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Grammar a Difficult Study.––Of grammar, Latin and English, I shall say very little here. In the first place, grammar, being a study of words and not of things, is by no means attractive to the child, nor should he be hurried into it. English grammar, again, depending as it does on the position and logical connection of words, is peculiarly hard for him to grasp. In this respect the Latin grammar is easier; a change in the form, the shape of the word, to denote case, is what a child can see with his bodily eye, and therefore is plainer to him than the abstract ideas of nominative and objective case as we have them in English. Therefore, if he learns no more at this early stage than the declensions and a verb or two, it is well he should learn thus much, if only to help him to see what English grammar would be at when it speaks of a change in case or mood, yet shows no change in the form of a word.
Latin Grammar.––Of the teaching of Latin grammar, I think I cannot do better than mention a book for beginners that really answers. Children of eight and nine take to this First Latin Course (Scott and Jones) very kindly, and it is a great thing to begin a study with pleasure. It is an open question, however, whether it is desirable to begin Latin at so early an age.
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English Grammar a Logical Study.––Because English grammar is a logical study, and deals with sentences and the positions that words occupy in them, rather than with words, and what they are in their own right, it is better that the child should begin with the sentence, and not with the parts of speech; that is, that he should learn a little of what is called analysis of sentences before he learns to parse; should learn to divide simple sentences into the thing we speak of, and what we say about it––'The cat-sits on the hearth'––before he is lost in the fog of person, mood, and part of speech.
"So then I took up the next book. It was about grammar. It said extraordinary things about nouns and verbs and particles and pronouns, and past participles and objective cases and subjunctive moods. 'What are all these things?' asked the King. 'I don't know, your Majesty,' and the Queen did not know, but she said it would be very suitable for children to learn. 'It would keep them quiet.'"(2)
It is so important that children should not be puzzled as were this bewildered King and Queen, that I add a couple of introductory grammar lessons; as a single example is often more useful than many precepts.
LESSON I
Words put together so as to make sense form what is called a sentence.
'Barley oats chair really good and cherry' is not a sentence, because it makes no(n)sense.
'Tom has said his lesson' is a sentence.
It is a sentence because it tells us something about Tom.
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Every sentence speaks of someone or of something, and tells us something about that of which it speaks.
So a sentence has two parts:
(1) The thing we speak of;
(2) What we say about it.
In our sentence we speak of 'Tom.'
We say about him that he 'has learned his lesson.'
The thing we speak of is often called the SUBJECT, which just means that which we talk about.
People sometimes say 'the subject of conversation was so and so,' which is another way of saying 'the thing we were speaking about was so and so.'
To be learnt––
Words put together so as to make sense form a sentence.
A sentence has two parts: that which we speak of, and what we say about
it.
That which we speak of is the SUBJECT.
Exercises on Lesson I
1. Put the first part to––
––has a long mane.
––is broken.
––cannot do his sums.
––played for an hour;
etc., etc.
2. Put the second part to––
That
poor boy––.
My brother
Tom––.
The broken
flowerpot––.
Bread and
jam––.
Brown's
tool-basket––;
etc., etc.
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3. Put six different subjects to each half sentence in 1.
4. Make six different sentences with each subject in 2.
5. Say which part of the sentence is wanting, and supply it in––
Has been
mended
Tom's knife
That little
dog
Cut his
finger
Ate too
much fruit
My new book
The
snowdrops in our garden, etc., etc.
N.B.––Be careful to call the first part of each sentence the subject.
Draw a line under the subject of each sentence in all the exercises.
LESSON II
We may make a sentence with only two words––the name of the thing we speak of, and what we say about it:––
John
writes.
Birds sing.
Mary sews.
We speak about 'John.'
We say about him that he 'writes.'
We speak about 'birds.'
We say about them that they 'sing.'
These words, writes, sing, sews, all come out of the same group of words, and the words in that group are
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the chief words of all, for this reason––we cannot make sense, and therefore cannot make a sentence, without using at least one of them.
They are called VERBS, which means words, because they are the chief words of all.
A verb always tells one of two things about the subject. Either it tells what the subject is, as––
I am
hungry.
The chair is
broken.
The birds are
merry;
or it tells what the subject does, as––
Alice writes.
The cat mews.
He calls.
