it degenerates to a poisonous and noxious weed. "It is never at a loss," says Madame Necker, "for the means of exercising its power of turning every thing into a cause of fanciful apprehension. Old age is always seen in the distance; illness constantly impending; and death ready at any moment to seize on his victim. To such an imagination, poverty-always a positive evil-appears immediate and certain; and the smallest sacrifice in favour of another, dangerous. Presenting always the dark side of any doubtful event to the mind, and thus causing it to live under the reflected influence of a gloomy futurity, the imagination, if allowed to feed on itself, instead of being led by a judicious education to exercise its powers on external objects, destroys every consolatory feeling, and too often fosters the most deplorable passions." To the age of ten a similar system of moral and intellectual instruction is recommended both for boys and girls. After this period the grand line of demarcation must be drawn: Madame Necker has devoted another and a larger portion of her work to the full development of the female character;* and confines herself in the remainder of the present volume exclusively to the education of the boy, examining the method best adapted to secure his mental vigour and activity, and most effectually to prepare him for his future obligations. Her remarks prove that she has reflected much upon the subject, and that she is well acquainted with all the springs and wheels which work within a boy's heart. Until the age of ten or twelve she recommends that his instruction should take place at home; she reprobates the folly of sending a boy during these early years, from the paternal roof, not only as prejudicial to his improvement, but also as liable to weaken that pure and sacred tie which ought always to exist between the parent and his child. The following passage partially explains the views of Madame Necker, and is, at the same time, so replete with feeling, pathos, and good sense, that we should not do justice either to her or to our readers if we did not allow ourselves to extract it. "How much is included in the simple expression, remaining in the family circle! If the child can, indeed, be retained at home long enough to have acquired a keen relish for domestic pleasures before he has learnt to enjoy any others, how many recollections, how many feelings and images, alike pleasing in themselves, and favourable to morality, will thus be formed during the years which I am so anxious to claim for the parental roof; I do not of course refer now to those happy countries where the few hours spent every day at the college do not interfere with general domestic habits; but where this is not the case, what courage must be required to separate ourselves from a son before either he is known to us or we to him! to give up our power of obtaining glimpses of his character,-transient and uncertain at first, but becoming every day clearer and more determined, and of being thus enabled to form plans for his education founded upon personal experience! Besides, of how much happiness do we thus deprive the child! How indistinct in his eyes do all the relations of domestic life become! No lasting friendship will afterwards strengthen the ties of nature; sisters and brothers hardly seem to exist for each other, when the recollection of that time when all their pleasures and all their griefs were in common, is carried too far back into the twilight mists of infancy. And all those peculiar circumstances of situation, fortune, friends, or neighbourhood, which constitute the individuality of a family-every thing which cannot yet interest a child of seven years old-must be for ever lost to him. * We have very great pleasure in subjoining the following "Note by the translator:"-" Madame Necker has redeemed her pledge on this subject by the publication of a third volume of her work, entirely devoted to the consideration of female education and character, a translation of which is intended to follow the publication of these volumes."-Vol. ii. p. 278. Transl. At least he will learn them only at an age when the whole course of his thoughts will have taken a different direction, but even this is not the most important loss, nor one which is entirely irreparable; the essential consideration is, that in schools the education of the heart is very much neglected, and that the task of inspiring our children with an actuating and enlightened spirit of religion ought to be trusted to no one but ourselves. Some good dispositions will, no doubt, be left in the heart from those devotional feelings which are so easily excited in early childhood; such slight impressions, however, like a thin vapour, are swept away by the gales of life. But a religious culture, which is continued till the pupil is ten or twelve years old, leaves a far deeper impression; and, what must especially interest the mother, on whom this religious education generally devolves, the same feelings which will prove their most certain safeguard and consolation will always be associated in the memory of her sons with her gentle image, and will be indissolubly connected with filial love."-Vol. ii. pp. 281, 282, 283. Transl. When the boy, however, arrives at the age of ten or twelve, when his principles of religion and morality may be said to be secured, and his ideas of right and wrong accurately defined, the views of Madame Necker coincide with those of the great Roman educationist, and she speaks decidedly in favour of a public system of instruction: we have not time to enter into this much-contested question, or to discuss the comparative merits of the public or private education; we would only state that the objections so constantly raised against the former, seem to us to be often drawn from partial and inconsiderate conclusions, and, indeed, not unfrequently to be more than counterbalanced by the various imperfections and deficiencies unavoidably attendant upon a private system. The valuable institutions of our country devoted to education, venerable from their antiquity, and consecrated by the memories of the wise and great and good, have been accused, and perhaps justly so, of a blind and obstinate attachment to established forms and obsolete prejudices. This feeling, however, is fast upon the wane; a spirit of improvement is even now working within our public seminaries, conformable with the character of the age. The useless and hurtful excrescences engrafted by the hand of time will soon, we hope, be rooted out. And then, but not till then, we may safely and unhesitatingly declare of our great and ancient foundations, that their whole system of instruction, so calculated to discipline the mind to habits of steady application and persevering industry, to imbue it with the principles of pure and correct taste, and to call forth all its hidden powers, will, of itself, be sufficient to substantiate their utility and importance; while the healthy nature of the play-ground, the high ideas of honour which prevail among the boys, and the general feeling of equality, will all unite to abate the presumption without weakening the elasticity of the spirit, and to inure the youth to that patient endurance, honest energy, and manly exertion, which will best prepare him for the scenes of active life. |