Household Education Part 4

There is no fear but that the child will, much as others, enjoy the sights which are laid open to it, and be quick and ready in action, according to its ideas. They must arouse in it the pleasure of using its mental faculties; and more carefully still, the satisfaction of moral energy. They must be even more careful with it than with the rest to lead it on to the exercise of self-denial, and a habit of thoughtful conscientiousness, that it may learn from its own moral experience much that it is debarred from learning as others do of the rich kingdom which lies within us all. In this case, above all others, is the moral example of the parents important to the child. Other children hear everyday the spoken testimony of their parents in favour of what is good in morals and manners. They hear it in church, and in every house they enter. The deaf child judges by what it sees, and guides itself accordingly. If it sees bad temper and manners, how is it to know of anything better? If it sees at home only love and kindness, just and gentle, has it not an infinitely better chance of becoming loving and gentle itself?

The parents must keep a careful guard on their own pity for their defective child. A deaf child has scarcely any notion, as a blind one has, of what it loses; and nothing is more certain than that deaf children are apt to be proud and vain, and to take advantage of the pity which everybody feels for them. Knowing little of their own loss, they misunderstand this pity, and are apt to take to themselves the credit of all the notice it brings them, and to grasp at all they can get. A watchful parent knows from her heart that there is no blame in this; but she sees that there is great danger. The child cannot help the liability; but it may be rescued from it. She must not be lavish of indulgence which may be misunderstood. She should let it be as happy as it can in its own way--and the deaf and dumb are usually very brisk and cheerful. What she has to do for it is not to attempt to console it for a privation which it does not feel, but to open to it a higher and better happiness in a humble, occupied, and serene state of mind. She should set before it its own state of privation, notwithstanding any mortification that the disclosure may cause: and when that mortification is painful, she should soothe it by giving, gently and cheerfully, the sweet remedies of humility and patience.

In the case of the blind child, the training must be very different.

Every day, and almost every hour, reminds the blind child of its privation; and its discipline is so severe, that almost any degree of indulgence in the parent would be excusable, if it were not clearly the first duty to consider the ultimate welfare of the child. It is natural to the sighing mother to watch over its safety with a nervous anxiety, to go before it to clear its way, to have it always at her knee, and to make everybody and everything give way to it. But she must remember that her child is not dest.i.tute, and for ever helpless, because it has one sense less than other people. It has the wide world of the other four senses to live in, and a vaster mental and moral world than it will ever learn fully to use: and she must let it try what it can make of its possessions. She will find that it learns like others that fire burns and that bruises are disagreeable, and that it can save itself from burns and bruises by using its senses of touch and hearing. She will encourage it in the cheerful work of s.h.i.+fting for itself, and doing, as far as possible, what other people do. The wise and benevolent Dr. Howe tells us of the children who come to the Blind School at Boston, that for the first two or three days they are timid and forlorn--having been accustomed to too much care from their mothers, who will not let them cross the floor without being sure that there is nothing in the way. But they presently enter into the free and cheerful spirit of the house, use their faculties, feel their way boldly, and run, climb, swing, and play as merrily as any other children. That school is a little world of people with four senses--not so happy a one as if they had five, but a very good one, nevertheless; sufficiently busy, safe, and cheerful for those who use heartily such powers as they have.

This is the way in which the lot of the blind should be viewed by their parents. And even then the deprivation is quite sad enough to require great efforts of patience on every hand. The parents have need of a deep and settled patience when they see that their child has powers which, if he had but eyes, would make him able and happy in some function from which he is now for ever cut off: and the whole family have need of patience for their infirm member when they are gaining knowledge, or drinking in enjoyment through the eye, while he sits dark, and unconscious or mortified. As for him, in his darkness and mortification, there can be no question of his need of patience. How to aid him and supply this need, I shall consider in my next chapter, when treating of the other infirmities which some children have to learn to bear.

CHAPTER XIII.

CARE OF THE POWERS: PATIENCE--INFIRMITY.

The smaller misfortunes which we now turn to, under the head of Infirmity--the loss of a limb, the partial loss of a sense, deformity and sickness--are scarcely less afflictive to the parent than those we have considered, because they are even more trying to the child. The sufferer is fully conscious of these: and the parents' heart is sore at the spectacle of its mortifications. What can be done to help it to a magnanimous patience?