To be learnt––
We cannot make a sentence without a verb.
Verb means word.
Verbs are the chief words.
Verbs show that the subject is something––
He is sleepy;
or does something––
He runs.
Exercises on Lesson II
1. Put in a verb of being:––
Mary––sleepy.
Boys––rough.
Girls––quiet.
He––first
yesterday.
I––a little
boy.
Tom and
George––swinging before dinner.
We––busy
to-morrow.
He––punished;
etc., etc.
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2. Make three sentences with each of the following verbs:––
Is, are, should be, was, am, were, shall be, will be.
3. Make six sentences with verbs of being in each.
4. Put a verb of doing to––
Tigers––.
The boy
with the pony––.
My
cousins––;
etc., etc.
5. Make twenty sentences about––
That boy in kilts,
with verbs showing what he does.
6. Find the verbs, and say whether of being or doing, in––
The
bright sun rises over the hill.
We went
away.
You are my
cousin.
George goes
to school.
He took his
slate.
We are
seven.
7. Count how many verbs you use in your talk for the next ten minutes.
8. Write every verb you can find in these exercises, and draw a line under it.
French should be acquired as English is, not as a grammar, but as a living speech. To train the ear to distinguish and the lips to produce the French vocables is a valuable part of the education of the senses, and one which can hardly be undertaken too soon. Again, all educated persons should be able to speak
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French. Sir Lyon Playfair, once speaking a conference of French masters, lamented feelingly our degeneracy in this respect, and instanced the grammar school of Perth to show that in a Scotch school in the sixteenth century the boys were required to speak Latin during school hours, and French at all other times. There is hardly another civilised nation so dull in acquiring foreign tongues as we English of the present time; but, probably, the fault lies rather in the way we set about the study than in any natural incapacity for languages.
As regards French, for instance, our difficulties are twofold––the want of a vocabulary, and a certain awkwardness in producing unfamiliar sounds. It is evident that both these hindrances should be removed in early childhood. The child should never see French words in print until he has learned to say them with as much ease and readiness as if they were English. The desire to give printed combinations of letters the sounds they would bear in English words is the real cause of our national difficulty in pronouncing French. Again, the child's vocabulary should increase steadily, say, at the rate of half a dozen words a day. Think of fifteen hundred words in a year! The child who has that number of words, and knows how to apply them, can speak French. Of course, his teacher, will take care that, in giving words, she gives idioms also, and that as he learns new words, they are put into sentences and kept in use from day to day. A note-book in which she enters the child's new words and sentences will easily enable the teacher to do this. The young child has no foolish shame about saying French words––he pronounces them as simply as if they were English.
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But it is very important that he should acquire a pure accent from the first. It is not often advisable that young English children should be put into the hands of a French governess or nurse; but would it not be possible for half a dozen families, say, to engage a French lady, who would give half an hour daily to each family?
M. Gouin's Method––A serious effort is being made to approach the study of foreign languages rationally and scientifically. I have no hesitation in saying that M. [Monsieur Francois] Gouin's work (The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages) is the most important attempt that has yet been made to bring the study of languages within the sphere of practical education. Indeed, the great reform in our methods of teaching modern languages owe their origin to this remarkable work. The initial idea, that we must acquire a new language as a child acquires his mother tongue, is absolutely right, whether the attempt to follow this idea out by analysing a language into a certain number, say fifteen, exhaustive 'series,' be right or not. Again, it is incontestable that the ear, and not the eye, is the physical organ for apprehending a language, just as truly as it is by the mouth, and not the ear, we appropriate food. If M. Gouin's book establish these two points only, it will be a valuable contribution to educational thought. Equally important is his third position, that the verb is the key to the sentence, and more, is the living bridge between thought and act. He maintains, too, that the child thinks in sentences, not in words; that his sentences have a logical sequence; that this sequence is one of time
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––the order of the operations in, for example, the growth of a plant, or the grinding of corn in a mill; that, as the child perceives the operations, he has an absolute need to express them; that his ear solicits, his memory cherishes, his tongue reproduces, the words which say the thing he thinks.
