A certain dame at a country school, who had never been able to compass the word Nebuchadnezzar, used to desire her pupils to "call it Nazareth, and let it pass."
If they be obliged to pass over words without comprehending them in books, they will probably do the same in conversation; and the difficulty of teaching such pupils, and of understanding what they say, will be equally increased. At the hazard of being tedious, we must dwell a little longer upon this subject, because much of the future capacity of children seems to depend upon the manner in which they first acquire language. If their language be confused, so will be their thoughts; and they will not be able to reason, to invent, or to write, with more precision and accuracy than they speak. The first words that children learn are the names of things; these are easily associated with the objects themselves, and there is little danger of mistake or confusion. We will not enter into the grammatical dispute concerning the right of precedency, amongst pronoun substantives and verbs; we do not know which came first into the mind of man; perhaps, in different minds, and in different circumstances, the precedency must have varied; but this seems to be of little consequence; children see actions performed, and they act themselves; when they want to express their remembrance of these actions, they make use of the sort of words which we call verbs. Let these words be strictly associated with the ideas which they mean to express, and no matter whether children know any thing about the disputes of grammarians, they will understand rational grammar in due time, simply by reflecting upon their own minds. This we shall explain more fully when we speak hereafter of grammar; we just mention the subject here, to warn preceptors against puzzling their pupils too early with grammatical subtleties.
If any person unused to mechanics was to read Dr. Desagulier's description of the manner in which a man walks, the number of a-b-c's, and the travels of the centre of gravity, it would so amaze and confound him, that he would scarcely believe he could ever again perform such a tremendous operation as that of walking. Children, if they were early to hear grammarians talk of the parts of speech, and of syntax, would conclude, that to speak must be one of the most difficult arts in the world; but children, who are not usually so unfortunate as to have grammarians for their preceptors, when they first begin to speak, acquire language, without being aware of the difficulties which would appear so formidable in theory. A child points to, or touches, the table, and when the word table is repeated, at the same instant he learns the name of the thing. The facility with which a number of names are thus learned in infancy is surprising; but we must not imagine that the child, in learning these names, has acquired much knowledge; he has prepared himself to be taught, but he has not yet learnt any thing accurately. When a child sees a guinea and a shilling, and smiling says, "That's a guinea, mama! and that's a shilling!" the mother is pleased and surprised by her son's intelligence, and she gives him credit for more than he really possesses. We have associated with the words guinea and shilling a number of ideas, and when we hear the same words pronounced by a young child, we perhaps have some confused belief that he has acquired the same ideas that we have; hence we are pleased with the mere sound of words of high import from infantine lips.
Children who are delighted in their turn by the expression of pleasure in the countenance of others, repeat the things which they perceive have pleased; and thus their education is begun by those who first smile upon them, and listen to them when they attempt to speak. They who applaud children for knowing the names of things, induce them quickly to learn a number of names by rote; as long as they learn the names of external objects only, which they can see, and smell, and touch, all is well; the names will convey distinct ideas of certain perceptions. A child who learns the name of a taste, or of a colour, who learns that the taste of sugar is called sweet, and that the colour of a red rose is called red, has learned distinct words to express certain perceptions: and we can at any future time recall to his mind the memory of those perceptions by means of their names, and he understands us as well as the most learned philosopher. But, suppose that a boy had learned only the name of gold; that when different metals were shown to him, he could put his finger upon gold, and say, "That is gold;" yet this boy does not know all the properties of gold; he does not know in what it differs from other metals; to what uses it is applied in arts, manufactures, and commerce; the name of gold, in his mind, represents nothing more than a substance of a bright yellow colour, upon which people, he does not precisely know why, set a great value. Now, it is very possible, that a child might, on the contrary, learn all the properties, and the various uses of gold, without having learned its name; his ideas of this metal would be perfectly distinct; but whenever he wished to speak of gold, he would be obliged to use a vast deal of circumlocution to make himself understood; and if he were to enumerate all the properties of the metal every time he wanted to recal the general idea, his conversation would be intolerably tedious to others, and to himself this useless repetition must be extremely laborious. He would certainly be glad to learn that single word gold, which would save him so much trouble; his understanding would appear suddenly to have improved, simply from his having acquired a proper sign to represent his ideas. The boy who had learnt the name, without knowing any of the properties of gold, would also appear comparatively ignorant, as soon as it is discovered that he has few ideas annexed to the word. It is, perhaps, for this reason, that some children seem suddenly to shine out with knowledge, which no one suspected they possessed; whilst others, who had appeared to be very quick and clever, come to a dead stop in their education, and appear to be blighted by some unknown cause. The children who suddenly shine out, are those who had acquired a number of ideas, and who, the moment they acquire proper words, can communicate their thoughts to others. Those children who suddenly seem to lose their superiority, are those who had acquired a variety of words, but who had not annexed ideas to them. When their ignorance is detected, we not only despair of them, but they are apt to despair of themselves; they see their companions get before them, and they do not exactly perceive the cause of their sudden incapacity. Where we speak of sensible, visible, tangible objects, we can easily detect and remedy a child's ignorance. It is easy to discover whether he has or has not a complete notion of such a substance as gold; we can enumerate its properties, and readily point out in what his definition is defective. The substance can be easily produced for examination; most of its properties are obvious to the senses; we have nothing to do but to show them to the child, and to associate with each property its usual name; here there can be no danger of puzzling his understanding; but when we come to the explanation of words which do not represent external objects, we shall find the affair more difficult. We can make children understand the meaning of those words which are the names of simple feelings of the mind, such as surprise, joy, grief, pity; because we can either put our pupils in situations where they actually feel these sensations, and then we may associate the name with the feelings; or we may, by the example of other people, who actually suffer pain or enjoy pleasure, point out what we mean by the words joy and grief. But how shall we explain to our young pupils, a number of words which represent neither existing substances nor simple feelings, when we can neither recur to experiment nor to sympathy for assistance? How shall we explain, for instance, the words virtue, justice, benevolence, beauty, taste, &c.? To analyze our own ideas of these, is no easy task; to explain the process to a young child, is scarcely possible. Call upon any man, who has read and reflected, for a definition of virtue, the whole "theory of moral sentiments" rises, perhaps, to his view at once, in all its elegance; the paradoxical acumen of Mandeville, the perspicuous reasoning of Hume, the accurate metaphysics of Condillac, the persuasive eloquence of Stewart; all the various doctrines that have been supported concerning the foundation of morals, such as the fitness of things, the moral sense, the beauty of truth, utility, sympathy, common sense; all that has been said by ancient and modern philosophers, is recalled in transient perplexing succession to his memory. If such be the state of mind of the man who is to define, what must be the condition of the child who is to understand the definition? All that a prudent person will attempt, is to give instances of different virtues; but even these, it will be difficult properly to select for a child. General terms, whether