The Infant System - Samuel Wilderspin
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Having thus given the children as much information on the subject as
they will be likely to be able to digest properly, you may then get it
back from them by question and answer; as for instance
Q. What have we been talking about? A. Birds' feathers. Q. Do they do
the birds any good? A. Yes, keep them warm. Q. What more good? A. Make
them able to fly. Q. Who gives the birds feathers to make them warm?
A. God. Q. Are feathers very heavy? A. No, very light. Q. What is the
reason that they are very light? A. That they may fly easily. Q. What
part of the body does a bird fly with? A. Its wings. Q. Is no other
part useful in flying? A. Yes. Q. Do you remember what part? A. Its
tail. Q. Of what use is its tail? A. To guide it. Q. What do you mean
by guiding it? A. Turning it any way it wants to go. Q. What is the
reason that birds' feathers do not get all full of wet when the rain
falls on them? A. Because there is an oily juice that makes the rain
fall off. Q. When little birds, such as sparrows and robins, come out
of the eggs, have they got feathers? A. No, they are naked. Q. Are
they very long naked? A. No, in a few days the feathers grow. Q. Is it
not curious that the cold does not kill the little birds while they
are naked? A. So it would, only the old ones sit over them and keep
them warm. Q. Are ducks and turkeys and hens naked when the come out
of the shell? A. No. Q. What are they covered with? A. A sort of down.
Q. Do you know of any bird that has very pretty feathers? A. Yes, the
peacock. Q. Is it prettier than the goose? A. Yes. Q. Is it so useful?
A. No. Q. What do the goose feathers make? A. The feathers in the
quill make pelts? Q. What do the small ones make? A. They make
stuffing for pillows and beds. Q. Where do the prettiest birds live?
A. In very warm places, far away from this. Q. Do the same feathers
always remain on a bird? A. No, they drop off, and new ones come. Q.
What is this called? A. Moulting.
Such lessons as this will never be forgotten by the little ones. They
will learn to adore the great God at the sight of any thing he has
made. It is hoped they learn to love to read Nature's book when they
grow older, as every correct notion obtained by a child, through a
natural object, which it is frequently accustomed to meet with, can
never be entirely effaced; and what is more, it prepares the way,
at some future time, for a larger amount of knowledge as to God's
revealed will.
A spider, a living specimen of which may be easily procured, may be
made a very instructive gallery lesson; it may prevent the fears and
foolish prejudices against ugly yet harmless insects, which often
remain through life. Part of a bush may be procured with a real web
and spider upon it, so that its beautiful and highly curious web may
be also exhibited to the children, its uses may be also pointed out,
and a short history of the little animal's habits may be given, but
not before their opinions have been taken on the object, which may be
done in a similar manner as that which we pointed out in the former
lesson, and then the teacher may proceed thus:
You have told me that this little creature is called a spider, and
some of you think it very ugly, and say you are afraid of it, but
sensible children will not be frightened at a spider, because they
will remember that they are very harmless little things, and have not
got a sting as the wasp and bee have. They are very ugly, to be sure,
but every ugly insect is not to be called a nasty creature, for some
are very useful, notwithstanding their not being as handsome as
others; and spiders are very useful too, although very few people know
how to make use of them; but they little think that the poor little
insect which they brush off the wall, and trample under their feet,
can tell them what weather they are going to have, as sure, and surer
than a weather-glass. When the weather is going to be fine it peeps
its head out of its hole, and stretches out its legs; and the farther
its legs and head are out, the longer will the fine weather stay. When
the weather is going to be very bad it goes farther back; and when
very dreadful and stormy weather is going to come, it turns its back
to the door of its hole and its head inside. In winter, when frost and
snow is going to commence, they make their webs very fast, and by this
you may know the frosty weather is coming; so you see, children, that
spiders may be useful to know what kind of weather we shall have.
Spiders are very cunning; they live on flies; but they could never
catch them, only they are able to weave a strong web, which they do in
a place where the flies often come; and when a poor fly gets into the
web, the spider runs out and soon kills it, and then drags it up to
his den, where he eats it at his ease, and hides the wings and skin,
that the other flies may not see them; but if an enemy stronger than
itself comes to his web, the spider remains in his hole till the
danger is all over. Some spiders that live in countries far away are a
great deal larger and uglier than our spiders; but we need not be ever
afraid of a spider, because they can neither bite nor sting us, and
are very curious insects. Q. What have I been telling you about? A.
