AFTER Lucy had been at school for some days, and had learned a little how to study by herself, and to follow Mary Jay’s directions, Mary Jay asked her, one day, if she knew what her mother wanted her to study. She said that she didn’t know. “Then,” said Mary Jay, “I wish that you would ask your mother, and tell me to-morrow.”
Lucy did ask her mother, and her mother consulted her father. The result of their conversation was, that they should like to see Mary Jay about Lucy’s studies; and they concluded to invite her to come that evening and take tea with them, and then, after tea, they would have time to talk about it.
Royal wished to go and bring Mary Jay in the chaise, as she couldn’t walk very well; and his father said that that would be an excellent plan. Lucy invited her when she went to school that morning; and in the afternoon, when it was time for her to come, Royal and Lucy went for her in the chaise.
The first thing, after Mary Jay arrived, was to take her out, and let her see the duck pond and house. Mary Jay was very much pleased indeed; and she said that, when her ducklings grew up, she would give them another, and then they would have a pair.
Royal wished that Mary Jay would give them the other duckling then, so that they might bring them up together; but he didn’t think that it would be proper for him to ask it, and so he only said that he and Lucy would be very glad indeed to have a pair.
After tea that evening, Lucy’s father and mother, and Mary Jay, sat down to talk about Lucy’s studies.
“I believe,” said Lucy’s father, “that teachers have often very wrong ideas about the proper studies for children. The question is, not what studies are the easiest, but what can be pursued to best advantage. Now, there are some things which children can learn thoroughly, as far as they learn them at all, and others that they cannot learn thoroughly.”
“Not if they are thoroughly taught?” said Mary Jay.
“No,” said he, “because they cannot be thoroughly taught; for the very things that the study relates to, are such that they cannot really appreciate them. Take history, for example. If a child, like Lucy, is to study history, she reads, perhaps, in her book, that a rebellion broke out, and the leaders of it beheaded the king. Now, she may commit the words to memory, it is true, and recite the lesson fluently; but she cannot have any adequate idea of the truth, because the elements of it are beyond her capacity.”
“I don’t understand one word that you say,” said Lucy.
“Why, if you read in a book of history,” said her father, “that a rebellion broke out, and that the leaders of it beheaded the king, you cannot really understand it, because you cannot understand what a rebellion is, or what the leaders are, or even what a king is.”
“Why, father,” said Lucy, “I know what a king is already; and Mary Jay could tell me the other things.”
“What is a king?” asked her father.
“Why he—he—is a kind of man, and he lives in a great palace;—and he makes people obey him, I believe,” said Lucy.
Her father did not say any thing in reply to her description of a king; but Mary Jay saw very clearly, that she could not possibly have any thing more than a very inadequate and childish idea of a king.
“It is so with all the ideas,” continued her father, addressing Mary Jay, “which history brings before the mind. They are greatly complicated, and of very extended and intricate relations, so that young children cannot possibly appreciate them. If you tell them that Columbus discovered America in 1492, they can learn the words; but they are utterly unable to appreciate the truth. They cannot form any conception of America, or of Columbus, and the date 1492 marks no era of the world in their minds.”
“Well, sir,” said Mary Jay, “but isn’t it so with all studies?”
“No, by no means,” replied Lucy’s father. “The truths of arithmetic a child can appreciate as fully and completely as any person. Three from ten leaves seven. Now, a child may be longer in learning that than a grown person; but when she once understands it, she understands it as perfectly as any mind can. The reason is, that the idea of three is a simple idea, which, if it is formed at all in the mind, is formed fully at once. But the idea of a rebellion, or of a king, or an army, is a complicated idea, which can be acquired only slowly, and after some years of experience of life, of reading and observation.”
“What are some of the other studies,” asked Mary Jay, “besides arithmetic, which children can learn to advantage?”
“Reading is one. A child who learns what the sound is, that is represented by the character S, knows the truth as completely and thoroughly as Sir Isaac Newton could have known it. Then there is writing, including spelling.”
“Spelling belongs to reading, father,” said Lucy.
“You learn the art of spelling, generally, with reading; but we use it only with writing,” replied her father.
“How?” said Lucy.
