tomed to this, provided others set before them a good example, and during the requisite time keep their hands folded also.
9. Secondly, that from their lips may now go forth the praise of God, children should be taught to bend the knee, to fold the hands and look upwards, and say little prayers, especially this very little one, “O God my Father, be merciful to me for the sake of Thy Son Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.”[1] Within a month or two this prayer may be fixed in their memories. They should next be taught the Lord’s Prayer, not all at once, but the first petition within the space of a week, every day, morning and evening, repeating it once or twice; for what else has its attendant to do? It is likewise proper that as the child advances in reason it should be accustomed, as often as it requires food, to say its own little prayer.[2] When the child has mastered the words and retains in memory the first petition, the second ought to be added, and repeated during two weeks. Then the third should be joined to these, and so on to the end. In this way a child will more easily retain in memory the Lord’s Prayer, than if, according to the usual manner, the whole were recited at one and the same time. For thus it is forced to be learning it during two or three years, and even then will not remember it correctly.
- ↑ Madame de Maintenon, who wrote most intelligently on the education of girls, said: “Let piety consist rather in the innocence of their lives and in the simplicity of their occupations than in the austerities, the retirements, and the refinements of devotion.”
Kant was in entire accord with Rousseau that religious instruction did not belong to the period of early childhood. He says: “Religious ideas always suppose some system of theology, and how are we to teach theology to the young, who, far from knowing the world, do not yet know themselves.”
- ↑ “The child accustomed from its earliest years to pray, to think, and to work,” says Pestalozzi, “is already more than half educated.”
