Nathaniel Sands

“ This process of Nature, so familiar to most of us, serves to illustrate exactly what should take place in intellectual growth. The mind hungers and feels out for and is impelled by a natural internal impulse to gather to itself the elements of knowledge; the wise teacher steps forward and becomes to the germinating intellect what the sun and dew and rain are to the plant. The mind must be fed in conformity with its longings, its wants, its desires. ”

“ Dancing and singing will relieve the tedium of sitting, shake off the surplus energy, give rest to the body, and power, time, and tune to the voice. Models of houses, stores, workshops, kitchens, farms, and factories, which later on they will assist in making, will be a source alike of amusement and instruction.
In the children’s garden no teacher should have charge of more than about twelve children, who should regard her as their mother-teacher, while she should seek to win the love and confidence of the little ones as the beginning of her work. ”

“ Can any reason be suggested for adopting a different system of instruction for girls than that which shall be determined on as best fitted for boys? We confess to our inability to perceive any—both are organisms of the same all-pervading nature—to both the most intimate knowledge of that which skill and perseverance secure, seems to be desirable for their happiness, and that of all mankind. Of the two, perhaps, the greatest knowledge is needed for the woman, for hers is the more important and more perfected organism ”

“ If we desire a child to be truthful, we must bring it in contact with truth, and bring it to love truth by causing its practice to inure to the child’s enjoyment. If we wish it to be wise, we must bring its mind in contact with wisdom, exercise its analytical powers, and train its judgment; let it see sound judgment producing happiness; let it see how beautiful and desirable is the possession of wisdom, and the child will soon learn to seek it for its own sake. ”

“ From the great book of Nature, God’s book, is to be learned the principle of justice, of love, of wisdom, of truth; and as the germ of justice is developed in the mind, the mind is brought in contact with the Great Fountain, absorbs a portion of its light, enlarges, develops, becomes stronger, assimilates to itself the essence of the great Godhead, and renders man godlike. ”

“ The best investment a parent can make of his wealth is in the proper education of his children. Life is not merely to be born, to grow, to eat, to drink, and breathe. Noise is not music. Life is such as we take it and make it, or rather as it is taken hold of and made for us by those to whom the care of our youthful days is intrusted.
Let us endeavor to picture to ourselves the being likely to be produced by a system of teaching and training, continued for successive generations, such as we have indicated above. ”

“ And what is true of the full-grown man is not less true of the child.
That school wherein children above the age of infancy fail to assist the teacher in his instruction, is an ill-ordered school. It is not the subject, but the teacher who is uninteresting; he scolds, worries and punishes his pupils, when he himself is the fitter subject for the lash. He awakens the sense of fear which should lie dormant, while the other faculties of his pupils slumber in spiritless inactivity. ”

“ Were the mind and its growth also visible to the eye, we would be equally careful in our treatment of it. Man’s first impulse in an uncivilized state has generally been a resort to force for the accomplishment of his objects; and as he took his first step forward the habits of his barbaric life remained with him. Hence, the first steps in teaching were by force—the lash, the rod, the school penal code; but even as when hungry, wholesome and well-dressed food rejoices us, so will the mind gladly accept the mental food carefully prepared for it by the true teacher. ”

“ We live in a world adapted by its Creator to our happiness and highest well-being. It is not only possible, but easy, to win from Nature all that is necessary or desirable, for our sustenance and comfort. It is the true teacher’s duty to fit the child thus to win its happiness; and such a teacher has ever present to his mind the question: How am I to perform this duty? What sort of teaching and training am I to give to the subjects of my care? Let us endeavor to find some direction to guide us to Nature’s answer to this question. ”

“ Can we suffer the impressionable minds of youth to be impregnated with the filth of the heathen poets in their imaginings of gods as disgusting as themselves, without staining the pure tablet of the mind with spots and grossness, while the children acquire a distaste for that glorious nature whose volume should be their constant study? ”