The spider. Q. Are you afraid of it? A. No, you told us it would do
us no harm. Q. Are spiders very ugly? A. They are. Q. Should we think
badly of them for this? A. No. Q. Who made the spider? A. God. Q. Does
he not make every animal, whether handsome or ugly? A. Yes. Q. Can
spiders be of use? A. They will tell us what weather we are going to
have. Q. When it is going to be fine what do they do? A. They put
their legs and head out of their hole. Q. When it is going to be bad
weather what do they do? A. They turn their heads round and go into
their holes. Q. When the weather is going to be very cold and frosty
what do they do? A. They build their webs very fast. Q. What do they
live upon? A. Flies. Q. How do they catch them? A. By making webs. Q.
When a fly gets into their web what do they do? A. They kill it and
eat it. Q. Are the spiders in other countries larger than ours? A.
Yes, in some places they are much larger and uglier. Q. Who teaches
the spider to make its web? A. God. Q. Could any man in the world make
a spider's web? A. No, no one could do it.
The teacher may then add thus:--Thus you see, little children, that
every living thing has some merit of its own, and can do many things
which we cannot do, although God has given us the means to become so
much wiser than they; and be sure you are not frightened at them, nor
put them to unnecessary pain. Some other day I will tell you what is
the shape of the spider's web, and shew you what a number of regular
figures the spider's web is composed of.
Almost every object, however simple it may be, will form an
instructive gallery lesson; thus for example, you may take a piece of
bog-turf, and after submitting it to the inspection of the infants,
you may inquire, What is this? If it be in a country where turf is
used, a general exclamation will inform you of its name; if not, you
may find a better and more familiar object for your lesson. When you
have got the name, you may then ask its uses, and will soon find that
the children are well acquainted with them. You may then proceed
to give your own information on the subject in something like the
following words, taking care that you use no word that the children do
not themselves understand, or that you have not explained to them.
Little children, look at what I hold. You have told me it is a piece
of bog-turf, and it is used to make fires. In Ireland turf is more
used to make fires than coal, because it is very plentiful there, and
many of the poor people in Ireland build their houses of it, and
when they keep them well mended and covered, they are very warm and
comfortable, and they burn good turf fires in their turf houses; but
some of them are lazy, and do not keep their turf houses mended, so
the rain comes in, and they are very miserable, and so will all idle
lazy people be. I hope no little child here will be lazy, Now I will
tell you where they get all this turf, they dig it out of the bogs.
There are bogs in England; they call them mosses or fens, and in
Scotland there are bogs, but the bogs in Ireland are much more
plentiful. Some of them are so very large that you cannot see across
them, and a great many birds live amongst them, such as wild ducks,
and geese, and cranes, and herons, and snipe, all of which I will tell
you about some other time. Those great bogs are very wild, lonesome,
dreary places; no person can live on them, because they are so wet and
soft, and they are full of great deep holes with water in them, which
are called bog holes, and if any person fell in they would be drowned.
Sometimes in the middle of this great bog you will see a pretty green
island, where the land is firm and strong, and the grass is nice and
sweet, so that the poor people make a dry path across the wet bog to
these islands, that they may drive their cows, and goats, and horses
to feed there; and some of these islands are very pretty places, and
look so green in the centre of the black bog. Those bogs which are now
such wet, black, nasty places, were once forests of great trees, as
large as any you children ever saw, and pretty bright rivers ran
through those forests, and nice birds sang in the branches, and great
stags eat the grass underneath; we will read about the stag at some
other time. This was many hundred years ago, and there were very few
people living then in Ireland, and by degrees, when the trees got very
old, they began to fall down into the rivers and stopped them up, so
that the water could not flow on, and the rivers overflowed all the
nice forests, and the trees all fell, so that when some hundred years
passed they were all down, and the branches rotted, and the grass and
clay became wet, like sponge, and the whole of the nice shady forests
of great trees became what we call bogs, and the remains of those
pretty branches and leaves, where the birds used to sing so sweetly,
has become turf, like this piece which we have for a lesson; and when
men are cutting this turf out, they often find the great trunks of
those trees, that many hundred years ago were so green and beautiful,
quite black and ugly, but still so hard that they can scarcely be cut,
and these old trees are called bog-oak, and the cabinet-maker buys
them and makes them into beautiful chairs, and tables, and presses,
and many other things, and they are quite black, and when polished you
little children might see your faces in them. Thus you see, my little
children, that there is nothing which God has made which is not very
wonderful and curious, even this piece of bog-turf, which you would
not have heard about if you did not come to the infant school to learn
about so many useful and curious things.