“Why, the chief reason why we learn to spell is, so as to be able to spell the words correctly when we are writing. We do not spell the words when we read. Therefore, to be able to spell is rather a part of the art of writing, than of reading. In reading, the scholar must be able to pronounce all the words which she finds already spelt; and in writing, she must be able to spell them again.”
“Is geography another study?” said Mary Jay.
“Geography, one would at first think, would be one of the studies which a child could learn thoroughly; but, on reflection, we shall see that the elementary ideas, which that study brings to the mind, are beyond the grasp of very young children. They have no ideas of distance, and of course can have no adequate conception of the earth, or of continents, oceans, mountains. It is impossible to carry the mind of a very young child away from the lines, and dots, and crooked configurations of the map, to the vast forms of real land and water, represented by them. We all carry with us to the end of life absurd and ridiculous ideas of some regions of the earth’s surface, which we obtained from our maps, when we were children. But a child cannot very well form an absurd or ridiculous idea of the number ten, or of the letter s, or of the mode of spelling until.”
“Well, father,” said Lucy, “I know what a mountain is, at any rate.”
“What is it?” said her father.
“It is a great, high hill.”
“How high is it?” said her father.
“O, it is very high,” said Lucy, reaching up with her hand; “very high, indeed. Higher than this house.”
“Is it as high as a tree?” said her father.
“Yes,” said Lucy, “a great deal higher than a tree.”
“Is it as high as the steeple of a church?” asked her father.
“Why, I don’t know,” answered Lucy. “I don’t know that it is quite so high as the steeple of a church.”
Mary Jay smiled; but Lucy’s father only said that it was true that church steeples were sometimes very high. Mary Jay saw how inadequate all Lucy’s ideas of the magnitude of mountains were; for, in fact, the principal mountains of the world are as much higher than the steeple of a church, as the house that Lucy lived in was higher than her duck house. In fact, Lucy was entirely unable to form any conception, when she heard the word mountain, of the vast and complicated idea expressed by it,—including the immense and towering elevations, the forests, the rocks, and the glaciers,—the broken ranges, the chasms and valleys, and the lofty summits, bare, and desolate, and cold. Her idea of a mountain was only that of a great green hill.
“Then,” said Mary Jay, “you would rather have Lucy not study any thing, but what she can learn thoroughly—reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic.”
“No,” replied Lucy’s father, “I did not say exactly that; I wouldn’t forbid her making a beginning upon geography or history,—if we can get some suitable book,—by way of variety, and to give her a little introduction to these studies. But I want her main time and attention, for several years, to be directed to the other studies, which she can pursue to advantage. Remember that every step she takes in learning the three great arts, of reading, writing, and arithmetic, is a step taken well and thoroughly,—but that whatever ground she goes over in history, geography, or philosophy, or any such study, is gone over in a very superficial manner; and that all the ideas she forms are childish, inadequate, and oftentimes entirely incorrect or absurd.”
Mary Jay was very much interested in what Lucy’s father had been saying; but Lucy did not understand it very well, and, as she could not understand, she had gradually ceased to pay any attention, and was now thinking of a plan of getting Royal to carry Diver down to the brook, which was at some distance behind the house, the next day, and let him swim there; and just as her father had finished the last remark, she said,—
“Father, may Royal and I carry Diver down to the brook to-morrow?”
“Diver?” repeated her father; “who is Diver?”
“O, haven’t you seen Diver yet, father?—Come out then, and see him. Mary Jay gave him to us.”
This was the first time that her father had heard of Diver. He allowed Lucy to take him by the hand, and to lead him out to Royal’s duck pond. He was very much pleased with it, indeed, and with Diver’s motions and frolics in the water. He said that he did not know before that a young duck was such a pretty thing. He took it up, and looked at its little web feet, which he admired exceedingly, and said that, if he was an engineer, he would attempt to construct paddles for a steamboat on the same principle.
“I should think that they would strike the bottom in shallow water,” said Mary Jay.
“And get broken,” said Lucy.
“So they would,” replied her father. “I didn’t think of that; did I?”
Mary Jay got into the chaise again, and Royal drove her home; and on the way, she determined to devote nearly all Lucy’s time in school to making as much, and as thorough progress as possible, in the great fundamental branches of reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic.