Isaac Taylor

“ Yet it is a law of the human mind—inevitable and uniform, that it attaches itself, especially in early life, to the wisest, and the finest, and the most consistently benign, of those who come daily within its circle. A mother, for instance, may possess many substantial good qualities, which should attach her children to herself; and yet she may, in comparison with a teacher, or a relative, or even a servant, under the same roof, want tact, or calmness, or self-control, or dignity ”

“ There is a species of love, not liable to be worn by time, or slackened, as from year to year, children become less and less dependant upon parental care:—it is a feeling which possesses the energy of the most vehement passions, along with the calmness and appliancy of the gentlest affections; a feeling purged, as completely as any human sentiment can be, of the grossness of earth ”

“ To impart knowledge is, to some, an enjoyment that never tires. But this teaching taste, it must be confessed, is a gift of nature; nor is its place to be supplied, either by habit, or by principle, except in an imperfect degree. ”

“ A Sunday so passed, is a liquefaction of the entire nature—a dispersive process, dispelling mental cramps and stagnations, and enabling every single faculty again to get its due in the general diffusion of the intellectual power. ”

“ If we were to attempt to divine the secret of a prosperous management of children, perhaps it would resolve itself into the simple fact of a quick perception of the train of their ideas, at any moment, and a facility in concurring with the stream of thought, whatever it may be, which, by the slightest guiding word or gesture, can be led into whatever channel may be desired. ”

“ Whereas, with those who have reached the middle stage of life, the glitter of the world has been seen through, and its promise has been brought to the proof, and has so far failed in the performance, that the mind has turned toward the circle of the domestic affections, as a solace. But no such disabusing of the imagination by experience, has had place with children; and parents must remember that, while their own hopes and affections are converging more and more upon a focus, those of their children are all radiating through infinite space. ”

“ The great world of moral agency turns glibly upon its pivots, by the momentum of habit and the association of ideas: mischief attends the attempt to urge its onward force, by more motive or reason, in any instance, than is wanted. ”

“ An affectionate temperament, especially if it belong to both parents, is usually hereditary; and when so, the reciprocal sentiment supplies all that can be wished for in rendering a family happy, and the processes of culture prosperous. Or even if, in a numerous family, one may be found wanting in natural tenderness or sensibility, the influence of example, and the constant breathing of a kindly atmosphere, is likely, with skilful management of the individual temper, to supply, in good measure, what is lacking: thus the cold nature will grow warm, amid the radiation of love from all sides ”

“ There is a parental affection, rational and steady, which may be quite sufficient to secure a consistent regard to the welfare of a family; and powerful enough to sustain the labours and self-denials involved in conducting an educational course. But there is an affection going very far beyond any such passive, measured love. There is a love of offspring that knows no restrictive reasons; that extends to any length of personal suffering or toil; a feeling of absolute self-renunciation, whenever the interests of children involve a compromise of the comfort or tastes of the parent. ”

“ There is a love of children in which self-love is drowned; a love, which when combined with intelligence and firmness, sees through, and casts aside, every pretext of personal gratification, and steadily pursues the highest and most remote welfare of its object, with the determination at once of an animal instinct, and of a well-considered, rational purpose. ”

“ It can hardly be necessary to say, that this natural warmth of affection, which we name as requisite to the conduct of home education, is not that anxious sensitive fondness, existing chiefly on the parent's side, which, to be made any use of, must be perpetually talked of, and pointed at, and adduced, in support of the trembling parental authority. What is wanted, is not a sentiment worn, and hackneyed, and fretted, until it has become little else than a confused feeling of suspicion, weariness, and distaste; it is not a spring that has no force, except when it is strained ”

“ Let it however be observed, in passing, that, as the moral elements of our nature, upon the sound condition of which happiness or misery turns, are, or ought to be, paramount, so do they, when in a healthy state, impart an equable activity to the rational faculties. The affections have a reciprocity with the reason, and with the imagination, which, indeed, is often severed by unfavourable influences, but which, if cherished in early life, may always be enhanced. ”

“ Nor will children be able, even if they entertained the wish to do so, to disguise their regards, or to speak and look as if they loved her most whom they love least. For this grief there is but one remedy, or preventive—the endeavour to become such as shall command, without asking for it, the unrivalled affection of children. ”

“ If a mother preserves the gloss and brightness of her children's love by indulging them in playful caresses, so may a father render his authority the more intimate by holding it in reserve, while his ordinary manner toward his children is marked by vivacity, and a discreet intellectual sportiveness. ”

“ Mothers or teachers may be seen, in every respect, very poorly endowed with the knowledge or the principles, or with even the moral sentiments proper to the business of education, and yet unrivalled in the art of securing obedience, and of diffusing enjoyment, and of imparting so much knowledge as they profess to communicate. ”

“ Many a village dame plies the machinery of human nature well; but never has a professor of philosophy told those to whom nature has not granted this tact, either how to acquire it, or how to manage without it.
Parents may be found, in the highest degree solicitous for the welfare of their children, and not deficient in general intelligence, who nevertheless are perpetually struggling with domestic embarrassments, and sadly depressed by disappointment in the discharge of their daily duties. ”

“ It is difficult, except by naming its opposites, to fix in words our conception of this desirable tact. We may say, if it be really needful to say so much, that it is not the product of any laboriously obtained knowledge of human nature, or of a scientific acquaintance with its principles. The happy management of human beings is, no doubt, in fact, always in harmony with the laws of the human mind ”

