Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

objects. All such vulgar and debasing ideas as are generally interwoven in our popular songs, and which are little else than a compound of sensuality and selfishness, should be carefully discarded. A good organ or other musical instrument might be used for leading the vocal strains. Music, both vocal and instrumental, has long been too frequently prostituted to the most worthless purposes; it is now high time that it should be consecrated to moral objects, and to the celebration of the perfections and the works of the Most High.

In addition to the mental exercises now alluded to, pupils of every description should be daily employed in bodily exercises, for invigorating their health and corporeal powers. Every school should have a play-ground for this purpose, as extensive as possible, and furnished with gymnastic apparatus for exercising the muscular activities of the young of both sexes. Swings, poles, hoops, see-saws, pulleys, balls, and similar articles, should be furnished for enabling them to engage with spirit and vigour in their amusements. In walking, running, skipping, leaping in height, length, or depth, swinging, lifting, carrying, jumping with a hoop or a pole, they will not only find sources of enjoy. ment-when these exercises are properly regulated to prevent danger and contention,-but will also strengthen and develop their corporeal energies, and invigorate their mental powers. All imitations, however, of war and military manœuvres should be generally prohibited; as it is now more than time that a martial spirit should be counteracted, and checked in the very bud,—and those who encourage it in the young need not wonder if they shall, ere long, behold many of them rising up to be curses instead of benefactors to mankind.-They might, likewise, be occasionally employed in making excursions, in company with their teacher, either along the sea-shore, the banks of a river, or to the top of a hill, for the purpose of surveying the scenes of nature or art, and searching for minerals, plants, flowers, or insects, to augment the school museum, and to serve as subjects for instruction. If every school had a piece of ground attached to it for a garden, and for the cultivation of fruit-trees, potatoes, cabbages, and other culinary vegetables, children of both sexes, at certain hours, might be set to dig, to hoe, to prune, to plant, to sow, to arrange the beds of flowers, and to keep every portion of the plot in neatness and order. Such exercises would not only be healthful and exhilarating, but might be of great utility to them in after life, when they come to have the sole management of their domestic affairs. They might also be encouraged to employ some of their leisure hours in the construction of such mechanical con

trivances and devices as are most congenial to their taste. If, instead of six or seven hours' confinement in school, only five hours at most were devoted to books, and the remaining hours to such exercises as above mentioned, their progress in practical knowledge, so far from being impeded, might be promoted to a much greater extent. Such exercises might be turned, not only to their physical and intellectual advantage, but to their moral improvement. When young people are engaged in their diversions, or in excursions along with their teacher, their peculiar tastes, tempers, and conduct towards each other are openly developed; they act without restraint, they appear in their true colours, and a teacher has the best opportunity of marking the dispositions they display. He can therefore apply, at the moment, those encouragements and admonitions, and those Christian rules and maxims, by which their characters and conduct may be moulded into the image of Him "who hath set us an example, that we should walk in his steps." The incidents and the atmospherical phenomena which may occur on such occasions, will also supply materials for rational observations and reflections, and for directing the train of their affections, and the exercise of their moral powers; and no opportunity of this kind, for producing useful impressions upon the young, should be lost by a pious and intelligent instructor.

Thus I have endeavoured, in the preceding pages, to exhibit an outline of some of those branches of knowledge, in which every individual of the human race-the female sex as well as the male -should receive a certain portion of instruction. Hitherto the female sex have been sadly neglected; their education, where they have not been altogether overlooked, has been more showy than substantial; and they have been generally treated as if they were not possessed of the mental powers requisite for acquiring all the useful branches of science. Without entering into the question, Whether the female character possesses the same degree of intellectual energy as that of the other sex? it may be affirmed, without the least hesitation, that, when their education is properly directed, they are capable of acquiring every branch of knowledge which can improve or adorn the human mind. We have numerous examples to corroborate this position. It is sufficient to mention the names of Mrs. Barbauld, Miss Aitken, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Wakefield, Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. More, Mrs. Marcet, Miss Taylor, Miss Landon, Mrs. Somerville, Mrs. Willard, Mrs. Phelps, &c. which are only specimens of many others, most of whom are still alive and actively employed, both in Britain and America, in instructing their own sex and society at large, and

in promoting the interests of general knowledge. The female sex possess essentially the same intellectual faculties as the male, whatever may be said as to the degrees of vigour in which the primitive powers exist. But even in respect to the degree of acuteness and energy of the female intellect, we have examples of individuals who, without the advantage of an academical edu cation, have explored the system of the universe, composed commentaries on the Newtonian philosophy, and prosecuted the most abstruse mathematical investigations; and I have no hesitation in asserting, that academical honours should be conferred on such accomplished females, no less than on the other sex who have enjoyed more opportunities of improvement.* Females have more in their power than the other sex in forming the tastes and dispositions of the young, and in giving them those impressions in early life which may be either beneficial or injurious to society They are the more immediate guardians and instructors of the rising generation during the first stage of their existence, and upon the discretion and intelligence they display in superintending the evolution of the youthful mind, will, in a great measure, depend the intelligence and the moral order of the social state to which they belong. Their influence is powerful, not only on the tastes and manners of society, but on the moral principles and characters of mankind. Besides, they are beings destined for immortality, and equally interested as the other sex in all that is awful or glorious in the revelations of Heaven; and therefore ought to have their minds enlightened in every branch of knowledge which may have a beneficial influence on their present conduct and their future destiny. Till more attention is paid to the cultivation of the female mind, among all ranks, society cannot be expected to make an accelerated progress in the course of moral and intellectual improvement.