No doubt M. Gouin's method should be more successful than any other in steeping the student (child or man) in German or French thought. If you are all day long trying to work out a 'series' in French, say, you come to think in French, to dream in French, to speak French. Moreover, one has a delightful sense that at last the way is made clear to us to conduct all teaching in the language under study. You have the 'Art Series' and the 'Bee Series' and the 'River' and the 'Character Series' and the 'Poet Series,' and any series you like. You think the thing out in the order of time and natural sequence; you get the right verbs, nouns, and such epithets as are necessary, follow suit, and in amazingly few sentences, very short sentences too, connected by 'and,' you have said all that is essential to the subject. The whole thing is a constant surprise, like the children's game which unearths the most extraordinary and out-of-the-way thing you can think of by means of a dozen or so questions.
The 'Series.'––Thus, a language learned by M. Gouin's method is 'a liberal education in itself.' One learns how few and simple are, after all, the conceptions of which the human mind is cognisant, and how few and simple, putting mere verbiage aside, are the words necessary to express these.
You really learn to think in the new language,
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because you have no more than vague impressions about these acts or facts in your mother tongue.
You order your thoughts in the new language, and, having done so, the words which express these are an inalienable possession.
Here is an example of an elementary 'Series,' showing how 'the servant lights the fire':
"The servant takes a box of
matches, (takes.)
She opens the match-box, (opens.)
She takes out a match, (takes out.)
She shuts up the match-box, (shuts up.)
She strikes the match on the cover, (strikes.)
The match takes fire, (takes fire.)
The match smokes, (smokes.)
The match flames, (flames.)
The match burns, (burns.)
And spreads a smell of burning over the
kitchen, (spreads.)
The servant bends down to the hearth, (bends down.)
Puts out her hand, (puts out.)
Puts the match under the shavings, (puts.)
Holds the match under the shavings, (holds.)
The shavings take fire, (take fire.)
The servant leaves go of the match, (leave go.)
Stands up again, (stands up.)
Looks at her fire burning, (looks.)
And puts back the box of matches in its place,
(puts back.)
But any attempt to quote gives an uncertain and unsatisfactory idea of this important work.
How does the Child learn?––Whatever may be said of M. Gouin's methods, the steps by which he arrives at them are undoubtedly scientific. He learns from a child:
"Unhappily the child has remained up to the present a hackneyed riddle, which we have never taken sufficient trouble to decipher or examine...."
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The little child, which at the age of two years utters nothing but meaningless exclamations, at the age of three finds itself in possession of a complete language. How does it accomplish this? Does this miracle admit of explanation or not? Is it a problem of which there is a possiblity of finding the unknown quantity? . . . The organ of language––ask the little child––is not the eye: it is the ear. The eye is made for colours, and not for sounds and words . . . This tension, continuous and contrary to nature, of the organ of sight, the forced precipitancy of the visual act, produced what it was bound to produce, a disease of the eyesight."
This refers to M. Gouin's herculean labours in the attempt to learn German. He knew everybody's 'Method,' learned the whole dictionary through, and found at the end that he did not know one word of German 'as she is spoke.'
He returned to France, after a ten months' absence, and found that his little nephew––whom he had left a child of two and a half, not yet able to talk––had in the interval done what his uncle had signally failed to do. "'What!' I thought; 'this child and I have been working for the same time, each at a language. He, playing round his mother, running after flowers, butterflies and birds, without weariness, without apparent effort, without even being conscious of his work, is able to say all he thinks, express all he sees, understand all he hears; and when he began his work, his intelligence was yet a futurity, a glimmer, a hope. And I, versed in the sciences, versed in philosophy, armed with a powerful will, gifted with a powerful memory . . . have arrived at nothing, or at practically nothing!'"
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"The linguistic science of the college has deceived me, has misguided me. The classical method, with its grammar, its dictionary, and its translations, is a delusion." "To surprise Nature's secret, I must watch this child."
M. Gouin watches the child––the work in question is the result of his observations.
The method of teaching may be varied, partly because that recommended by M. Gouin requires a perfect command of the French tongue, and teachers who are diffident find a conversational method founded on book and picture easier to work and perhaps as effectual––more so, some people think; but, be this as it may, it is to M. Gouin we owe the fundamental idea.
