stead of allowing him to read to himself, and the whole of the mechanical mischief is avoided:and again, let him be freely conversed with, in a desultory manner, in the midst of active engagements, and out of doors; and then, while an equal amount of information is conveyed, and in a form more readily assimilated by the mind, then nearly all the mischiefs of excitement, as springing from study, are also avoided. In a word, let books in the hand, except as play-things, be, as much as possible, held back during the early period of education; and the later the time at which they are freely allowed the better.
If it were not true that, notwithstanding the improved notions now prevalent, relative to early tasking and lesson-learning, there is always a probability that perfunctory teachers will adhere to the reprobated practice, I should not think it necessary to dwell upon the subject. It is, however, absolutely necessary that parents, who avail themselves of the services of a governess or tutor, as most must do, should have a strong conviction of the injurious consequences attending the method of gorging. children, and especially young children, with the verbiage of tasks. Unfortunately, nothing can supply the place of task-work in education, but the elastic intelligence of the teacher’s own mind; and those who possess no such spring of movement, will always, if allowed to do it, swamp the understandings of children in lessons.
The committing of VERSE to memory is, as I shall have occasion again to say, a facile and altogether unexceptionable exercise of that faculty; and a ready means of fixing the best sentiments in the mind, in connexion with pleasurable emotions; and this mental association is perhaps the most important of any which it is the object of education to form. But I am inclined to doubt if a balance of good is in any case secured by the practice of loading the memory with PROSE, of any kind; and especially with such prose
