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Untitled Article
School . ' Secondly , ' Lessons on Objects , as given to Children between the ages of five and eight , in a Pestalozzian School at Cheam , Surrey / Meritorious as these works are , either for domestic instruction or for the lower classes of a school , they are hardly available for little children below the age of six or seven , for whom , however , it is exceedingly desirable that such exercises should be prepared , seeing that very little children , though
not in a condition for book learning , are as capable and desirous of examining nature , if not of profiting by that examination , as , in all probability , they will ever become . From nature we get knowledge at first hand ; from books we get knowledge at second hand , when we succeed in getting it at all : so that we exhibit no remarkable signs of wisdom in
prefering the shadow to the substance , when the latter is within our reach . The author of the Lessons on Objects ' tells a story of a teacher who gave a lesson to his class respecting a window , of which he had taken the trouble to make a drawing , not reflecting , until reminded of the fact by one of the pupils , that a real window was actually before him ; and even then the force of habit
w as so great , that he silenced the child and proceeded as before . A child will read about a blacksmith with apathy , and forget the lesson in an hour ; but show him the real man at his forge , with his black hands , roaring bellows , and heavy hammer , making the bright sparks fly around him , and fashioning the hard iron as if it were of clay , and an effect is produced on the child ' s mind that will never be effaced . So , also , any object , no matter how common , a table , or a carpet , a grate , an article of dress , a stone or a flower will , each and all , afford a fund of entertainment when the
parent is once familiarized with the mode , set forth in the abovementioned works . lie will then soon find himself in a condition to diminish or enlarge , and to alter and improve the lessons to his heart ' s content ; for the variety of object and illustration has no bounds . We shall now go a little into detail in describing these two works . The design of the Little Philosopher / to use the words of its author , ' is not to go at all out of the appropriate field of childish observation ; but to fix the attention of children , and to employ their reasoning powers upon the thousand objects around them , with which they are necessarily more or less familiar , and which
are consequently the best subjects of thought and reflection for them . ... But in order that the book may at all accomplish the object for which it is intended , it must be used as the textbook of a teacher , not the mere reading book of a child . ' The book consists of a series of questions calculated to engage the teacher and child in agreeable conversation , and to induce the latter to observe with accuracy , and to make various simple experiments . The subjects treated of are very numerous , and of course
Untitled Article
60 Rational Instruction .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1835, page 60, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2641/page/60/
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