This will perhaps be enough of information for one lesson; and having
thus infused it in an agreeable form into their minds, you may proceed
in the manner before mentioned to get it back from them, in order to
impress it more firmly on their understandings; and if this be always
done in the proper manner, they will become as familiar with the
subject, and learn it as quickly as they would the tissue of nonsense
contained in the common nursery tales of "Jack and Jill," or, "the old
woman and her silver penny," whose only usefulness consists in their
ability to amuse, but from which no instruction can be possibly drawn;
beside which, they form in the child's mind the germ of that passion
for light reading which afterwards, in many instances, prevents an
application to any thing solid or instructive. Being in themselves the
foundation stone on which a huge and useless mass of fiction is piled
in after years, the philosophical mind will at once perceive the
advantage of our system of amusement mingled with instruction,
and perceive that upon its simple basis a noble structure may be
afterwards raised; and minds well stored with useful lore, and
capable of discerning evil in whatever shape it presents itself, and
extracting honey from every object, will be farmed, which, when they
become numerous, will cause a glorious change in the moral world, the
first germ of which will be traced to the properly managed gallery
lessons of an infant school. Having asked the children if they are
tired, the teacher, if he receives an answer in the negative, may thus
proceed:--
Q. What have we been hearing about? A. Turf. Q. What is the use of
turf? A. To make fires. Q. What other use is sometimes made of it? A.
To build houses. Q. Where do they build turf houses? A. In Ireland. Q.
Are they not very cold? Q. No; if they are kept mended, they are not.
Q. What do you call people, when they like to sleep in the cold rather
than mend their houses? A. Lazy. Q. Is it bad to be lazy? A. Yes; very
bad. Q. What do we call it besides being lazy? Q. Being idle. Q. Are
idle people very happy? A. No; they are always miserable. Q. Right;
and I hope no little children will be ever idle; they should always
try to be useful, and do all they can to help their friends. Now tell
me, where is the turf got From? A. From bogs. Q. What are they called
in England? A. Mosses and fens. Q. Are the bogs in England larger than
in Ireland? A. No; the Irish bogs are the largest. Q. What animals
live in the bogs? A. Some sorts of birds. Q. Do men and women live in
them? A. No. Q. Why not? A. They are too wet and soft. Q. What very
dangerous places are in some parts of them? A. Bog-holes. Q. What are
they? A. Deep holes full of water. Q. What did I tell you were in some
parts of these bogs? A. Nice green islands. Q. Are they of any use? A.
Yes; the people put cows and horses to feed on them. Q. How do they
get across the bog? A. They make a kind of rough road over to them. Q.
What do they cut the turf with? A. A sort of spade with two sides. Q.
What is this called? A. A Slane. Q. When the turf is cut, what do they
do next? A. Put it in heaps to dry. Q. What were those great bogs many
hundred years ago? A. Beautiful forests of fine large trees. Q. What
flowed through those forests? A. Nice bright rivers. Q. What sang in
the trees? A. Pretty birds. Q. What eat the grass? A. Fine large stags
and deer. Q. How did those beautiful places become ugly black wet
bogs? A. The trees, when they got old, fell into the rivers and
stopped them up. Q. What did this cause? A. The water flowed over the
banks. Q. What harm did this do? A. It made all the nice grass wet and
marshy. Q. What more? A. It rotted the roots of the trees. Q. What
happened then? A. They all fell down. Q. In some hundred years, what
did all those forests become? A. Great bogs. Q. Are any of the trunks
or bodies of those old trees ever found? A. Yes; many hundreds are yet
far under the bogs. Q. Are they of any use? A. Yes; they are useful to
make chairs, tables, and presses. Q. What colour are they? A. As black
as a piece of coal. Q. When they are polished, do they look nice? A.