“ Whatever system may be adopted, in such a case, the routine of culture and instruction moves on with a noiseless and prosperous celerity, and especially so, if, to the warm affection which we are now supposing, and to the steady purpose and the tact which should guide it, there be added a certain natural delight in teaching, such as renders the labours of instruction pleasures, in fact.
On many occasions, our tastes carry us forward with ease in the discharge of difficult duties, where higher principles might leave us flagging ”

“ I am prepared to affirm that, to the studious especially, and whether younger or older, a Sunday well spent—spent in happy exercises of the heart, devotional and domestic—a Sunday given to the soul, is the best of all means of refreshment for the mere intellect. ”

“ As the labours of instruction cannot be carried forward in a family except on the principle of spontaneous and perfect obedience, nor this obedience be ensured apart from warm and vigorous reciprocal sentiments of love between parents and children, so we may add is there needed, for the animation of the entire system, and for giving it ease and velocity of movement, a certain hilarity, and even playfulness, always saving decorum, on the part of parents and teachers, such as shall prevent, if we might so speak, the minds of children from dragging on the ground. ”

“ Such parents often, for the sake of making sure doubly sure, lift the arm of authority, when the raising of the finger is more than enough. An indiscreet anticipation of resistance never fails to suggest it. The simple law of the association of ideas is the immediate cause of a vastly larger amount of human actions than what springs from any formal resolution so to act. ”

“ Yet warm-hearted parents will not forget that the ascending love is, as we have said, less than the descending. The wide world, with its novelties, and the boundless mysterious futurity, exert an unspent influence over the minds of young persons, and cannot but divert a little their affections from their parents, however fondly and sincerely they may be loved. ”

“ That degree of regularity and exactitude in carrying forward the daily routine of studies and recreations, which is indispensable in a home-taught family, as well as in a school, is secured, in different families, by very different means; and the means actually employed, in any case, might safely be taken as an indication of the height of the genuine feeling of affectionate reverence, prevailing in the minds of children. A prompt regard to time and order is that, without which no solid improvement can be made;—on this point there can be no room for a question ”

“ A father who has the peculiar talent requisite for the purpose may with advantage, and especially at table, and in hours of relaxation—in the garden and the field, use a sparkling and sportive style, giving indulgence, under the restraints of good taste, to facetious turns, sudden comparisons, and sprightly apologues. ”

“ Let then those who are conscious of being thus endowed, and whose warmth of heart and energy of understanding are sustained by a zest for tuition—let such be animated to improve and exert a talent that cannot fail to convey the very highest benefits, intellectual and moral, which one human being can receive from another. ”

“ For example; the feeling in the minds of children which secures their devoted obedience to a mother, who is seen to be sustained by a father's constant and cordial concurrence, far exceeds in practical efficacy the amount of regard separately paid to the authority of the father and the mother, when, from an unhappy want of affection, the two parents are always thought of by their children apart. ”

“ If there be not, in the natural dispositions of parents and children, enough kindly warmth of feeling to effect implicit obedience by the means of the gentle affections, and without frequent recurrence to measures of severity, home education had better not be attempted. Children may be governed at school by motives of fear, without entirely depraving their sentiments; because school is not their all and they have still a home, and a sphere of love to think of. ”

“ A chastened pleasantry serves many purposes, more or less important:—it graces and recommends the paternal authority; it gives rise to a state of mind intermediate between sport and study, tending at once to connect the former with intelligence, and the latter with pleasurable sensations ”

“ But where a warm affection is the real spring of obedience, and where children are actually happy, from day to day, an exact regard to times and to plans, or as much exactness in this respect as can be deemed useful, may be secured—no one sees by what immediate means, for the whole movement is spontaneous—the machine is a living one ”

“ On the contrary, a father, immoveably firm as he may be in maintaining his rights if disputed or resisted, is yet, in common, the leader and author of pleasures, and especially of such as are in any way vivified by intelligence. ”

“ And it is a constant law of human nature, that complex sentiments, such as the one here spoken of possess far more force than belongs to the sum of the elements of which they are composed, when existing apart. ”

“ It may not be so easy to bear, with equanimity, another sort of disappointment, to which fond parental love is sometimes exposed;—I mean that which happens when, from a want of discretion, or of energy, the affections of children are snatched from those who claim them by the rights of nature, and are fixed upon by-standers or strangers. ”

“ And let it be allowed to me to add, that, if a loving temper in parents and children be requisite for effecting the purposes of home education, hardly less can be affirmed of the conjugal affection. In a family not blessed with this first element of felicity, every difficulty of the domestic system of training is vastly enhanced, or is rendered insuperable. There can be no need the truism, that the undisguised dissonance of parents is totally incompatible with methods of culture, and with a general course such as we have now in view. ”

“ In all cases therefore, the probability of compliance is much greater when nothing but compliance is expected, than when a thought of the contrary is, by some inauspicious word, or a mere look of doubt and anxiety, suggested. ”

“ Those whose tempers are actually under the control of good sense and virtuous principles, may often have occasion to rejoice in finding themselves borne along in the path of happiness, by subsidiary motives, when more direct sentiments happen to be in a languid state. ”

“ A happy facetiousness on the part of parents or teachers, so far from rendering the ordinary style of conversation frivolous, on the contrary, in making the society of adults agreeable to children, gives them a distaste for that sheer inanity or vulgarity which is apt to prevail among themselves. Moreover, inasmuch as this sort of converse breaks up the feeling of formality, too often separating parents and children, it promotes directly that intimacy and ingenuousness whence a real friendship may at length result. ”