“ It is here, and to this end, that the able teacher steps in, to perfect the development of the future man and woman. He educates, by assisting the natural unfolding of the intellectual germ, he places within reach of the child-mind the food needed to its growth, and the child-mind reaches out its tentacles and absorbs the nourishment offered to it. Thus the mind grows from within outward, and the teacher aids its development, as the careful husbandman by tilling and enriching the soil according to the nature of the plant he cultivates, produces a healthy and fruitful plant. ”

“ If there be aught of value in the laws of ancient Rome which has not been translated into our native tongue, let it be translated; but let not our youth waste precious years in learning to play upon an instrument (Greek or Latin) which when learned can give forth no sound. But if we turn to Nature and to her grand volume, we there find all the knowledge man can acquire. From her study, too, we can learn a lesson, not perhaps among the least important, as to the limits fixed by nature to human knowledge. ”

“ Such pupils will not be apt to form opinions either in physical science, politics, or industrial life, without having first thoroughly examined the bases of the opinions they form and express, while the prejudices imbibed from nurses or parents, will be subjected to vigorous investigation, and either received as sound doctrine, or discarded as ill-founded and superstitious. Of how many prejudices are we not the victims, without being ourselves in the least conscious of the fact! Our political opinions, our social customs, are taken up like the fashion of a coat, without reason or reflection ”

“ But the foundation for the school as for the life career must be laid at home, and much as the teacher can do, he can never supply deficiencies resulting from the want of a well-ordered home or of a healthy home training. Never, save under necessity, should the parent yield up his sacred duty to another, at least during the tender years of childhood.
The education of the heart and of the affections, is as essential as the school education, and these can never be so well cultivated as under the influence of home. All must be developed in order to maintain the true equilibrium. ”

“ The true teacher does not seek to teach by simply putting books into the child’s hand, and bidding it to learn; he addresses himself to those faculties and powers of the child’s mind, which bring it in relation with the world in which it lives. Sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and thence observation, judgment, perception, reason, memory, hope, imagination, and the love of the beautiful are appealed to, developed and strengthened by natural exercise, even as the organs and limbs of the body are developed and strengthened by gymnastic and other appropriate exercises. ”

“ Gymnasiums for the body, conducted by men who have made themselves masters of anatomy and physiology, should be an essential feature in every school, so that ignorance and the desire to excel may not lead to putting a strain upon the system calculated materially to injure organs which need careful and judicious development. Plays, games, dancing, marching and the gymnasium all require the careful supervision of a teacher well versed in a practical knowledge of the human system, and thoroughly appreciative of the great truth, “We are fearfully and wonderfully made.” ”

“ As the object of education is to prepare children to enter successfully and happily into life, and wisely to discharge all the duties devolving upon them as they unfold into men and women, and occupy the sphere assigned to them, the simple rule for the course of instruction seems to be, that they should learn those things in the order in which they can be received by the child’s mind, which most vitally affect their well-being and happiness. ”

“ The facts of science to be stored up in the mind are so infinite in number and magnitude that no man, however gifted, could ever hope to master them all, though he were to live a thousand years. But their arrangement in scientific order not only develops the analytical powers of the mind, but exercises the memory in a method infinitely more useful and powerful than the study of any language. ”

“ The chemistry of nature, the work of her great laboratory, should be the study of youth as of age, instead of dead languages and the vain and foolish mythology of Greeks and Romans wherewith at present we poison the minds of the young. ”

“ The cultivation of the musical faculties harmonizes the mind, and affords a never-failing source of solace and recreation. The attempt to convert all persons into solo performers, and the hypocritical applause with which their discordant notes are indiscriminately greeted, deprives society of the pleasures which part-music well performed would afford, by encouraging all to attempt what they are pretty sure to do badly, to the exclusion of what they would be equally likely to do well. ”

