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thou shouldest bray a fool iii a mortar among * h 6 at , with a pestle , yet will not bis . foolishness depart from him , " so did it prove to be the eat * with the prejudices of the public . Infant schools , indeed , became the fashion ; for there was a something in them to win the feelings , which ha * since very much worn off , but which , then , was in all its freshness , and made converts by hundreds . But the consequence of this was , not that
the public adopted the principles of the new system , but that they grafted upon it their old prejudices , their sectarian sympathies and antipathies , and all their paltry party feelings and interests . Originally , the infant schools were calculated to show , what could be done by appealing to a principle of love in the child , which would sttbdoe the wrath of its nature , and to a principle of truth , which would enlighten its darkaess ; and thereby eventually to subvert those systems in which , as we have seen , the evil tendencies of our nature are made the levers of education .
This was no sooner discovered , than a stir was made , for the purpose of suppressing the rising- opposition in its very germ . A society was formed , which , under the pretence of advocating the infant system , succeeded in gradually commuting it into the very reverse of what it was originally meant to be , and which , after having accomplished so praiseworthy an object , has at length absconded , by a sort of mystifea * tion , m a stationer ' s shop . But although the agents have vanished , the baneful effects of . their labours have remained . The infant schools are
novr no more than preparatory for the Lancastenan and National schools , especially the latter , which had most to dread from the rising system , and whose influence , therefore , was most powerfully exerted i * defeating its success . The machinery of those two systems lias found its way into the infant schools , and has made them , with rare exceptions * mere miniature pictures of the others . You see the little monitor * spelling , with their classes , over the A , B , C , and a variety of lesson tables without sense and meaning ; you hear them say , by rote , th *
multiplication table , the pence table , and so on . The same thiafa are repeated over and over again , so that a parrot hung up for some tkne ia one of those schools , would unquestionably make as good an infant school mistress as any . There is hardly one of the means introduced at the beginning , which has not been turned to a bad purpose . Thus * for instance , among other things , sets oi geometrical figures and bodies ^
cat out of wood , were used , for the purpose of questioning the children respectin g the number and proportion of their angles , sides , &c . ; but , instead of making them the means of intellectual exercises , in which tbe children would be led every day to make new discoveries , and to think for themselves , those figures are now pulled out , chiefly in the presence of visitors , and then the whole school bawls out together , " This is a
pentagon—this is a hexagon—this is an octagon , and so on . One of the most pleasing features of the infant system , in its origin , was the social feeling , the cordiality , and cheerfulness of the little company , which was greatly promoted by some short and eaay tunes , to which occasionally some infantine words were sung . The effect which this fc * d * in soothing the irritation of some , moderating tko Yioknc * of <* bers , and arousing the dull ones into life , was truly wottdeKful ; but n *> * ° otter was the discovery made , that there was , so earl y ia Kfe ,, a wsjp to Kan ' s heart and mind by singing , than the raariwnisi * of education availed tbemwdvtt of thfe faot , for th # » uqm » tf * mwtmm to tfc »
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Reform in Bducatim . 61 1
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3 Ofc
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 511, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/51/
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