The Infant System | Page 6

and they were tolerably appropriate as far as I was concerned, for to me both became objects of terror, so much so, that for the first time in my life, I really fretted when the hour of teaching came. My parents were not long in perceiving this although I did not complain. They told me it was for my good that I should go to school, and I thoroughly believed them. Yet I could not understand why it should be associated with so much dislike and pain on my part, when my first school,--the beautiful world of nature, had been so lovely, and my first teachers had always increased the delight by removing my difficulties, and this so much so that I now longed for evening to come to have fresh light and instruction given. My father now decided that I should not go to school, and he became my teacher as before, the world being my great book. I was delighted with Robinson Crusoe, and this work became my companion, and to which was added the Pilgrim's Progress. After these, my great favourite was Buffon's Natural History. I used to go alone, taking a volume at a time, to read amidst the pleasant country around, but most frequently in the quiet nooks and retreats of Hornsey Wood. It seems, however, that I was always watched and superintended by my mother during these readings and rural rambles, for whenever danger was near she generally appeared, but seldom otherwise, so that I had perfect freedom in these matters. I have every reason to believe that the first seven years of my life laid the basis of all I know that is worth knowing, and led to the formation of my character and future career in life. Of my schooling afterwards it is unnecessary to say much, as it was the usual routine such as others had, but it never satisfied me, and I even then saw errors throughout the whole, and this strengthened my first impressions, and tended to mature the after-thought in me, that something wanted doing and must be done. It is not my intention in this introductory chapter to write an auto-biography; but my object is simply to show, how one impression followed another in my case, and what led to it; to point out briefly the various plans and inventions I had recourse to in carrying out my views and intentions; and, finally, to allude to their propagation through the country personally by myself, on purpose to show, in conclusion, that although infant education has been extensively adopted, and many of its principles, being based on nature, have been applied with great success to older children, yet especially in the case of infants, that strict adherence to nature and simplicity which is so fundamental and so requisite, has been often overlooked, and in some cases totally discarded.
It will, I trust, appear from what has been already said, that even from early childhood I both saw and felt that there was a period in human life, and that the most important period, as experience has proved to my full satisfaction, not legislated for, that is, not duly provided with suitable and appropriate methods of education. To see this was one thing, to provide a remedy for it and to invent plans for carrying out that remedy, was another. The systems of Bell and of Lancaster were then commencing operations, but were quite unsuitable for children under seven years of age at least, and therefore took little or no cognizance of that early period, which I had been inwardly convinced was of such eminent importance. I was destined for business, and served the usual apprenticeship to become qualified for it, and also continued in it for a short period on my own account. Even at this time the thought ever haunted me as to what should be done for young children. At length the germ was developed at one of the Sunday Schools, which were then rising into general notice. For years I attended one of these in London, and here circumstances again befriended me, regarding the matter so frequently in my thoughts. The teachers mostly preferred having a class to superintend that knew something, and I being then a junior, it fell to my lot to have a class that knew little or nothing. I mean nothing that it was the object of the Sunday-school to teach. It soon appeared clear to me, that such a class required different treatment to those more advanced, and especially the young children. Nobody wanted this class, it was always "to let," if I did not take it. The result was, I always had it. Others looked to the post of honour, the Bible-class. I soon found that to talk to such