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Untitled Article
thoroughly enlightened and awakened . Besides the good at which she aimed , there were happy incidental results from these studies of hers . The first was , that they prevented the appearance ( which she thought it most important to avoid , ) of being devoted to her child . She would sit at her desk for hours , absorbed in her studies , whilst the boy worked about the room or garden in a very independent manner . The second good effect was , that , through sympathy , he became interested in what his mother was thinking of , and he too began to examine attentively insects , flowers , &c . &c . Thus happily had passed two years , when this mother was removed from her boy . He passed into other hands , and became an altered being ; for , as yet , he had no principles , nothing
but sweet impulses . To describe the cause of his deterioration , is as instructive as it is painful . His next guardians were of those who believe in
the corrupt nature of man , and say that the first thing to be done , is to break the child ' s will . What ! that liberty which God has given to man—that power of choosing what he shall do , which is his glory , and the means through which he is to be raised to yet higher and higher glory , shall be withheld from the young , pure , child I ' Try all things : hold fast that which is good / is the language of man to man ; while that of the man to the child is , — Try nothing but just tvhat I tell you is good ; that believe and doS Vain man , —vain man ! How many- lessons of wisdom ,
truth , beauty , and love , might you learn from that unsophisticated being , if you could but raise up your proud heart to his humility and purity ! If you could but regain his child-like confidence in the existence of good , which , in the struggles of the cold selfish world , you have lost ! The little hero of our tale was then taken into totally different circumstances . He who had never heard a command , was , from morning till night , tyrannised over . At first he could not understand it . The harsh tone fell on his ear , but he did not heed it or obey it ; he did not know it was meant for him ; it was as if the dog had barked , —a sound that struck his sense , but did not reach his intellect . It will be sufficient to mention one specimen
of how he was treated , the rest will easily be imagined . One day , when , not understanding some order he had not obeyed , and when his little hands were held as a punishment , and he smilingly endured , thinking they were held in love : this smile was construed into hardened guilt , and the sharpest reproaches wt ^ re uttered , to make him aware that the intention was to pain and degrade him .
Alas ! alas ! the miseries that flowed in may be guessed : — fretfulness , passion , idleness , cowardice , deceit , malice . The canker was in the bud ; or is it more true to say , that the storm which tore to pieces and scattered the blossoms that had come
Untitled Article
and Experiments in Education * 488
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 483, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/23/
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