Progressive Education (Volume 1); Observations on the First Four Years of Childhood (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X. RECAPITULATION OF FACTS CONNECTED WITH THE STUDY OF THE MIND IN INFANCY. Having now arrived at that period when the constantly increasing progress of the child has determined his existence as a moral being, and when a new era is offered to our observation, it seems desirable to throw back a rapid glance over the road we have already passed. Henceforward we shall find it more difficult to analyse the feelings and impressions of our pupil; every thing connected with him will be more complicated, more obscure; education and example will have acted upon him; his natural inclinations will often be repressed by the effect of reflection, though the secret impulse which gave rise to these inclinations may remain unchanged. It is therefore of great importance to examine and understand in time dispositions which, though destined to become weaker, will not cease to exist in the mind. Without stopping to retrace those moral consequences which clearly result from the facts already observed, I shall here recapitulate the history of the child from its birth; and though the state of the mind at this period can be but little known: it seems to me that there are some ideas resulting either from observation, or from our preconceived notions, which we can hardly avoid adopting, and which I shall here mention. The soul, a pure intelligence, cast upon a world entirely unknown to it, finds itself united to a portion of matter, equally unknown to it, called a body. Susceptible of infinite developement, endowed with the dispositions necessary to enable it to connect itself with the moral and physical world, its activity seems condemned to remain dormant till its faculties are brought into action, and furnished with materials for their exercise, by means of the impressi...