It is satisfactory to find principles, which we have urged continually, enunciated in this most thoughtful work. For example: "If one learns French without being able to read it––as the child does––there will be no longer much greater difficulty in pronouncing it than in pronouncing words in English. 'How about the spelling?' you will ask. The spelling? You would learn it as the young French children learn it, as you yourself have learnt the English spelling, ten times more difficult than the French; and this without letting the study of the spelling spoil your already acquired pronunciation. Besides, the spelling is a thing that can be reformed––the pronunciation hardly at all. We must choose between the two evils." M. Gouin speaks of the possiblity of a child's picking up another tongue––even Chinese from a Chinese nurse; and his words remind me of an extraordinary instance of a child's
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facility in picking up languages, which once came before me. Having occasion to speak in public of three little children, all aged three, belonging to different families, where one parent was English, the other German, I said that these three children of my acquaintance could each say everything they had to say, express the whole range of their ideas, with equal ease and fluency in the two languages. At the close of the meeting, a gentleman present came forward and endorsed my remarks. He said he had a son whose wife was a German lady, and who was now a missionary in Bagdad. They have a child of three, and their child speaks three languages with perfect fluency––English, German, and Arabic! No doubt the child will forget two of the three, and this is no argument for teaching foreign tongues to babies, but surely it does prove that the acquisition of a foreign tongue need not present insuperable difficulties to any of us.
Study of Pictures.––The art training of children should proceed on two lines. The six-year-old child should begin both to express himself and to appreciate, and his appreciation should be well in advance of his power to express what he sees or imagines. Therefore it is a lamentable thing when the appreciation of children is exercised only upon the coloured lithographs of their picture-books or of the 'Christmas number.' But the reader will say, 'A young child cannot appreciate art; it is only the colour and sentiment of a picture that reach him. A vividly coloured presentation of Bobbie's Birthday, or of
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Barbara's Broken Doll, will find its way straight to his "business and bosom."' 'Therefore,' says the reader, 'Nature indicates the sort of art proper for the children!' But, as a matter of fact, the minds of children and of their elders alike accommodate themselves to what is put in their way; and if children appreciate the vulgar and sentimental in art, it is because that is the manner of art to which they become habituated. A little boy of about nine was (with many others) given reproductions of some half dozen of the pictures of Jean Francois Millet to study during a school term. At the end, the children were asked to describe the one of these pictures which they liked best. Of course they did it, and did it well. This is what a little boy I mentioned makes of it:––"I liked the Sower best. The sower is sowing seeds; the picture is all dark except high up on the right-hand side where there is a man ploughing the field. While he is ploughing the field the sower sows. The sower has got a bag in his left hand and is sowing with this right hand. He has wooden clogs on. He is sowing at about six o'clock in the morning. You can see his head better than his legs and body, because it is against the light."
A little girl of seven prefers the 'Angelus', and says:––"The picture is about people in the fields, man and a woman. By the woman is a basket with something in it; behind her is a wheelbarrow. They are praying; the man has his hat off in his hand. You can tell that it is evening, because the wheelbarrow and the basket are loaded."
Should be Regular.––When children have begun regular lessons (that is, as soon as they are six), this sort of study of pictures should not
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be left to chance, but they should take one artist after another, term by term, and study quietly some half-dozen reproductions of his work in the course of the term.
The little memory outlines I have quoted show his studies; but this
is the least of the gains. We cannot measure the influence that one or
another artist has upon the child's sense of beauty, upon his power of
seeing, as in a picture, the common sights of life; he is enriched more
than we know in having really looked at even a single picture. It is a
mistake to think that colour is quite necessary to children in their
art studies. They find colour in many places, and are content, for the
time, with form and feeling in their pictures. By the way, for
schoolroom decorations, I know of nothing better than the Fitzroy
Pictures [see Appendix A.],
especially those of the Four Seasons,
where you get beauty, both of line and colour, and poetic feeling. I
should like, too, to quote Ruskin's counsel that English children
should be brought up on Jean Richter's picture-books for
children, the Unser Vater, Sontag
[see Appendix A], and the
rest. [Editor's note: Charlotte probably meant children's illustrator (Adrian)
Ludwig Richter, 1803-1884. An illustration from his book Der Sontag in Bildren, or, Sunday in Pictures, can be seen here
or here.
Unser
Vater, or Vater Unser, means Our Father and may have been an
illustrated book about the Lord's Prayer. Charlotte undoubtedly was
familiar with art historian Jean
Paul Richter, and probably got the names confused.]