First, there must be the fullest confidence between the parents and the child. It can open its swelling heart to no one else; for the depth of its feeling renders it quite unable to speak of its sufferings to any one, unless allured to do so; and no one can or ought to allure it to this confidence, except its parents, or in case of failure from them. It may be thought strange that this apparently natural act should be set before the parents as a duty: but I speak from knowledge; and from the knowledge of so many cases that I am compelled to believe that the very last subject on which parents and child speak together is that on which it is most necessary to the sufferer to have spoken sympathy. Some parents have not courage to face the case themselves, and evade the painful thought from day to day. Some feel for their child that sort of deference which it is natural to feel for the afflicted, and wait for the sufferer to speak. Some persuade themselves that it is better for the child not to recognise the trial expressly, and repel by forced cheerfulness the sufferer's advances towards confidence. All this is wrong. I have known a little crippled girl grow up to womanhood in daily pain of heart from the keen sense of her peculiarity, almost without uttering a syllable to any human being of that grief which cursed her existence; and suffering in mind and character irreparably from the restraint. She got over it at last, to a considerable degree, and became comparatively free and happy; but nothing could ever compensate to her for her long bondage to false shame, or repair the mischief done to the action of her mind by its being made to bear unrelieved weight which it had naturally power to throw off. I know another sufferer from the same misfortune whose heart was early opened by genial confidence, and who throve accordingly. She had to bear all the pain which a lively and sensitive child must feel in being unable to play and dance as others do, and being so marked an object as to be subject to staring in the street, and to the insulting remarks of rude children as she pa.s.sed. But the sympathy of her protectors bore her through till her mind was strong enough to protect itself; and she has come out of the struggle free and gay, active and helpful to a marvellous degree--even graceful, making a sort of plaything of her crutch, and giving constant joy to her friends, and relief to strangers, by her total freedom from false shame.

I have known deafness grow upon a sensitive child, so gradually as never to bring the moment when her parents felt impelled to seek her confidence; and the moment therefore never arrived. She became gradually borne down in health and spirits by the pressure of her trouble, her springs of pleasure all poisoned, her temper irritated and rendered morose, her intellectual pride puffed up to an insufferable haughtiness, and her conscience brought by perpetual pain of heart into a state of trembling soreness--all this, without one word ever being offered to her by any person whatever of sympathy or sorrow about her misfortune. Now and then, some one made light of it; now and then, some one told her that she mismanaged it, and gave advice which, being inapplicable, grated upon her morbid feelings; but no one inquired what she felt, or appeared to suppose that she did feel. Many were anxious to show kindness, and tried to supply some of her privations; but it was too late. She was shut up, and her manner appeared hard and ungracious while her heart was dissolving in emotions. No one knew when she stole out of the room, exasperated by the earnest talk and merry laugh that she could not share, that she went to bolt herself into her own room, and sob on the bed, or throw herself on her knees, to pray for help or death. No one knew of her pa.s.sionate longing to be alone while she was, for her good, driven into society; nor how, when by chance alone for an hour or two, she wasted the luxury by watching the lapse of the precious minutes. And when she grew hard, strict, and even fanatical in her religion, no one suspected that this was because religion was her all--her soul's strength under agonies of false shame, her wealth under her privations, her refuge in her loneliness: while her mind was so narrow as to require that what religion was to her--her one pursuit and object--it should be everybody else. In course of years, she, in a great measure, retrieved herself, though still conscious of irreparable mischief done to her nature. All this while, many hearts were aching for her, and the minds of her family were painfully occupied in thinking what could be done for her temper and her happiness. The mistake of reserve was the only thing they are answerable for: a mistake which, however mischievous, was naturally caused by the very pain of their own sympathy first, and the reserve of the sufferer afterwards.

From the moment that a child becomes subject to any infirmity, a special relation between him and his mother begins to exist: and their confidence must become special. She must watch for, or make occasions for speaking to him about his particular trial; not often, nor much at a time, but so as to leave an opening for the pouring out of his little heart. If he is not yet conscious of his peculiarity, this is the gentlest and easiest way in which he can be made so. If he is conscious, he must have some pain at his heart which he will be the better for confiding. Hump-backed people are generally said to be vain, haughty, fond of dress, forward and talkative, irritable and pa.s.sionate. If not so, they are usually shy and timid. I cannot see anything in their peculiarity to cause the first-mentioned tendencies: and I believe they arise from the mismanagement of their case. The fond mother and pitying friends may naturally forget that the child does not see himself as they see him, and fancy that they soothe his mortifications by saying whatever they can say in favour of his appearance--letting him know that he has pretty hair, or good eyes. They may even dress him fine, to make up to him in one way for his faults of appearance in another. Under the idea of encouraging him under his supposed mortifications, they may lead him on to be forward and talkative. And then again, his mortifications, when they come upon him unprepared, may well make him irascible. How much of this might be obviated, as well as the shyness and timidity of those who are left to themselves, by timely confidence between the mother and child! When they are alone together, calm and quiet, let her tell him that he does not look like other children, and that he will look less like other people as he grows older. Never let her tell him that this is of no great consequence--never let her utter the cant that is talked to young ladies at schools, that the charms of the mind are everything, and those of the form and face nothing. This is not true; and she ought to know that it is not: and nothing but truth will be strong enough to support him in what he must undergo. Let her not be afraid to tell him the worst. He had better hear it from her; and it will not be too much for him, if told in a spirit of cheerful patience.