Yes; so bright you can see your face in them. Q. What is this wood
called? A. Bog-oak. Q. Will you all try to remember this lesson? A.
We will. Teacher. That is right; for little children should always
remember the pretty things that their teacher takes such trouble to
tell them.
In places where coal is most burned, a piece of it may be made the
medium of a very useful and instructive lesson, being so familiar an
object, their attention will be arrested by its being made the subject
of a lesson; and their curiosity aroused to know every thing about
it. When the teacher asks what is this, the simultaneous shout, of
"a piece of coal," will convince him that he has arrested their
attention; and a few questions will exhaust their stock of information
on the subject--they will tell him its uses are to make fires to boil
up their dinners, &c. &c. He may then proceed as follows:--You see,
little children, this piece of coal; look at it attentively; it is
black and shining; and you all know will burn very quickly. The places
from whence all coal is brought are called _coal mines_; the men who
dig it out of the ground, and the ships that carry it over the sea,
are called colliers, and the place where the coals are got is called
a colliery. The coal mines are deep holes made very far under the
ground, in order to get at the coal; some of them go under the sea.
The colliers live a great part of their life, in those dark holes,
in order to get us coal to make us fires to dress our food, and very
often are killed, either by the falling in of the roof from above, or
from a sort of air called fire-damp, which, if touched with any fire,
will blow up like gunpowder, and will kill any person that is near it;
the poor colliers are also often smothered by the bad air that is in
those damp, dark holes; so you see, little children, what dangers they
go through, in order to get us coal, which we could very badly do
without.
How very good God is to us; he made this coal under the earth that we
might have nice fires to dress our food, and warm ourselves by in
cold weather; we should be very thankful to him for all his great
blessings, and should never do anything to make him angry with us; he
is very sorry when he sees a little child naughty, because he has done
every thing to make us happy, and we never can be so if we are naughty
and bad. Bad boys and girls are never happy, and God does not love
them when they are so, and it is very sad to make God angry with us.
Coal is very useful for other things besides making fires to dress our
food, and to warm us. Many things that are very useful could not be
made without it. The gas that lights the streets is made from coal,
and when the gas is taken from it what is left is called coke, which
makes a very bright warm fire.
The teacher that properly enters into the spirit of these lessons, may
find in the simplest objects, a never-ending source of pleasure and
instruction for his infant pupils. No person who is not qualified to
give proper and really useful gallery lessons is by any means fit for
a teacher of infants; to learn the mere routine of an infant school is
not very difficult, but this will be of no avail if the teacher have
not qualifications of a much higher order, which will enable him
continually to pour instruction clothed in simple language, into
the minds of his pupils; simplicity is the life and soul of gallery
teaching; without this, the breath is wasted, and time is spent in
vain. To teach infants we must reduce our language to their tender
capacities, and become, in idea and words, one of themselves. Having
given the children your information on a piece of coal, you now
proceed to get it back, as follows
Q. Little children, what have we been speaking about? A. About coal.
Q. What colour is it? A. Black. Q. Is it anything besides? A. Yes;
shining. Q. What are the places called from whence coal is got? A.
Coal-mines. Q. What are the men that dig it out of the ground and the
ships that carry it over the sea called? A. Colliers. Q. What is the
place called where the coal pits are made? A. A colliery. Q. What are
coal pits? A. Deep holes dug to get at the coal. Q. Are the colliers
in danger down in these deep pits? A. They are. Q. From what? A.
From fire-damp? Q. What is it? A. A sort of air that blows up like
gun-powder. Q. From what more are they in danger? A. The roofs falling
in. Q. From what more? A. From bad air which often smothers them. Q.
What is made from coal to light the streets? A. Gas. Q. What is coal
called after the gas has been taken from it? A. Coke. Q. Does coke
make a good fire? A. Yes; very bright and strong. Q. Who made the
coal? A. God. Q. What should we be to him for it? A. Very thankful. Q.