I subjoin notes of a lesson on a Picture-talk [by a student of the House of Education] given to children of eight and nine, to show how this sort of lesson may be given.
PICTURE-TALK
"Objects
"1. To continue the series of Landseer's
pictures the children are
taking in school.
"2. To increase their interest in Landseer's works.
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"3. To show the importance of his acquaintance with animals.
"4. To help them to read a picture truly.
"5. To increase their powers of attention and observation.
"Step I.––Ask the children if they remember what their last picture-talk was about, and what artist was famous for animal-painting. Tell them Landseer was acquainted with animals when he was quite young: he had dogs for pets, and because he loved them he studied them and their habits––so was able to paint them.
"Step II.––Give them the picture 'Alexander and the Diogenes' to look at, and ask them to find out all they can about it themselves, and to think what idea the artist had in his mind, and what idea or ideas he meant his picture to convey to us.
"Step III.––After three or four minutes, take the picture away and see what the children have noticed. Then ask them what the different dogs suggest to them; the strength of the mastiff representing Alexander; the dignity and stateliness of the bloodhounds in his rear; the look of the wise counselor on the face of the setter; the rather contemptuous look of the rough-haired terrier in the tub. Ask the children if they have noticed anything in the picture which shows the time of day: for example, the tools thrown down by the side of the workman's basket suggesting the mid-day meal; and the bright sunshine on the dogs who cast a shadow on the tub shows it must be somewhere about noon.
"Step IV.––Let them read the title, and tell any facts they know about Alexander and Diogenes; then tell them Alexander was a great conqueror who lived
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B.C. 356-323, famous for the battles he won against Persia, India, and along the coast of the Mediterranean He was very proud, strong, and boastful. Diogenes was a cynic philosopher. Explain cynic, illustrating by the legend of Alexander and Diogenes; and from it find out which dog represents Alexander and which Diogenes.
"Step V.––Let the children draw the chief lines of the picture, in five minutes, with a pencil and paper."
Original Illustrations.––I have spoken, from time to time, of original illustrations drawn by the children. It may be of use to subjoin notes of a lesson [By a student of the House of Education] showing the sort of occasional help a teacher may give in this kind of work; but in a general way it is best to leave children to themselves.
"Objects
"1. To help the children to make clear mental pictures from
description, and to reproduce the same in painting.
"2. To increase their power of imagination.
"3. To help them in their ideas of form and colour.
"4. To increase their interest in the story of Beowulf by letting them
illustrate a scene from the book they are reading.
"5. To bring out their idea of an unknown creature (Grendel).
Steps
"Step I.––To draw from the children what they know of the poem
'Beowulf', and of the hero himself.
"Step II.––To tell them any points they may miss
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in the story, as far as they have read (i.e. to the death of Grendel).
"Step III.––To read the description of the dress at that time, and the account of Grendel's death (including three possible pictures).
"Step IV.––To draw from the children what mental pictures they have made--and to re-read the passage.
"Step V.––To let them produce their mental picture with brush and paint.
"Step VI.––To show them George Harrow's 'original illustration' of Beowulf in "Heroes of Chivalry and Romance."
Drawing Lessons.––But 'for their actual drawing lessons,' says the reader, 'I suppose you use "blobs"?'––'i.e. splashes of paint made with the flat of the brush, which take an oval form. I think blobs have one use––they give certain freedom in using colour. Otherwise 'blobs' seem to me a sort of apparatus of art which a child acquires with a good deal of labour, and which, by proper combinations into flowers, and so on he can produce effects beyond his legitimate power as an artist, while all the time he can do this without a particle of the feeling for the natural object which is the very soul of the art. The power of effective creation by a sort of clever trick maims those delicate feelers of a child's nature by which he apprehends art.
"Let the eye (says Ruskin) "but rest on rough piece of branch for curious form during a conversation with a friend, rest, however unconsciously, and though the conversation be forgotten, though every circumstance connected with it be as utterly lost to the memory as though it had not been, yet the eye will, through the whole life after, take a certain
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pleasure in such boughs which it had not before, a pleasure so slight, a trace of feeling so delicate, as to leave us utterly unconscious of its peculiar power, but undestroyable by any reasoning, a part thence-forward of our constitution."