The child, like the man, never has a happier hour than that which succeeds the reception of bad news, if the n.o.bler faculties are allowed their free play. If such a child hears from his mother that he will always be ugly-shaped and odd-looking,--that he will not be able to play as other boys do, or will be laughed at when he tries; that he will be mocked at and called "My lord" in the streets, and so on, and yet that all these things will not make him unhappy if he can bear them; and if they go on to consult how he may bear them, and she opens out to him something of the sweet pleasures of endurance, he will come out of the consultation exhilarated, and perhaps proudly longing to meet his mortifications, and try his strength. Such pride must have a fall,--like all the pride of childhood,--and many an hour of depression must he know for every one of exhilaration: but his case is put into his own hands, and there is every hope that he will conquer, through patience, at last. And what a refuge he has in his mother! How well she will now know his feelings and his needs! and how easy and natural it will be to him henceforth to confide in her! And her knowledge of his secret mind will enable her to oversee and regulate the conduct of the rest of the household towards him, so as to guard against his being treated with an indulgence which he can dispense with, or his receiving in silence wounds to his feelings which might rankle. The object is, with sufferers under every kind of conscious infirmity, to make them hardy in mind,--saving them from being hardened. They must know in good time that they have a difficult and humbling lot, and what its difficulties and humiliations are,--their n.o.blest faculties being at the same time roused to meet them. It is the rousing of these n.o.ble faculties which makes the hour of confidence one of exhilaration: and when the actual occasion of trial arises, when the cripple is left out of the cricket-match, and the deaf child misses the joke or entertaining story, and the hump-back hears the jibe behind him,--there is hope that the n.o.bler faculties will be obedient to the promised call, and spread the calm of patience over the tumult of the sufferer's soul.

But, while the infirm child is encouraged to take up the endurance of his infirmity as an object and an enterprise, he must not be allowed to dwell too much on it, nor on the peculiar features of his condition; or his heroism will pa.s.s over into pride, and his patience into self-complacency. Life and the world are before him, as before others; and one circ.u.mstance of lot and duty, however important, must not occupy the place of more than one,--either in his confidences with his mother, or in his own mind. The more he is separated from others by his infirmity, the more carefully must his interests and duties be mixed up with those of others, in the household and out of it. Companions.h.i.+p in every way must be promoted all the more, and not the less, because of the eternal echo within him, "The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and the stranger intermeddleth not with its joy."

What has been said thus far about patience will serve for cases of sickness, as well as for other trials among children. I may add that I think it a pity to lavish indulgence--privileges--upon a sick child, for two reasons;--that such indulgence is no real comfort or compensation to the suffering child, who is too ill to enjoy it: and that it is witnessed by others, and remembered by the patient himself when he has forgotten his pain, so as to cause sickness to be regarded as a state of privilege; a persuasion likely to lead to fancies about health, and an exaggeration of ailments. All possible tenderness, of course, there should be, and watchfulness to amuse the mind into forgetfulness of the body: but the less fuss and unusual indulgence the better for the child's health of body and mind, and the purer the lesson of patience which he may bring out of his sickness. Illness is a great evil, little to be mitigated by any means of diversion that can be used: and a child usually trained to patience, may be trusted to bear the evil well, if not misled by false promises: and it is much kinder to him to let him rest on a quiet and steady tenderness, than to promise and offer him indulgences which will be longed for hereafter, but which wholly disappoint him now, and add another trial to the many which put his patience to the proof.

CHAPTER XIV.

CARE OF THE POWERS.--LOVE.