How can we shew we are thankful? A. By being very good. Q. Is God
glad to see a child naughty? A. No; he is very sorry. Q. Does he love
naughty children? A. No; he does not. Q. Are naughty children happy?
A. No; very unhappy. Thus every lesson may be made not only a vehicle
for conveying instruction, but also of instilling into the infant mind
a reverence, a sense of gratitude and love towards that great Being
who called us all into existence; this should be never lost sight of,
in giving the child those primary sentiments, reverence and gratitude
towards its God, you lay a basis on which doctrinal religion may be
afterwards built with more advantage. The child thus early trained in
such feelings, conveyed in a manner so admirably adapted to its tender
mind, can scarcely fail, unless it possesses a heart of great natural
depravity, of becoming a good man, and it is thus that infant schools
may become a great and lasting blessing to the country. But where
this is overlooked--where the vital principle of the infant system
is rejected, and the mere mechanical parts alone retained, as to any
great and lasting benefit, it will be a complete and unhappy failure.
That the grand object of the infant system may be accomplished,
namely, of raising up a generation superior to the last, both in
religious, moral, and intellectual acquirements, an immense caution
and great experience in the selection of teachers is required; till
proper teachers are universally provided the infant system will never
be really successful: success does not merely consist in universal
adoption and extension, if it did it would be now really so. But
another thing is wanting before it can be called successful, that is,
it must be understood.
None can understand it but thinkers, and deep thinkers, and thinkers
in the right direction. Merely to glance around and gather scraps of
knowledge from the various, "ologies" in existence, which the "march
of intellect" has brought into being, and which were unknown to our
forefathers; and then to force them on the young memory at random, may
be to teach what was not before taught, but it is not to display any
_new method of teaching; any more efficient way of communicating
knowledge_. Those who would truly understand the infant system, must
think for themselves, and observe the workings of the young mind, mark
the intellectual principles which first develope themselves, strive to
understand the simple laws of mental action; and all this that they
may know how to teach in accordance with them. When this is fairly
done, perhaps the whole that is recorded in this book, may be thought
more valuable than it is at present, and be found a not unworthy
subject to devote a whole life to become acquainted with and elucidate
both practically and theoretically. Others then will, perhaps, not be
quite so audacious in unjust plagiarisms. When Columbus had made
the egg stand on an end all others could then do it. When he had
discovered America, every one said they might have done it also. All
great and important truths are simple, and when presented to the mind,
although unknown before, seem as if they had been well known, there is
such an accurate consistency between the mind and them. This leads me
to suppose that there is simple and useful truths in my volumes, as
every one seems to take them for their own. I can only say that they
have cost _me_ many and many an hour of close observation, and deep
and independent thinking. I have devoted my whole life for the good
of others, and have injured myself and family, that I might do so. To
rescue little children from vice and misery, and to have them placed
under physical, intellectual, moral, and religious discipline, has
been the delight of my heart, and the object of my life. After this
labour, to have my inventions pirated, my plans made use of in part,
and in the rest spoken against; to have others to reap the fields that
I have sown, and at the same time traduce and injure me; to be thus
thrust out as it were from my rightful employment, and left in
comparative obscurity as old age begins to draw on; requires a spirit
stronger than that of man, and a heart more than human, not to feel
it, and feel it deeply. I care little for myself, but regret most to
see spurious systems of infant education palmed upon the public by
ignorant persons, and thus deprive them of a great benefit which they
might possess.
Facts recorded in Scripture may be given orally as gallery lessons,
taking care to exhibit some picture representing the subject proposed
for the lesson--take, for example, the finding of Moses--which
represents the daughter of Pharaoh coming down to bathe with her
maidens, and also the infant Moses in the ark, cradle, or boat, which
was made for the purpose. The subject is then to be propounded to the
children as follows, and the teacher is to take care to repeat it
clearly and distinctly in short sentences, and to be careful that
all the pupils repeat it as distinctly after him; by thus means the
essence of the story is infused into the minds of the children, with
the addition of their being taught to repeat all the words distinctly
and properly, which will assist their pronunciation very much when
they begin to read the lesson described in another part of this work.