The Infant System | Page 8

six years ago in the Museum at Hull. The clapping of hands, the moving of arms, marching in order, and various other motions, all of which are now become the especial characteristics of an infant-school, were gradually introduced as circumstances or nature dictated, partly to obtain simultaneous action and obedience, and partly to provide that physical exercise which beings so young perpetually require, and which they are constantly taking when left free and unrestrained. It is not requisite to make mention here of the swing--the play grounds--the flower borders--and various other matters which are fully treated of in the following portions of this work, further than to add, that they are now generally adopted in schools, and especially in some of the principal training establishments in the British Empire. As these plans and instruments are used by a certain religious infant-school society, which professes to have imported its system from Switzerland, where such things never had their origin, I feel it necessary most emphatically to repeat, that they are entirely of my own invention.
After the severe bereavement mentioned above, I still persevered in my favourite study, and learned more from my own children than I did before, having to act in the double capacity of father and mother. I am well aware of the loss my children sustained by the above calamity. In the matter of training, nothing can replace a good mother,--and such indeed she eminently was! I felt the heavy stroke more severely, and my children did also; but I consoled myself with the reflection, that my loss was her gain, and that she had lived to witness fruits of her unparalleled labours, to the thorough abandonment of self, and the glory of her Maker. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these little ones, ye have done it unto me." Night and day, when I had time to think, such promises as these cheered and sustained me in doing what I could for my own motherless children, and more and more cemented my affections on the children of others, and, finally, enabled me to mature my plans, and gave me strength and courage to carry them out, first in the villages and places near London, and, ultimately, single-handed and alone, through more than a quarter of a century, in many of the chief cities, towns, and villages of the United Kingdom. Simply to state this fact is all that is requisite here to answer my present purpose, and to enlarge more upon it is needless, as a full detail of the whole career is given in my "Early Discipline Illustrated; or, the Infant System Progressing and Successful," third edition, published in 1840, and to which much more would require adding to bring it down to the present time, if a further edition should be called for.
That prejudice should assail me, and objections be started as I came more out into the world, was to be expected. I knew my own intentions, but the world did not, and I came in for a full share of obloquy and persecution. This did me much good, and was a preparatory discipline, to make me careless of the opinion of mankind in the matter, so long as I felt that I was in the right, and had the approval of my own conscience. The more I was opposed, the more were my energies lighted up and strengthened; opposition always sharpened my faculties, instead of overcoming and depressing me. The whole gradually prospered from the first, under every disadvantage and notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the short-sighted and bigoted. These things laid my first patrons prostrate, and the Society of great names which followed, was soon dissolved. Every effort was made by the enemies of true training and education, to crush the thing in the bud, and not only the thing, but also the man who developed it and worked it out. Thank God, these inimical aims did not succeed. Though worldly patrons failed, I had one Patron who never deserted me, but Who upheld and encouraged me from first to last, until the end was gained. Not, however, all that was aimed at, but much of it, and the rest will follow or I am greatly mistaken. I have in various places seen things that I earnestly contended for, but which were rejected at the time, at length established and their value seen. Look at the schools in existence now, bad as some of them are, and compare them with those which existed a third of a century ago, and it will be found that they have progressed, and it may safely be anticipated that they will still further progress, for there is much need of it. The system pourtrayed in this book is intended to act on all