It appears to me, that much disappointment in the results of education, as in other departments of life, arises from the confusion we fall into about human affections,--mixing up things which do not belong to each other, and then being disappointed at a mixed result. For instance, we speak of love as if it were one affection; or at most of two kinds--one a pa.s.sion and the other an affection: whereas, there are many kinds of love, as distinct from one another as hope and patience. Besides what is commonly called the pa.s.sion of love, there are other kinds which differ as essentially from one another, as from this. It is commonly, but as I think, hastily, supposed that a child's love of her doll is the same affection which will be fixed hereafter on a schoolfellow, on her parents, and on suffering fellow-creatures. It is supposed to be the same affection, employed on different objects: and the parent is perplexed and shocked when the little creature who cannot be parted from her doll, shows indifference towards her family, and has no sympathy with a beggar, or a sick neighbour. If the parents will put away their perplexity and dismay, and set themselves to learn from what is before their eyes, they may discover what will comfort and direct them.

With the pa.s.sion of love, as it is called, we have nothing to do here, but to give an anecdote by the way. A little girl was telling a story to her father, when they fell in with the kind of perplexity, I have spoken of. She told of a knight who once loved a lady, and of all the hard and troublesome things the knight did to gratify the wishes of the lady: and how, at last, when the lady did not choose to marry him, he carried her off, and shut her up in a castle, and gave her everything he could think of to make her happy: but she could not enjoy all these fine things, because she pined to get home. "Oh!" said the father, "she did wish to get out, then." "Yes! she begged and prayed of the knight to let her go home: but he loved her so much that he would not." "Well: but you said he did everything he could to gratify her: why was that?" "Because he loved her so much." "What! he did everything to please her because he loved her so much: and then he would not let her go home as she wished, because he loved her so much! How can that be?" The child thought for awhile, and then said "I suppose he had two loves for her: and one made him do almost everything that she liked; and the other made him want that she should do what _he_ liked."

If parents could see thus plainly the difference between the several kinds of love which their children should experience, it would be well for all parties. A mother who intensely loves her little prattler, is mortified that the child appears to have but a very moderate love for her in return: and she comforts herself with the hope that the child's affection will strengthen as it grows, till it becomes a fair return for her own. She does not perceive that the child already entertains an affection much like her own,--only, not for her, but for something else.

A little girl who had to lose her leg, promised to try to lie still if she might have her doll in her arms: and wonderfully still she lay, clasping her doll. When it was over, the surgeon thoughtlessly said, "Now shall I cut off your doll's leg?" "Oh! no, no!" cried the child, in an agony of mind far greater than she had shown before: "not my doll's leg;--don't hurt my doll!" And she could hardly be comforted. Here was an affection the same as the mother's,--and as strong and true: but of a different kind from that which children can ever feel for parents; for it is purely instinctive, while the love of children for parents is made up of many elements, and must slowly grow out of not only a natural power of attachment, but a long experience of hope, reliance, veneration and grat.i.tude.

This instinctive love is a pretty thing to witness: as in the case of a very little child who had a pa.s.sionate love of flowers. She would silently carry out her little chair in the summer morning, and sit down in the middle of the flower-bed, and be overheard softly saying, "Come you little flower--open, you little flower! When will you open your pretty blue eye?" This is charming; and so it is to see an infant fondling a kitten, or feeding the brood of chickens, and a girl singing lullaby to her doll. But it must ever be remembered, that this is the lowest form of human affection till it is trained into close connection with the higher sentiments. What it is when left to itself--and it will too probably be left to itself by parents who are satisfied with any manifestation of affection in children;--what it is when left to itself may be seen in some disgusting spectacles which occasionally meet our eyes among the mature and the old. We see it in the young mother who spoils her child--who loves her child with so low a love, that she indulges it to its hurt. We see it in the aged mother, who loves her manly son as a bear loves its cub;--only with more selfishness, for she cannot consider his good, but lavishes ill-humour and fondness on him by turns. We see it in the man who gives his mind to the comfort of his horse; and never a look or a word to a hungry neighbour. We see it in a woman, who opens her arms to every dog or cat that comes near her, whose eye brightens, and whose cheek mantles while she feeds her canaries, though she never had a friends.h.i.+p, nor cares for any human being but such as are under five years old.

Thus low is this instinctive affection when left to itself. But it is inestimable when linked on to other and higher kinds of love, and especially to that which is the highest of all, and worthy to gather into itself all the rest,--benevolence. It is easy to form this link when its formation is desired: and it is terribly easy to neglect it when its importance is not perceived. The child must be led to desire the good of the cat, or bird, or doll, to the sacrifice of its own inclinations. It must not hurt p.u.s.s.y, or throw dolly into a corner, (every child believing that dolly can feel) nor frighten the bird: and moreover, it must be made to discharge punctually, even to its own inconvenience, the duty of feeding the live favourite, and cheris.h.i.+ng the doll. This leads on naturally to a cheris.h.i.+ng and forbearing love of the baby-brother or sister: and next, perhaps, the parents may be surprised by an offer of affection in sickness which never showed itself while they were in health. A child who receives caresses carelessly, or runs away from them to caress the kitten, (which, perhaps, runs away in its turn,) will come on tiptoe to his mother's knee when she is ill, and stroke her face, or nurse her foot in his lap, or creep up into her easy chair, and nestle there quietly for an hour at a time: and yet perhaps this same child will appear as indifferent as before when his mother is well again, and does not seem to want his good offices.