This is what we wish to do for children in teaching them to draw––to cause the eye to rest, not unconsciously, but consciously, on some object of beauty which will leave in their minds an image of delight for all their lives to come. Children of six and seven draw budding twigs of oak and ash, beech and larch, with such tender fidelity to colour, tone, and gesture, that the crude little drawings are in themselves things of beauty.
Children have 'Art' in them.––With art, as with so many other things in a child, we must believe that it is there, or we shall never find it. Once again, here is a delicate Ariel whom it is our part to deliver from his bonds. Therefore we set twig or growing flower before a child and let him deal with it as he chooses. He will find his own way to form and colour, and our help may very well be limited at first to such technical matters as the mixing of colours and the like. In order that we may not impede the child's freedom or hinder the deliverance of the art that is in him, we must be careful not to offer any aids in the way of guiding lines, points, and such other crutches; and, also, he should work in the easiest medium, that is, with paint brush or with charcoal, and not with a black-lead pencil. Boxes of cheap colours are to be avoided. Children are worthy of the best, and some half-dozen tubes of really good colours will last a long time, and will satisfy the eye of the little artists.
Clay-modelling.––While speaking of the art train-
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ing of children, it may be as well to give a word to clay-modelling. Neat little birds-nests, baskets of eggs, etc., are of no use in the way of art development, and soon cease to be amusing. The chief thing the teacher has to do is to show the child how to prepare his clay so as to expel air-bubbles, and to give him the idea of making a little platform for his work, so that it may from the first have an artistic effect. Then put before him an apple, a banana, a Brazil nut, or the like; let him, not take a lump of clay and squeeze it into shape, but build up the shape he desires morsel by morsel. His own artistic perception seizes on the dint in the apple, the crease in the child's shoe, the little notes of expression in the objects which break uniformity and make for art.
The Piano and Singing.––I must close, with the disappointing sense that subjects of importance in the child's education have been left out of count, and that no one matter has been adequately treated.
Certain subjects of peculiar educational value, music, for instance, I have said nothing about, partly for want of space, and partly because if the mother have not Sir Joshua Reynold's 'that!' in her, hints from an outsider will not produce the art-feeling which is the condition of success in this sort of teaching. If possible, let the children learn from the first under artists, lovers of their work: it is a serious mistake to let the child lay the foundation of whatever he may do in the future under ill-qualified mechanical teachers, who kindle in him none of the enthusiasm which is the life of art. I should like, in connection with singing, to mention the admirable educational effects of the Tonic Sol-fa method. [See Appendix A]
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Children learn by it in a magical way to produce sign for sound and sound for sign, that is, they can not only read music, but can write the notes for, or make the proper hand signs for, the notes of a passage sung to them. Ear and Voice are simultaneously and equally cultivated.
Mrs. Curwen's Child Pianist [See Appendix A] method is worked out, with minute care, upon the same lines; that is, the child's knowledge of the theory of music and his ear training keep pace with his power of execution, and seem to do away with the deadly dreariness of 'practising.'
Handicrafts and Drills.––It is not possible to do more than mention two more important subjects––the Handicrafts and Drills––which should form a regular part of a child's daily life. For physical training nothing is so good as Ling's Swedish Drill [see photo], and a few of the early exercises are the reach of children under nine. Dancing, and the various musical drills, lend themselves to grace of movement, and give more pleasure, if less scientific training, to the little people.
The Handicrafts best fitted for children under nine seem to me to be chair-caning, carton-work, basket-work, Smyrna rugs, Japanese curtains, carving in cork, samplers on coarse canvas showing a variety of stitches, easy needlework, knitting (big needles and wool), etc. The points to be borne in mind in children's handicrafts are: (a) that they should not be employed in making futilities such as pea and stick work, paper mats, and the like; (b) that they should be taught slowly and carefully what they are to do; (c) that slipshod work should
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not allowed; (d) and that, therefore, the children's work should be kept well within their compass.
May I hope, in concluding this short review of the subjects proper for a child's intellectual education, that enough has been said to show the necessity of grave consideration on the mother's part before she allows promiscuous little lesson-books to be put into the hands of her children, or trust ill-qualified persons to strike out methods of teaching for themselves?