In specifying the preceding branches of knowledge as subjects in which all classes of the young should be instructed, I do not mean to insinuate, that, in the first stage of their education, such subjects are to be studied in regular courses, as in academies and universities, though at a future period this plan may be adopted.

* Mrs. Somerville has lately been elected member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Geneva, the first time an honour of the kind was ever conferred a female. An American paper states, whether truly or not! I cannot determine, that "The Legislature of Indiana have chartered a college, to be called The Christian College, in which degrees are to be con ferred on both males and females. There are to be degrees of Doctress of Natural Science, of English Literature, or Belles Lettres, of Fine Arts, and of Arts and Sciences." However ludicrous this may appear to some, I can 606 no impropriety in following out such an idea.

While they are learning English reading, composition, writing, arithmetic, and other branches, illustrations may be given of the more interesting and popular parts of the physical sciences,-which will tend to give them a relish for such subjects, and to prepare them for entering on the more particular study of such branches of knowledge, at a period when their faculties are more matured. Nor ought it to be objected, that, in this way, young persons would only receive a smattering of learning, which would puff them up with vanity, and do them more harm than good. If every portion of knowledge communicated to them, however detached and insulated, be clearly explained and illustrated, and thoroughly understood, it must necessarily be useful, either in expanding their views, or in its practical applications. For example, if, by certain pneumatical and hydrostatical experiments, they are made to perceive clear proofs of the atmospheric pressure, and its operation in the case of syphons-if they are made to see, by similar experiments, that, on this principle, water may be conveyed either over a rising ground, or along a valley to an opposite hill, this single fact, clearly understood, might be of considerable use to them on many occasions, even although they were unacquainted with all the other principles and facts connected with pneumatical science. The great object to be attended to is, to convey, on every subject, a clear and well-defined idea to the young, and to guide them to the practical application of knowledge.

There is a line of Mr. Pope which has been hackneyed about for a century past, which is in every body's mouth, and which is generally misapplied, when an aliusion is made to this subject

"A little learning is a dangerous thing."

How such a sentiment came to be almost universally quoted and admired, I am at a loss to divine. It is a proposition which cannot be supported by any mode of reasoning with which I am ac quainted, and is itself "a dangerous thing," if by learning is understood the acquisition of any portion of useful knowledge. Every one must acquire "a little" portion of knowledge, or learning, before he can acquire a larger share. A child must acquire the knowledge of the letters and elementary sounds, before he can read any language with fluency-and must form some idea of the objects immediately around him, before he car. acquire an accurate conception of the subjects and scenes con. nected with geography. If the proposition be true, that “ a little learning is dangerous," then it should follow, that a very great

portion of learning, or knowledge, must be much more danger. ous. If it be dangerous for a boy to know that the earth is 25,000 miles in circumference, and to be able to prove that it is round like a globe, then Newton and Bacon must have been extremely dangerous individuals, whose knowledge extended to an almost unlimited range. If a little learning is dangerous, then absolute ignorance and destitution of all ideas must be the safest and the happiest state of human beings. But how can even "a little" knowledge be dangerous? Suppose a young person to have read only the Gospel of Luke, and to have acquired a knowledge of all the facts it records-would he be less happy in himself, or more dangerous to society, on this account, because he had little acquaintance with the other portions of Scripture? or, would he have been better to have read nothing at all? Or, suppose he had been instructed in the fact, that foul air of a deadly nature, is frequently to be found at the bottom of old wells, and that it is requisite to send down a lighted candle to determine this point before a person attempts to descend into such places,-would the knowledge of such circumstances be dangerous to him, because he is not acquainted with the properties of all the other gases, or with the whole system of chemistry? Would an acquaintance with a portion of geography, suppose the States of Europe, be dangerous to any one, because he had not minutely studied all the other quarters of the globe? or would a knowledge of hydrostatics be useless, because he was unacquainted with several other branches of natural philosophy? Such conclusions are obviously absurd, and therefore the proposition under consideration is absolutely untenable. The persons who most frequently reiterate this sentiment are those who are opposed to the universal educa. tion of the lower orders, and to the general diffusion of know. ledge. I know no class of men to which such a sentiment will apply, except, perhaps, to a few pedants who have got a smatter ing of Greek and Latin at a grammar school or a college, with out any other substantial acquirement, and who pique themselves on this account, as if they were elevated in point of knowledge far above the vulgar throng.

But although I have admitted, that, during the first stage of instruction, only a few fragments of knowledge would be communicated, yet before the course is finished, a very considerable por tion of all that is really useful in the sciences might be imparted to the young. Suppose that, on an average, every child is able to read with tolerable fluency by the time he is arrived at the age of seven or eight, and that the course of instruction for every.

« VorigeDoorgaan »