From home, the affection may next be led a little further abroad. This must be done very cautiously, and the expansion of benevolence by no means hurried or made a task of. I knew a little girl who, at four years old, was full of domestic benevolence--capable of denying herself noise and amus.e.m.e.nt on fitting occasions, and never happier than when waiting on and cheris.h.i.+ng a sick person. One day she seemed so much interested about a poor woman who had come to beg, that her mother took her into consultation about what could be done for the woman and her children.

When told how nearly naked the poor children were, and how they had no more clothes to put on, though the weather was growing colder and colder, she was asked whether she would not like to give her blue frock to one of them. In a low earnest voice, she said "No." The case was again represented to her; and when, with some little shrinking, she again said "No," her mother saw that she had gone rather too far, and had tried the young faculty of benevolence beyond its strength. She watched and waited, and is repaid. In her daughter, warm domestic affections co-exist with a more than ordinary benevolence.

This benevolence is the third form in which we have already seen what is called love. Can anything be more clearly marked than the difference between these three;--the love that leads to marriage; fondness for objects which can be idolised; and benevolence which has no fondness in it, but desires the diffusion of happiness, and acts independently of personal regards? None of these yield the sort of affection which the heart of the parent desires, and which is essential to family happiness.

A child may kill its pet bird, or cat, with kindness, and go out into the street in the early morning, with its halfpenny in its hand (as I have known a child do) to do good with it to somebody;--a child may have these two kinds of love strong in him, and yet show but a weak attachment to the people about him. This attachment is another kind of love from those we have been considering. It is all-important to the character of the individual, and to the happiness of the family circle: and it is therefore of consequence that its nature should be understood, and its exercise wisely cared for.

It is some time before the infant shows attachment to any one. There are many signs of hope and fear in an infant before it gives any token of affection; its arms are held out first to its nurse; and she usually continues the one to whom the child clings, and from whom it will not be separated. Beyond the nurse, the child's attachments sometimes appear unaccountable. It will be happy with some one person in the house, and make a difficulty of going to any one else: and the reason of this may not be plain to anybody. Happy is the mother if she be the one; and a severe trial it is to a loving mother when she is not the one. Of course, if the misfortune be owing to any fault in herself,--if she be irritable, stern, or in any way teasing to the child,--she cannot wonder that he does not love her. If she be tender, gentle, playful, and wise, and still her child loves some one else in the house better, it is a sore trial, certainly; but it must be made the best of. Of course, the mother will strive to discover what it is in another person that attaches the child; and if she can attain the quality, she will. But it is probably that which cannot be attained by express efforts,--a power of entering into the little mind, and meeting its thoughts and feelings.

Some persons have this power naturally much more than others; and practice may have given them great facility in using it; while the sense of inexperience, and the strong anxiety that a young mother has, may easily be a restraint on her faculties in dealing with her child. I have heard the mothers of large families declare (in the most private conversation) in so many instances, that their younger children are of a higher quality than the older, and this from an age so early as to prevent the difference being attributed to experience in teaching, that I have been led to watch and think on the subject: and I think that one powerful cause is that the mother has naturally more freedom and playfulness and tact in her intercourse with her younger children than with the elder, and thereby fixes their attachment more strongly: and there are no bounds to the good which arises from strong affections in a child. Happy the mother who is the object of her child's strongest love from the beginning!--happy, that is, if she makes a good use of her privilege. She must never desire more love than the child has to give.

The most that it can give will be less than she would like, and far less than her own for it: but she will not obtain more, but only endanger what she has, by making the child conscious of his affections, and by requiring tokens which do not manifest themselves spontaneously. It should be enough for a mother that her child comes to her with his little troubles and pleasures, and shows by his whole behaviour that she is of more importance to him than any one else in the world. If it be so, there will be times when he will spring into her lap, and throw his arms round her neck, and give her the thrilling kiss that she longs to have every day and every hour. But the sweetness of these caresses will be lost when they cease to be spontaneous; and the child will leave off springing into the lap, if it is to be teased for kisses when there.