“ The love of truth and of wisdom must be cultivated as we cultivate the love of music. “Seek me early, and ye shall find me.” “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” That which the mind seeks it will find. The natural relationships are established, and it is only for us to work in harmony with, and not obstruct or interfere with them. It is the “true relationship of things” we need to learn. There is nothing in us that is not in nature. All the forces developed in man are but developments of nature; and all the forces required for his nourishment and strength exist in the bosom of Nature. ”

“ What are to be the new means and appliances for mental culture? We have but to turn again to Nature as our teacher and our guide; her instincts are unerring. The seed germinates and pushes forth its root from within outward. The expansion or growth takes place by means of the elements which it attracts to itself, when these are placed within its reach, and towards which it stretches forth its organs. ”

“ Two things must be borne constantly in mind. First, to create truthful and intellectual atmosphere, where wisdom, honor, and knowledge can be inhaled as with the breath, and second, to make the school cheerful and attractive in every way possible. ”

“ We live in a world of use, in a world of beauty, a world that can be greatly improved, and human happiness largely increased, according as we avail ourselves of the knowledge already acquired for the right teaching and training of the young, so that they may grow up and develop into happy, self-supporting men and women, diffusing happiness to all around, themselves happy in proportion to the happiness they cause. ”

“ It is thus apparent that a great change in the system and principles now adopted in teaching is required, and if we change the principles we must, of course, change the instruments. These are now adapted to the method of teaching from without inward. If we are to invert the system, and teach from within outward, then must our means and appliances be adapted to this change. The task, the forcing process, the stuffing and cramming must all give way to the natural mental growth, fostered, cherished, unfolded by culture, in accord with nature and with law. ”

“ Did those merchants and traders, who, in their private dealings would scorn a lie, but recognize the duty they owe as citizens and as men of truth, they would, by uniting, soon sweep away the serious discredit to our country and to Republican Institutions, the festering corruption of this city and of the State; yet it is to their supine, nay wicked tolerance of the evil that we owe the specimens of judicial corruption by which we are robbed and dishonored. ”

“ The girl who has never stirred from home, and [Pg 56] whose education has been economized, not to say neglected, in order to send her own brother to college, knows vastly more of those things than he does. The same exposure awaits him wherever he goes, and whenever he has the audacity to open his mouth. At sea he is a landlubber; in the country a cockney; in town a greenhorn; in science an ignoramus; in business a simpleton; in pleasure a milksop—everywhere out of his element, everywhere at sea, in the clouds, adrift, or by whatever word utter ignorance and incapacity are to be described. ”

“ The story of Aladdin’s Lamp has made many a child desire to enjoy wealth without labor, and has exerted a most pernicious, though unsuspected, influence upon his future. Children, not less than men, seek an easy road to the objects of their desires; and while works of imagination are to be by no means discarded in mental training, such should not be selected as give false notions of the busy and industrial life into which the child is to be introduced. ”

“ A perfect illustration of this truth is furnished us in the training of the soldier.
Upon nothing, perhaps, have the knowledge and skill of the most powerful intellects been more concentrated than upon the science and art of mutual slaughter; and in establishing the soldiers’ drill, an exhaustive analysis of the means by which the desired object was to be attained has been pursued. The men whose intellects have developed that drill, have not been content to treat the soldier as a pupil only. ”

“ The desire of acquiring this knowledge would quicken the faculties of the children, augment their industry, and lighten the labors of the teacher to an indefinable extent. The teacher who should fail to impart a moderate degree of skill in these arts to most, and of excellence to many, at the same time that adequate progress was made in the study of the sciences we have named, should be deemed unfit for his profession, and not be allowed to relieve himself from disgrace by magnifying the difficulties of his task or by complaints of the idleness or want of capacity of his pupils. ”

“ There is a past which still lives and vivifies the present, but the quaint and filthy imagery in which the ancient priests disguised from the profane—from all but the initiated—the mysteries of their lore, can be of small account to a people whose great duty is the dissemination of light and truth. ”