Practical Education (Vol.1&2). Maria Edgeworth

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СКАЧАТЬ have never yet mentioned what will probably first occur to those who would invent employments for children. We have never yet mentioned a garden; we have never mentioned those great delights to children, a spade, a hoe, a rake, and a wheelbarrow. We hold all these in proper respect; but we did not sooner mention them, because, if introduced too early, they are useless. We must not expect, that a boy six or seven years old, can find, for any length of time, sufficient daily occupation in a garden: he has not strength for hard labour; he can dig soft earth; he can weed groundsel, and other weeds, which take no deep root in the earth; but after he has weeded his little garden, and sowed his seeds, there must be a suspension of his labours. Frequently children, for want of something to do, when they have sowed flower-seeds in their crooked beds, dig up the hopes of the year to make a new walk, or to sink a well in their garden. We mention these things, that parents may not be disappointed, or expect more from the occupation of a garden, than it can, at a very early age, afford. A garden is an excellent resource for children, but they should have a variety of other occupations: rainy days will come, and frost and snow, and then children must be occupied within doors. We immediately think of a little set of carpenter's tools, to supply them with active amusement. Boys will probably be more inclined to attempt making models, than drawings of the furniture which appears to be the most easy to imitate; they will imagine that, if they had but tools, they could make boxes, and desks, and beds, and chests of drawers, and tables and chairs innumerable. But, alas! these fond imaginations are too soon dissipated. Suppose a boy of seven years old to be provided with a small set of carpenter's tools, his father thinks perhaps that he has made him completely happy; but a week afterwards the father finds dreadful marks of the file and saw upon his mahogany tables; the use of these tools is immediately interdicted until a bench shall be procured. Week after week passes away, till at length the frequently reiterated speech of "Papa, you bid me put you in mind about my bench." "Papa" has its effect, and the bench appears. Now the young carpenter thinks he is quite set up in the world, and projects carts and boxes, and reading-desks and writing-desks for himself and for his sisters, if he have any; but when he comes to the execution of his plans, what new difficulties, what new wants arise! the wood is too thick or too thin; it splits, or it cannot be cut with a knife; wire, nails, glue, and above all, the means of heating the glue, are wanting. At last some frail machine, stuck together with pegs or pins, is produced, and the workman is usually either too much ridiculed, or too much admired. The step from pegging to mortising is a very difficult step, and the want of a mortising-chisel is insuperable: one tool is called upon to do the duty of another, and the pricker comes to an untimely end in doing the hard duty of the punch; the saw wants setting; the plane will plane no longer; and the mallet must be used instead of the hammer, because the hammer makes so much noise, that the ladies of the family have voted for its being locked up. To all these various evils the child submits in despair; and finding, after many fruitless exertions, that he cannot make any of the fine things he had projected, he throws aside his tools, and is deterred by these disappointments from future industry and ingenuity. Such are the consequences of putting excellent tools into the hands of children before they can possibly use them: but the tools which are useless at seven years old, will be a most valuable present at eleven or twelve, and for this age it will be prudent to reserve them. A rational toy-shop should be provided with all manner of carpenter's tools, with wood properly prepared for the young workman, and with screws, nails, glue, emery-paper, and a variety of articles which it would be tedious to enumerate; but which, if parents could readily meet within a convenient assemblage, they would willingly purchase for their children. The trouble of hunting through a number of different shops, prevents them at present from purchasing such things; besides, they may not perhaps be sufficiently good carpenters to know distinctly every thing that is necessary for a young workman.

Card, pasteboard, substantial but not sharp-pointed scissors, wire, gum and wax, may, in some degree, supply the want of carpenter's tools at that early age when we have observed that the saw and plane are useless. Models of common furniture should be made as toys, which should take to pieces, so that all their parts, and the manner in which they are put together, might be seen distinctly; the names of the different parts should be written[4] or stamped upon them: by these means the names will be associated with realities; children will retain them in their memory, and they will neither learn by rote technical terms, nor will they be retarded in their progress in mechanical invention by the want of language. Before young people can use tools, these models will amuse and exercise their attention. From models of furniture we may go on to models of architecture; pillars of different orders, the roofs of houses, the manner of slating and tiling, &c. Then we may proceed to models of simple machines, choosing at first such as can be immediately useful to children in their own amusements, such as wheelbarrows, carts, cranes, scales, steelyards, jacks, and pumps, which children ever view with eager eyes.

      From simple, it will be easy to proceed gradually to models of more complicated, machinery: it would be tiresome to give a list of these; models of instruments used by manufacturers and artists should be seen; many of these are extremely ingenious; spinning-wheels, looms, paper-mills, wind-mills, water-mills, might with great advantage be shown in miniature to children.

      The distracting noise and bustle, the multitude of objects which all claim the attention at once, prevent young people from understanding much of what they see, when they are first taken to look at large manufactories. If they had previously acquired some general idea of the whole, and some particular knowledge of the different parts, they would not stare when they get into these places; they would not "stare round, see nothing, and come home content," bewildered by the sight of cogs and wheels; and the explanations of the workmen would not be all jargon to them; they would understand some of the technical terms, which so much alarm the intellects of those who hear them for the first time.

      We may exercise the ingenuity and judgment of children by these models of machines, by showing them first the thing to be done, and exciting them to invent the best means of doing it; afterwards give the models as the reward for their ingenuity, and let them compare their own inventions with the contrivances actually in use amongst artificers; by these means, young people may be led to compare a variety of different contrivances; they will discern what parts of a machine are superfluous, and what inadequate, and they will class particular observations gradually under general principles. It may be thought, that this will tend to give children only mechanical invention, or we should call it, perhaps, the invention of machines; and those who do not require this particular talent, will despise it as unnecessary in what are called the liberal professions. Without attempting to compare the value of different intellectual talents, we may observe, that they are all in some measure dependent upon each other. Upon this subject we shall enlarge more fully when we come to consider the method of cultivating the memory and invention.

Chemical toys will be more difficult to manage than mechanical, because the materials, requisite to try many chemical experiments, are such as cannot safely be put into the hands of children. But a list of experiments, and of the things necessary to try them, might easily be drawn out by a chemist who would condescend to such a task; and if these materials, with proper directions, were to be found at a rational toy-shop, parents would not be afraid of burning or poisoning their children in the first chemical lessons. In some families, girls are taught the confectionary art; might not this be advantageously connected with some knowledge of chemistry, and might not they be better taught than by Mrs. Raffeld or Mrs. Glass?[5] Every culinary operation may be performed as an art, probably, as well by a cook as by a chemist; but, if the chemist did not assist the cook now and then with a little science, epicures would have great reason for lamentation. We do not, by any means, advise that girls should be instructed in confectionary arts, at the hazard of their keeping company with servants. If they learn any thing of this sort, there will be many precautions necessary to separate them from servants: we do not advise that these hazards should be run; but if girls learn confectionary, let them learn the principles of chemistry, which may assist in this art.[6]

      Children are very fond of attempting experiments СКАЧАТЬ