There are few products of the human mind which are to be had good upon compulsion; and affection least of all. I knew a little boy who was brought home from being at nurse in the country, and shown to his conscientious, anxious, but most formal mother. The child clung to his nurse's neck, hid his face on her shoulder, and screamed violently. But his mother's voice was heard above his noise, saying solemnly, "Look at me, my dear. Nurse is going away, and you will not see her any more. You must love _me_ now." Whether she thus gained her child's love, my readers may conjecture.

The mother who is first in her child's affection is under the serious responsibility of imparting the treasure to others. She takes her whole household into her own heart; and she must open her little one's heart to take in all likewise. She must a.s.sociate all in turn in his pursuits and pleasures, till his love has spread through the house, and he can be happy and cherished in every corner of it.

The mother who sees some one else more beloved than herself,--the servant, perhaps, or an elder child of her own,--must not lose heart, much less temper, or all is lost. It is possible that her turn may never come: but it is far more probable that it will, if she knows how to wait for it. She must go on doing her part as perseveringly and, if it may be, as cheerfully as if her heart was satisfied; and sooner or later the child will discover, never to forget, what a friend she is. Moreover, if her mind and manner are not such as to win a child in his early infancy, they may suit his needs at a later stage of his mind. I have observed that the mothers who are most admirable at some seasons of their children's lives fall off at others. I have seen a mother who had extraordinary skill in bringing out and training her children's faculties before they reached their teens, and who was all-sufficient for them then, fail them sadly as a friend and companion in the important years which follow seventeen. And I have seen a mother who could make no way with her children in their early years, and who keenly felt how nearly indifferent they were to her, while her whole soul and mind were devoted to them,--I have seen such a mother idolised by her daughters when they became wise and worthy enough to have her for a friend. I mention these things for comfort and encouragement: and who is more in need of comfort and encouragement than the mother who, loving her child as mothers should, meets with not only a less than adequate, but a less than natural return?

There is one case more sad and more solemn than this; the case of the unloving and unloved child. There are some few human beings in whom the power of attachment is so weak that they stand isolated in the world, and seem doomed to a hermit existence amidst the very throng of human life. If such are neglected, they are lost. They must sink into a slough of selfishness, and perish. And none are so likely to be neglected as those who neither love nor win love. If such an one is not neglected, he may become an able and useful being, after all; and it is for the parents to try this, in a spirit of reverence for his mysterious nature, and of pity for the privations of his heart. They will search out and cherish, by patient love, such little power of attachment as he has: and they will perhaps find him capable of general kindliness, and the wide interests of benevolence, though the happiness of warm friends.h.i.+ps and family endearment is denied him. Such an one can never take his place among the highest rank of human beings, nor can know the sweetest happiness that life can yield. But by the generous love of his parents, and of all whom they can influence to do his nature justice, his life may be made of great value to himself and others, and he may become respected for his qualities, as well as for his misfortune.

CHAPTER XV.

CARE OF THE POWERS.--VENERATION.

Among the great blessings which are shared by the whole human race, one of the chief is its universal power of veneration.

I call this a universal power, because there is no human being, (except the idiot) in whom it is not inherent from his birth: and I think I may say, that there is none in whom it does not exist, more or less, till his death. Unhappy influences may check or pervert it: but there is no reason to believe that it can be utterly destroyed. The grinning scoffer, who laughs at everything serious, who despises every man but himself, and who is insensible to the wonders and charms of nature, yet stands in awe of something,--if it be nothing better than rank and show, or brute force, or the very power of contempt in others which he values so much in himself. Send for such an one into the presence of the Queen, or bring him to the bar of the House of Commons, or ask him to dinner in a sumptuous palace, and, however far gone he may be in contempt, he will be awe-struck. Set him down face to face with a man who makes game of everything he does not understand, (and that will be almost everything that exists) and he will have a respect for that man. If you can bring his mind into contact with any objects low enough to excite his degraded faculty of veneration, you will find that the faculty is still there. It appears to be indeed inextinguishable.

We have, as usual, two things to take heed to in regard to this great and indispensable power of the mind. First, to take care that the power neither runs riot, nor is neglected. And next, to direct it to its proper objects.

