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memory some of their dead stock , which would not otherwise hare found its way there so easily ; and , presently , the multiplication , and other ciphering tables , the pence table , avoirdupoise weight , and more of the like kind , were set to music , and occasionally better fitted for the infantine taste , at least so it was supposed , by the addition of the most silly rhymes . What intellectual or moral effect , I should like to know , can be anticipated from a child learning such a verse as this : —
" Forty pence are three and four pence , A pretty sum , or I'm mistaken ; Fifty pence are four and two pence . Which will buy five pounds of bacon ; *' Or , still more vulgar , in the song about the cow : — " And when she ' s dead , her flesh is good , For beef is our true English food ; But though 'twill make us biave and strong , To eat too much , we know , is wrong . "'
' In one infant school , I have known the children to be made to laugh , or to cry , or to look happy , or unhappy , or kind , or angry , at the master ' s command ; in another school , in which the picture of a farm yard was hung up on the wall , the master assured me that he was expressly enjoined by his committee , to ask the children for scripture references to every object represented in that picture . Thus , when he pointed to a cow , the children were to quote him chapter and verse of
those passages in scripture in which a cow was mentioned ; the same with the sheaves , the clouds , and whatever else the picture contained ; this was considered , by the committee , as an excellent method of connecting religious instruction with all other subjects . To enumerate all the nonsense that has been practised , and is still practised , in this manner , would be an endless task ; but what has most effectually
contributed to the ruin of the infant system , is the manner of propagating it . The renown of the system penetrates into some country place , or into some district of a large town , and some persons take it into their heads , upon hearing what excellent things the infant schools are , that they too will have an infant school . They then ffo in search of a place , and find out some old barn , or coach-house , which , with a few
alterations , can be turned into a school-room . So far all is right ; for it is better that a good school should be in a wretched place , than , as we so often see it before our eyes in the metropolis , that a wretched school should be in a splendid place . But the great difficulty arises in the choice of the future master or mistress . Each of the originators and patrons of the proposed institution , has some client in view , whom he has nominated m his heart . A poor fellow , a tailor , a shoe-maker , or a fiddler by trade , who is not prosperous in the exercise of his calling , has the suffrage of the most active member of the committee ; or an old dame , whose school would suffer by the opposition of the new system , is patronized by some charitable ladies ; or the richest contributor has an old servant , whom she wants to put into a snug place ; a struggle arises between these contending interests , the result of which is , that
the client of the most influential party is selected for tho situation , although , perhaps , the most unfit of all the candidates . The next question then is , how the new master or mistress is to learn the system , pf which they must be presumed to be entirely ignorant . Some ikiendr
Untitled Article
612 Reform it * Education .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1834, page 512, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2635/page/52/
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