I. The faculty, like all others, is of unequal strength in different people;--in children, as well as in grown persons. We see one man who seems to have no self-reliance or freedom of action in anything; whose life is one long ague fit of superst.i.tion, from that cowardly dread of G.o.d which he means for religion: who takes anybody's word for everything, from a fear of using his own faculties, and who is overwhelmed in the presence of rank, wealth, or ability superior to his own. We see another man careless, and contemptuous, and self-willed, from a want of feeling of what there is in the universe, and in his fellow-men superior to his faculties, and mysterious to his understanding. And in the merest infants, we may discern, by careful watching, a difference no less marked. One little creature will reach boldly after everything it sees, and buffet its playthings and the people about it, and make itself heard and attended to whenever it so pleases, and has to be taught and trained to lie quiet and submissive.

And another of the same age will watch with a shrinking wonder whatever is new or mysterious, and be shy before strangers, and has to be taught and trained to examine things for itself, and to make free with the people about it. Such being the varieties in the strength of the natural faculty, the training of it must vary accordingly.

As I have said before, no human faculty needs to be repressed; because no human faculty is in itself bad. Where any one power appears to be excessive, we are not to set to work to vex and mortify it: but rather, to bring up to it those antagonist faculties which ought to balance it, and which, in such a case, clearly want strengthening. If, for instance, a child appears to have too much of this faculty of Veneration--if it fancies a mystery in everything that happens, and yields too easily to its companions, and loves ghost stories which yet make it ill, and is always awe-struck and dreaming about something or other--that child is not to be laughed at, nor to be led to despise or make light of what it cannot understand. That child has not too much Veneration: for no one can ever have too much of the faculty. The mischief lies in his having too little of something else;--too little self-respect; too little hope; too little courage.

Let him continue to exercise and enjoy freely his faculty of Wonder.

His mother should tell him of things that are really wonderful and past finding out: and as he grows old enough, let her point out to him that all things in nature are wonderful, and past our finding out, from the punctuality of the great sun and blessed moon, to the springing of the blade of gra.s.s. Let her sympathise in his feeling that there is something awful in the thunderstorm, and in the incessant roll of the sea. Let her express for him, as far as may be, his unutterable sense of the weakness and ignorance of child or man in the presence of the mighty, ever-moving universe, and of the awful unknown Power which is above and around us, wherever we turn. Let her show respect to every sort of superiority, according to its kind--to old age, to scholars.h.i.+p, to skill of every sort, to social rank and office; and above all, to the superiority that goodness gives. Let her thus cherish and indulge her child's natural faculty, and permit no one else to thwart it. But she must give her utmost pains to exercise at the same time his inquiring and knowing faculties, and his courage and self-respect. Among the many wonders which she cannot explain, there are many which she can. He should be encouraged to understand as much as anybody understands, and especially of those things which he is most likely to be afraid of. He should be made to feel what power is given to him by such knowledge: and led to respect this power in himself as he would in any one else. I knew a little child whose reverence for Nature was so strong as almost to overpower some other faculties. She was town-bred: and whenever it chanced that she was out in the country for more than a common walk, she was injuriously excited, all day long. She was not only in a state of devout adoration to the Maker of all she saw: but she felt towards the trees, and brooks, and corn-fields as if they were alive, and she did not dare to interfere with them. One day, some companions carried home some wild strawberry roots for their gardens, and persuaded her to do the same. She did so, in a great tremor. Before she had planted her roots, she had grown fond of them, as being dependent on her; and she put them into the ground very tenderly and affectionately. As it was now near noon, of course she found her strawberries withered enough when she next went to look at them, as they lay drooping in the hot sun. She bethought herself, in her consternation, of a plan for them: ran in for a little chair: put it over the roots, stuffing up with gra.s.s every s.p.a.ce which could let the suns.h.i.+ne in; watered the roots, and left them, with the sense of having done a very daring thing. It was sunset before she could go to her garden again. When she removed the chair, there were the strawberries, fresh and strong, with leaves of the brightest green!

It was a rapturous moment to this superst.i.tious child--this, in which she felt that she had meddled with the natural growth of something, and with success. And it was a profitable lesson. She took to gardening, and to trying her power over Nature in other ways, losing some superst.i.tion at every step into the world of knowledge, and gaining self-respect (a highly necessary direction of the spirit of reverence) with every proof of the power which knowledge confers.

What the parent has to do for the child in whom the sentiment of Reverence appears disproportionate, is to give him Power in himself, in every possible way, that he may cease to be overwhelmed with the sense of power out of himself on every hand. If he can become possessed of power of Conscience, his religious fear will become moderated to wholesome awe. If he can become possessed of power of understanding, the mysteries of Nature will stimulate instead of depressing his mind. If he can attain to power of sympathy, he will see men as they are, and have a fellow-feeling with them, through all the circ.u.mstances of rank and wealth which once wore a false glory in his eyes. If he can attain a due power of self-reliance, he will learn that his own wonderful faculties and unbounded moral capacities should come in for some share of his reverence, and be brought bravely into action in the universe, instead of being left idle by the wayside, making obeisance incessantly to everything that pa.s.ses by, while they ought to be up and doing.

What should be done with the pus.h.i.+ng, fearless child, who seems to stand in awe of n.o.body, is plain enough. As I have said, he reverences _something_: for no human being is without the faculty. His parents must find out what it is that does excite his awe: and, however strange may be the object, they must sympathise in the feeling. I have known a fearless child of three reverence his brother of four and a half. We may laugh; but it was no laughing matter, but a very interesting one, to see the little fellow watch every movement of his brother, give him credit for profound reasons in everything he did, and humbly imitate as much as he could. Supposing such a child to be deficient generally in reverence, it would be a tremendous mistake in the parents to check this one exercise of it. They should, in such a case, carefully observe the rights of seniority among the children; avoid laughing at the follies of the elder, or needlessly pointing out his faults, in the presence of the younger, while they daily strive to raise the standard of both. They must also lead the imagination of the little one to contemplate things which he must feel to be at once real and beyond his comprehension. They must, at serious moments, lead his mind higher than he was aware it would go, even till it sinks under his sense of ignorance. They must carry his thoughts down into depths which he never dreamed of, and where the spirit of awe will surely lay hold upon him. I do not believe there is any child who cannot be impressed with a serious, plain account of some of the wonders of nature; with a report, ever so meagre, of the immensity of the heavens, whose countless stars, the least of which we cannot understand, are for ever moving, in silent mystery, before our eyes. I do not believe there are many children that may not be deeply impressed by the great mystery of brute life, if their attention be duly fixed upon it. Let the careless and confident child be familiarised, not only with the ant and the bee for their wonderful instinct, but with all living creatures as inhabitants of the same world as himself, and at the same time, of a world of their own, as we have; a world of ideas, and emotions, and pleasures, which we know nothing whatever about,--any more than they know the world of our minds. I do not believe there is any child who would not look up with awe to a man or woman who had done a n.o.ble act,--saved another from fire or drowning, or told the truth to his own loss or peril, or visited the sick in plague-time, or the guilty in jail. I do not believe there is any child who would not look up with awe to a man who was known to be wise beyond others; to have seen far countries; to have read books in many languages; or to have made discoveries among the stars, or about how earth, air, and water are made. If it be so, who is there that may not be impressed at last by the evident truth that all that men have yet known and done is as nothing compared with what remains to be known and done: that the world-wide traveller is but the half-fledged bird flitting round the nest: that the philosopher is but as the ant which spends its little life in bringing home half a dozen grains of wheat: and that the most benevolent man is grieved that he can do so little for the solace of human misery, feeling himself like the child who tries to wipe away his brother's tears, but cannot heal his grief! Who is there that cannot be impressed by the grave pointing out of the mystery of life, and the vastness of knowledge which lie around and before him; and by the example of him who did none but n.o.ble and generous deeds, and bore the fiercest sufferings, and felt contempt for nothing under heaven! How can it but excite reverence to show that he, even he, was himself full of reverence, and incapable of contempt!

II. Having said thus much about nouris.h.i.+ng and balancing the faculty of reverence, I need only point out the directions in which it should be trained.

The point on which a child's veneration will first naturally fix will be Power. It must be the parents' first business to fix that veneration on Authority, instead of mere power. Instead of the power to shut up in a closet, or to whip, the child must reverence the authority which reveals itself in calm control and gentle command. The parents must be the first objects of the child's disciplined reverence. Even here, in this first clear case, the faculty cannot work well without sympathy: and the child must have sympathy from the parents themselves. He must see that his parents respect each other; that they consider one another's authority unquestionable in the household; and that they reverence _their_ parent--if Granny be still among them.

Beyond this, there is no reason why the sympathy between parents and children should not be simple, constant, and true, as to their objects of reverence.

The child may revere as very wise, some person whom the parents know not to be so: but they may join their child in revering the wisdom which they know to be his ideal. The child may go into an enthusiasm about some questionable hero,--the exemplar of some virtue which the parents feel to be of a rather low order: but they will sympathise in the homage to virtue--which is the main point. They may be secretly amused at their child's reverence for the constable: but they feel the same in regard to that of which the constable is the representative to the child--the Law.

They will lead him on with them in their advancing reverence for knowledge; for that moral and intellectual knowledge united which const.i.tute wisdom; and will thus turn away his regards from dwelling too much on outward distinctions, which might otherwise inspire undue awe.